Apostles Arrested & Freed

Good morning.

Today's reading is from Acts chapter five, verses twelve through forty-two.

Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the among the people by the hands of the apostles, and they were all together in Solomon's portico.

None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem.

And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them.

The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.

But the high priest rose up, and all who were with him, that is, the party of the Sadducees, and filled with jealousy, they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison.

But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said, Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life.

And when they heard this they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach.

Now when the high priest came and those who were with him, they called together the council, all the Senate of the people of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought.

But when the officers came, they did not find them in the prison.

So they returned and reported, We found the prison securely locked, and the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them, we found no one inside.

Now when the captain of the temple and the chief priest heard these words, they were greatly perplexed about them, wondering what this would come to.

And someone came and told them, Look, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.

Then the captain with the officers went and brought them, but not by force, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people.

And when they had brought them, they set them before the council, and the high priest questioned them, saying, We strictly charge you not to teach in the in this n we strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

But Peter and the apostles answered, We must obey God rather than men.

The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.

God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins, and we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.

When they heard this they were enraged and wanted to kill them.

But a Pharisee in the council named Gamalel, a teacher of the law, held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while.

And he said to them, Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men.

For before these days Theodus rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him.

He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.

After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census, and drew away some of the people after him.

He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered.

So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail.

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

You might even be found opposing God.

So they took his advice, and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them, and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.

Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name, and every day in the temple and from house to house they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.

This is the word of the Lord.

It's kind of an upside-down world this morning.

We've got James reading um long scripture, which is kind of poetic payback for us who he makes stand up here and you know read full chapters um before he preaches.

So uh my name's John Kushneroff.

I'm an elder here at Redemption Church Denver.

Um if you're visiting with us, thank you for coming.

We're really glad that you're here.

Um I encourage you to come back, especially if uh if you don't like this one.

We'll uh our starting pitcher will be back next week.

So um let me go ahead and uh and pray and ask God to attend our service this morning and then we'll get into this story uh that we just read next.

Holy Father, we just uh we come before you and we thank you for giving us your word that we might learn um how your church began and and see how it how it grows, that we can um see your faithfulness in it, um, that we can derive uh confidence from the things that you have done in your church in the past and be able to apply them to our lives today.

Um God, I just ask that your spirit would move in this place, you would just uh open the hearts of all that hear this, and um, that your word would be effective.

Um we thank you for these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So uh we'll kind of recap where we are in the story.

So last week we we looked at a difficult text, um, kind of a difficult story about this married couple, um, Ananiris and Sapphira.

They uh they sold a field and then they brought some of the money from the sale of the field and they gave it to the apostles, um, but they lied.

They lied and they made it seem like they gave all of the money, um, and God struck them dead.

The it was not really a sermon, or this wasn't a story about giving.

It was a story about fearing the Lord.

It was a story about fearing the Lord rather than men, and they they didn't do that.

They thought that they could lie to God and deceive God, so they looked a certain way before men.

So the that theme is still continuing here as we move forward.

It's a it the theme is is a rightly ordered obedience to the Lord.

Where are we in the hierarchy here?

And where is God, right?

And how do we fall underneath that?

That's that's really what we're looking at this morning.

So we'll set the stage for this narrative.

Um Acts 5, 12 through 16 just kind of sets the stage from where we're at.

It says, Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles.

They were all together in Solomon's portico.

None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem.

That's very important.

And more than ever the believers were added to the Lord multitudes, both men and women, so that they carried out the sick in the streets and laid them on cots and mats.

As Peter came, at least a shadow might fall on some of them.

The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and the people were healed.

So the Holy Spirit is working.

The Holy Spirit is moving throughout the early church, it's moving throughout Jerusalem.

People are getting healed, people are coming to faith in Jesus Christ.

And then it says in verse 13 that the people held them, held the apostles in high esteem.

The reason this is important is because we see it right here in verse 17, but the high priest rose up, all who were with them, that is the party of the Sadducees, and they were filled with jealousy.

They arrested the apostles and put them in prison.

So the Sadducees were jealous.

They were jealous of the, I guess, success.

They were jealous that the people were listening, that the people were following uh the apostles.

So let's let's talk uh for a second about who the Sadducees and the Pharisees, we've got both characters in our text this morning.

Well, who were they?

Um, I think it's important to understand, and growing up, it was like they just kind of got lumped into one group.

It was kind of almost used interchangeably, and they were, you know, they were always having these run-ins with Jesus, and and they were both kind of uh, you know, bad guys in our stories, and so they just kind of seem like they were lumped together.

But they were different, and so uh the Sadducees, their job is they were they were in charge of the temple, mainly.

Um but they also they didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead, they did not believe in angels, they didn't believe in demons, um, they really only believed in the first five books of scripture that they had, so they didn't believe in the prophets.

Um, and they they really got most of their influence and authority from their time in the temple.

They didn't, but they didn't really have a big following from the people.

Maybe this is partly why they were jealous, right?

Um and then you had, and then um, oh, and the other important thing to note is in AD 70, when the Romans destroyed the temple, the Sadducees really ceased to exist.

They were really no more.

Which uh on that note, I think it's worth mentioning how significant that is, is because the temple before Christ was the dwelling place of God, and it was controlled by a corrupt group of people, and he destroyed it.

And now the dwelling place of God is within us, it's with his church.

He set his spirit upon us, and so that should give us a lot of confidence.

Um, so tuck that into your back pocket because we'll come back to that idea a little bit later.

And then um, so then the Pharisees, on the other hand, our other um, I guess, antagonists in the story, they um they had a lot more public support.

Um, so the people followed them much, they had more following.

Um, they did believe in the resurrection of the dead, they did believe in angels, they believed in demons, they believed in the prophets, um they they did not believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior.

Um, but they you can basically trace modern-day devout Judaism to the Pharisees.

So they that that line or that stream essentially still exists.

And then together, I think this is where you know, growing up, like kind of got they got lumped together, is together they made up a group called the Sanhedrin.

The Sanhedrin was basically a Jewish court that both Pharisees and Sadducees sat on, and they handled um matters of Jewish law, um religious matters, some civil matters, not all, because they were still under the Roman government.

But that's how they, when they talk about the council, that's kind of what they're talking about, is uh the Sanhedrin, where they both had to work together, even though they weren't exactly on the same page.

So back to our story.

So full of jealousy, the Sadducees, they arrest the apostles and throw them into jail.

Well, so and then this is where this is where the plot gets good.

Kids, this is like the fun part of the story.

This is uh this is the first of a handful of prison breaks that we have uh in the early church.

So so it doesn't give us as much detail on this one as some of the others.

It just says an angel of the Lord opens the doors of the prison.

So you can just imagine, you know, you got maybe, maybe Peter and John, you know, they're maybe there in their cell throwing dice against the wall, right?

Maybe getting ready to scratch night one on there.

You got some other guy, you know, ripped up guy, tattoos, just ripping pull-ups on the top bunk in the corner, and all of a sudden, like the angel of the Lord just shows up, walks him right out.

So, verse 17 it says, Um, but the high priest rose up, and all who were with him, that is the party of the Sadducees, and filled with jealousy, they arrested them and put them in prison.

But during the night, an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said, Go, stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life.

And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to preach.

Go stand in the temple, the very place that's controlled by the people that just put you in jail, go stand in the temple and speak all the words of this life.

I think that's such an amazing way the angel put it.

All the words of this life.

He's saying that that what you have to share in Jesus Christ is all the words that you need to know in this life.

It's literally life itself.

And the amount of courage that it must have taken to walk right back in there, first thing in the morning, right back into the temple, uh, and start preaching.

They've just been arrested.

These are the same guys, by the way, who put Jesus to death, and they go right back in there.

So they go get them, right?

As we saw, uh, but they didn't do it by force.

That's in verse 26.

They did not do it by force this time, because they were afraid of the people.

So the Sadducees really care about what the people think.

They're really dictated by that.

And I think it shows a lot of cowardice, honestly, um, that their actions are dictated by the people.

So they're jealous and they arrest them, and they're fearful, so they don't use force.

They want the influence, they want the power, but they're really not willing to put too much skin in the game.

So they nicely asked them to come with them.

In verse 27, and they brought them and they set them before the council.

That would be that Sanhedrin we were talking about.

And the high priest questioned them, saying, We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

We'll stop there.

That's I find that really interesting, a really interesting use of words.

You intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

These were the men who are responsible for the murder of Jesus.

In fact, in Matthew 27, verses 24 and 25, it says, When Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took the water and he washed his hands before the crowd, saying, I'm innocent of this man's blood.

Matthew 27:24

See to it yourselves.

The people answered, His blood be on us and on our children.

See, his blood is on these men's hands.

See, it is the blood of Jesus that atones for our sins.

It's the blood of Jesus that washes us clean, but the rejection of that, the rejection of that blood of Christ will also condemn you.

And these men had wanted nothing to do with it.

They wanted nothing to do with it, further condemning themselves by the rejection of who Jesus actually was.

And next we see Peter tells us exactly who Jesus is.

And Peter answered, and the apostle Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men.

We'll come back to that verse in a moment.

The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed, by hanging him on a tree.

But this is who he is.

God exalted him at the right hand as leader and savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.

See, it is because Jesus Christ has been exalted to the right hand of God the Father, the Father Almighty.

So it always sticks in my head now since we do our creed every week.

He is exalted to the right hand of God the Father, and He, and only He, can bring or can offer the forgiveness for sin through His blood.

And this is what we get as Christians.

We get grace, we get forgiveness because what He has done for us.

But make no mistake, that very same blood that can save you and cleanse you and wash you, it can also condemn you if you reject it.

We go back to what Peter said, we must obey God rather than men.

So this is an interesting one to square.

Because Peter's the same guy, ironically enough, who wrote 1 Peter.

Um really original titling here, but so he wrote 1 Peter, in 1 Peter 2, 13 through 16, he says, Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors sent by him to punish those who do evil, and to praise those who do good.

For this is the will of God that by doing good you should be put you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.

Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, love the or honor the emperor.

So how do we square that?

How do we square it the same guy who is saying your authority is put here by God and you need to obey them, was literally broken out of jail, told the authority over him that I'm gonna obey God and not men, and then at the end of the at the end of this book, at the end of Acts, we he we end the story with him as a fugitive.

Peter's literally on the lamb here by the end of this book.

Not to spoil the story for you, James, but um so how do you square these two things?

Well, I think we have to look at one, what authority is actually called to do.

Authority is called here, it says, punish those who do evil and praise those who do good.

See, we see the inverse of this in Isaiah 5, 20.

It says, Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

Does that sound familiar at all?

Are there any authorities you guys can think of that call evil good and good evil?

I can, right?

And so what's important here is that we recognize that our highest authority is God.

Because he's the only authority that doesn't have anyone above him.

See, just like we kind of talked about last week, there's a rightly ordering of things with God at the top.

And if we look here, what law were the apostles breaking?

They were preaching the gospel.

They were preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So they were doing exactly what Jesus had instructed them in the Great Commission, and again before he ascended into heaven.

So let's be clear, there are real authorities in our life.

Here on earth.

Those authorities, they're real, but they are not they're not ultimate, meaning that they are not above God.

God is above them.

And lastly, the last note on this is no one has the authority to say that the gospel cannot be preached.

No one has the authority to prevent the gospel from being preached because it was a command by Jesus Christ Himself.

And that's what these men were doing.

This is so bold to look at the very men who killed Jesus, the very men who just threw you in jail and says, we obey God and not men.

And it's remarkable because this is the same guy that denied Christ the night of the crucifixion.

Peter.

Same guy.

And now he's filled with the Holy Spirit and he's standing boldly to the spread of the gospel.

This is what the Holy Spirit does in us.

In Acts 1, Jesus told them, He says, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

And you know.

You know, that promise, that's not just for them, that's for us.

That's for you, church.

We have received power from the Holy Spirit.

And that, and with that spirit comes boldness.

And you know, I think that this is really the lesson of boldness, I think, just just flows out of this story.

And I think sometimes we think that if we're not coming across nice enough, or maybe winsome enough that that the gospel won't be heard, um, or that we're not being good enough.

But when truth is spoken, truth is described as a sword.

It's described that way in Hebrews 4, and it's described that way in Revelations 1.

And the word of God is truth, and it cuts deeply.

It cuts deeply.

And this would be, you know, the part where I could caveat this, right?

Like, well, you know, obviously don't be a jerk about it.

And make sure you don't really turn people off, you know, when you say, don't come in too hot.

Um I don't think that's the answer.

I don't think that's the answer.

I think I think we must speak truth.

And I think we must speak truth in love.

I think I think one of the most loving things we can do for someone is to tell them the truth.

And so with that, I think we should desire to have as much boldness as the good Lord will give us.

As much boldness as He will grant us.

And so oftentimes I think that we we think about things maybe wrongly.

We think, we think in matters of degree, meaning, you know, uh some boldness is good, too much is bad, right?

And there's there's like this tipping point where if I have too much of it, then then that might be too much, it might be, and then I might sin.

Um if I'm too bold.

But and I think the same thing goes for other blessings and other virtues.

We think that you know, if we have too much of it, then it could cause problems.

We only want a certain amount.

But I think that we should desire to have as much of the gifts of God that he's willing to grant us.

I think we should ask.

I think we should want as much strength as possible, as much love as possible, as much money, influence, power, boldness, as much as he will possibly give us and see fit to give us.

And if he does, what we should also ask for in large quantities is wisdom.

Wisdom.

Because what wisdom does is it teaches us how to wield the gifts that God has given us.

So it's not a matter of degree.

It's not a matter of degree.

We should desire to have as much of this as we can.

Church, we should be as bold as we possibly can and pair that with the wisdom that the Lord gives us, and he will give it to us, by the way.

James 1:5 says to ask God for wisdom, and he will give it generously to you.

James 1:5

He will give it generously to you.

That's a promise that we can that we can hold on to.

So I think it's time that we that we stand up, we be bold for the gospel, that we we learn how to say uncomfortable things, not out of pride, out of love, out of love for people who need to hear these things.

When they heard this, verse 33, says, When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill him, kill them.

But a Pharisee by the name of Gameliel, a teacher of the law held in in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while.

And he said to them, Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men.

For before these days Thaddeus rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him.

He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.

After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census, and drew away some of the people after him.

He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered.

So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail.

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

You might even be found opposing God.

So they took his advice.

This is a this is a huge warning here that he's giving these uh these Sadducees, because they also killed the leader of this movement, right?

They killed Jesus, they killed him, thinking this whole thing would just melt away.

See, but Christianity is not led by an idea.

It's not just a set of guiding principles, it's led by a man.

And it's led by a man who is fully man and fully God.

And after he was murdered, he flipped everything on its head.

He was lifted to the highest place, and he's taken his seat next to God as king.

When the murder of all of these other leaders, when they killed them, the uprising went away.

This is exactly the opposite.

It was his death and his blood that we are saved.

It was his death.

It was by going to the cross that he was exalted and is now alive as king.

And because of that, we can't fail.

We can't lose.

This is why we can have boldness.

Because if this is of God, no one will be able to oppose it.

And now here we sit.

I mean, this right here, what we're doing right now is evidence of that.

Over 2,000 years later, here we are in Denver, Colorado, worshiping God on the same day as Christians all over the world.

All over the world.

That's evidence, real evidence that we're a part of.

And next week, next week, that movement, right?

It's not really a movement at all.

It's the thing that started in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

Because it was of God, it will not be overthrown.

It has not and it will not.

And next week, Christians all over the world are going to celebrate that with Easter.

2,000 years.

This thing should have been squashed by then.

But it wasn't.

All right, verse 40.

And when they had called the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go.

And they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

And every day in the temple and from house to house they did not cease teaching and preaching that Christ is Jesus.

The truth is we're going to be slandered.

We're going to be reviled.

We're going to be looked down upon, made fun of from time to time, disrespected for talking about the truth of our faith.

It will cost you.

It will.

Could be reputation, could be relationships, could be some standing at work.

This is real.

And it could cost you.

And Jesus is clear about that.

In Matthew 5, 11 and 12, Jesus himself says, Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account?

Rejoice and be glad.

For your reward is great in heaven.

For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

So the question is, do you obey God or do you obey men?

I think even a better question, kind of pulling from last week, is who do you fear?

Do you fear God or do you fear men?

Because you can't, because it can't be both.

It cannot be both.

You've got to pick to fear the Lord or to fear men.

So what do we do here?

What do we do with all of this?

How do we implement this?

How do we create boldness?

How do we conjure that up?

Well, I think we return to the wisdom of Gameliel.

And it really was wisdom, although he didn't believe Jesus was the Christ.

A lot of wisdom came out of what he said.

He said, if this plan and this undertaking is from man, it will fail.

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

Matthew 16 and 17, Jesus told Peter.

He said, On you I will build my church.

And then he says, and the gates of hell will not be able to overcome it.

Can you imagine hearing that?

That was Peter, right?

I mean, what?

I mean, that that'll put a battery in your back, right?

I mean, my goodness.

Well, that's that's for us too.

The gates of hell will not be able to overcome this.

It's a promise.

That is a promise.

So my the simple encouragement is let's act like it.

Right?

Like let's actually act like it.

Like we can't lose.

Because we can't.

We've already won.

We've already won.

Because of what Jesus has done.

He not only died, but he was raised up, and now he is ruling now.

He's ruling right now as our conquering king.

So I challenge you.

How would your life look?

How would it be different if you really believed that?

Like, really believe that.

If this is really of God and we really can't fail, then what do we do?

I think what we do is I think we ask him what to do.

I think we ask him what to do.

I think each of us need to ask God and say, what is it that you require of me?

What punches have I been pulling that you don't want me to anymore?

What things need to be said, difficult things, to someone who needs to know?

He'll tell you.

He will tell you, and that's a scary prayer to pray, because he'll tell you.

But he'll also equip you.

He'll equip you with boldness that comes only from the Holy Spirit, and then he'll give you wisdom because he promised he would.

So he will.

Boldness and wisdom.

He'll give you both if you ask for it.

Because we serve a really good king.

We do.

He's already laid down his life.

It's not as if he's going to.

He did.

And he purchased that victory with his blood.

In Revelation 1, he says, Jesus himself says, Fear not.

I am the first and the last and the living one.

I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore.

I have the keys of Hades and death.

What a wonderful truth.

What a wonderful truth.

He's alive.

He's king.

And he holds the keys.

We've won.

So I hope you guys can dwell on this a little bit this week.

It's the it's such a great transition as we move into Resurrection Sunday and the Easter.

That Jesus is alive.

And he's king.

So we can be bold and act like he's king.

I'm going to pray.

And then James will come up.

We'll do communion.

And celebrate this great news with a small meal together.

God, thank you.

Thank you for accomplishing victory on our behalf.

God, thank you.

We pray that you would give us courage.

You would give us boldness.

You'd give us strength.

And we pray that you would just give uh give us those things in generous, generous amounts.

We also pray for wisdom.

Wisdom on how to wield the boldness and the courage and the strength and the resources that you give us.

How to wield those to further your kingdom.

God, we just uh we thank you that uh that your church will not fail, that the gates of hell will not stand against it.

And we just uh we pray that just even by by being here, by looking around, by attending this little church in the corner of Denver every week, that we'd be reminded that this church and many others, we shouldn't be here, but we are.

It's because of you.

And we thank you for it.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.