The Book of Acts, Week Four

There was a documentary that came out in Netflix not too long ago called The Social Dilemma. And the social dilemma really pointed out to this fact that we, as a culture, especially as a country, we’ve become more and more and more divided that there used to be this moderate middle. And now that does not exist. And part of the reason for that, at least according to this documentary, is because of how this algorithm for social media works. That when you are on social media, the algorithm has one goal and that is to keep you on social media. So the more that you are focused on the screen, uh, the better that it works for their bottom line. And so the algorithm for social media is trying to really just show you things that you would like to see. And if it’s showing things that you would like to see, it tends to show you things that agree with what you already believe.

It’s not gonna show you things that have an opposing viewpoint or something completely contrary to what you believe, because that would be more likely to have you turn it off. And so as a result of that, more and more and more, we, we’ve ended up in all these different pockets where we are so divided. And it, it brings up this question of why, why is it that we are so divided? You have to really unpack this, this idea of what causes us, what is that thing that drives us to believe what we believe? And there’s really three different tiers of what we believe that, that on the outside, that all this have these opinions and opinions are important. Opinions have value, but, but they’re really not critical things. But one step more important than our opinions are our beliefs. These are the things that we have faith in, that we have trust in, that they’re more substantial than just our opinions.

Our opinions don’t, don’t really ultimately matter, but our beliefs do. But when something that is our belief becomes really a core value, it becomes a conviction of who we are, of how we operate. I would divide the three like this, that an opinion is simply a view formed about something not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. Like I’ll, I’ll give you an example. I have an opinion that the best soft drink is Dr. Pepper. Uh, now sometimes I think that’s, yeah, I got a clap for that. All right. Sometimes I think that’s a belief, but it’s definitely not a conviction. I won’t die for Dr. Pepper. Occasionally I’ll be at a restaurant and I will say, Hey, do you have Dr. Pepper? And they’ll say, well, no. And then they’ll offer a substitute. They’ll say, no, we don’t have Dr. Pepper. Uh, but the closest one is sometimes they say, but we have Mr.

Pib. Is that okay? And I like to say, no, that’s not okay. Those are not the same things. Or sometimes it’ll be even more, more of a leap. I’ll, they’ll, I’ll say, can I have a Dr. Pepper? They say, we don’t have Dr. Pepper. Would you like a Coke instead? And I’m like that. That’s like saying, Hey, can I have some salt? And you say, we don’t have any, but would you like pepper? Those are not the same things. But that is simply a belief that I have, or excuse me, an opinion that I have. It is not a belief, but most of what we fight over is opinion. It’s opinion that somehow has become belief or conviction, but it’s really just an opinion. There’s two types of radio talk shows. There are political radio talk shows, and there are sports radio talk shows. And do you know why there are only two types?

Uh, because those are entirely opinion based. You can’t be wrong. You can just fight all day long and give opinion after opinion, after opinion, after opinion. And that’s what we like to fight about. We, we like to fight about opinions, uh, but there has to be something more than that in your life that helps drive your decision making. And that comes to your beliefs that what are those things that you trust you have faith in or confidence in someone or something that is bigger than yourselves. We can have faith in a person. We can have faith in a system, we can have faith in an idea. We can have faith in our system of government. You can say, well, I have faith. I have belief in our country democracy that, that I believe that that’s the best style of government that exists. But, but something in your life has to have belief, faith to it.

But then there’s one step further than that, and that’s your convictions. And here’s what a conviction is. It’s a belief that you are willing to die for that. It’s a belief that becomes really core to who you are. Now inside the church, it’s interesting because I think that you have all three that exist inside the church, that sometimes you have people that come to church that really Christianity for them is just an opinion. It’s not based off of a fact in their life that they’ve had an encounter with Jesus, that they’ve struggled with it and wrestled with it and made it their own. But it’s really just, well, I grew up there, or, or like the idea of it. And so I just go through the motions. But really, when push comes to shove, if you were gonna prioritize your life based off of what are those beliefs?

What are those convictions? What are those opinions that, that Christianity would get lumped into the opinion section. But then for some people, Christian needs more than that, that it is a belief that, that no, you’ve experienced Jesus. You’ve gone through not just motions, but through an experience where you’ve decided that this is real for me. But then ultimately what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, someone who truly puts Jesus first, is that the gospel is a conviction in our lives. It means more than anything else, so much in our life that we would be willing to die for. And here’s why conviction is so important. Martin Luther King Jr. Once said, I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live. That something in this life has to drive us, that’s bigger than ourselves, something that we say that’s so valuable.

I’m willing to give my life to serve that principle, serve that value, or even lay down my life if need be. And if you’ve got a Bible, turn with me to Acts chapter four. We’ve been in a sermon series on the Book of Acts. Uh, last week we were on Acts chapter three. Today we’re on four. Next week Gary’s gonna be on Acts chapter five about a little bit of context of what’s going on. And so the very beginning of Acts, uh, Jesus is talking to disciples. He’s about to ascend into heaven. And in Acts chapter one, verse eight, Jesus gives the disciples a mission. He says that when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you’ll be my witnesses. Uh, Jesus said that you’re gonna be empowered by the Holy Spirit so that you can be my witnesses. And then he gives this geographic statement, he says, in Jerusalem, uh, that’s the city in which they were.

And then he says, and into Judea and Samaria, that’s the region around where they were. And then he says, into the uttermost parts of the earth, the Book of Acts is called Acts because it’s the acts of the disciples or the acts of the Holy Spirit, the God moving in the early church, doing something, advancing the kingdom of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, last week we saw that Peter and John, they’re going into the temple. And as they go into the temple, there’s a lame man who’s been there for a long time. We find out later, he is been there for 40 years, and he’s asking them for coin. And they look down, they say, we don’t have coin to give, but we do have something else, something greater. And so they heal him in the name of Jesus. That causes a crowd to gather around them.

After the crowd gathers around them, uh, they use that as an opportunity to, to not take glory for themselves, but instead to point glory towards God and say, this was done through the name and the power of Jesus, that Jesus died on the cross, and that he rose from the dead, that you too should believe. And so now we pick up what’s happening in Acts chapter four, starting in verse one. It says, and as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them. Now, Sadducees, it’s important to remember a little bit of your church history. Uh, so you had two primary groups of religious leaders, uh, for, for the Jews at that time. You had the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The big distinction between the Pharisees and the Sadducees is that the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead.

We will see because of that, why they get annoyed so quickly. It says, the Sadducees came upon them greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead, and they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day for it was already evening. But many of those who had heard the word believed and the number of the men came to be about 5,000. So Peter and John are proclaiming the gospel. 5,000 people, uh, respond to it, or at least that’s the total, uh, most likely from the 3000 before. So somewhere between Acts two and now Acts four, we’ve had, uh, another couple thousand men, which means you include women and children and, and the church is just exploding. And the Sadducees are upset with what, with what they’ve been saying. And so what happens? They get put into prison.

So Peter and John spend the night in jail. It says on the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem with Amus, the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and all who were of the high priestly family. And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired by what power or by what name did you do this? Then Peter filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed. 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, he likes to throw that little dagger back at them by him.

This man is standing before you. Well, this, Jesus is this stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation and no one else for, there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. He’s proclaiming the gospel. If you wanna be saved, there’s only one way. And the way to be saved is through Jesus. He is pointing out the obvious. He says, are we in trouble because we healed the cripple person? Is that what’s happening right now? How absurd is that? But then he uses it as an opportunity to proclaim the truth of the gospel, the truth that was true 2000 years ago and continues to be true today, that we are saved by one way and that way is Jesus. This is now, this is talking about the Sadducees. When they saw the boldness of Peter and John and see the boldness, it’s gonna go on and say that they’re amazed by the boldness of Peter and John.

Part of the reason they’re amazed though, is because they perceive that they were uneducated common men. Now, in, in the Greek, this word common looks exactly like the word idiot. And the reason is because our word idiot comes from a Latin word that looks like the word idiot, which comes from this Greek word that looks like the word idiot. So this is a really kind way of saying that the Sadducees look at Peter and John and they said, are, are you kidding me? These are uneducated idiots. But they were astonished at these uneducated idiots boldness, and they recognized that they had been with Jesus. What a profound observation that they had. They said, well, these guys are just nobodies, but they’re so bold and, and then we notice that they have spent time with Jesus. I wonder if anybody ever says that about us. I can tell that they’ve been spending time with Jesus. I can tell by their lifestyle, by who they are, that clearly they have been spending time with Jesus.

What made the disciples, Peter and John here in particular, what made them amazing was, was not because they were the best or the brightest or the smartest. The Sadducees looked at ’em and said that they were idiots. What made them distinct and different is that first and foremost, they had spent time with Jesus. And then secondly, because of spending time with Jesus, they were bold. It leads me to ask myself this question, uh, when is the last time you remember being bold? Now, sometimes we think of that word bold as a lot of other things. We, we think of, well, they’re wearing a bold shirt. That was a bold choice. Uh, we can think of it as a romantic endeavor. That was a really bold statement. Uh, the the way that people ask people out now to, to school dances is radically different than it was back in the day.

And so they dress up and they have signs, and they try and have these really bold moments where they’re asking someone to go to a dance. But what about our faith? When’s the last time somebody said, man, they really have a bold faith for Jesus. And then it leads me to ask myself this question, what would it look like for us to be bold for Jesus like Peter and John? Like, what would that look like if I lived the life of boldness for the gospel? If the gospel really was a conviction in my life that made it a priority in my life and I was willing to be bold, what would that look like? The relationships that I have? What would it look like if our church lived that out? And preparing for this sermon, I looked at a, a Craig Gelle sermon. He put up a cool graph that I, I stole that I really like, and he asked it like this, how amazed are people by your boldness?

Like if you were gonna scale yourself, give yourself a grade from a one to a 10, and recognizing that 10 is Jesus. So let’s just go ahead and move on back that way. Where, where would I put myself and what would that look like if someone was an eight or a nine for their boldness for Jesus? I would describe someone as an eight or nine, uh, that if you went and talked to all their sphere of influence, you went and had a conversation with their coworkers, you had a conversation with their neighbors, uh, that they would say, oh, yeah, that, that person, they might describe you as a Jesus freak. They talk about their faith all the time. They’re constantly bugging me about their faith. They’re constantly inviting me to church that someone who’s an eight or nine, they just live in a pattern of having conversations with Jesus and having conversations with other people about Jesus all the time.

That everywhere they go is a new opportunity. This is the type of person that when there’s a vacation Bible school or there’s a jingle jam that they’re saying, Hey, my church has got an event. How can I use that as an event, as an opportunity for the gospel to invite more people there? And maybe you go on down. Maybe a five or six is someone that they’ve invited someone occasionally, and probably some people, especially if they’re really close to ’em, that they would know that their faith is important. But maybe not, not everybody, maybe some people would be surprised by it. And then maybe a two or three would be somebody that if you talk to your neighbor or you talk to your coworker and you said that you’re a Christian, they’d say, what? Really? I didn’t know that I had no, no clue that they had faith.

They, they’ve never brought up, never talked about it. Their life doesn’t really look that different than anybody else. It’s this question of, are people amazed by my boldness? And if I’m not where I want to be, what then does it look like to improve? Now, I think part of the reason though, oftentimes that we’re not very bold is because we’re scared and we have this underlying fear of rejection of other people. And so because we’re scared of what their response is gonna be, uh, that fear causes us to take something that that should be the most important thing we could possibly share and say, well, I, I don’t wanna offend anybody, and so I’m just not gonna do anything with it. Fear is a funny thing because most of our fears are really not natural. They’re just learn. They’re things that we have learned by picking up and observing the people around us. And we have such a drive to fit in with the people around us that if other people have a fear, that then we will naturally replicate that fear. I came across a video this week talking about kids and developing fears. It’s a fascinating video. Take a look.

Don’t try this

At home. <laugh>, don’t touch it. Don’t touch don’t, don’t touch it. They don’t seem that concerned at all, which is concerning

Me. I know it’s unbelievable to see, isn’t it? Babies, even when they’re very young, are very, very good at watching the eyes and the emotional expression of their caregivers. And so if something new or weird or different occurs, the child will often check in with their caregiver’s face to go, is this something I need to worry about or not? And in that split second, if the caregiver shows fear, the child will often react with fear as well.

I wonder how the parents feel watching

This. This is set up to be very safe, okay? These are trained snakes that are used to being with humans. They’re non venomous. They’re non venomous.

Ugh, sorry, I

Can’t <laugh>. Once you’ve learned to fear them, they, that’s it. It’s an awful feeling. But we start

Out like this,

But we start out like this

At all. Touching it on the her,

Yeah, just no fear at all. She hasn’t learned there’s anything to worry about with snakes. <laugh>.

Like some of you have the ebie jeebies right now, just watching that <laugh>, you’re like, why is, is that child putting their face on the face of a snake? But that’s because we have been raised in such a way that we recognize this is something dangerous that you should be afraid of. And yet, did you catch what he said? The the way an infant learns that they don’t, it’s just a snake. They don’t know whether it should be scary, not scary, is that they observe the faces of the adults around them. And if the adults around them demonstrate fear or anxiety, then those children emulate that fear, stress, anxiety, and they recognize based off of observation, this is how I am supposed to respond to this type of an animal. Fear is a learned behavior. Now, now, most fear is a good healthy learned behavior.

I I would even say there should be a healthy fear of snakes, but some fear, it, it develops because we observe the people around us. And I think one of the greatest lies is that I should be scared of sharing my faith because I’m going to be rejected and make that person feel bad. And it’s gonna be this terrible thing when, when in actuality, the vast majority of the time when we’re sharing our faith, that there might be some people that don’t respond well to it, but most people respond really well to it. Let’s keep going with the next verse. Acts four, verse 14. It says, but seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. So the Sadducees are in this weird spot. They’ve got Peter and John that have just, again, they, they just put him in jail last night.

Now again, they’ve, they’ve come out and they’ve proclaimed the gospel, the exact same thing that Jesus rose from the dead. And now there are few of me, and, and they wanna do something to ’em, but they realize, well, well wait a second. This crippled man is standing right here in the middle of everybody. We can’t, we can’t do anything right now. And so what do they do? And it says, but when they commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another saying, what shall we do with these men? And so Peter and John we’re in the middle. Now they’ve kind of sent ’em off to the side and they gather up and they say, what are we gonna do now? How do we get them to stop doing this? It says, for that, a notable sign has been performed through them, is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it, 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.

So they called them and charge them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 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 for. We cannot, but speak of what we have seen and heard. And do you catch the response? They’re getting threatened. They’re getting warned. And Peter, and John’s response is, Hey, we can’t help it. You don’t understand. Because of what Jesus has done for us in our life, it is impossible for us not to proclaim that truth to the people around us. You see, it was a conviction for them. It wasn’t just an opinion that Jesus rose from the dead. It wasn’t even just a belief, although they had seen it, because they had experienced it. It became a conviction that drove all of who they were, and they could not be silent.

Growing up. Uh, we lived on two acres out in sort of the country. I had a horse, I had goldfish and cats. And it’s, it’s, it is a complete side note. Not as many cats in Colorado as there are in Texas, a lot more predators here. And so when my kids asked for a cat, I’m like, yeah, there’s not a lot of cats running around outside here like there are in Texas, and there’s a reason for that. Uh, but we grew up out in the country and had all kinds of different animals. But my favorite dog ever was a dog named Patch. And Patch was astray that we found. It was this fascinating story where, uh, our neighbors were outta town and all of a sudden this dog ended up underneath their rv. They had an RV that was parked in their, their driveway. And my, my dog or my dad sees the dog.

And so he starts walking over. ’cause he’s just trying to figure out, Hey, is did someone lose a dog? How can I take it back to, to the owner? And every time he starts to approach the dog, the dog just skimper away and runs away from him, runs away from him. Um, and then eventually my dad notices that there was a rope that had broken. And that rope was, was connected to a collar that was around the dog’s neck. And that collar that was around, uh, the dog’s neck was a choke collar, but it was a choke collar that had prongs on it like this one. And so the choke collar with prongs was tied to a robe that was clearly tied to something else. And if you know how a choke collar works, the harder that you pull on that choke collar, the tighter it gets around the neck.

And clearly this dog had pulled and pulled and pulled and eventually broke free because the rope had snapped. But now this choke collar was so tight around his neck that my dad looked carefully and could see that there was blood all around the dog’s neck. And so my dad, over the course of the next few hours, started trying to slowly, uh, befriend this dog to try and get closer to the dog to try and get the chain off of his neck. And it took a long time ’cause there was no trust that this dog had towards my dad. No trust at all. But eventually, through time and, and through some bribery with some food and some water, eventually my dad gets close enough to the dog. And, and as he starts to, to grab that chain, of course the dog whimpers away and, and kind of nips at him.

But eventually my dad is able to take that chain and get it off of patches neck. That dog instantly just changes. I mean, just starts running around. My dad, I mean, this dog that was scared of my dad that was barking at my dad that was nipping at my dad is now licking my dad in the face, which my dad is like, I, I don’t know anything about this dog. Probably shouldn’t let it lick me like that. But he is. The dog is just running around, running around. Tail is wagging. I mean, it’s just transformed. And then my dad, my dad has this conversation with us as kids. Maybe you’ve had this conversation before. My dad says, Hey, kids don’t get attached. This is not our dog. He’s not coming home with us. We’re gonna, we’re gonna take him. He’s not us. And of course, that dog never left our house.

And and here was fascinating about that dog. That was the most loyal dog I have ever seen in my entire life. He, he never left our apartment. We had other dogs that would run off and, and run all over the place. We were out in the country. But that dog never left the house. I mean, he would not stray within 20 feet of our house. He was always right there. And if you were in the same room with that dog and my dad, guess who that dog went to every single time my dad had bought a loyalty with that dog that I have never seen in any animal since. Why? Because that dog knew what it felt like to have this chain around its neck. And when it was released, it changed everything. You see, here’s what Peter and John knew. Peter and John knew that Jesus had died on the cross for their sins.

That that just a couple months earlier is when Peter had denied Jesus. Oh, one of the encounters is that a little girl asks Peter, Hey, hey, don’t you know Jesus, a little girl? And he’s so scared of the repercussions that to the little girl, he’s like, no, no, no, not me, not me. And now about two months later, Peter is boldly proclaiming the gospel under threat of his life. His boldly proclaiming the gospel, what chain? You see, Peter now fully comprehended it, understood that his life had this chain around his neck. But when Jesus died on the cross for him, when Jesus rose from the dead, that that, that chain was released and Jesus was the one responsible for his freedom. And that changed Peter’s life forever. The rest of his life. Peter, maybe before had a belief in Jesus, but it wasn’t a conviction.

But after seeing arisen Jesus, it became a conviction in his life that he was willing to die for. And ultimately he did. Here. Here’s what’s fascinating, is you have this exchange where they warn them again, Hey, don’t do this again. Next time it’s really gonna be bad for you. And so the Peter and John, they go back to the other disciples and the other followers of Jesus and they describe to them what happened. And in Acts chapter four, verse 29, we see the prayer that they all pray together. And so after being threatened and after being jailed, they all gathered together and they pray to, God says, and now Lord, look upon their threats. And and I want you to pause for a second and imagine if it’s you or if it’s me in the same situation. What is the prayer that we pray?

We have these threats come against us. We’ve been in jail. They say that they’re gonna kill us. They’re gonna beat us. Don’t you ever? Don’t you dare. And so we gather together, and probably our prayer sounds something like this. Oh, it says, oh Lord, look upon their threats and smite them. Please God, look upon their threats and protect us. Please God, look upon their threats and and give us, uh, the, the prayer churchy word, a hedge of protection around us. Lord, is that their prayer? No. They say, despite the threats against our health and our wellbeing, God, look at their threats. And grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness facing opposition. They say, God, help us to continue to be bold. No matter what happens. What would it look like for us to pray that same prayer in our own lives? What would it look like if I were to pray for boldness every single day? What would it look like if we as a church, prayed for boldness every single day? How would it change how we live? You see, if, if Christianity really is a conviction in our life, it’s the most important thing in our life, then we should be bold and proclaiming to the world around us that, hey, I was in. I was chained up. I was suffering, but not anymore because Jesus set me free.