Sermon Tone Analysis

Main Idea

Persecution is fuel for the gospel

Martin Luther and the Diet of Worms

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther famously nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, which was the initial spark of the Reformation.

As Luther’s convictions grew stronger and his writings were more widely distributed due to the printing press, he quickly became a prominent and loud voice against certain practices of the Catholic Church.

The clash between Luther and the Pope Leo X came to a head in April of 1521 when Luther was summoned to the Diet of Worms (Diet meaning a meeting of the most influential political minds which took place in the city of Worms, Germany.

It still sounds strange, I know).

Here, Luther was told to recant his seemingly heretical teachings or else bear the consequence of heresy, which in those days would have meant being burnt at the stake.

Luther asked if he could pray about it overnight, and when he returned the next day, he uttered these famous words:

“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason-for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves-I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God.

Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one’s conscience is neither safe nor sound.

Here I stand; I can do no other.

God help me.

Amen.”

By uttering those words, Martin Luther knew that he likely just condemned himself to death, but as he rightly said, his (and our) conscious is bound to scripture.

Persecution is an inevitable outcome of living a life that is faithful to God’s truths found in scripture.

Our culture is terribly confused by this, in large due to a prosperity mindset that is championed by some popular mega-church pastors will tell you that if you receive Jesus as Lord, then a mark of God’s blessing over your life is financial gain and perpetual health.

They show this by pointing to their own lavish lifestyle and to select scriptures that are sadly ripped from their context and artificially wedged underneath their false gospel to prop it up as the true one.

My goal is not to name bash anyone, but you likely know a few of the pastors I am talking about.

My challenge to you today is to take a close look at the unfolding narrative of Acts and discern for yourself if that claim is true.

Is this what we see in the establishment of the early church?

Did the Apostles flaunt their wealth or declare to the Jews that God wanted them happy, healthy, and wealthy?

Is this even what we see in the early church - post Acts - who took the baton from the Apostles in the latter part of the 1st century and into the 2nd century?

So far, we have seen the excitement of the expansion of the Kingdom, and we have witnessed a lot of ‘firsts’:

Pentecost - the first permanent indwelling of the Spirit in God’s people

Miracle of tongues - the people hearing the 120 believers speaking in their own language

Peter’s first sermon - boldly proclaiming Jesus’ live, death, resurrection, and ascension

The Church - the first gathering and galvanizing of the community of believers

The first apostolic miracle - healing the lame beggar

And now, we come to the first point of persecution that results from these other ‘firsts.’

Outline & Passage

Boldness invites opposition [vv.1-7]

Opposition is met with boldness [vv.8-11]

The bold claim identified [v.12]

I - Boldness invites opposition

Before we get into this section, I want to read a few verses that will frame our conversation:

Now, with that foundation in place, let’s look closely at how the story unfolds.

The Instigators

The first responders on the scene are:

The Priests

The Captain of the Temple Guard

The Sadducees

The Priests - The Levites who were tending to the service in the Temple who would have been the ones to faithfully defend God’s honor against a seemingly heretical band of cultists and their recently crucified leader.

The Temple Guard - The police chief of the Temple, second in power to the High Priest who were exactly who you think - the police of the temple area who have apparently been ordered to take care of this rebel group.

The Sadducees - A portion of the religious leaders who didn’t believe in the resurrection (see Luke 20:27-40).

They were the Jewish political elite who are wealthy materialists and who opposed Jesus and his followers for political reasons.

They wanted to keep their seats of power and fundamentally disagreed with them on matters of the after life.

That is why Luke mentions that they are flustered because of the claims of resurrection.

Since they held the power, they were able to have Peter and John (and likely even the poor no-longer-lame beggar) imprisoned overnight since it was so late in the day and they were locking up anyway.

I mean, how low can you get?

The poor guy just walked for the first time in 40 years and you throw him into a tiny cell.

That’s just wrong!

One would think that having the established religious leaders arresting Peter and John would have signaled that what they were preaching was nonsense and to be rejected.

After all, they were the professional religious leaders.

They should know better, right?

100% wrong.

Instead of the Christian movement losing steam and interest… 2,000 more people became believers (growing from 3,000 at Pentecost to 5,000 now)!

This isn’t just an underdog story.

We all love those… where the small band of rebels defy the corrupt establishment and, after many trials and near-death experiences, they win the day.

Those are awesome stories and I love them, but I want us to be careful how we think of this interaction.

We like to think of Martin Luther in that light - the lone beacon of truth boldly standing up against the tyranny and corruption of Rome.

However, that wasn’t Luther’s stance.

When he nailed his 95 Thesis to the church door (which was a big bulletin board), he simply wanted to have a reasonable discussion with other academics.

He wasn’t trying to overthrow the entire religious establishment.

The same goes for Peter.

He isn’t going to the temple with the intention to pick a fight and overthrow the authority and power of the entire Sanhedrin.

His focus wasn’t on defying those in power he opposed, it was on the proclamation of truth.

Those are two entirely different mindsets.

Imprisoned and Summoned

So, these three guys had an overnight stay in prison and was brought before a council the next morning, where more people had joined the party:

Rulers

Elders

Scribes

Annas the High Priest

Caiaphas, John, & Alexander (the High Priestly family)

The rulers, elders, and scribes likely reference the collective group known as the Sanhedrin, who is the governing council of 71 Jewish leaders... kinda like a Jewish Congress.

Familiar names such as Nicodemus were likely in attendance.

Annas was Caiaphas’ father-in-law.

Caiaphas is the established High Priest at this time.

Annas was actually removed from office by the Romans back in AD 15, and since a High Priest is supposed to hold the office for life, he was likely mentioned here because he still held a lot of sway and authority in the Jewish community.

So, you have the official High Priest, the unofficial High Priest, and his family all there as well.

Then, they asked the question that I am sure Peter was just daring then to ask: “By what power or by what name did you do this?”

And boy, was he ready to answer.

II - Opposition is met with boldness

Filled with the Holy Spirit

There is a much different Peter on this side of Pentecost.

Instead of acting then thinking, Peter acts and speaks from the promptings of the Spirit.

Peter addresses them cordially.

Peter begins by addressing the cordially - “Rulers of the people and elders.”

That is why I warned us to not get into the underdog mentality.

Scripture calls us to submit to local authority (Romans 13:1) and to pray for our leaders (1 Tim 2:1-4) , regardless of our like or dislike of who they are or what they stand for (unless the command you to act in direct opposition to scripture).

Peter’s platform was the assurity of the truth concerning Jesus of Nazareth, not the shortcomings of the leaders.

He also politely reminded them about why there were there.

It was concerning a good deed done to a crippled man.

Remember, even the blind man from Matthew’s gospel recognized that a person, who was blind from birth, who was healed had to be an act of God, because it has never happened before, and it resulted in many praising the Lord.

The same is true here.

This man also had a debilitating condition from birth.

Only God could restore his legs, so the outcome should result in praise and awe toward God’s miraculous deed.

The key word here being should.

That should have been the case for the religious leaders, but it wasn’t.