If you'll stand up and we'll read together the first 31 verses. As Peter and John were speaking to the people the priest and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came upon them. They were greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the get dead. They laid hands on them put them in jail until the next day for it was already evening. But many of those who had heard the message believed and the number of the men came to be about 5,000. It came about in the next day their rulers and elders and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem and Anastahide priest was there, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander and all were all who were of high priestly descent. And when they had placed them in the center they began to inquire by what power or in what name have you done this? Peter filled with the Holy Spirit said, rulers and elders of the people. If we are on trial today for a benefit done to a sick man, as to how this man has been made well, Letting be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead. By this name, this man stands here before you in good health. He is the stone which was rejected by you the builders, but which became the very cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else for there is no other name under heaven that was that has been given among men, by which we must be saved. Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were marveling and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus and seeing the man who had been healed standing with them. They had nothing to say and reply, but when they had ordered them to go aside out of the council they began to confer with one another saying What shall we do with these men? For the fact that a note where the miracle is taken place through them as a parent to all who live in Jerusalem, that we cannot deny. But in order that it may not spread any further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to any man in this excuse me, and when they had summoned them They commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus, but Peter and John answered and said to them Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God you be the judge for we cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard. When they had threatened them further, they let them go finding no basis on which they might punish them on account of the people because they were all glorifying God for what had happened. For the man was more than 40 years old on whom this miracle appealing had been performed and when they had been released They went to their own companions and reported all of the chief priests in the elders and said to them and when they heard this They lifted their voices to God with one accord and said Lord It is avidance makes the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them who by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of our father David I servant did say Why did the Gentiles rage and the people's devised feudal things? The kings of the earth took their stand and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ For truly in this city they were gathered together against thy holy servant Jesus whom thou distinoid Both herod and Pontius Pilate along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever thy hand and thy purpose predestined to occur Now Lord take note of their threats and grant that thy bond servants may speak thy word with all confidence While thou dost extend my hand to heal and signs and wonders take place Through the name of thy holy servant Jesus and when they had prayed The place where they had gathered together was shaken They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness Amen Let's pray together Father, I pray that Something supernatural would happen now That you had opened our minds in our heart so that we would hear from you 2,000 years ago you strengthened your church by persecution Strengthened seven rivers church today We pray By the account of it Strengthen us for the days that are ahead Lord, we want to be all yours We want to offer up our lives for you Even as you offered your life for us We pray in the name of Jesus Be seated please In college, I played two years of soccer and in two years of soccer, I only scored one goal Well, I played defense We played a fence you rarely have an opportunity to score a goal In fact, I never had an opportunity to score a goal The only goal I scored was for the other team
I remember the day still a crisp, clear fall day and the ball was struck back over my head And as a defender, I raised back trying to protect my goalie and goal And the further I went back, the more the ball seemed to sail At the last minute, I jumped and tried to strike the ball away from the goal It managed to, for some anatomical reason, slip off the top of my head And instead of going away from the goal, I struck a perfect arc over my own goalies outstretched hands Right up into the back of the net And I had indeed scored a goal It's a humiliating feeling Not just to Not help your team, but to actually aid and abet the enemy Some of you have seen old basketball games Maybe it's apt to happen in sort of the middle school level Where some green inexperienced players thrust into the game towards the end of the game And there's a scrum, you know, from which the ball emerges And the novice takes off Palmel towards the basket and surprised by the lack of opposition They sail in away the ball in and turn to their adoring parents Only to see that they have their head and their hands And the realization that they have put the ball in the wrong basket Well, if you've ever experienced that sort of athletic humiliation And maybe you have some idea how Satan must feel That every time he tries to score He only serves to strengthen the Church of God and the cause of Christ And all his wickedness and in all his evil Every attack against the Church only serves to advance the kingdom of God In Acts chapter one and chapter two Chapter three We could say that the good ship Christ Church has left the harbor The wind of the Spirit has filled its sails And the future looks bright as the gospel is to go to the world The Holy Spirit is empowering the Church God-annointed leaders have been trained at the feet of Jesus And the people are getting it Thousands have been added to the Church and they're uniting themselves in in fellowship and prayer and worship and witness It's in Acts chapter four that we first But the storm brewing on the horizon It is a storm of ferocious Intensity that would cost the lives of God's people then and ever since So that we would come to the 20th century and discover That more people die for allegiance to Christ right now In the 1990s Then have ever been persecuted and murdered for their faith In all of world history And yet with every attack of the evil one The gospel only goes forward with more determination and God's people respond with a steely resolve So Satan strengthen the Church want to go And I trust that the account of it will strengthen us today as well So take your sermon outline The first thing I'd have you note in Acts chapter four is the precarious balance of persecution Persecution really Couldn't be said to be any surprise could it I mean when Peter and John are Going up for afternoon prayers. I mean look how sort of suddenly it falls on them The fact that they face persecution can't be a surprise I mean, it's just been a couple weeks since Jesus was nailed to a cross He made it very clear that his followers would be treated the same But just follow the suddenness of this They're going up for afternoon prayer A man says a beggar says give me home. They say Alms have we done what we have we given to you and the name of Jesus and as are in stand-up and walk The man gets up and walks a large crowd gathers Peter tells him about Jesus and writes back in the middle of it Downswip the side you see downswip the temple guards The lavitical priesthood snatch them up and drag them away to jail. That's it. They were just going on to afternoon prayer And suddenly they're in jail You see the suddenness of persecution Falls upon the church price and told them it would happen But there must have been a sense sitting in in their cell that they thought I can't imagine that three years of training as a feed of Christ Countless hours of his instruction in the scriptures would have led us to this early death because the death is surely what they expected The next day they'll appear before the sandhedrin where they'll be tried. Do they expected that trial will result in their release Who else stood in this jail? Who else stood before the sandhedrin just a few weeks before them
Jesus himself they expect the same fate indeed Now here's the question before Was the early church attractive or was the early church hated?
Was it attractive and and did it draw people or was it hated and vilified?
the answer is both And there's a lot to learn about that in this balance of persecution they were one and at the same um persecuted hated and attacked and they were attractive they suffered sharp persecution they experienced enormous popularity Oh, we're going to study the persecution in the weeks ahead But you also can't help but notice at the end of Acts chapter two verse 47 It says they were growing in favor amongst the people We get to Acts chapter four a large crowd gathers and in fact when the sandhedrin ultimately releases Peter and John Why do they have to do it? Why do they really have no choice? It's because the crown There's a large crowd gathered insisting on it And then if you'll read the fourth verse of Acts chapter four You read that the number of the church has swelled to what? Not 5,000 but 5,000 5,000 men the bible says which means the actual number is probably 15 to 20,000 people Let's remember a few weeks before they're gathered in an upper room in Jerusalem and how many people are there? 120 so the church has grown from 120 to 20,000 in a couple weeks So is the church wildly attractive? Absolutely is the church hated and vilified? Absolutely both at the same time and that's important to recognize because it'd be very easy for churches to say You know, we ought to do our best to be an attractive church And to be attractive it might be a good idea Not to say anything that's not politically correct and there's all sorts of doctrines and teachings we might want to avoid and What we could do is of course we don't want to call anything sin We don't want to discipline anybody. We don't want to ever tell anybody. They're disobedient nobody's going to hell We could kind of have mr. Rogers in the pulpit every every week where sweaters and and Everybody love each other and it will just be an attractive church not ruffle any feathers And and do those churches exist? People attempting to have that kind of absolutely Well in other hand we have churches so we have churches that are sort of just attractive but not persecuted And we have on the other hand churches that are just sort of just hated but not attractive And they're often hated not for righteousness sake. They're hated because Well, they're just rude They're arrogant. They're proud. They're self-righteous They're narrow in all the wrong places they're They're hated because they're unwelcoming and they're unworm and they're jerk So you got churches that That are shooting to be attractive that aren't persecuted you've got churches that are hated but they're not attractive And it's important to see the new testament model for the churches as they would be oh Well, and I want to suggest that I'm not sure how a church would ever go about trying to create that and probably shouldn't even try They ought to just be faithful and leave that up to the Holy Spirit. I know I know ways for us to be hated I Can create that all I have to do is open the Bible to Timothy It's teach where it says that women should receive instruction in the church in quietness and all submissions
That's all it takes Just teach on that I can teach the fact that women are not to have authority over men in the church And people don't like that at all. That's extremely not politically correct. That's just not the way you're supposed to go anymore All I have to do I can I can preach an abortion I can preach on homosexuality We all know here what subjects will cause people's blood to boil right all I know is this It's not unusual for me to hear in this community that seven rivers church is a cult I've heard that recently we're a cult the cult of the green bumper sticker you know and That There's some there there's mind control over the people there and there's this very dogmatic narrow world and life view kind of people and and You know if you go to seven rivers you've you've got to submit and they practice church all the stuff and then the same The same day I'll hear somebody but not it doesn't go to the church. They'll say They'll say I had nowhere to turn and my life was in dire straits I went to my neighbor who also doesn't go to church and my neighbor said You ought to turn to seven rivers because seven rivers is it is a church out there that comes true for people And I did and seven rivers is done a blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and you say well, which are we? And we have a nasty group of of arrogance of Bible thumpers or are we that loving compassionate and Let me tell you something a church of Jesus Christ Is going to find people who hate them because they tell the truth But they will also find people who are drawn to them if they are a loving community And did it ought to be our aim and prayer to be both Now Secondly, I want you to note for max chapter four Not just this sort of precarious balance that we would never compromise the truth We'd never try to be attractive by changing the word of God And so if the building is emptied because we tell the truth then so be it And yet we wouldn't be unwelcoming either we wouldn't think we were better than anybody As there's a scene there's a movie called The Apostle I don't know if you've seen it. I've seen it twice You got to kick out of it Robert devolved baptizes himself And anoints himself as an apostle and there's one scene in the movie where Billy Bob Thornton comes to destroy Robert devolves church And And he ends up being converted And this is fairly unusual for Hollywood Then this would even be depicted And Billy Bob Thornton ends up on his knees And there's a scene now you're watching the movie nobody else in the crowd knows this But we know that Robert devolves is a scoundrel And he's the preacher but he's just bad And he kneels next to Billy Bob Thornton And whispers in his ear friend I'm a sinner too And he is And there's something about a church that says on the truth of Jesus we will not move But we are no better We are just no better There's any good among us. It's solely by the grace of God. That's that precarious balance of persecution Secondly, I want you to see how pluralism is Is punctured by Peter's logic Peter's John are brought before the Sanhedrin Where they're sure that they'll be railroaded just as Jesus was and the question is brought Before them On what on what authority Are you preaching And now for this unauthorized preaching by unprofessional preacher On what authority do you stand on the temple mount and represent yourself As true teachers of religion Not there's something you really have to see nobody questions what See the 20th century when you read that story people will question what They've questioned the miracle they've questioned the healing of the cripple You notice nobody questions that then These are Pharisees and Sadducees that hate Christianity and nobody questions the miracle Why it's awfully hard when the cripple standing there When everybody it's hard to question the resurrection when Jesus is standing there It's hard to question that Jesus went through Galilee and a Samaria and Judea Raising the lame and the sick and healing them and making them well when they when the eye witnesses Were everywhere to come in and give testimony and say he touched me He healed me he made me well and everyone knew the people had been sick prior to that time So you ought to know that this skeptical view of the supernatural and the Bible is a very modern problem The ancients didn't have it. They lived right there. They saw it So nobody's questioning whether this cripple was healed here's the question by what authority are they have now? Look at Peter's brilliant and Peter's watching Peter says so have I got this right? We're on trial for making a sick man well It's a heinous crime. I don't know. Okay Peter said You ask by what authority I answer you This man was made well In the name of Jesus the Nazarene Now if Peter's objective is to get off It's to walk scot free to get out from in front of the Sanhedrin That's all you say right and that's a isn't that a rule If you don't want to get in trouble you get in the principal's office. This is just free advice If you get in the principal's office you just answer What you're asked right? You don't help him out You don't give him more information than is necessary. Hey, if you're on trial anywhere, that's the rule right? You just give what you're asked you don't volunteer well I want to see how bold Peter is. This is the same Peter who a couple weeks before Had a little slave girl say to him. Are you with that Jesus? And Peter couldn't get his mouth to open up could he filled with fright and fear now he stands facing his own death his own execution And what does Peter say this man was healed in the name of Jesus the Nazarene whom you crucified
Oh, that's a man I mean, that's Clint Eastwood, right? That's just boom, you know
This man is healed in the name of Jesus whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead So Let's get it straight If Jesus was still dead this man wouldn't be healed But because this man is healed to that you give no argument that means that Jesus is alive And if Jesus is in fact resurrected in the dead and alive exactly as he claimed then he is Lord He is the Messiah. He is the promised one and he is the only one. He is the only name given among men whereby we might be saved And so you see the whole notion of pluralism that there are many ways to God is riddled With Peter's logic and his unassailable argument There's just one way. Let me tell you why people hate Christian Whether hate God ultimately It's not for intellectual reasons. Look at we got Pharisees and we got Sadducees and they all hate their Christians And they were completely different groups You know why people hate God hate Christianity hate the message Because man hates to be told you don't have a choice You can't save yourself. You can't choose your own God. You can't choose your own way to heaven There's only one way. There's only one means of salvation And you go and you don't even contribute to it. In fact if you want to be saved here's what you have to do You have to become like a cripple You have to realize that spiritually you're a cripple And until the day that Jesus walks into your life and touches you and opens your eyes to see that he's the only way to God Then you will not be made right with God We have a Christian school and so it's not unusual for us to have people come and say we want Our children to have the opportunity to have this wonderful education Uh, in this school But but we don't we're a little concerned about the religious side of it If we don't want them being taught to Jesus or the Christianity is the only right way Now, how do you think we respond? Are you a donor? No
That's why they don't let me run the school
We respond something like this Well We're sort of partial to truth here Not in fact we established the school because we're tired of children being sheltered from the truth And out there in the rest of education dumb kids are sheltered But here we tell kids the truth And uh, so if you want your kids sheltered you have to put them somewhere else Uh, but if you want them to hear the truth then that's what we're about here. We're about truth And we refuse to keep the truth from kids And um, so fanciful myths like there are many ways to God just can't be tolerated here We're intolerant of that kind of fanciful mysticism We're about truth in this place and that's That's it
1230 right after this uh service an hour from now to be a memorial service here For a lovely young lady who had aged 42 died of breast cancer nine days ago I have a chance to marry she and her husband two months ago
And when we stand here an hour from now and I look into the eyes of her family Comfort won't come from her having fought a courageous fight Or lived a good life Comfort for them comes Can be offered only in this one thing
That she put her face in the name of Jesus
That's not only all we have to offer That's all there is That's all that's needed Jesus is the only way Listen, you've got to understand we're not interested in turning Irreligious people into religious people the majority of religious people in the world are going to hell
Making people religious isn't what we care to do People follow the teachings of Mary Baker Eddie and Joseph Smith and and Muhammad and Buddha and every other guru that's come along Are ultimately if they don't stop following those teachings are headed for a awful eternity I'm not interested in making people religious Religion is is a great part of the problem We're interested in turning people away from religion that they believe will save themself
the faith in Christ The only means of salvation And you can say pastor that is too narrow and that's too intolerant
And I will tell you it is also the truth
Third, I'll have you know In the passage that we're studying Not just this precarious balance of persecution and and how pluralism is punctured but how pride is pierced by the gospel note how pride The Sanhedrin is absolute they don't know what to do with these guys And ultimately they they dismiss them they warn them they tell them to keep it up We're gonna you know, I'm sure as as Peter and John leave they whisper remember what happened to Jesus it could happen to you They tell them to knock it off quit preaching and they let them go And they're just sitting around almost staring at each other like scratching their head and what bothers in the most It's right there in verse 13 verse 14 what bothers in the most
They live these people live in a meritocratic world That if you're gonna be a religious teacher you have to have the right credential If you dare teach about God you have to be trained in one of the rabbinic schools And look at what it says in verse 13 These people were uneducated and untrained my goodness sake they were they were they were gallantly in fishermen And they're standing on top of the temple mount and they're talking about God like they know him because they did They're talking about God like they were trained by God himself and they had they had And The professional teachers of religion Because they had done the hard work. They'd been the rabbinic schools. They'd studied the great writing And that by golly is the way the world works you know That if you're gonna get anywhere you go to the right schools You study the right books you work hard you climb up the ladder and if you get there You got it because you deserve it and anybody else in this world doesn't have it It's because they were too lazy and unambition I want you to see how the gospel the equality of the gospel has People who did not have the same kind of instruction As the leaders they didn't have the same credentials are standing there filled with confidence filled with power filled with authority They were dynamic in the Pharisees have to look on and say Peter and John hadn't earned it. They were what They had earned the right to stand there They were given it It was a gift and you know what It's a danger still The people who are professional people who are well-educated Feel superior to people who aren't But I want to tell you something if you built a great business and you made a ton of money and you live in a nice home And you drive a nice car don't you dare look down your nose at anybody else because everything you had was given to you And you could say pastor I don't buy it. I work hard for it Let me tell you something if you had the character to work hard for it that was given to you
Whatever you have you received is a gift And for the Pharisees and I want to tell you for many people Today who live in that meritocratic world the gospel of grace is very hard to stomach Because it means I'm not better than anyone else and that if I'm to feel good about myself I can't find it in my position or my name or my money or my power or my authority or my position
I'm not better than anybody else. I'm not even better than people who aren't Christian If I've got gay neighbors, I'm not better than them
If I've got a kid in jail. I'm not better than them. I'm not better than anybody You see this egalitarian quality to the gospel that just makes the ground that the foot of the cross equal so that we all stand before God
Not on our own merit. I I love Barry Sanders. I think he runs the football like everybody ought to live They placed for the Detroit Lions and I love even more what I but I read about Barry Sanders that When they when the team was at an exhibition game in London They all went to hard rock cafe and the players used their money and their influence to be let right in Barry Sanders stood in line For 90 minutes just like everybody else Not if I could when they played in Miami a reporter found him in a laundromat doing his laundry He makes about six million dollars a year probably They found him in a laundromat doing his laundry and he said I have a basic principle in life He should never become too important to think that you can't do your own laundry
That's common grace to understand that See how the gospel pierces our pride And for us, I want you to understand closing The process of prayer that yields joyful confident What happens when Peter and John are released? They Great prayer meeting breaks up, doesn't it? I mean everybody thought they'd be dead And so when they walk back into the meeting the place just erupt
Now What are they celebrating about you know from our vantage point? What are they celebrating? This is just the first warning shot over the bow But Steven's gonna die And then another and then another until every one of the apostles is slaughtered for following Jesus And you ought to know their wives are killed their wives are raped Their children are killed And on its gone now for two thousand years of brutality
Selling Christian children into slavery Killing people for their faith and presenting them for two thousand years Terror the church is experiencing The look at these early Christian In the face of all that Peter and John are released and the Bible says They go back and those people pray I was reading this week that there was a County in West Virginia where it had been a dry county and the laws changed and they were allowed to sell booze and and So a guy started to open a tavern. He was he was remodeling a building and Christians got all up in arms and they surround the tavern and and praying and and benefit that an all-night prayer vigil that God would shut this down Three three days later the terrible storm blew through the county lightning struck the tavern and burned it to the ground And the tavern owner sued the Christian
The Christians hired an attorney who said my clients had nothing to do with this And when it all came before the judge he said I don't think I've ever encountered anything like this He said I've got a I've got a bar owner that believes in prayer and Christians who don't
Well, the apostles believe in prayer and when they were set free They pray here's what I want you to see here's the pattern of prayer. I want you to see Oh Anybody in their shoes would be filled with fear and terror The whole Organized world was lining up to crush them
So this is how they pray If you looking your Bible the first words of their prayer are as just as Lord The word they use is despotic They call God a despot They use the word for God that That refers to him as the sovereign ruler over the whole earth despotes they pray Great God who rules and then they start to recount The that he's the God of creation He's the God over the heavens. He's the God over the seas and the earth and all that's in it And he's the God who told David long ago that that there would be great opposition to him and great opposition to his chosen Messiah And and and and what I want you to see is the church realizes that the opposite of fear that which is Anathetical to fear is the sovereignty of God and they pray in such a way that whatever they're struggling with they pray That which is anathetical to it. They pray it into themselves Understand the pattern if you were struggling to love your husband Then you want to go and pray about the love of God for you about how God could love you You're undeserving condition and how God poured his love on you You pray the opposite of what you're struggling with you pray it until you believe it And so the apostles pray about the sovereignty of God and by the time they're done the room is shaking And they're unshakable In their resolve I call George Lazo this week George Lazo is one of the great characters of Seven Rivers Church George diagnosed with an operable liver cancer I said George how you doing? He said I'm great. I said come on This is I'm great. He says it's a win-win He said I die. I go to heaven I God works I get healed I get to stay It's a win-win. I said George what are they going to do? He said they're taking me in on Tuesday. They're dropping something down my throat. They'll look in there He said the doctor said it would be like a piece of linguine They didn't stop down and he said I said you do that. I want marinara on it
So George it's just an opera George is like on stage with us, you know It's just a joke and he's laughing and he's uh he said listen if God is my doctor And my doctor is God What do I have to worry about? Now do you think he's a little scared? Who wouldn't he? But once he's doing He's repeating the truth about the character and nature of God Until his heart believes it Until he realizes it that it's so And that he has nothing to fear So it was
John McCain tells the end of the Vietnam War those who are P.A.W. is in Hanoi The Vietnamese started to be a little more relaxed with them and let them Congregate in in one room and and have contact with other prisoners in fact They let them start to get packages from their family He tells of one prisoner Mike Christian Lieutenant Commander Navy Commander Mike Christian Took a piece of bamboo and made a needle And he he pirated little threads white and and the red threads off the packages And on the inside of his pajama top Outfit that they all had to wear a blue pajama top P fashion an American flag Instead every night after they were kind of done he would take his top off and they would put it up on the wall And all the men the highlight of their day was they gathered together and pledged allegiance to the flag That went on until the night of guard walked in While they were in the midst of the pledge They ripped up Mike Christians Shared but what's worse? They ripped up Mike Christian They beat him for hours And when they threw him back in the cell his face was an unrecognizable mess His body was bloody John McCain said through the dim light of the cell His last memory of that night Was watching Mike Christian hunched in the corner Gathering little red and white thread And starting to sew them together again Working on a new flag You see it's that indomitable spirit
That it that never say die You can't beat me spirit
That God's people have they've had it for two thousand years And then all the authorities could say be quiet and they will say I will raise the flag of King Jesus Whatever it cost me Brothers and sisters In a minute we'll walk from this room But if you walk from this room a Christian you walk from this room with blood stained shoes For all the blood of your brothers and sisters who have been shed To say that one thing that we say this day There is no other name
But the name of Jesus And be sure when you walk out of here That you walk out trusting in no one else