Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

What do you expect to see in the world over the next 20 years?

What do you expect will happen to leading nations, to major populations, or to religious institutions?

What do you expect will become of this local church, or any other?

And how should everyday Christians aim to be faithful in their witness to Christ, regardless of what laws or societal expectations we might have?

Today, we are going to read about and consider the very first act of Christian civil disobedience.

It’s timely for us today, since Christians in America (and in the west generally) seem to be losing some of the social and political capital they/we once had.

I don’t intend to speak about where America has been as a nation or where we are at the moment.

Those of you who’ve known me for a while know that I am far more interested in Jesus and His kingdom than I am in American politics or culture.

This is not by accident; it’s a conviction I hope you appreciate.

I believe it’s good for us to focus on eternal and transcendent matters here… to know and to be constantly reminded of what God has actually promised to do in the world… to be reminded of what He’s promised to do with and for His people… and where He’s promised to eventually take this whole thing.

In Acts 4, we see that not everyone was excited to hear Peter and John preach the gospel in Jerusalem.

While many did respond with repentance and faith, many others were “annoyed” or “grieved” or even “angry” about what the Apostles were preaching with regard to Jesus and themselves (v2).

Very often, when worldly people hear a divine message, revealing the truth of God, they do not like it… they even hate it (Rom.

8:7-8; 1 Cor.

1:18; 2:14).

Frequently, worldly people with worldly power oppose the message of the gospel, and they oppose the people who proclaim it.

Because this is true, Christians of every age have faced (to one degree or another) opposition in the world.

Stories abound of Christian virtue and endurance, even in the face of horrific persecution.

But, so too do stories abound of corruption and tribalism and self-preservation among those who claim the name of Christ… sometimes even opposing the very Christ and the very gospel they claim to love.

In the real world, the good guys and the bad guys aren’t always so easy to spot.

In the old westerns, it was obvious… Is his hat light or dark?

In today’s movies and shows, it seems less obvious.

My youngest son, Malachi, will regularly ask me, “Daddy, is he a good guy or a bad guy?”

And I tell him, “Well, bud… He sometimes does good stuff and sometimes does bad stuff… just like you.”

If we’re honest, that’s true of all of us.

But how, then, can we know if we are on God’s side?

How can we know when to fight and when to stand down?

How can we know when to submit and when to disobey?

And what are we actually hoping to accomplish at the end of all of this?

Let’s turn to Acts 4, and let’s consider how this passage might help us answer some of these questions today.

Let’s stand together, and I’ll read from v1 to v22.

Scripture reading

Acts 4:1–22 (ESV)

1 And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, 2 greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

3 And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.

4 But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand.

5 On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, 6 with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family.

7 And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?”

8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, 9 if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been 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, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.

11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.

12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished.

And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

14 But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition.

15 But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, 16 saying, “What shall we do with these men?

For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.

17 But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.”

18 So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, 20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”

21 And when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened.

22 For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old.

Main point

God is building His kingdom, which is immortal and made up of those who are united with Jesus Christ.

Message

1.

The State & Religious Opposition

I’ll explain this a bit further as we go along, but “the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees” who “came upon” Peter and John were an incredibly powerful bunch (v1).

This group represented the higher authorities (described in v5-6), which were both religious and civil leaders in Jerusalem.

In our common vernacular today, we’d say these folks were the authorities for both the church and the state.

Throughout this passage, Luke is showing us (the reader) that the institutional leadership was staunchly committed to opposing Jesus Christ and anyone else who would be so foolish as to associate with Him.

Right from the very beginning of Acts 4, there is opposition against Christians coming directly from these authorities.

v2 tells us that they were “annoyed” or “grieved” or “angry” because the Apostles were “teaching” the people about Jesus and “proclaiming” a promise of “resurrection from the dead” in Jesus.

In their anger, they “arrested” Peter and John, and then held them “in custody” for the night (v3).

It’s interesting to note that Luke still tells us about a huge response of repentance and faith on the part of “many of those who… heard the word” (v4).

But let’s stay on track with this opposition for now.

There was no question among the leaders – this council that was formed by the next day – that a genuine miracle had been performed.

Down in v14 we read that they “[saw] the man who was healed standing beside [the Apostles],” and the leaders even said, “we cannot deny” that “a notable sign has been performed” (v16).

The one question the council of opposition had is there in v7, “By what power or by what name did you do this?”

And when Peter said that it was “by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth” that “this man [was made] well” (v10), the council decided to “charge [the Apostles] not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus” (v18).

The picture we get here is that the civil and religious authorities were willfully rejecting Jesus’s authority and His gospel.

The Apostles had performed a genuine miracle, they were telling everyone that Jesus was doing this, and they were urging everyone to repent and believe in Jesus as the Christ.

But the “rulers and elders and scribes” and everyone among the priestly family in Jerusalem was opposed to the whole thing (v5-6)!

And this was no different than the posture they had taken against Jesus during His earthly ministry.

In fact, Luke wrote of a very similar encounter between Jesus and this exact same group of authorities in his Gospel.

Hold your finger in Acts 4, and flip back to the left a little with me to Luke 20.

Starting in v1, we read, “One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and said to him, ‘Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority’” (v1-2).

This is exactly the same sort of confrontation we saw in Acts 4!

In Luke 20, Jesus answered their question with a question of His own, and when they refused to answer it, He told a parable which exposed the very heart of their opposition… They hated God and they rejected His authority, thinking they could build their own kingdom and set up their own hierarchy.

When Jesus got to the punchline (in v16), He said that God would ultimately “destroy” those who opposed Him, but the “priests” and “scribes” and “elders” rejected that claim too.

And that’s when Jesus cited the same Psalm that Peter did in Act 4 about the “stone that the builders rejected” becoming the “cornerstone” (Lk.

20:17; Acts 4:11; cf.

Ps. 118:22).

And we read in Luke 20:19, “The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people.”

My point in bringing this up here is that the opposition we’re seeing in Acts 4 was exactly the same kind of opposition that Jesus already faced.

The motives of the leaders were the same: they wanted to preserve their own establishment.

And their tactics were the same as well: they would stop at nothing, so long as they could keep the general population on their side.

And these authorities did accomplish their goal (or so they thought) when they finally arrested Jesus and had Him killed.

But now (back to Acts 4), here they were facing down the same Jesus, even after His crucifixion… Only this time, it was a group of messengers who were claiming that Jesus was alive again and that He was working in and through them!

But, to Peter’s point (and Luke’s as well), the reason both Jesus and Peter cited Psalm 118 was to say that the psalmist’s prophecy was being fulfilled right then! Jesus was/is the “cornerstone” or “head of the corner” (v11)… Jesus was “rejected” by the very people who should have been “the builders” of God’s kingdom in the world (v11)… And Jesus had become the very foundation upon which God was building a new kind of kingdom!

No longer would the Mosaic covenantal priesthood and civil-structure (which we recently studied in Exodus) be the basis upon which sinners would serve and worship God! No, when Jesus came, He made it clear that He alone would forevermore be the basis or ground of right relationship with the Father!

Or as Peter said in v12, “salvation” was then and is today “in no one else” but Jesus Christ (v12)!

“There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (v12)!

God was and is offering salvation, which is citizenship in a new kind of kingdom, through faith or “belief” in “the word” about Jesus (v4).

2. The Bold & Faithful Witnesses

Remember that this encounter we’re focusing on today happened just after the public miracle and gospel presentation we read about last Sunday (in Acts 3).

Before the Apostles were brought before the authorities, they were following Christ’s commission to be His witnesses, first in Jerusalem and then beyond.

The content and focus of the apostolic witness was the message about Jesus (i.e., the gospel) with a special emphasis on “resurrection from the dead” (v2).

Let me take just a moment to emphasize this promise, which is the chief or main promise of the gospel.

Death was God’s curse upon humanity from the time of the very first sin.

Death is not the way life is supposed to end, but it is our common experience now.

The Bible never asks us to call death good or to pretend that death is “just natural.”