Scripture: Acts 4:5-12 (Call to worship - Psalm 23)
The Holy Spirit - The Difference Maker
In this passage we see the Difference that the Holy Spirit can make in our lives - 1. Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit. 2. The Holy Spirit gave Peter courage and boldness. 3. The Holy Spirit enabled Peter to stand up and proclaim Jesus as Savior and LORD
INTRO:
Grace and peace from God our Father and from His Son Jesus Christ who came to take away the sin(s) of the world!
One of the greatest comedy teams in early American movies were two men who couldn't have been more opposite; Englishman slender man, Stan Laurel and American thick man, Oliver Hardy - "Laurel and Hardy". For almost 30 years these two paired up to provide some of the best slapstick comedy around the world. Together, they stared in over 100 films and their work greatly influenced other great comedians that followed them like Jerry Lewis, Peter Sellers and Dick Van Dyke.
One of Laurel and Hardy's great lines that they used over and over again throughout their performances was this simple line said by Ollie towards Stanley - " Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into "
As we read our passage this morning, we can imagine John looking at the Apostle Peter and saying those same words - "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into." Or else we may wonder if they together weren't thinking they should say those words to Jesus.
Peter and John had just been both praised by some and accused by others of healing the lame man. While others thought it was an act of God, the authorities in the Temple were not sure and so they had Peter and John arrested. I guess that is what you do when you think someone has done a miracle that you might consider unorthodox - you have them arrested. Since it was nearing the evening hours they decided that it would be best to allow the two men to cool their heels in the local prison for a night. They would decide what to do about them the next morning when the whole Sanhedrin would be able to convene.
The next morning at the Temple the Sanhedrin all gathered in their usual pomp and circumstance. The High Priest was there along with his father-in-law. Other dignitaries were there as well as the whole Sanhedrin council. This was to be a formal investigation into what Peter and John had been doing around the Temple. What they had allegedly done had caused quite a stir. That little band of 12 that had been following Jesus all over the country side was reported now to have over 5,000 followers. It was past time for the Temple authorities to take some action before this all got out of hand. You can't let people like Peter and John just go around healing people. It causes other people to ask interesting questions. It may even cause the Romans to decide to get into Temple business again. All of this healing and talking about Jesus had the potential to cause some sticky problems that Caiaphas, Ananias and the other Temple officials wanted to avoid.
And all this was after Jesus had reportedly been dead for over 50 days. The Jewish authorities thought that they had gotten rid of the "Jesus Problem" once and for all. Others, that had claimed that had been the Messiah had suffered similar fates and in a weeks all of their followers had scattered like dust during a windstorm.
But this time it was different. This Jesus Movement was gathering steam. Instead of dying down it was doing the exact opposite; it was growing and expanding. Just a few days ago these Jesus followers had a meeting around the Temple that had also caused quite a stir. It all had to do with something about the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Over 3,000 were baptized all around the Temple that day alone. You can imagine what a scene that caused.
Now, Peter and John were doing some strange things around the doors of the Temple and people were not only noticing they were beginning to join in the "Jesus Movement". We know that the movement had grown to over 5,000 around Jerusalem and more likely was by this time over 10,000 all over the Roman Empire. It was time for a little "pow wow" with these two men to see if this whole matter couldn't be gotten rid of once and for all.
All of that is in the background of our story. All of that allows us to know what is going on. So, what are we to make of this story and what we read this morning? What does it teach us and what are we to gather from it as we do our best to live out God's Word?
It teaches us:
I. We need the presence and power of the Holy Spirit
The key to this whole passage is found in the beginning of verse 8 where St. Luke tells us that "...Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit" said to them ....
The key is that Peter after a night of being in a prison, having to deal with all the filth, the degradation and the pain did not attempt to stand up in his own strength. He did not attack his audience nor does he attempt to proclaim his innocence. He does exactly what Jesus had told his disciples to do back in Matthew 10:19 - 20:
"But when they hand you over, do not worry about how to respond or what to say. In that hour you will be given what to say. For it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you."
There is an otherworldly aspect to what Peter did here. We all have had to deal with those times when we have been called either on the carpet so to speak or we know we will have to defend our position. We have taken the time to careful outline what someone may say to us or ask of us. We have taken the time to rehearse so that we don't get caught by surprise. We don't want to look foolish or to be tripped up.
And yet, here is Jesus telling us and here is Peter putting it into practice the art of being a mouth piece for God Himself. St. Luke wants us to focus on this point. That is why he so carefully tells us this wonderful little bit of information. He is not just coloring in the picture for us, he is wanting us to grab a hold of a key piece of spiritual wisdom and knowledge.
We are to understand that we are to allow the Holy Spirit to fill us with wisdom, discernment and knowledge. We are to call upon the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives when we find ourselves being confronted or asked difficult questions.
Recently, one of my pastoral friend had to go in front of some leaders in his tribe that wanted to trip him up on some finer points of their theological beliefs. They wanted to make sure that he was worthy to be an active minister in their denomination. In years past he fretted and sweated over the whole situation. This year he took great pains to spend more time in prayer before the interview process. He wanted to be under the direct control and power of the Holy Spirit in everything he did or said.
He called me after the meeting to tell me it was one of the most comfortable times he has ever experienced with his leaders. He was empowered with great courage, experienced a total recall of important information and was able to be at peace throughout the whole process. For the first time he felt that not only did he answer the questions the way that the LORD wanted him to but he did so out of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.
What Peter did here and what my friend did is something that we can all experience. Luke is wanting us to realize that whether it is before the Sanhedrin, before a religious board or being interviewed at the office, school or even having a potential tense meeting with a family member we can rely on the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Luke wants us to understand that when Jesus said that His Holy Spirit would teach us, lead us and guide us that He really meant that His Holy Spirit would teach us, lead us and guide us.
This morning, we can rely on the Holy Spirit in all situations. Whether like the Apostles Peter and John we find ourselves in quite a bit of trouble or if it just a sticky situation at work, at home or at school. All too often we find ourselves relying on the power of our own intellect and wisdom when the wisdom and intellect of the ages is right at our fingertips. Before we go into a sticky situation wouldn't it be better for us to saturate ourselves in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit? I believe if we would do that we would find ourselves better off not just one time or two times but each and every time.
This passage also teaches us that:
II. We need to be Bold and Courageous in our Witness For Jesus
Anyone who had followed the lives of the disciples of Jesus might have wondered how this whole event was going to transpire. Many of them knew about Peter's weak knees when it came to the areas of courage and boldness. They knew that on more than one occasion that Peter had boasted about his commitment to the Jesus Movement but they also knew that on more than one occasion that Peter had been found lacking. He had crumbled under pressure more than once.
That is why verse eight is the key. Peter was arrogant at times. Peter was boastful on more than one occasion. But here he was in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit and when a person is in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit there is a holy courage and boldness that can be experienced.
Most people are by nature a little on the fearful side. We may talk a good game but when it comes to actually having to possess courage and boldness all too often we shy away. Our bark is often bigger and better than our bite so to speak.
We can imagine the room that day. High up above everyone sat the High Priest, his father-in-law along with two other dignitaries , John and Alexander. All around them were the learned men of the Sanhedrin. Individuals that held great power, wealth, position and authority. People that Peter and John knew had ways of making them disappear without the Roman authorities even being aware. People that were beginning to feel that their seats of power were being threatened by this new Jesus Movement.
We can imagine that Peter may have been tempted to wilt under all that strain. I am sure a night in a noisy, nasty and horrible prison didn't help any. Other men throughout history have wilted under less pressure. But once again the key to all of our passage is the power and presence of God's Holy Spirit.
The Bible tells us that after Moses died the reins of power were handed over to Joshua. Joshua had been Moses' assistant for some forty years as the Children of Israel had tromped around the desert. He and Caleb were the only two left of their generation. Before them stood a generation that knew very little about life in Egypt and nothing about what it would take to conquer the Promise Land.
It should not surprise us that the Bible tells us in Joshua chapter one that Joshua is having some doubts. He is wondering if he possessed the courage and the boldness to lead God's people into the Promise Land. For the past 40 years they had given Moses fits and he was only leading them around in the desert. What would it take to get them to actually fight for the Promise Land? What would it take for them to actually take the land acre by acre and at times in hand to hand combat with armies larger than theirs and soldiers more experienced in battle than their soldiers?
Listen to the words that the LORD spoke to Joshua in Joshua chapter 1:
3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. 4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. 5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success[a] wherever you go. 8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
The Lord God Almighty wanted Joshua to know that through His Holy Presence, Joshua could have courage and be able to face any trial, adversary or enemy. He wanted Joshua to be victorious and to lead His People to a New Promise Land. God wanted His People to experience the full life in His Chosen Land.
Now, in our passage Peter displays the same courage and boldness promised to Joshua. This courage and boldness was not a spirit of arrogance or conceit. It was not possessing an air of superiority. It is understanding and having confidence that in the midst of a trial that the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY will not only be there, but, will protect, provide and bring victory. It is the confidence that David had when he stood before Goliath, the confidence that Esther had in going in before the King and the confidence that Nehemiah had in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.
This courage and boldness is not reckless nor foolish. Peter and later Paul did not foolishly place themselves in danger. They prayed, they waited and they followed the leading of the Holy Spirit. They didn't go out in their own zeal and power. They were led by the Holy Spirit.
And that is the key once again - the Holy Spirit. That is why time and time again we see throughout the book of Acts and in Paul's letters that there is continual petition of prayer for boldness and courage. They wanted to be the best witnesses for Christ that they could be and they did not want to wilt under the pressure and trials of the Devil or the World.
Today, we are in desperate need of this kind of courage and boldness. Not arrogance. Not recklessness. Not foolishness. But boldness and courage to be able to be a witness for Christ at work, at school, in our homes and with our families. We need to be saturated with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit so that we can share our faith with anyone that is around. We need to be saturated with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit to be able to share what the LORD has done for us and is doing in and through us in this day and age.
Finally, this passages teaches us that:
III. We need to be Able to Stand Firm For Jesus
If you read down a little more in the passage you find that Peter didn't bat an eye when he and John were told to stop proclaiming the name of Jesus. In fact, when the Sanhedrin attempted to apply even more pressure on them listen to the last words of the Apostle Peter:
"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." - v. 19 - 20
Not only do we need the power and presence of the Holy Spirit today to know what to say and to possess courage and boldness we need to be able to stand fast. We need to be able to stand fast and say what we truly believe about Jesus, the Messiah, Savior and LORD of ALL.
Verse 12 has caused a great deal of concern these days. It is considered to be archaic, misguided and hyper critical. People have even tried to rewrite it to mean that Peter was saying that in Jesus there is peace and healing but not saying that there is only salvation in the name of Jesus.
It is okay to say that this man was healed in the name of Jesus and that even Jesus may have been raised from the dead. Although, many within the church today doubt that as well. But to say that Jesus is the only way to salvation - well, that is simply incorrect to say in this day of universalism and religious pluralism.
The current thought that is trying to win the day is this - We moderns are now exposed to the stories of all religions and so we have to understand that there are many paths to everlasting life and that to hold on to the thoughts that Jesus is the only way is a little short sighted. After all there are many similarities between Jesus and Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed or Jesus and one of the many Hindu Gods. There are many similarities between Jesus and the beliefs of the New Age, the belief of the ancient Indians and the list goes on and on.
This kind of thinking is not coming from only outside the Church but inside the Church as well. This thought that our Higher Power - the God of the Universe has paved many paths for us to walk to our everlasting reward is becoming quite popular in many theological circles.
The idea is that somehow in our more modern area we are more cultured and more informed than Peter, John and Paul. That if they only knew what we knew, then they would have promoted Jesus but alongside him they would promoted others that were viewed as seers, gurus and enlightened human beings. They would in essence have believed in many paths leading to the Ground of All Being, the Supreme Source of Light and Enlightenment.
Such thinking of course is foolish at best and damning at worst. Peter, James and John did not live in some isolated cave or in a spiritual bubble. They knew all about the Greek and Roman pantheon with all of its gods and goddesses. They knew all about the gods and goddesses of the Canaanites, the Babylonians and the Persians. They knew all about all the gods and goddesses of the surrounding lands.
The world they lived in was not a world absent of a plurality of religious thoughts or ideas. Thousands of temples, shrines and places to worship were displayed everywhere even near the holy city of Jerusalem.
If you remember one of the grievous sins of King Solomon after he build God's Holy Temple was the fact that he build other temples to the gods and goddesses of his 300 wives and 1000 concubines. The land of Israel was loaded with pagan symbols, temples, images and bad theology. Everyone was doing their best to convince that Yahweh was just like Baal, Ashtoreth, Zeus, Isis, Ra, Zoroaster, Athena and the list could go on and on and on.
Our age is not the first age to experience religious pluralism. We are not the first age to have to deal with the temptation to merely co-exist; to adopt a blending of all faiths into one big happy family.
But like Abraham, Moses, King David, King Hezekiah and a million more we must take a stand for God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We must understand that there is only One God - the Good God of Creation. The God that created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden. The God that called out the people of Israel and that came down in flesh as Jesus of Nazareth. The God that died on the Cross, was raised again and now has sent His Holy Spirit to convict us, cleanse us and infill us with His Holy Spirit.
That God is not Buddha nor anyone else but God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. And while we may talk and have nice discussions with one another we as followers of Jesus must take our stand when it comes to Jesus being the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Peter could have agreed with all kinds of various thoughts but then we get back to verse eight - Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit. Once again, the key is the power and presence of God's Holy Spirit. Jesus tells in John 16:7ff
...I will send the Holy Spirit to you. And when the Holy Spirit comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, concerning sin, because they do not believe in me, concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."
Peter knew the truth. He had seen God in flesh. He had lived with God in flesh. He had been born again and filled with God's Holy Spirit. This was not just intellectual knowledge; this was God experience. Peter knew what it meant to be God filled and God led.
The more we allow God to fill us with His Holy Spirit the more we will be able to see the truth that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. We will be able to see that the Devil is doing his best to deceive people and to get them to believe a lie. We will be able to see that we must be witnesses for Jesus or else our families, our friends and the people of this world will believe a lie and miss out on everlasting life.
It would be different if we were just debating or believing in things that have no everlasting value. We are not debating whether Fords or Chevrolets or Toyotas make the best vehicles. We are not debating whether Republicans, Democrats or Libertarians should be running the country. We are not debating whether we should invest in the Stock Market or buy gold. We are not debating whether we should go to Lowe's or Home Depot.
What we are dealing with and what everyone else is dealing with is a body that one day will turn to dust but a soul that has the chance to live forever with God in a new resurrected body. We are dealing with the opportunity to live forever in the New Heaven and on New Earth. However, we are also dealing with the real chance of missing it all. The Bible is clear in the fact that we have the chance to miss out on everlasting life and would therefore have to spend eternity without God in a place of great suffering and pain.
So, it does matter a great deal who you believe in and for whom you stand. A thousand years from now, no one will probably know what a Ford vehicle is or what the Lowe's company was all about. No one will care about the elections of 2008 or 2020. No one will care about what Putin did or any of that stuff. What people will care about is the state of their everlasting existence - is it with Jesus or is it suffering having been cast away from God and holiness?
At times we forget that what we deal with in the Church is the real stuff of life. At times we forget that our witness, our being filled with the Holy Spirit has real value and real consequences. One of the tricks of the Devil is that he has gotten us to be more concerned about who is in the White House or who is winning THE VOICE rather than if men and women, boys and girls are going to spend eternity with or without God.
The Devil gets us all twisted up in knots about what we are going to buy, drive, wear and how we are going to retire more than we are concerned with how we are praying, reading God's Word and living out the Life He made possible for us on the Cross. The Devil wants us to be afraid and to seek shelter under some fantasy that says that Universalism is the right way to go or at least to not be a missionary to those without God or of other faiths.
Paul developed friends outside of the faith. Many of them believed in the gods and goddesses. Some even tried to hold on to the gods while at the same time adding Jesus to their pantheon. But Paul knew better. He knew that Jesus was the Way, the Truth and the Life. Peter and John knew it as well. That is why under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit we have verse 12 in our Bibles. It is not because we do not love others who differ from us but because we do love them we take a stand for the ONLY ONE who can bring SALVATION and EVERLASTING LIFE.
In all of this passage there has been a running theme - the Power and Presence of God's Holy Spirit.
+The Holy Spirit makes all the difference.
+The Holy Spirit gives us the words we need to say.
+The Holy Spirit can give us the boldness and courage that we need to live today.
+And the Holy Spirit can give us the ability to take a stand for Jesus.
Not to bash others but to share the love of Jesus so that everyone - every man, woman, boy and girl can receive Jesus as their Savior and LORD, be infilled with His Holy Spirit and be able to enjoy the fruits of being made into a new creation by God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
This morning as we close let us bow in our hearts, minds and soul to the power and presence of God's Holy Spirit. Let us open up our lives so that we can be filled with His Presence and Power in new ways. Let us allow the Holy Spirit to give us the words to say, the courage and the boldness we need and to allow His Holy Spirit to help us stand up for Jesus in this day and age.
This morning as we close with the hymn -
- Hymn - Jesus, Name Above All Names -
Our altars are open for any who would like to come and pray.
Perhaps today you need a renewed touch of God's Holy Spirit. You are facing some things in your life and you would like God's Spirit to lead you, direct you and guide you.
Open Altar/Hymn/Prayer/Blessing
