We Are Church | What Does it Mean to Follow Jesus? - Acts 5:12-42 | April 6

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Acts chapter 5 verses 12 through 42.

Acts 5:12–42

The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people,

and all the believers used to meet together in Solomon's colonnade.

No one else dared to join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people.

Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.

As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds

and mats so that at least Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.

Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and

those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.

Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of

the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail.

But during the night, an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and

brought them out. Go stand in

the temple courts, he said, and tell the people all about this new life.

At daybreak, they entered the temple courts as they had been told and began to teach the people.

When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin,

the full assembly of the elders of Israel, and sent to the jail for the apostles.

But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there.

So they went back and reported, we found the jail securely locked and the guards standing at the doors.

But when we opened them, we found no one inside.

On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priest

were at a loss, wondering what this might lead to.

Then someone came and said, Look, the men you put in jail are standing in the

temple courts teaching the people.

At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles.

They did not use force because they feared that the people would stone them.

The apostles were brought in and

made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest.

We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, he said.

Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make

us guilty of this man's blood.

Peter and the other apostles replied, We must obey God rather than human beings.

The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead, whom you killed by hanging him on a cross.

God exalted him unto his own right hand as prince and savior,

that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins.

We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit,

whom God has given to those who obey him.

When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death.

But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all

the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while.

Then he addressed the Sanhedrin, men of Israel, consider carefully what you

intend to do to these men.

Some time ago, Thaddeus appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about 400 men rallied to him.

He was killed, and all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing.

After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band

of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered.

Therefore, For in the present case, I advise you, leave these men alone,

let them go. For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail.

But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men.

You will only find yourselves fighting against God.

His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged.

Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go.

The apostles left the Sanhedrin rejoicing because they had been counted worthy

of suffering disgrace for the name.

Day after day in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stop

teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. Thank you, Rebecca.

Why don't we do this? Why don't we everybody stand up and let's pray.

We don't do this very much.

God, we just thank you that we get to gather together, that we get to be your

people, that we get to sing at the top of our lungs and celebrate your goodness and your glory,

that we get to be reminded each week specifically just of the impact that your

life, your death, and your resurrection has had on us in this world,

the ways that you continue to pour out your love upon us.

So God, we just come here today and we receive.

We receive of your glory. We receive of your presence. We receive your grace

and forgiveness and love.

And we just pour out lavishly upon you our praise.

So we just pray that you have our hearts. We pray that you would be living and active through us.

We pray that we would just understand more and more each day what it is to live

as people in your presence.

So thank you, God, and just speak to us through your word in Acts chapter 5.

Acts 5 · chapter mention

Encourage our hearts, challenge us, encourage us, and may we just be a people

more dedicated to living out our life for you each and every day, God. Amen.

Go ahead and be seated so that one person isn't awkwardly standing up the whole time.

Well, good morning, family. We've already kind of intruded. Thank you.

All right, that was benign, I think. Thank you. That was very, that was very sweet.

It's great to be with you all today. We have been diving deep into the book

of Acts over some time now.

We've been looking at the early church and learning from all of the ways,

all of the amazing things that happened following Jesus leaving for heaven or the ascension.

And today, I just want to, before we get into it, I just want us to take a step back.

I just want us to press pause for a moment and rewind a bit back to the beginning,

or at least a beginning to say, not all the way back to creation,

but back to a beginning to where it all started.

As Jesus traveled through Israel, as he was calling people to repentance,

as he was calling people to faith, he repeated a phrase over and over again.

It's probably not the phrase that he repeated the most, but it's something that

we heard a lot from Jesus in his earthly ministry, something that he would say a lot.

And that's the words, follow me, the phrase, follow me.

He said it when he first called his disciples, he said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

He said it again as the crowds began to gather in force.

He laid out what that truly meant to them. He said, if anyone would come after

me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.

Near the end of his life, as near the end of his earthly ministry,

as Peter experienced his failure and was restored, he said it once again to

Peter and his disciples. He said, follow me.

So we have this phrase that started it all in a way, but have we ever really

stopped to think about what does that actually mean?

What does that mean for our lives?

What do those two words mean? Because it's easy just to read these two simple words and move on.

It's easy to come across these stories that perhaps we're very familiar with

and have them lose their impact on what it actually meant when he called those first disciples.

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

And of course, we understand it to an extent, right?

Following Jesus isn't just about agreeing with his teaching.

It's not just about admiring his life.

There is more depth to those words. There's more depth to that understanding.

It's a call to something deeper, a call to something greater,

a call to commit ourselves and let God shape our choices, our priorities, our purpose.

There is a depth involved in those two words.

So this is what I want you to hold on to as we go back into the book of Acts.

I want you to hold on to this question.

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

We're going to see the same call. We're going to see the same challenges.

We're going to see the same commitment to follow Jesus, no matter what the cost,

no matter what happens, no matter what comes along.

So let's talk about that. Let's talk about what it really means to follow Jesus,

what it meant for those early disciples, these apostles at the beginning of

the church and acts, and then what it means for us as well today in this century.

So what does it mean to follow Jesus?

Following Jesus means a higher call to obedience.

There's going to be like four phrases, six phrases. I forget how many there are.

They'll all start the same way.

Following Jesus means a higher call to obedience. This is the first one.

As our passage in Acts this morning starts out, it said that all believers were

meeting together regularly at the temple in the area known as Solomon's Colonnade.

This is the beginning of our passage.

This is the first megachurch.

Seriously, when we saw Pentecost, 3,000 people were saved. In the last chapter

of Acts, it just said that 5,000 were saved.

Now, I'm not sure if the authors are trying to tell us something cumulative

as if the 3,000 had become 5,000 or if it was more additive in the sense that

there were 3,000 and then 5,000 more were added to their number.

So now there's 8,000. I'm not sure exactly what the scriptures are trying to say. And...

Also, to add to the confusion, we don't really know if they're just counting

heads of households, are they counting everybody?

So it could be much, much larger than that.

The place where they're meeting, where they're gathering together regularly

is in Solomon's Colonnade, could have held 30,000 to 50,000 people.

Some scholars have even said 250,000 people could have gathered at Solomon's

Colonnade or Solomon's Porch.

That seems like a lot, but certainly their numbers weren't that large.

We understand that to be true, but what was the population of Jerusalem at the

time? How many people lived in the city of Jerusalem?

Was it 20,000? Was it 80,000?

Probably somewhere in between there, something like 40,000 perhaps.

So what we're saying, what we're experiencing hearing in the book of Acts is

that almost a quarter of the city, almost 25% of the city is gathering regularly in this early church.

That is a huge amount.

And as the crowds were gathering, we have these two verses, which seem to contradict one another.

I'm not sure if you noticed that as we were reading, but verse 13 starts off,

no one else dared join them, even though all the people had high regard for them.

And then immediately verse 14 comes in, yet more and more people believed and

were brought to the Lord, crowds of both men and women.

So which was it? Did no one dare join them or did more and more add to their

number daily those who were being saved?

Seems like a contradiction, doesn't it? But it's not. Here's what's going on.

So the story of Ananias and Sapphira, which we just talked about last week,

had spread not just among believers, not just within the church,

but throughout the city.

And so there was a strong understanding of what it cost to be a Christian.

What it cost to decide to follow Jesus, that it was no insignificant or light

decision to follow Jesus.

The whole city had heard this. It was a serious commitment.

It's a serious commitment as we still see today in places around the world, places like Japan.

In Japan, it is still a very serious decision for people to make to follow Jesus.

I had a professor who was in the mission field in Japan for 20 years or more.

And he would talk about how slow it was, the work in Japan, not because people wouldn't respond.

People would respond favorably to the gospel, but because they truly understand

what saying yes to Jesus meant.

Because for them in Japan, saying yes to Jesus means saying no to their culture.

It means saying no to their family.

A lot of their cultural activities, a lot of their family traditions center

around the household gods.

They center around the temples and the different places of worship.

That's what the community centers and even the people who are increasingly irreligious,

their houses still have these household gods.

And so, so much of their family and culture center around these activities that

to say yes to Jesus means to say no to participating as part of the family.

That people would respond favorably to the gospel, but then after two years

of discipleship or more, then they would perhaps make a commitment to follow Jesus.

They understood the costs of what many of us in our current cultural context

don't understand, that there is a cost to following Jesus.

It is no light or insignificant decision.

In the first years of the church, yes, throughout church history,

even to today as well, but in The first years of the church,

Christians had a great reputation among the people.

They were known for taking care of people inside and outside the church.

As we'll see next week, they took such good care of people inside and outside

the church that they gained a reputation that put Romans to shame.

There was a emperor, Roman Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus.

I'm trying to say it too Latin.

Julianus, I don't know. He felt that Christians even gave the Roman government

a bad reputation. He's quoted as saying that those Christians take better care

of Romans who are in need than we do.

They do not only take care of their own, but they care for any Roman, Christian or not.

So they had this stellar reputation amongst the people.

They had this stellar reputation in Rome, amongst the people of Rome,

but still people stood at a distance, unable to join for fear of the depth of

the call of Christianity.

That there, it was such an understanding of what it meant to decide to follow

Jesus, that people would stand at a distance until that moment God took over their heart.

And in our culture, what that typically means, unfortunately,

in many churches across the United States is that we end up lowering the bar to let more people in,

that we lower the bar so that it's more palatable for the people of our culture.

And so that we provide this easy on-ramp into faith is the reason that we give for it, perhaps even.

But in the early church, following Jesus wasn't casual. It was costly.

It was a very costly thing to follow Jesus.

The story of Ananias and Sapphira shows us that God wasn't lowering the bar

of obedience. He was actually hiring it.

And even still, in this raising of the bar, even in this weight of holiness,

even with these people knowing and understanding the costs, the church continued to grow.

So these two verses are saying in coordination with each other that Jesus didn't

just call people to an easy path, but he called us to pick up our cross and follow him.

He called us to give up our life for his sake. He calls us to follow him.

And in the early church, this commitment was real and the obedience was absolute.

The commitment of obedience was absolute.

The following Jesus means a higher call to obedience. It means I surrender everything.

I surrender all, all to Jesus, I surrender.

All to him, I freely give. I lay down my life for Jesus.

This is what we sing about. Not that the bar is lowered, but that it is set

higher and that the church continues to grow.

That we trust in Jesus, that we put our whole life in his hands,

that we put him in charge of everything and every decision that we make, we don't,

we're not just believing in him, but we're actually giving our life for him.

That it's trusting Jesus as both our, our savior and also as our Lord.

It's, it means that we, we don't just follow him when it's convenient or when

it is agreeable to us, when we agree with him, but we trust him enough to guide our decisions,

to shape our priorities, to guide and direct our steps, even when it's hard

and even when it doesn't make sense immediately to us.

It means that when we are out there living our life, we are constantly asking

the question, God, how do you want me to respond?

Not just how do you want me to respond in the next 30 minutes when we sing and

conclude this thing that we do once a week, but how do you want me to respond now?

How do you want me to respond in 10 minutes from now? How do you want me to

respond in every moment of my life?

And then we got to kind of evaluate that, right? Because God's going to answer.

So we have to go, we have to ask ourselves, do I actually want to live my life now?

Am I actually going to respond when he calls me to respond?

We say, Jesus, take the wheel. And that is the extent of my reference to any

country music that ever exists.

And I understand it's probably not the most theologically sound song out there.

That's really the only line I know from it. So...

We choose obedience. We choose obedience.

It's not always easy. It's not always the popular decision.

It's not always the popular choice. It doesn't always lead to our prosperity and success.

But we choose obedience. And that's what it means to follow Jesus,

to choose the lordship of Christ. What does it mean to follow Jesus?

Following Jesus means trusting in the bigness of God.

Verse 17, the high priest and his officials who were Sadducees were filled with jealousy.

They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But an angel of

the Lord came at night, opened the gates of the jail and brought them out.

Then he told them, go to the temple and give the people this message of life.

So at daybreak, the apostles entered the temple as they were told and immediately began teaching.

So when the apostles are put into prison, an angel set them free and told them

to go back out and preach.

Knowing full well that it was probably going to lead to more trouble.

Yet they obeyed because they trusted in the greatness of God more than they feared the power of man.

They trusted in the greatness of God more than they feared the power of man.

Their confidence wasn't in

their own safety, but it was in the one who holds all things in his hand.

The disciples are not found hiding when they go to look for them.

They're found out in public doing the same thing that got them arrested.

The church is made to be visible. It's made to be seen. It's made to be felt.

The persecuted and underground churches around the world do not grow because they are hiding.

They grow because they are bold, knowing full well what it will cost them.

50 years ago in Iran, to be a Christian meant that you were a part of a small,

insignificant ethnic group that had existed for thousands of years.

And then in 1979, we have the Islamic revolution. We have the Sharia law put into place.

We have persecution intensifying in countries like Iran, that it's illegal to own a Bible in Farsi.

It's illegal to share the gospel. It's illegal to gather as a church,

that these church leaders are arrested, that they're beaten,

They're threatened, they're intimidated, they're put in jail.

Many times, sometimes at least, they are sentenced to death in these countries.

The Iranian government refuses to even acknowledge that Christians exist in their country.

And yet, what no one could have expected, the church continues to grow.

That the church in Iran is growing faster than ever.

Some people have estimated more than a million new believers have come to faith.

Despite all of this, despite the crackdown, house churches are popping up all over the country.

It's growing because everyday believers are having gospel conversations still in boldness.

They're sharing their faith one conversation at a time and they're discipling

one another and they're building communities that refuse to be silenced.

They're not hiding away.

Persecution was supposed to eliminate Christianity in Iran.

And yet it has become the catalyst for one of the fastest growing churches in the world.

The apostles were not fearless because they were reckless. They were fearless

because they knew the one they trusted in.

They knew who they were following. They had seen the power of God.

They knew that nothing, no jail cell, no beating, no threat could stop his plan.

So they trusted in him. Following Jesus means trusting in the bigness of God.

The church is meant to be seen. It's meant to be felt. The church is meant to be visible.

I remember a question that I think has been asked that the majority of churches

I've been a part of in my life.

And that question in our context is, if Mountainside ceased to exist tomorrow,

if we metaphorically closed our doors, because, you know, we don't own this

building, so we can't physically do that, would anybody notice?

The church is meant to be noticed. That we are meant to be so involved in the

lives of those around us, to be felt that if we were to disappear,

there would be a gap, there would be a hole, it would be felt.

I think we could got, we're small, but I think we've got some work to do still

in that. What does it mean to follow Jesus?

Following Jesus means that people are small. I had a book. I have a book.

I've read some of it. See growth.

I haven't finished it though. It's called, When People Are Big and God Is Small.

The apostles lived life in the reverse of that all throughout Acts.

They lived with a big God surrounded by a bunch of very small people.

In verse 28, when the Sanhedrin gave them these strict orders to never again

teach in this man's name, they said, instead you have filled all Jerusalem with

your teaching about him and you want to make us responsible for his debt.

Peter will not let go of this fact that they killed Jesus and he brings it up so much.

You would think that he would learn that that tends to make them angry. But here he goes again.

Verse 29, but Peter and the apostles replied, we must obey God rather than any human authority.

They lived life with a big God, which made everyone around them very small,

insignificant people in comparison.

Now, I'm sure I've shared this story before of John Lennox, who is a brilliant guy.

He is a mathematician. He's a professor emeritus of mathematics at Oxford University.

He's also a very outspoken voice for God in the world of academia,

especially super high education of these people who are ridiculously smart.

He's a very outspoken voice for God.

But when he was back in university or in his master's or PhD program,

it was probably his PhD program.

He tells the story a bit. So I'm sure you can find it if you want to.

He was at an event for his department and he was taken aside by a professor, actually led to a room.

And I think there were probably two or three other professors with them, with this guy.

And they sat him in a chair and this professor threatened him.

He told them, Lennox, you have to let go of this Jesus thing or your career is over.

And so they threatened him many ways. They told him all of these things,

these professors looming over this scared PhD mathematics student.

And in the boldness that the spirit provided in that moment,

he asked the professor, what do you have to offer me that's better than Jesus?

And sure, the guy gave a response, but it wasn't much of a response to John Lennox.

Probably something about sciences and evolution and all of this.

And Lennox looked at him and said, I think I'll stick with Jesus.

And we are tempted to follow in those same pressures.

The disciples, the apostles were told to stop preaching. They were arrested. They were beaten.

They did it again. And they were all of the same things happened to them. But they couldn't stop.

They couldn't stop because they had a Jesus that was better,

a Jesus that was bigger than anything the world had to offer.

It is this unknowing wisdom of Gamaliel that we meet here, who is also the teacher

of Paul, foreshadowing a couple chapters to come.

It's this unknowing wisdom that he speaks, which is not true universally.

But it's definitely true in this context, that if they're planning and doing

these things merely on their own, it will be overthrown.

But if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them.

You may even find yourself fighting against God.

It's this unknowing wisdom that he had, that we face the same pressures.

We have the pressures to remain silent, the pressure to compromise,

the pressures to live a quiet and personal faith that is ineffective in the world around us.

The pressures within the church

to play it safe. but I don't see Jesus advocating for a safe lifestyle.

I don't see the apostles praising a balanced life.

If Jesus is better than anything, if there's nothing better than Jesus,

if we can answer no, nothing compares to him, then we stand with the apostles. We stand with Lennox.

We stand with Calum with others and we endure and we stick with Jesus.

If that is our response, that Jesus is better than everything,

then we endure and we stick with him.

When commanded to stop preaching, Peter and the apostles answered this,

of course, we must obey God rather than men.

They knew that no human authority, no earthly threat, nothing could stand against the purposes of God.

I'm loving Hebrews chapter 13 lately. In verse five and 16, we have this beautiful

Hebrews 13 · chapter mention

response where God says, I will never leave you or forsake you.

And then it says, so we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper.

I will not fear what can man do to me.

Their faith wasn't swayed by the opposition of others because they knew who truly held the power.

Following Jesus means people are small. What does it mean to follow Jesus?

Following Jesus means expecting big things.

The early church saw miracles. People believed that even Peter's shadow might bring healing.

Verse 15 says, as a result of the apostles' work, sick people were brought onto

the streets on beds and mats so that Peter's shadow might fall across some of them as he went by.

The crowds came from villages around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and their

possessed by evil spirits, and they were all healed.

Interestingly enough, it never says that Peter's shadow actually healed anybody,

just for clarification.

But nevertheless, they were healed because they gathered in faith that there

was a big God who could do big things. This wasn't about Peter.

It was about a God who moves in power.

Jesus had already told his apostles this before he ascended.

He said, I tell you the truth.

Anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done and even greater

works because I'm going to be with my father.

You can ask for anything in my name and I will do it. So that son can bring glory to the father.

Yes, ask me for anything in my name and I will do it. they walked around this

with this expectation, knowing that God was still at work.

And that's where we find ourselves today. We find ourselves praying.

We find ourselves waiting. We find ourselves expecting God to move, not just in the past,

not just in these stories from the past, not just in some faraway place,

but right here and right now in our church,

in our community, in our lives, in two weeks from now, as we prepare for Easter at Sky Ranch,

in the lives of those who we are inviting to come and meet Jesus,

we believe that God is still at work.

Not that God hasn't grown weak with time, but he is just as powerful today as

he was in the book of Acts.

That the same God who healed the sick, who set captives free,

the same God who empowered his church and their bold witness to stand firm in

the face of persecution, that this is the same God that we serve today.

We pray with expectation. We step out in faith.

We trust that he is still doing big things. So following Jesus means trusting

and believing that God can still do big thing. and it means being faithful with the little.

Trusting and knowing and expecting big things, but being faithful with the little.

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

Following Jesus means that persecution is not the exception.

That persecution is to be expected.

In these first few weeks of this series and acts, I shared with you the story

of my friend who is a church leader in Uzbekistan.

He once told me the story of a woman who had recently become a believer.

So in the Uzbek church, what they do is they disciple people individually for

a number of years, two years or

more before they bring their men to the fellowship because too many times,

they've had it experienced it too many times where people will fake a conversion

just to turn them over to the police.

So they discipled these people for two years or more. So this woman had become a believer.

She was a believer for about two years and the entire church is arrested. My friend included.

And they were brought into the police station. They were interrogated.

They were beaten. They were threatened.

As you may recall, my friend has really bad asthma.

And so these officers surrounded him and they were chain smoking and they were

blowing smoke into his face.

And after all of this, after all the beating, after all the interrogation,

they were finally released with heavy fines.

And this woman, this new believer, after all of it, after the arrest,

after the beatings, after the interrogation, she turned to the others and she said, that's it.

That's all that they've got. This is what you've been telling me about for two years.

Said, if that's all that they got, we can endure this. We can suffer whatever

they have because God is bigger than any momentary suffering we may experience on this earth.

Don't misunderstand me. The disciples were beaten severely. It hurt. It hurt bad.

That word that we skip over because it just says that they were beaten and released.

This has this idea of being skinned, that they were probably whipped severely.

So it hurt and it hurt a lot, but their suffering seemed small because their Jesus was so big.

Think a lot of us need to understand and have a bigger Jesus.

Their suffering was small because their Jesus was big.

In fact, they rejoiced because they were counted worthy to suffer from the name of Jesus.

We see that in verse 41, that they left the high council rejoicing that God

had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.

Persecution is not the exception. It is the natural consequence of faith.

Jesus had told his disciples, a servant is not greater than his master.

If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

Following Jesus doesn't mean avoiding suffering. It means embracing the cost,

knowing that he is worth it.

Our suffering will not compare to the rejoicing that awaits us,

as Paul reminds us in Romans 8.

Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.

For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal

who his children really are.

That the trials we endure here are temporary, but the rejoicing we experience,

the reward we will experience is eternal.

I don't know if you've compared our lifespan with eternity.

But if you zoom out far enough, it basically ceases to exist and is swallowed up in eternity.

Eternity will far outweigh whatever temporary trials we experience.

The apostles understood this, and so they left the Sanhedrin rejoicing that

they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus.

Persecution does not hinder the gospel, and rather in this case is confirming

that they were walking in the footsteps of the savior.

Following Jesus means that persecution is not the exception.

So we press on, not weighed down by fear, but strengthened by the certainty that our God is greater.

That the same God who sustained the apostles, the same God who's sustaining

the persecuted and underground churches across the world, that the same God

who has sustained every believer who's counted the cost is the same God who walks with us today.

What does it mean to follow Jesus? It means those things and more.

It means a higher call to obedience. It means that trusting in the bigness of

God. It means that people are small. It means that we expect big things,

but we're faithful with the small.

It means persecution is not the exception.

For the apostles, this was not a one-time decision. It was a daily commitment.

What we see in the book of Acts, what we see here in Acts chapter 5,

Acts 5 · chapter mention

is that following Jesus was their everyday way of life.

It was something that they lived out every single day.

Even after they were beaten, even after they were arrested, even after they

were threatened, it didn't change.

The chapter, this chapter closes with these words.

After all of this that we've read, verse 42, and every day in the temple and

from house to house, they continued to teach and preach this message.

Jesus is the Messiah.

Every day they kept going. Every day they obeyed. Every day they trusted in

the bigness of God. They refused to fear man.

They expected God to move and they embraced the cost of following Jesus.

That's what it means to follow him. It's not just believing in him.

It's living our lives for him every day, every moment.

And it led Peter to write these words later in his life. One has to wonder whether

he was not reflecting on this very experience when he wrote them.

And he's writing them to encourage others. He's writing them to encourage us

as well, to rejoice with the boldness as they did in this moment.

It's 1 Peter 4. Dear friends, don't be surprised at the fiery trials you are

going through as if something strange were happening to you.

Instead, be very glad for these trials make you partners with Christ and his

suffering so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it

is revealed to all the world.

If you were insulted because you bear the name of Christ, you will be blessed

for the glorious spirit of God rests upon you.

Of course, if you suffer for murder, stealing, making trouble,

prying in other people's affairs.

That's to shame, but it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian.

Praise God for the privilege of being called by his name.

As we continue to respond to his word this morning, I just want you to take

a few moments, pray silently to yourself.

If you want to pray with someone, I'm sure we can have a couple of people stand

up around the room and pray and feel free to walk up and pray with us,

but ask God to reveal the depth of his commitment of,

of what his call to follow him, what your commitment to following him looks like.

Ask God to show you, show you where you may have compromised over the years,

where you may have given your devotion to other things that aren't him.

Seek his grace to renew your commitment and follow him wholeheartedly as lord

and savior let's take a few moments to do that now we're going to respond with

song and we're going to respond with communion as well.

Music.