“The Powerful Name of Jesus”
Acts 4:13-31
These men who stood here and witnessed the courage of Peter and John were now in a huge dilemma. No matter which way they turned they were trapped. They couldn’t deny the miracle that this lame man had been healed because he was standing there-completely on his own. Not only standing but he was shouting and leaping and praising God right in front of the church. They were trapped. They could not explain how unschooled, ordinary, uneducated men could heal someone. Peter and John were fishermen, they weren’t professionals like the scribes and they weren’t ministers at least not officially. These men had one claim to fame...they were disciples of Jesus but there was one small problem. According to the Jews, Jesus was dead.
There are at least 4 things here that the scripture seems to point out about Peter and John. (1) They had courage. Defying the authorities in Jerusalem could get them sentences to a quick execution. (2) They were unschooled. They had no formal religious training like the Rabbis did. (3) They were ordinary. No religious qualifications. (4) They had been taught by Christ....they had been with Jesus.
Now here was the problem. The Jews were really responsible for the crucifixion; they hated Jesus and these two men were his disciples. Now the Sanhedrin didn’t have very many options. The Sanhedrin is made up of 70 members plus the high priest. They were basically the Supreme Court, the final authority in religious matters. But they had come to the conclusion that punishment was not necessary. But they still had the problem that they could not deny what had happened.
So it brings us to a very important point. (1) God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary work. It has always amazed me that God has chosen certain people to do His work. Myself included. He chooses ordinary, average people. Following the events of September 11th, 8 years ago, Lisa Beamer the wife of Todd Beamer who along with one other man took on the terrorists on Flight 93 and caused the plane to go down in a field rather than at our nation’s capitol. Lisa said about her husband, he was an ordinary guy. He was ordinary to his family but to the world he was extraordinary. You know the story already. Todd was on flight 93 headed for San Francisco. On that tragic day when nearly 3000 people were killed, Todd Beamer was on that flight. When it became evident that the terrorists were going to take the plane down, they had apparently already killed the pilot, Todd knew that he was going down as well. Everyone on that plane was. So Todd Beamer picked up the airfone and called the airline. He spoke to an agent told her that they were being hijacked, he prayed with her...together they recited the Lord’s prayer and then he told her to please call his wife and tell her I love her and the boys also.
Then he put down the phone. The agent remained on the line...she heard screams...lots of noise and then she heard Todd’s final words. He said Let’s roll! Those were words he used often at home. Todd had enlisted another man,
Jeremy Glick and together they guided the plane down to a field where there would be no other tragedies. Instead of landing in the nation’s capitol the landed in a field. This was an ordinary man but he will never be forgotten. Peter and John-ordinary men but with extraordinary commitment. The things they did to help launch the early church were certainly not ordinary. These are the kinds of people God uses...because they break away from the norm.
2nd we notice that God’s people must make difficult choices. Will we obey God or man? Verses 15-20. This is a difficult circumstance for anyone. Consider these verses of scripture.
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are God’s.” Jesus spoke these words.
1 Timothy 2:2-3 (NIV) for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. [3] This is good, and pleases God our Savior,
Romans 13:1 (LB) Obey the government, for God is the one who has put it there. There is no government anywhere that God has not placed in power.
Acts 5:29 (LB) But Peter & the apostles replied, "We must obey God rather than men.
A few principles we see here... (1) Give God what is His. Give the government what is theirs. Don’t confuse the two. Don’t give your tithe to the government and don’t give your tax money to the church! (2) If your employer or anyone for that matter asks you to do something unethical or immoral don’t do it. Find another job if necessary. But obey God! (3) you will increase your testimony by being a good citizen. (4) Pray for our government and get involved. Our country was founded on Christian principles and it is up to you as believers to make sure these principles stay in place.
This passage gives us a 3rd truth. Look at verses 21-28. God is in control. We aren’t. His ultimate purpose will be carried out. The politicians here were losing their influence. They had attempted to intimidate Peter and John but that didn’t work. Many times it does but not with these two. And they had no basis for punishment. Sometimes politicians feel a need to play to the crowd. In this case “all the people were praising God for what had happened.” The politicians had completely lost control of the crowds. Why? Because God’s people had moved in. God was in control here.
So Peter and John are released, they go back and report on everything that has taken place. The response from the group is immediate. They lifted their voices to God in prayer. The clear message in this passage is that they recognized that God was in control. In at least 4 places here we see evidence of this. (1) The word Sovereign is used. It means having complete control; having the power to make decisions without any outside control. It means supreme authority. That is the God we serve. He is sovereign. (2) You made the heaven, earth, sea and everything in them. My favorite chapter in all of the Bible is Isaiah 40.
Verses 12-17 speak of His power
This is the God we serve.
Now back in Acts. Vv. 29-30. This is our 4th point. God is the source of healing. Not man. Someone I spoke with this week said to me does your church believe in healing? I said yes we do however we believe it is God who does the healing, not us. You may have heard of Peter Popoff ministries. He is a self-proclaimed faith healer. At his peak in 1987 he took in over 4 million dollars a month. In 1987 Johnny Carson had a guest on his show who proved that Peter Popoff was a fraud. Here is what they proved. The man who exposed him began to follow him to his meetings. Peter would call out a name in the audience....they would stand up, not having any idea how he knew their name. Then he proceeded to give them personal information about themselves...where they were born, what kind of sickness they had, very personal information then he would place his hands on them and supposedly heal them. What this man discovered was that Peter’s wife was in a another room reading off the personal information into a microphone and he had a wireless earpiece so he could her and no one knew this. He was exposed in 1987 and he went bankrupt. But people have a short memory and he is back on the airwaves doing the same thing. Peter Popoff is popping off again. And he is clearly a fraud.
In this church we have sen the healing power of God. In this church we have seen God heal, cancer, in people who were losing hope...we have seen him at work. And for all of it we have seen we give glory to Almighty God....to the powerful, matchless, name of Jesus.
Look at verse 31. (5) God often shakes things up. Guess what? We need it. Individually. As a church. In our city. These people were shaken up. J.B. Phillips said, anyone who opens his personality to the living Spirit takes a risk of being considerably shaken. You see we cannot study the book of Acts without being stirred to action because we are seeing the church at it’s best here. Young, vibrant, committed, enthusiastic... A body of believers who believed that they could go out and change the world. Turn it upside down for Jesus. But it is also a bit disturbing because this is the church as it should be and that is not the way it is today.
He goes further to say, by modern standards they may have been naive, but perhaps because of their simplicity, perhaps because of their readiness to simply believe, to obey, to give, to suffer and if necessary to die, the Spirit of God found that he could work in them and through them and so they turned the world upside down!
Too many of us today are shaky about our faith but we are not shaken. We are unsure about what we believe. We are not living as changed people. There is power in that kind of life? Do you have it?
A young boy had not been in bed very long one night when he fell out and hit the floor. When his mama asked him what happened, he said I don’t know... I guess I stayed too close to where I got in. Change is a process. It takes time. Lots of time. Doesn’t happen overnight. We do this same thing with our faith. We stay to close to where we get in. And we never move any closer to God. Where are you today?
