Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] People of God. Christians are a paradoxical people.
[00:00:15] I want you to just consider that for a moment, because it is often.
[00:00:19] The church is often accused of being a place full of hypocrites. By which we reply, no objection.
[00:00:29] The church is a place full of hypocrites in many respects. I understand what people say, what people mean when they say that, when they make that statement.
[00:00:39] But it is true nonetheless, isn't it, that the church is filled with unimpressive people.
[00:00:45] Okay? And if your temptation at the moment is to think like, yeah, I know some unimpressive people, I'm. I'm talking about you as well, right? Like you. I'm not just talking about the unimpressive person that, you know, I'm talking about you. I'm talking about.
[00:00:57] We are, by and large, very unimpressive.
[00:01:02] Very unimpressive people. And this has always been true throughout the history of the world, ever since God created the world and created mankind in his image. Man and woman are filled with intrinsic dignity, value and worth because we're made in the image of God.
[00:01:20] And like anything else in all of God's creation, we're made in the image of God. So we are. We have intrinsic dignity, value, worth, beauty.
[00:01:27] Man is capable of some of the most beautiful things imaginable.
[00:01:33] And cruelty.
[00:01:36] We're both filled with beauty and capable of tremendous cruelty.
[00:01:41] Right? We're paradoxical. We're paradoxical people.
[00:01:45] You think about Noah. Noah, despite great opposition, built an ark, as he was called by God to do so, protecting his family, trusting God in the midst of the entire known world at the time coming against him. And on the other side of the flood, he gets drunk and ends up naked.
[00:02:01] Okay? You think about Moses, right? Moses was given the law of God. He was called a friend of God. He was used by God to lead the people out of slavery from Egypt into the promised land, and yet died with a lifelong anger problem.
[00:02:16] Abraham, again, another friend of God, the father of faith. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, Abraham is our father, so to speak, God is our father, but Abraham is the father of faith, right? Like father of faith, left his homeland to follow the call of God. And yet in many cases and in many opportunities where he had the opportunity to be bold and courageous, was a coward.
[00:02:39] Like even selling his wife into the hands of other men so that he could save himself.
[00:02:46] Jacob was said in Hebrews 11 to have died worshiping God. And yet, at the same time, throughout the duration of most of his life, was a liar and a deceiver. David, greatest king Israel ever had. He was a man after God's own heart, and yet he was a murderer and an adulterer.
[00:03:04] Church history is filled with paradoxical people as well. You've got Martin Luther, who put up the 95 theses and essentially was used by God to change the entire course of the world, was the same guy who said that the book of James shouldn't be in the Bible.
[00:03:24] And Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, arguably under Jesus, and maybe the apostle Paul. And Peter, the greatest preacher of all time through most of his adult life, struggled immensely with depression, like crushing depression, don't want to get out of bed depression, right? The people of God are an unimpressive, paradoxical people. This is you and this is me.
[00:03:48] And yet there's such a temptation, isn't there, for us to think that what the Christian life is all about is being impressive, being the best you, you can be. And that by being the best you, you can be, you're going to somehow earn the love and favor of God. And, and that's, that's really what the Christian life is, is about. And so the question that I want us to consider in the passage, and that will get us caught up on some Context of Acts 4 is this. How do unimpressive, paradoxical people who are spirit filled, loved by God, redeemed and forgiven live with courage amidst opposition?
[00:04:30] When I say opposition, I'm not just talking about physical persecution at the hands of other people for your faith, though that may happen too. Maybe it, maybe it has already happened to you in some form or fashion in our country and our state and our context, right? That's not so much a felt reality of our everyday life, that when you share the gospel with somebody, you're not necessarily persecuted, certainly not in the same ways that our brothers and sisters all over the world in variety of places are today, right now, as we gather.
[00:05:01] Not necessarily the same, but opposition comes in many forms, doesn't it?
[00:05:06] Like opposition could be that, okay, all of us, if you're a follower of Jesus, experience spiritual opposition.
[00:05:15] Tim Keller said this. He said that when you're a non Christian, when you're not yet a Christian, you have one enemy and that's God, okay, but that enemy loves you.
[00:05:27] As a Christian, however, we've got three enemies that never stop coming against us in opposition. We've got the flesh, we've got the world, the ways and customs of the world, and we've got the devil who hates us, does not love us, does not want our good, and are flourishing.
[00:05:44] So we all experience opposition of various kinds. How do you. How do I, in the midst of that opposition, stand with courage and joy and peace and conviction in the midst of that opposition? We see the example in Peter and John in this passage. Okay, so let's look at the passage together. We're just going to walk through the story, 32 verses. We're going to get through it at our allotted time. Okay, so 32 verses. Let's start in verse one, chapter four. If you haven't been with us.
[00:06:15] The Book of Acts could be, I think, summarized, not to oversimplify, it could be summarized as the rule and reign of Jesus from heaven and his continuing work on the earth through the church by the Holy Spirit.
[00:06:32] That's what the Book of Acts is about. So the Book of Acts is not primarily about the apostles doing great things. The Book of Acts is not primarily about the person of the Holy Spirit doing great things. We love the Holy Spirit, but here's the reality about the the Holy Spirit testifies to Jesus.
[00:06:48] That's what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit was not sent by God to indwell you so that you could like become an X men.
[00:06:56] Okay? And that's not to downplay the reality of the miraculous which exists. It's just to say that everything the Holy Spirit does is for the exaltation and glory of the Son. In the same way that everything the Son did while on earth in the person of Jesus Christ, everything he did empowered by the Holy Spirit was for the exaltation and glory of the Father. This is who God is. The Father is about the Son and the Spirit is about the Son, and the Son is about the Father through the Spirit. This is who God is.
[00:07:25] So when we talk about God being for God and God being for the glory of his name, we're talking about God being a Trinity and every member of the Trinity being about another member of the Trinity.
[00:07:36] It's a glorious, mind blowing thought.
[00:07:40] This is what the Book of Acts is about. If Luke. Acts is written by Luke, by the way, if the book of Luke is about Jesus, reign on him, bringing the kingdom of God to earth in his person and advancing the kingdom of God through His person and through his work. The Book of Acts is about the continuation of his kingdom through the church.
[00:08:01] So this is where we find ourselves in Acts chapter four, in Acts three, Peter and John.
[00:08:07] Well, starting back in Acts two, the church gathers says that signs and wonders are being done through the apostles by the person of the Holy Spirit. And then Peter and John go out from the gathering and they go to the temple and, and as they're going into the temple, they see a blind man. They stop and Peter, Jesus, through Peter and through John, heal the. Not the blind man, lame man. Heal the lame man who had been lame from birth. And as they heal the lame man, he gets up and he begins walking and leaping and praising God. And they go into the temple and people are astounded by what they see because this is a, as Chris Read, a 40 year old man, he had been lame from birth.
[00:08:47] And so they're astounded, they're amazed by this act of God.
[00:08:50] And this draws the attention of the religious leaders. And this is where we find ourselves in Acts, chapter four. So it says, this says, and as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of.
[00:09:14] So any, any form of opposition or persecution that we see in the Book of Acts can be attributed back to this moment.
[00:09:23] That starts with annoyance.
[00:09:26] Okay, they don't start with, this is the same way it was for Jesus, by the way, with the religious leaders, right? They didn't, they didn't just immediately want to kill Jesus, they got annoyed with him first.
[00:09:38] Just a little bit perturbed that some of the focus that they desired from people were being transferred from them to what's happening here with Peter and John. So it says that they're greatly, they're greatly annoyed.
[00:09:52] You've got the priests, you've got the captain of the temple, which was kind of like the, the police chief of the temple, so to speak. And then you have this group of people called the Sadducees.
[00:10:05] So if you think about the Pharisees and the Sadducees from the 1st century, the Pharisees and were the ones who persecuted Jesus for religious reasons. They were the religious leaders of the day. The Sadducees are going to be the primary antagonists in the Book of Acts. And they're the ones who are going to persecute the church for political reasons.
[00:10:25] So the Sadducees were the ones who did not believe in the Resurrection. They didn't believe in spiritual things, they were materialists and they cared a lot about political power.
[00:10:36] So as soon as this little sect of people, Jews, become Christians, known as the Way, which is an awesome name, go from being 12 people to hundreds of people to 3,000 people on the day of Pentecost, to now 5,000 people, it's like all of A sudden, this is kind of a threat to us.
[00:11:00] And so we're going to see opposition and persecution ramp up as the way becomes more of a threat to the political parties of the day. This is why I said a few weeks ago when we started talking about this is this has always been the case for the church.
[00:11:19] There's always spiritual undertones behind the opposition that the church faces. But it's when the political powers at hand begin to feel threatened. That's when opposition comes. So this is really important for us not to be like, I don't want to be.
[00:11:34] It's a word I'm looking for. It's a phrase I'm looking for.
[00:11:37] Help me out, Sidney.
[00:11:39] Like, I don't want to be fear based in what I'm saying, right? Like, try to project something that may or may not happen in our lifetime. But I think we do see this, don't we?
[00:11:48] And so the question is really important for us is how. How do we stand with courage and conviction and joy in the midst of opposition when opposition does come, as we're seeing happen in the lives of Peter and John? They didn't do anything wrong, did they?
[00:12:03] Like, they weren't going around telling people to stop following the Sadducees and the Pharisees. They weren't going around telling people to stop worshiping in the temple. They weren't doing any of these things. They healed a guy.
[00:12:13] Jesus healed a guy. They helped somebody.
[00:12:16] Right. Nonetheless, they take in Peter and John.
[00:12:21] It says they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. And they arrested them and put them in custody. This is verse three. 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 about 5,000. 5,000 believers. This is like an accelerating movement that's happening by the hand of Jesus.
[00:12:49] On the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem with Annas, 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. So picture the scene again. We're just going through this as a scene that's happening in history. Okay? Peter and John and probably the former lame guy who's now healed are brought together by the political leaders of the day, and they're set in their midst. So if you imagine just a scene by which these people are surrounding the. The Peter and John and the former lame guy, it says they set them in.
[00:13:29] In their midst, they inquired, by what power or by what name did you do this?
[00:13:41] So this is.
[00:13:43] I don't know if you've ever experienced something.
[00:13:47] Gosh, man. When I don't write illustrations down, it just things come to mind and I'm like, I don't know if I should share that or not, but I'm going to do it because I've already started it. So.
[00:13:57] We have a tendency to feel shame when we have opportunities to articulate our faith.
[00:14:04] Okay, like, embarrassment, or like, I don't want to ruffle feathers, or I don't want to offend or whatever. I mean, I will find myself even at times as I'm walking and praying, which is my favorite way to pray.
[00:14:16] As I'm walking and praying, if I'm walking across a car with somebody in it, I will silence my prayer.
[00:14:24] Just kind of like an instinctive thing that I find myself doing. And there's no threat to my body or my reputation necessarily in that moment. Right? So Peter and John are in a situation by which people who actually have the authority to kill them, put them in prison, beat them, berate them, try to ruin their reputation.
[00:14:45] Peter and John have an opportunity now to be silent about what's happened.
[00:14:51] They say, by what name, by what power did you do this? I read a story last week of a Methodist circuit riding preacher.
[00:15:03] Let me find his name. Peter Cartwright was his name.
[00:15:06] And this story almost feels fantastical, but apparently it's true. Okay, so Peter Cartwright was a Methodist preacher, circuit rider who would go around and preach the gospel. He actually ended up moving north from Tennessee because he opposed slavery.
[00:15:19] That was happening at the time. And it was told by one of his deacons one Sunday as he settled into a church that President Andrew Wilson was going to be in attendance in the congregation at the time. And so they were like, hey, if you could. They knew he was a bit of a brash preacher. They're like, if you could just kind of tone it down a little bit for the President, he's going to come in. You don't really need to say anything that's going to upset him. And that just seemed to fuel Cartwright, apparently, because supposedly he gets up on the stage, he stands to preach, and he says, quote, I understand President Andrew. I'm sorry, Andrew Jackson, not Andrew Wilson. I understand President Andrew Jackson is here.
[00:15:56] I have requested to be guarded in my remarks. Andrew Jackson will go to hell if he does not repent.
[00:16:04] Okay?
[00:16:06] And then. So his deacons are probably freaking out, you idiot, what are you doing? And then after the service. Supposedly Andrew Jackson comes up to him and he says, sir, if I had a regiment of men like you, I could whip the land.
[00:16:21] Courage, boldness, joy, certainty. Certainty doesn't always equate to pride, clarity.
[00:16:35] This is the kind of courage that we. That we're about to see Peter exhibit in this moment. Before we get to the why and the how as it pertains to us and how we might have courage in the face of opposition. This is what Peter. This is what Peter says.
[00:16:49] Verse 8. 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.
[00:17:11] And listen to this part. Whom you crucified.
[00:17:16] So Peter's not preaching an ambiguous message about God's love.
[00:17:20] He looks out at the leaders of the day and he says, you killed Jesus, the author of life, the prince of life, the creator of the cosmos. You killed him whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead by him. This man is standing before you. Well, the reason that this lame man was healed is because of Jesus.
[00:17:51] This Jesus is the stone that was rejected again by you.
[00:18:00] So he makes this sermon very personal to them, the builders. You're the builders. He says to them.
[00:18:09] This is a quote, by the way, from Psalm 118.
[00:18:13] He's saying what Psalm 118 says is being fulfilled right now in hearing you leaders, religious leaders, Jewish leaders. You're the builders.
[00:18:24] You're the ones by whom the chief cornerstone came.
[00:18:28] You're the first one who heard the message. You're the one who received the law, says the builders, which has become the cornerstone.
[00:18:38] And there is salvation in no one else.
[00:18:43] For there is no other name under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved.
[00:18:51] So Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, stands up in the midst of opposition, and he preaches the message of salvation. That all have fallen short of the glory of God, that the wages of sin is death, but that the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus.
[00:19:12] And this isn't for everybody out there. This is for you.
[00:19:16] This is for me.
[00:19:20] And so how does. How does Peter do this? Well, first, before we. Again, this. This is how we're going to end. Before we get to.
[00:19:28] How does Peter do this? Let's look at how they respond to the message.
[00:19:33] Verse 14.
[00:19:35] Seeing the man who was healed, we'll come back to 13, seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, saying, what shall we do to these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them as 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.
[00:20:01] So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.
[00:20:09] So this is how the religious leaders respond, with a warning.
[00:20:14] You can do a lot of things.
[00:20:17] You've got the freedom to do a lot of things, but you cannot tell people about this Jesus.
[00:20:25] This has now become a threat to us.
[00:20:28] We're annoyed by it.
[00:20:32] So go out, live your life, be a good citizen, pay your taxes, work a living, raise a family, have fun, do all the things that you want to do. But you will not, following this moment, tell anybody else about Jesus.
[00:20:51] It's interesting, I think, isn't it, to think about, like the Apostle Paul In Romans 13, when he talks about government.
[00:21:00] He says that the government is instituted by God.
[00:21:03] Every government, whether you like it or not, is instituted by God, okay? And that we as Christians are to pray for our government and we're to abide by the laws of the land in order to be good, godly citizens. This. This is what Romans 13 tells us to do. But at what point is it necessary to disobey?
[00:21:29] Like, at what point is it necessary, regardless of who's in office, to disobey a government mandate? I'm going to get more into that in a couple of weeks in Acts, chapter five.
[00:21:38] But this is. This is the question that we get to in Peter's response. They've told him not to say anything to anybody anymore about Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus. And this is what.
[00:21:53] This is what Peter says, verse 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.
[00:22:07] For we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.
[00:22:13] Peter's like, hey, if it's right or wrong for me, for John and I to go out and continue to tell people about Jesus, that's for you to judge.
[00:22:21] I love that he uses the word cannot.
[00:22:25] I can't help but speak of what I've seen and heard.
[00:22:29] I just. I've seen it. I've seen. I've seen the risen Jesus.
[00:22:33] I've seen him. I mean, Peter's like I've seen him alive. I saw him on the beach.
[00:22:37] After I denied him three times and made a fool out of myself, he came and sought me.
[00:22:43] He had breakfast with me on the beach.
[00:22:47] He gave me another chance. He poured his grace upon me. John's like, I've laid my head against his chest. I've heard his heartbeat. I saw him. We were the first two at the tomb.
[00:22:59] We can't help but speak of what we've seen and heard. Kill me. I can't help but speak of what I've seen and heard.
[00:23:06] This is called civil disobedience.
[00:23:09] And we're not always called to civil disobedience. Again, we'll talk about that in a few weeks. What merits this? But this is the foundational reason for civil disobedience. When the government begins to tell Christians that they cannot speak in the name of Jesus anymore, we say, no, you put me in jail, you can arrest me, you can fine me, you can.
[00:23:31] No, we cannot help but speak of what we've seen and heard.
[00:23:41] 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.
[00:23:51] For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than 40 years old. So this leads us to the final question of how Peter and John had seen and heard Jesus before his crucifixion and after his resurrection.
[00:24:08] They knew Jesus, so how was it? And obviously, it's. They're filled with the Spirit. The Spirit is the one who emboldened and empowered them to stand up in the midst of the Sadducees and to proclaim Jesus and say, hey, despite your threats, I cannot help but speak in the name of Jesus, right? Like, the Spirit was the one who empowered that. But. But what were some of the things that we see in the text that might have been more of like an. An impetus to their courage in the midst of opposition? And the first one is this, and it's in verse 13. And I think this is my favorite verse in the Bible, because I just relate a lot, at least to the first half of it.
[00:24:51] Verse 13.
[00:24:53] 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.
[00:25:08] So if you want to, like, underline or circle or highlight something in that phrase, you should circle been with Jesus.
[00:25:17] They saw that they were uneducated common men. Goes back to our first question. The people of God are an unimpressive People, yet we try so hard and we strive so hard to be as impressive as we can. We're going to know the most theology, we're going to read the most books, we're going to listen to the most podcasts, all of which are good things, by the way.
[00:25:38] But it does go to show us that a seminary degree does not equate to what we're seeing here in this passage.
[00:25:47] They were uneducated common men, yet there was something about Peter and John that was so astonishing that it took the religious leaders of the day, the political leaders of the day, it took them aback, by which they looked at them and were astonished. And the only explanation for why was that they had been with the risen Jesus.
[00:26:11] They knew Jesus.
[00:26:13] They had what theologians call communion with Jesus.
[00:26:19] This is what communion is, by the way. It's not just the Lord's Supper that's a part of communion.
[00:26:25] John Owen, who is a Puritan, the way that he described communion, the picture that comes to mind is kind of like gathering together with your friends for a football game. Obviously, he didn't know what football was at the time, so that's not what he said. But it's the picture that comes to mind.
[00:26:40] Communion is partaking and participating with someone in something.
[00:26:48] So when we talk about communion with God, really we're talking about John, chapter 15.
[00:26:54] John, chapter 15. Jesus, I think, gives the antidote to the Christian life. He says, abide in me or remain in me as I remain in you. In other words, what Jesus is saying is, he's saying, make your home in me as I've already made my home in you.
[00:27:13] And so if you're a Christian, if you're a follower of Jesus, because of Jesus, life, death, resurrection, and by his grace.
[00:27:22] When you trusted in Jesus, you trusted in him because he first made his home in you.
[00:27:29] In other words, you have union with God already.
[00:27:34] You're standing before God, you're standing before the Father. Does not change on the basis of how well or not well you do. The Christian life, the way the Father sees you is through the Son.
[00:27:48] And so you and I have this thing called union with God.
[00:27:53] When God the Father looks at you because you're in Christ the Son, he says of you, this is my beloved Son, or this is my beloved daughter, with whom I am well pleased. He's already well pleased with you. There's nothing you could do or not do to make him more or less pleased with you. He is pleased with you because you're in Christ the Son.
[00:28:10] That's union. And that never changes, and that's glorious.
[00:28:14] And if we get union and communion mixed up, then we'll fail to, I think, enjoy as much of the Christian life as we can enjoy.
[00:28:23] Union does not change. Union is fixed. Union is your position with God in Christ.
[00:28:29] Communion, on the other hand, is your experience with Christ.
[00:28:35] It's.
[00:28:37] It's the relational aspect of things. If I do something to breach trust with Sydney or to fracture my relationship with Sydney, that doesn't change the nature of our marriage.
[00:28:49] We're still married. We're still one, right? But it does change our experience with one another, doesn't it?
[00:28:56] And so the same thing is true for communion.
[00:29:00] They had been with Jesus, meaning that they didn't just recognize the union that they had with Jesus, though that was the impetus for their communion. But they communed with Jesus daily.
[00:29:11] They continued to spend time with Jesus. That's why they were going up to the temple. They were going up to the temple to pray.
[00:29:19] This is why they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, because in so doing, they were communing with Jesus.
[00:29:27] Communion with Jesus that they had been with Jesus. What might it look like for you and I, by the grace of God, to be people who center our lives on the reality that the Christian life is about being with Jesus?
[00:29:40] This is what the whole thing is about. And this is the means by which you and I grow in confidence. It's not by setting our minds on a redoubled effort to be better and work harder.
[00:29:51] That's not going to do it. That's not going to lead you and I to courage in the midst of opposition. That's not going to lead us to joy. What will lead to joy is. And what will lead to courage and boldness in the midst of opposition is that you and I are with Jesus.
[00:30:03] And we daily make this our aim in life.
[00:30:06] That we would be not impressive people.
[00:30:10] Common, uneducated people who are, or educated for that matter, who make it our aim to be with Jesus.
[00:30:20] So that's the first thing was their communion.
[00:30:24] Three C's as we close. Communion is the first.
[00:30:28] Okay. How do we stand in the face of opposition, whatever that opposition is, with courage and joy. The first is communion. Communion with Jesus.
[00:30:39] The second is companionship.
[00:30:43] It's companionship. Look at verse 23.
[00:30:46] I love the way the ESV translates this.
[00:30:50] When they were released, they went to their friends.
[00:30:55] I love that.
[00:30:57] King James translates that. Companions.
[00:31:01] They went to their friends.
[00:31:03] The first thing they did when they were released from this trial is they ran to their friends.
[00:31:11] We say this Often at redemption hell. And this is a quote from Ray Ortlens.
[00:31:15] He says, you can either be known or impressive, but you cannot be both.
[00:31:22] So you make the choice. It's a difficult choice sometimes for sure.
[00:31:28] Are you going to pursue being an impressive person? If you do friends, then you will not make and keep friends.
[00:31:36] Let me take that back. That sounds harsh. You might make and keep friends, but you won't experience all of what Lewis talks about. Friendship is meant to be. Lewis would say friendship is not necessary for survival.
[00:31:51] Right.
[00:31:52] It's not necessary for that, but it does bring value to it.
[00:31:56] It's like having taste buds. You don't need taste buds to eat and survive. But isn't it amazing that God gave them to you?
[00:32:04] You can enjoy good food and good drink and like, you can just enjoy it. God didn't have to do that for you.
[00:32:12] The same thing with friends. He could have made us all like business partners in the way that we relate to one another.
[00:32:17] Right. All you're allowed to do is get together and do a study over something.
[00:32:22] But that's not what he did. There's a reason you enjoy being around people that you like and people that you feel that you can be safe with.
[00:32:31] And so if you pursue the path of being impressive, it's going to keep you from the joys of being known.
[00:32:37] And you and I can be fully known if we're a follower of Jesus.
[00:32:42] You can be fully known because you are already fully known by God and He loves you.
[00:32:49] The blood of Christ has already covered you.
[00:32:52] He's already cleansed you of all unrighteousness. He's already adopted you as his son or daughter. He's already accepted you into his family as his own. And so because you are already fully known in Christ, you have the freedom to be known by other people.
[00:33:07] They went to their friends says they reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. So if the first is communion with Jesus, the means by which we exhibit boldness and joy in the midst of opposition, the second is companionship.
[00:33:29] Be a friend and be friended.
[00:33:33] Sometimes being a friend is actually harder for us than to be known by people.
[00:33:39] Like, it can be easy. And I confessed this to Tyler a few weeks ago. I was like, man, I am like. I find myself always being the question asker. And it's not because the other person is doing that to me. It's because there's something in me that doesn't like to be asked questions like, if people are like, how can I pray for you? I'm like, I don't know that I really like that you asked me that.
[00:33:57] I'm the one who asked you how I can pray for you, right?
[00:34:01] Like, be friended.
[00:34:04] You know, you're supposed to be a good friend.
[00:34:06] But what might it look like for you to go to somebody in the midst of your weakness? Just take a chance on that.
[00:34:14] Companionship, communion with Jesus, companionship with others. And then the third is confession, and this is confession through prayer.
[00:34:28] So they went back, they told their friends everything that had happened, and this is what their friends did. Okay? And it doesn't say that Peter and John were the ones that led this prayer, by the way, which I think is awesome.
[00:34:39] So who knows what Peter and John are feeling at this moment, but they go to their friends, they tell their friends all that's happened, and then it says in verse 24, when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God.
[00:34:53] Confession through prayer.
[00:34:55] Sometimes, depending on what you're walking through, you may not even have the strength or desire to pray for yourself, but your friends do.
[00:35:06] And so we talk about this.
[00:35:08] What a joy and an invitation that you and I have to be in community with one another and to pray for one another when we're too tired to pray for ourself.
[00:35:17] Maybe the thing that you've asked for still has not happened in the way that you desire it to happen. And you're like, I don't even want to pray for that thing anymore.
[00:35:25] So I feel like I'm going to be let down. I feel silly.
[00:35:29] I feel too tired, whatever the case is. And all you can do is go to a friend and say, would you pray for this thing for me?
[00:35:39] So it says that they lifted up their voices together and they prayed a prayer of confession this week for Lent, for our be. The church material is returning to this reality that you and I are dependent people.
[00:35:54] You're finite, you're limited, you're imperfect. You are not impressive. I am not impressive. And that's a good thing because it reminds you all the more, and me all the more of what is most true, that we are dependent people. And prayer is one of the most independent things that you and I can do.
[00:36:13] And so I just want to close by reading their prayer for one another during this time.
[00:36:19] They had been with Jesus, they had been with one another, and now they go to God in prayer that God would give them strength to continue to be bold, to continue to have joy, to preach Jesus in the midst of opposition. And this is what their prayer says, Says, sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our Father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, why do the Gentiles rage and the people's plot in vain?
[00:36:54] The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed. For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and plan had predestined to take place.
[00:37:17] And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.
[00:37:35] And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. True spiritual strength comes from dependence not within you, but outside of you.
[00:37:56] The God who loves you, who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, whom you have full access to, is the means of our strength. So let's pray along these lines today and then we'll respond with communion.
[00:38:16] Father, we love you.
[00:38:17] And God, we like the like the early church, take a moment and even verbalize, even if we don't fully feel it.
[00:38:27] God, that you are the sovereign Lord, that not only everything that happened to Jesus was your predestined and sovereign plan, but everything that happens in our life is according to your sovereign plan.
[00:38:43] And so God help us to be people who remember that God teach us all the more what it means to commune with you.
[00:38:53] We thank you that for those who know you, God, for those who have put their faith in Jesus, that you've given us union with yourself already.
[00:39:02] And God, I just pray that you would teach us how to have communion with you.
[00:39:07] Anything in our life, God is keeping us from enjoying the relationship that we already have with you. Would you just reveal that to our hearts today, Help us to lay it at the altar to be reminded that you've already cleansed us, you've already made us righteous.
[00:39:25] God, I pray for those who struggle with friendship, maybe struggle with being known to other people. God, that you would, that this might be. That you might make us a people and a place where that is more foreign than maybe we're used to.
[00:39:44] God help us to be a people by your grace, who welcome one another, who love one another, who see one another, who ask good questions who are quick to listen and slow to speak.
[00:39:59] God, help us develop and cultivate good, deep, gospel centered friendships in a way that would actually stir our affections for you, God.
[00:40:10] And God, would you continue to help us, lead us to be a people of prayer. Thank you that you answer prayer. Thank you that you're with us now, God. And so we do cry out to you. And we pray that as we take communion and as we sing, Jesus, you would be in our midst.
[00:40:24] We need you. We love you, God, and we thank you for being with us. And we pray all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
[00:40:37] Sam.
[00:41:03] Sa.
