Boldness & Unity

Good morning.

Today's reading is from Acts 4, beginning in verse 23.

And when they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.

And when they had heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.

For truly in this city they were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to your servant and continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed to the name of your holy servant Jesus.

And when they had prayed, and the place in which they were were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Now the number of those who had believed were of one heart and soul, and one said that any of the things that belonged to him was and sorry that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common, and with great power, and the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon all of them, and there was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold, and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as the as any had need.

Thus Joseph, who is called by the apostles Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Good morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

It's great to gather together with you all this Sunday morning, this cold Sunday morning.

Tomorrow, I think it's gonna be like 90 degrees, uh, which will be on brand for this winter.

Uh this morning, uh, when uh Zach and I and the other volunteers uh showed up at church, the power, there was no electricity in the building.

And uh then we called Excel and then we prayed, and then the Excel lineman showed up and uh fixed it, and now we have power.

So that's great.

Uh so we're the this um um so this must be an important sermon.

It must be an important time to gather.

So let's pray together uh and we'll move into our text this morning.

Holy Father, we praise you for your loving kindness towards us, for your constant provision and care.

Lord, when we see things that are able to go away so quickly and be disruptive of our ordinary way of gathering together, Lord, um uh we are reminded to just be thankful for being in your hands, Lord, that that you are the one who provides for all of our needs.

You are the one who holds all things together.

You are the sovereign Lord over heaven and earth.

You're the creator of all things, and you are the sustainer of all things.

Lord, in you we live and move and have our being.

Holy Father, we pray that you would forgive us and that you would look over how frequently we neglect this reality and how we consider ourselves just autonomous beings that are here by happenstance and chance, or uh we neglect that uh every moment is held together by you, and that all of our lives are guided by your hand and your plan.

Lord, I pray that you would reassure us in our hearts, you would remind us that we are resting in you, and that it's only by your providence that we have any hope in the world.

Lord, we praise you for your loving kindness that you show towards us and your daily acts of kindness and your daily bread that you provide for us, and Lord, especially on this Lord's day, as we remember that you hold together our weeks and the rhythm of our lives, Lord, that you would be honored and blessed, and that we would take this time to uh remind one another in our hearing of your word and in our worship of you, that you are the one who holds together all things, and that that would create in us a boldness to go out into the world to proclaim the truth of your gospel, to proclaim the Lordship of Christ over all things, the salvation that's offered in his name.

Lord, that as we face resistance in that mission that you have sent us on, Lord, that we would turn to you to receive the boldness that you require of us, because you will freely give all that you require.

We pray that we would be encouraged by the boldness of the early church and the unity of the early church, that we would be able to, by that same Holy Spirit that equipped them, that by your Holy Spirit you would equip us for that same mission.

We lift this up in Jesus' name, amen.

So last week we saw that uh Peter and John had healed a man who was born lame, and then they begin proclaiming that he was healed in the name of Jesus.

And as they proclaim this in the temple, it starts to it draws a crowd, and it's a controversial uh statement in the temple that uh had been responsible for the murder of Jesus earlier.

And so they are brought by they're brought on trial by the Sadducees and the captains of the temple, and they are threatened to never speak in the name of Jesus again.

But of course, uh Peter and John they they resist these threats, and they say, You tell me what makes more sense that we would obey you or that we would obey God?

And so they are determined to continue proclaiming in the name of Jesus.

Their bold witness on trial for the name of Jesus before the very men who had condemned Jesus to death is an act of the Holy Spirit.

It says before they go on trial that they are that Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit, and that is why he was able to proclaim with boldness the truth of the resurrection, the power of the Holy Spirit to heal and to forgive sins.

He would not stop proclaiming that.

And so we saw that even their standing on trial and their witnessing with boldness before these dangerous men who are threatening their lives was an act of the Holy Spirit.

That was the Holy Spirit working in their lives.

It was like we witnessed a miracle when we saw just their boldness at a time where their very lives are being threatened by these men.

Today, when they return, what we're looking at today is they return to their friends after the trial and they relay to them the news of the trial.

And the response of their friends and the response of the early church is not fear or cowering, but instead it's to join in the boldness that the apostles had demonstrated, and to share that same boldness as a community of people.

And then we see that the whole community is strengthened by that and joined together in a new type of unity where they're all putting more and more skin in the game, even though it becomes more and more dangerous to do so.

And so I think today what we witness is it's it and we see that the the reason that they're able to do that is because the whole community, the whole church is filled with the Holy Spirit.

The apostles were able to remain bold before the trial because they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

And the community is able to share in their boldness because they are filled with the Holy Spirit.

These are two miracles that we're witnessing.

The ability to stand and bear witness for Christ when there is real cost is a miracle of the Holy Spirit.

And the ability for a church to remain steadfast under that pressure is a miracle of the Holy Spirit.

And so we're going to look at that miracle today, hopefully be inspired by it.

You know, this is it is it is it is one type of wonder to see Peter and John stand before this uh uh trial, before the Sadducees, who would desire to stop them from preaching in the name of Jesus and even threaten them to no longer preach in the name of Jesus.

It's it's it's a wonderful thing when uh somebody stands bold in the face of an initial resistance or uh a resistance uh to what they're trying to accomplish.

But that's not the real test.

The real test is not an initial stand.

The real test is once you know the resistance is there and you know that the resistance is not going to stop, will you keep going?

Are you going to continue pursuing with boldness?

That's the real test.

That's the real test.

And so we get to see this glory of the church not only passing the test of the trial, but then rallying together to say, yes, there's going to be constant resistance, and we're not stopping.

It will not stop us.

That's the glory we see today.

So let's move into our text.

In Acts 4 23, it says, When they were released, that's Peter and John released from the trial.

When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.

Now, I think that this is just as vulnerable of a moment as Peter and John going before the Sadducees and the captains of the temple who were seeking to resist them.

This is like a second moment of real vulnerability for the witness for this early witness of the church.

They had stood bold before the trial, but now when they come back to their friends, what they're share what they're when they share this news, when they share what happened, when they said, the leaders that are over us are against what we're doing.

And they have threatened us to no longer continue speaking in the name of Jesus.

What they're sharing with their friends is now, in order for you to continue being friends with me, there's a cost.

There's an explicit danger in your allegiance to the apostles.

You might have thought there was before, but now you know.

And now the pressure is really here.

This is why I say it's like a second miracle that they're able to continue on.

Because what they're bringing into the church community now is this opportunity for fracture.

Because it's not just a pressure on the apostles, it's most directly on the apostles.

But now that the pressure is most directly on the apostles, it's a pressure that will flow through the whole church community because it's dangerous to be friends with them now.

It's dangerous to agree with their teachings.

It's pitying the church community.

Now, the church community, they have this moment of vulnerability where they could say, you know, I've been at peace, we've been living at peace under these Sadducees and these rulers for a long time.

And now, in order for me to be aligned with the apostles, I know that that makes those men my adversaries.

And so they've picked a side, and this is a dangerous time.

Here's a potential thing that they could have that they could have heard.

I was trying to imagine, like, what would this you know, what would they have heard if uh um, you know, to come to sort of like a normal American church, uh, and Peter and John, they come back and they're like, hey, we just had this, you know, crazy experience uh before the the government or before these authorities that are over us, or this this very public thing where we were condemned publicly, and they come back and they share it with the with their friends, and you know, the whole room starts to feel the weight and they get nervous, and then one of them stands up finally and says, you know, Peter and John, that sounds like a tough situation, but you gotta understand.

Now, I know it's a tough situation for you guys.

Now it's it's actually kind of a tough situation for all of us, you know.

And I know you shared that you said that you're not gonna, we're not gonna stop preaching in the name of Jesus.

But um I I think what you're not understanding, Peter and John, is that people are people are not gonna, people aren't gonna get that these Sadducees and these Pharisees, these aren't really our adversaries, you know, because we'd we'd ultimately like for them to know this same gospel that we know.

And if you're just gonna be subverting them like this, well, then they're just gonna feel like enemies and their their ears will be completely closed, and that we'll never have an opportunity to really share with them this great truth in any sort of meaningful way.

And uh I think it will send the wrong message to everybody that's looking on that like we're trying to tear down all the promises that have come before us, if we are now speaking and acting against what the Sadducees and the Pharisees have told us to do.

And so it'll really be sending this wrong message that we're out of step with these leaders, that when you think about it, we have so much agreement with them on so many different issues.

You know, we don't love the Roman occupation, just like they don't love the Roman occupation.

And perhaps, you might not have considered this, Peter and John.

Perhaps if they if they see our compliance and they understand that we're not revolutionaries, then this will open up their hearts.

And it will open up their ears to where they'll finally be able to hear us, you know, in a real way.

And John, remember, he's friends with one of them anyway.

We'll be able to have a meeting with them as friends, we'll be able to get together, and I think that there'll be another opportunity for us to share this.

And besides, these men have such influence.

I think if if they were converted, well, that would that would be like a miracle, you know, and then there wouldn't be any adversaries to this message, really.

And we would all be able to uh uh have peace when we when we shared this good news that we all agree we want shared.

We all agree that we want this good news shared.

And Peter and John would say, Well, I hadn't thought of it like that.

You know, I got a little keyed up in there when I did my whole speech on uh saying, like, yeah, what would be better to listen to you or to listen to God?

Like, I don't know if it's that stark of a dichotomy.

I don't even know if they meant it as that stark of a dichotomy.

And these guys have been reasonable about other issues in the past, so I guess you're right.

Maybe we just lay low.

We'll probably lay low for a while and we'll we'll try and like build this relationship with these guys, you know, show them that we're really on their side.

And uh the whole room feels more relaxed.

The whole room feels a bit more calm, and and the uh the guy, the, you know, whoever, whoever it was, whoever the spokesman was, stands up and and and uh says, Yeah, see, this this will be better.

I think we're all on the same page here.

This is gonna be a better thing.

And uh we don't have to treat these guys like like adversaries.

I don't think that's necessary.

They just kind of, you know, got a little and then so you see what happened?

Do you see, first of all, do you hear how likely that is?

Do you like the that's why I want us to see that what they do is a miracle.

What the early church does is a miracle.

Because this is so likely.

You don't even don't even you don't even have to think of this at the communal level.

Just think of this as like your own sharing the gospel with a with a friend level.

And this is that same sort of word track that I just went on.

This is just how, this is how I let myself off the hook.

You know, I'm like, yeah, this is like a I can see a clear thing that I know the truth about and that I could speak to plainly in the way that this person's living that's going to lead to terrible destruction.

And I have this great truth that I could share with them, but I don't want to make an adversary out of them, and I don't, I don't want to act like I'm like I'm against, you know, them in any sort of way.

And so I'll just I'll I'm just gonna I'm gonna long game this.

You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna play the long game with this.

And so what we've done, we've done this very clever trick.

We're all very clever.

I don't know if you've noticed that about your own heart, but sometimes I'll the things that I convince myself of, I'm like, hmm, it's very clever, wicked and evil, and extremely clever.

Because what we've done is we've we've stopped witnessing to the gospel in the name of better witnessing to the gospel.

It's so clever.

So clever.

We should get like an award or something from I don't know who gives those out.

So the gospel always, always faces resistance.

It always faces resistance.

And external resistance always becomes internal resistance.

External resistance from the world always, I shouldn't say always becomes, always creates the opportunity for internal resistance within the church.

This is the normal shape of things.

Because external resistance from the world means there's relational stakes, there's relational cost that we will bear.

And it pits all of a sudden, we're no longer it what it what happens is now you have to choose.

You have to choose where your loyalty lies, where your allegiance lies.

You have to choose between the world and the church.

You have to choose between the teachings of Christ and compromise.

And so it's always, there's always the potential for fracture here to come in.

And that's why I really think, and I know I know I've said this a couple of times, I'm probably repeating myself too much, but the the first miracle of the Holy Spirit was the strength that Peter and John demonstrated.

The second miracle of the Holy Spirit was that the strength that they demonstrated was shared amongst the whole church.

The whole church said, the the skin that they have in the game, we have in the game.

Now that's a miracle of the Holy Spirit, because it it's not your your flesh will not allow that.

Our flesh will not allow us to bear costs for the name of Christ.

It won't allow it.

But somehow, by the not somehow, by the work of the Holy Spirit, they were all able to have unity of mind together, unity of heart together, to where they said, if it if you'll if they'll bear bear the cost for the teaching of Jesus, I'll bear the cost along with them.

If they'll make themselves adverse adversaries to people that have way more authority than them, then I'll be on their side and I'll support them in this.

I'll put my name alongside their name.

And the fruit of that becomes this glorious unity within the church.

Glorious unity.

It is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

So how do we, as a church community, cultivate that type of boldness and cultivate the type of unity that we read about in them, where there is no not a needy person among them?

They had all things in common.

They were of one heart and soul together, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

How do we cultivate that among us as we face resistance?

Then how do we let that resistance not become something, a mechanism of fracture within us, but actually become a mechanism of unity, like it was demonstrated here?

And the good news is that it's seven steps.

There are seven steps that we can take together so that this opportunity for internal fracture because of the external uh uh resistance does not become internal fracture.

Step one.

Writer and JT, I'm gonna ask you guys for a list of the seven steps at the end.

And all children their age.

So keep track of these seven steps.

Are you guys ready?

Because your parents won't remember.

So they can ask you later.

Step one, turn to the Lord.

Obviously, I'm a preacher.

What do you think you're gonna get here?

Step one, turn to the Lord.

Acts 4, 24.

And when they heard it, when their friends heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them.

When they heard this news, they they come back and they say, That was wild.

Guys, so you know this is dangerous for all of us now.

The first thing they do is they lift their voices together to God and they acknowledge Him as sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them.

They're saying, Lord, this is all in your hands.

All of what has taken place is in your hands.

This is by your power.

You are in control of everything.

Here's what they could have done.

The first thing that they could have done was strategize.

John, you still got that friend in the that's a that Sadducee friend?

Do you think he'd be willing to get coffee with you this week?

Because I think that there's some, and then they could have gotten into that.

Another thing they could have done is they could have ruminated.

This could have been the first thing that they started doing, is they started go, they could have, you know, they could have heard it, and the first thing they could have done was like, typical Sadducee.

This is all all those, I know all those men since high school.

And they're they're all they're always like this.

You know, they get together and they start making these plans, and they're so fake, it's unbelievable.

These types of people, I can't believe we have to deal with these types of people.

And then another one would have said, Yeah, yeah, they're the worst types of people I've ever imagined.

And then they ruminate on how terrible the oppressors are, how terrible the resistance is that they're facing, and that becomes like that's another way to create unity, by the way.

It's another way to create unity.

They lifted their voices together to God and said, Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and everything in them.

They turn to God first.

The whole perspective changes.

We've got problems with an authority over us that's more powerful than we are.

Well, why don't we turn to the one who's way more powerful than any of us?

This is a great place to start.

Immediately, this what happens is, and what's difficult when facing resistance like this, is that our first impulse is it's so surprising.

There's such a surprise at resistance like this arising.

And then when we turn to the Lord and we acknowledge He is sovereign over all things, we recognize He's not surprised.

He's not taken off guard.

This situation that we are now in, he has full control over.

So we can entrust ourselves to him.

We can turn to him, he is there for us.

So the first thing that we do is we turn to the Lord, especially acknowledging his sovereignty, meaning his full control over the whole situation.

It's the first thing that we do.

Then the second thing we do, and this is related to turning to the Lord, is we turn to the scriptures.

Turn to the Lord.

Well, how do you do that?

How do you really do that?

You have to turn to the word of God.

See what he specifically says about things.

We have his word for moments like this.

And that's what they do.

They turn to the Lord, they acknowledge his sovereignty, and then one of them prays the first two verses of Psalm 2.

In Acts 4, 25 through 26, they say, Who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.

They turn to the scriptures.

So what they do is they look at Psalm 2.

How is it that they turn to the scriptures?

They turn to the scriptures like this.

The situation that we're facing now is kind of like this situation that's in the Bible.

You know, what are we facing now?

We're facing opposition from the kings and the rulers.

Opposition from the kings and the rulers.

That's kind of that's what Psalm 2 is about.

The scripture, in fact, speaks exactly to the type of situation that we're in.

This means that there must be some, we should strive to have a baseline familiarity with the scriptures.

We should, you should ask for that.

If you don't have that in yourself, that's okay.

You're part of a church, and there's lots of people in here who do.

And so you can share with the people in your church, here's the kind of type of thing that I'm going through.

And then one of the best things that you can offer to one another is, you know, this is you know, the Bible actually speaks about a situation like this.

The other option, by the way, rather than doing that, is you can immediately just like start psychoanalyzing your friend and be like, well, you're probably feeling like I've heard your story and what your childhood was like.

And so, look, it you've got something really unique that you can do for your friends in the church, which is to say, here's exactly what the word speaks to this about.

And you can you can you can bring the word to bear in each other's lives.

This is a uh uh, this is uh an amazing power of fellowship that we have.

And so we require this baseline sort of familiarity to be able to say, hey, this story that I'm going through in my life is kind of like this, is spoken to in the scriptures here.

It's kind of like this story that this other person in the scriptures went to.

And so that means that before they start interpreting their own story, they let the scriptures provide insight into what how they should be understanding it.

Now, this is really important because if we're not entering into the story of the scriptures in order to interpret our own stories, then we will interpret our own situations with the wrong metrics in mind.

Here's an option.

In this situation, they could be it they go to the scriptures and they read, Why did the Gentiles rage and the people's plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.

That means that at least one thing that they know is here's one thing that can happen out here.

One thing that can happen is all of the leaders unite together against the mission of the gospel.

That's something that can happen.

I know because the scriptures speak directly to it.

It calls to mind Psalm 2, and at the end of Psalm 2, the anointed one of God is victorious.

He is victorious at the end of this Psalm.

So it's calling to mind this can happen, this type of situation can happen, and we can be victorious in the midst of it.

Now, if their if their metric is uh I I came to the gospel in order to achieve inner peace.

And the situation that I'm in is not a peaceful situation, and I feel very anxious and nervous about it.

And that means that uh this this gospel thing, this the way that this is happening in the church, or this this sort of boldness that's being required of us, this whole way of being, it's it's really robbing me of my peace.

So I know it must be wrong.

That's how step two, that's how we do this in our minds.

We say, look, this situation is really robbing me of my peace, and so I know it must be wrong.

Well, what's happened there is we've taken a non-scriptural uh uh way of assessing a situation, which is the uh the way that things are going for me in my witnessing or in my evangelism will always be uh peaceful.

And then if it's not peaceful, I know it's going wrong.

That's a simple thing.

I I would I can imagine myself easily thinking something like that.

But they turn to the scriptures, and what they find in the scriptures is the situation that's a lot like ours, the it shows us that conflict is inevitable in it.

And so now that we're in the scriptural story, we understand that when we're seeing the conflict, it doesn't mean something's going wrong.

It means that this could be the very way that God is working.

That's why we must turn to the scriptures to shape our perspective so that we understand, otherwise, we'll just be left to our flesh to assess what is right and what is wrong in a situation.

We have to turn to the scriptures to be able to receive that.

So they turn to the Lord, and then it's kind of the same thing.

They turn to the scriptures.

And then they take the scriptures, and by the light of the scriptures, they assess their experiences.

In Acts 4, 27 through 28, they say, For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

They look at the scriptures and they say, you know what these scriptures were about?

These scriptures were exactly about what happened to Jesus.

And what we had seen with Jesus was the rulers were united together.

Even people who hated each other, Herod and Pontius Pilate, became friends because they hated Jesus.

Just like the Psalm says, the rulers gathered together and they were united against the Holy One, against the anointed one.

And they were united against him, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel.

Those are strange bedfellows.

The Gentiles and the peoples of Israel are united together against the anointed one.

Now they look at the scriptures and they say, This is exactly what happened.

Just as was prophesied here, is exactly what happened with Christ.

And now that they, which is the way to interpret the scriptures, by the way, is to look at the scriptures and say, this seems like it's it finds the fullness of its meaning in Christ.

So that's what they do.

And then they look at their own situation and they say, Oh, I think I actually kind of have a handle on what's going on here.

What's going on here is the same thing that happened to the same thing that was prophesied in the Psalm, the same thing that we saw happen to Jesus.

There is unity against the spread of the lordship of Jesus Christ, against the proclamation of the gospel, against the proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That's what's taking place here.

And so because they went to the scriptures, they are able to rightly interpret the things that they have seen.

So they assess their story in the light of the scriptures.

The alternative to this is that we over we have the tendency, I think, to over-nuance our own situations.

We know all the details, and the details seem the most salient to us, and they seem the like the most powerful aspects of it.

We know our own personalities, we know the the way that our uh you know relationship with our friend has gone or maybe going or whatever it may be.

And instead, we don't we don't acknowledge like, you know, this person, like when I'm sharing with them and I feel so uncomfortable, and then I finally go take that step and I I proclaim the name of Jesus, and it it's like I don't know how to do it yet, or something.

It like sucks the air out of the room and it makes everything uncomfortable.

Well, one way to assess that, by the way, is yeah, because they hate Jesus.

Because I know that the Bible teaches me that that in our flesh we we hate the proclamation of the gospel.

We we hate what it requires of us.

We we and that's a that's an appropriate way to assess the situation.

So that that's so we assess our situation in light of the scriptures.

And what they say here, the way that they assess it is that Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

This means that when they're assessing the situation that they've seen, they recognize that the hand and the plan of God are what caused the crucifixion of Jesus.

I want you to see here how crazy it is that Luke says, records that the hand of God was doing this.

He doesn't just say the plan of God was that Jesus would be crucified by Pontius Pilate and by Herod and by the Gentiles and the Israelites gathering together.

This is the very hand of God making this happen.

Now, what that means for us is if the very if if God is so in control that he is in control of the worst thing that has ever happened, which is the crucifixion of Jesus.

That is the worst thing that has ever happened.

Nothing comes close because he was perfectly sinless.

He deserves all of the He deserves to inherit everything.

He is He is God Himself.

And He is murdered.

If God's hand can cause the worst thing that has ever happened to happen, and from it cause the most glorious thing that has ever happened, which is the redemption of the world and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, then look at how that reframes the terrible thing that you're in.

Look at how that reframes the resistance that you're facing.

It means that if if the resistance that Jesus faced in the accomplishing of the gospel was to the uttermost, to death itself, and he was victorious, and that was all under the hand and the plan of God, then that means the resistance that you're facing, you can certainly trust and certainly know God can be victorious in this.

This is not the end.

God can be victorious in this.

It doesn't matter how bad it is.

How bad was it to Jesus?

It was bad to death.

And that was Jesus' victory.

So in their assessment of their experience in the truth of the scripture, they are driven to see the hand of God in all of it.

So now they're no longer trusting their own ability to assess and interpret a situation perfectly.

Instead, they're able to rest in the hand of God controlling it all.

And then the next thing that they do is they pray for boldness.

In verses 29 through 30, it said, And now, Lord, look upon their hearts and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

They pray, they turn to the Lord, and they say, Lord, now that they have, they've got their handle on the situation now, they're interpreting it rightly by the scriptures.

They understand that it's all in the hand of God.

So now they know how to pray.

If they hadn't have done that initial work and instead they just assessed it by themselves in what they wanted their life story to be, then what they would have prayed for was, Lord, take this resistance away.

Lord, restore to us the peace that we had with the Sadducees before Peter and John healed the man at the beautiful gate.

But because they had done the assessment, now they say, Lord, look at the hearts of the men that are resisting us.

You see it clearly.

You see clearly what's happening.

It's just as you had prophesied.

And then they pray, let us continue to speak your word with all boldness.

Do you know why you pray for boldness?

It's because you don't feel like you have enough.

That's why you pray for it.

If you don't feel like you have enough boldness, then you are in the the company of Peter and John.

We, those of us, folks like us, who don't think they have enough boldness sufficient to the task of the Great Commission.

Well, good news.

We we can just pray for it.

We can ask for it.

That means that we we're thinking, where am I gonna get my boldness?

A lot of us think, where am I gonna get more boldness?

And it's like, oh, I'll just, I'll, I'll, I don't know, make myself more bold.

Where we get more boldness is we turn to the Lord and we say, Lord, don't bring this work to an end.

What's a failure point that I can recognize for the Great Commission?

It's me not wanting to have conflict.

Well, Lord, you're gonna need to address that in my heart.

Lord, give us this boldness.

Provide it to us.

Lord, we have to turn to depend on the Holy Spirit in order to receive this boldness.

And then you trust Him to provide it.

Now, I think what trusting Him to provide it means that when He requires it of you, then you act as though He's given it to you.

I don't think this requires waking up and feeling bold all the time, whatever that would mean.

Like you wake up and it's like, I'm bold now.

And so anything that happens, I'm a bold guy.

And it'll be, it'll, that'll this is what it feels like to be bold all the time.

I don't think that's the way that God gives a gift like this.

Because even the way that God instructs where when boldness will be required, as He had instructed as Jesus had instructed his disciples when they were with him, they're like, you're gonna be called before councils, before courts, before kings.

And they would think, oh, God, this is gonna be stressful.

I got better get my word track right, exactly right for what that's gonna be like.

And he says, No, no, no, I didn't tell you that so that you would be like, you know, getting every word exactly right before you were called to that.

I'm telling you that just so that you know it's going to happen.

And in fact, don't worry about what you're gonna say.

When it is time for you to be bold in those places, the Holy Spirit will provide you all the words that you need.

That's how that's what our boldness should look like.

Our boldness in when you're not in the hour, but you're not always in the hour.

Sometimes you're brushing your teeth and getting the kids to bed.

When you're not in the hour, you're not thinking, oh, I'm so I'm so weak, I'm a catastrophe, this is horrible, I am the fail point of the advancement of the gospel.

No, you're just thinking the boldness that will be required of me, the Lord will give it to me when he requires it of me.

And so you're not trusting yourself for the boldness.

You're entrusting yourself to God that He will provide it.

And then it's like, hey, you've got that conversation coming up with that friend, that one's gonna be tough, or you've got this, you know, interaction that you need to have later, or this what, you know, whatever, whatever it may be, wherever the Lord is requiring of boldness, particularly in speaking in his name.

Say, like, man, are you stressed about that?

Are you worried about that?

Or you and what do you think you're gonna say?

And the and the answer is, you know, I'm gonna entrust myself to the Lord.

That what he requires of me in that, he'll provide.

He'll provide.

That is that is boldness.

That's boldness.

And then they pray for this, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

They pray for more of what got them in this mess in the first place.

I think that's where they're showing this boldness, it is already starting to take place.

You know what got them in all this trouble in the first place?

Was Jesus reigning in the heavens, can't keep his hands to himself.

He's reaching out his hand, affecting his power in the world just as he was when he was on earth.

And people are getting healed.

And he's empowering by his very spirit that rose him from the dead, he's empowering his apostles to continue proclaiming the name of Jesus.

He keeps going, it continues on.

And they are praying for more of that.

And so that's what when when we like you have a bad experience sharing the gospel, what you should pray for that evening is, Lord, I pray for more.

I pray for more opportunities like that.

I pray that I would not shrink from them, but I pray for more opportunities like that in sharing, proclaiming the truth of your word.

Lord, I pray for more of them.

I pray for more of them.

That's what they Lord, I I pray that you would continue going out before me to create those opportunities.

That's what they pray for.

And so they so number four, they pray for boldness.

They pray for boldness.

Number five, they depend upon the Holy Spirit.

Listen what happens after they prayed.

Verse 431 says, And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

This is why it's a miracle of the Holy Spirit.

If you try and do this outside of dependence upon the Holy Spirit, it will not work.

It will not work.

So they prayed together, and the place in which they were gathered together was shaken.

This morning we didn't have power in the building, and we prayed, and a man from Excel came and fixed it.

We also called XL.

Now, our our building likely won't shake, you know, today.

Probably not gonna shake.

But we don't need our building to shake.

We what we need what we need is faith to know that theirs did.

And that that same Holy Spirit that they proclaimed, that they proclaimed to us is the same Holy Spirit that it empowers us today, that equips us to see his word and to interpret our lives in the light of his word, that binds us together in love and unity with one another, that allows us to, this Holy Spirit is what enlivens us to believe such outrageous things like Jesus Christ has forgiven my sins and I stand right with God before him.

If you can believe a thing like that, it's only by the power of the Holy Spirit that you're able to.

But why did their building shake?

You know, why God doesn't just have like, it's not, it's atypical of him.

You know, if we if one of you were God or me or something, we'd be shaking stuff all the time to show how powerful we were.

You know, but he doesn't seem to need to do that.

So he must be saying something in particular.

Here's what I think he's saying.

This is my my conjecture with regards to the shaking.

You know, I talked a lot early on on how the Acts uh parallels Joshua.

They're both books of conquest.

Uh one is the old covenant conquest, this is the book of new covenant conquest.

And what's happening now in these early chapters is they're facing the resistance of that first great city, the first great city that they're called to, which is Jerusalem, the city that they're in.

This is the city that must fall, you know, it so that they can continue on for the rest of the Great Commission.

And so I think what's happening here is this is something like it's calling to mind, this is the fall of Jericho.

And how did Jericho fall?

How did that great city fall?

Just by their voices, by them, by them boldly shouting in the way that the Lord had called them to, the city fell because of the power of God.

And I think that this is like a hearkening back to the fall of Jericho, so that they were able to enter into the promised land and take conquest of the promised land.

God is shaking this and He's He's He shakes the building.

He says, just by your words, just by the proclamation of the news of the gospel, God will cause Jerusalem to fall.

So that all the resistance that's being faced here, well, event Jerusalem, what they will see is Jerusalem will become the biggest church.

It will become the center of the church in the first century.

So depend upon the Holy Spirit.

If the Holy Spirit doesn't come in this way, they they don't they aren't able to have this unity.

Now, here's these next ones I think are still a part of how we have this boldness and unity together as a church in the face of resistance.

In Acts 4, 32 through 33, what they do is they seek unity of mind with each other.

So in 4, 32 through 33 it says, Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common, and with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

This is another one of those pictures of the glory of the unity that was shown in the early church.

So what happens is as they pray for this boldness, as they receive the Holy Spirit together, they act out their union with one another.

It is not just assent to be alongside the apostles, to be alongside Peter and John.

It's not just saying, hey, we're on your team, we're for you, we support you.

They actually put uh they seek this unity together so that they all are able to share in the boldness that the apostles had paved the way for.

The way that they do that is they they make tangible their unity.

There's not a needy person among them because they say we are united to this mission, and we are all a part of this mission because the Lord has worked this in our hearts.

Therefore, nothing of I will not consider anything my own.

It does not belong to me, but it is the Lord's, and because it belongs to the Lord, I will use it for the sake of his people and his mission.

And the apostles continue giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

They seek this unity of mind together.

One of the ways that they received that is they hold fast to the apostles' teaching.

While the apostles are teaching, which by the way is risky now, it was fun earlier, it was just fun.

People were getting healed, we were speaking in tongues, it was awesome.

Now, when we're hearing this, what it means is we could lose everything from the most powerful people in our society.

And so when they hear the apostles' teaching, there's there's constant opportunity for them to say it's too risky, it's too high stakes, it's too controversial, it's too divisive.

And instead, they receive the apostles' teaching as the authoritative word of God, and that creates this unity with one another.

This is, I think, like the secret sauce for the continuing boldness of the church.

Is that they are they are bold together.

They encourage one another together.

They are in this together.

I don't even think they were, they, I don't even think uh we we assess everything.

It's like, what is my boldness?

How bold will I be?

You know, there's it it's like you're uh you may be nervous about a about, I don't know, a conversation or something, or some hard thing that you have to say, but if your friend was with you when you were saying it, you'd think, I'm not even nervous anymore.

Well, you guys have friends who can be with you.

You know, there's you think you're you, it's like there's a tough, you're gonna have to share some tough news coming up, and you're walking in, and it's like, oh gosh, I hope I don't fold like a lawn chair in this conversation.

And then you talk about it with your friend, and they encourage you, and they're bold alongside of you, and they say, you're not crazy, you're not you're not insane.

Look, you know what needs to be said, and then all of a sudden, you're bold again.

You know, we we should hold this together.

You shouldn't, we we're we're too quick to just make it a personal assessment.

Think if you're if you're not bold, maybe you should try and maybe encourage a friend.

For most of us, most of the time, that will be our role in the advance of the gospel in the church.

You know, it's the uh like opportunities to stand up and proclaim the gospel are rare, especially in the way that's happening here.

Opportunities to share with folks are are also rare.

It doesn't happen every day.

So what we'll often be doing is we'll be encouraging the people that happen to find themselves at the front lines of this.

We'll be holding fast to them.

We'll be helping them hold fast by encouragement.

Last thing, verses 34 through 35.

There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses, sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold, and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

Now, this might sound like switching topics, but I wanted to include it in this.

And this is the last thing that creates this unity and boldness.

And this is number seven, the last thing.

Skin in the game.

If you want to actually have unity and boldness, you have to put skin in the game.

And that's what's happening here.

How invested in this are they?

They were it Barnabas is described next.

We'll look at him next week, but Barnabas was described is described next.

He goes and sells his plot of land and he gives the money to this mission, to the needy who are part of the church.

He's got skin in the game now.

And when there's skin in the game together, do you know how that encourages and increases the boldness of the church?

When we look at one another and we say, man, this is gonna happen.

You know, when our church was first starting, whatever that was like, there was a there was uh a moment where where I was like, I don't think I'm gonna, you know, be able to have any money for my family, and my poor wife looks so hungry.

And it just the the church was like on a 50-50 knife's edge of whether or not this thing would continue on in 2018.

And I had a lot of phone calls with Ryan Kuhnish, then I'm gonna tell the story.

And he uh um in on one of those phone calls, he goes, Look, if this whole thing tanks, I believe in your ministry, I will pay your salary, and this thing will continue.

Now, later on, as John Kushnerov explained to me, that as they've talked about this later, uh uh John was like, Did you would you be able to do that?

Like, would that have happened?

Ryan was like, I don't think I probably would have been able to, but I didn't think it was gonna tank.

But I I remember hanging up the phone and I walked back into Megan and I said, We're gonna be fine.

We're gonna stick this out.

And I I I was on a knife's edge of whether we would have or not.

And then someone in the church said, I've got skin in the game.

And in my skin is in the game with you.

And I said, Then mine is too.

The Lord will provide.

Let's do this.

You think of boldness as just within yourself.

It's not.

It's the Holy Spirit-empowered church.

It's the boldness that we have together.

If you're like, why am I not bold in my witness?

Well, then encourage someone else to be bold in their witness, to share with someone.

I want to be bold in my witness.

Can we be bold in this together?

Can we just proclaim the good news of the gospel?

This is something that we share together.

That's where it comes from.

By our turning to the Lord.

Here's the seven things.

You ready?

Here's what we do when we face resistance, which we will, you know, all tweet something crazy.

It'll make us all look like fools.

Maybe I'll do it now.

Just like to feel the let's make it real.

We first turn to the Lord, then to the scriptures.

We assess our experience in truth.

We pray for boldness.

We depend upon the Holy Spirit.

We seek unity of mind in Christ with each other.

And we put skin in the game.

You can do that today.

You can give to the church, you can tithe.

This is a way of how we do this together.

It's how we practice this.

The Lord promises to honor those things.

What is the story?

The story is death and resurrection.

Our Lord has gone before us.

He promises to equip us by his Holy Spirit.

Let's trust him to do that by depending on the Spirit that He's given us.

All right, let's pray.

Holy Father, looking at the boldness of the early church, the unity, the unity that they shared, and the boldness that you gave to the apostles Peter and John, Lord, it can feel in our hearts like it's crushing, like it's just humiliating.

Because we remember so clearly all the times we haven't spoken for your name, all the times we've hedged and not communicated the gospel, when we haven't said simple truths plainly out loud, or and we've we've justified them and acted as though we were doing something technically better than just sharing your word.

Lord, Lord, I repent of that in my life.

But Holy Father, while we don't we don't think we have this boldness in us, we know we don't, in fact.

Our flesh rages against us.

By your Holy Spirit, you will provide it.

You provided it, you have provided it for your church for all time, Lord.

Because you've provided it, the gospel has reached us.

Lord, we pray that it w we wouldn't be a dead end for it.

But instead that through us, that boldness would continue to flow out because there are people who you died to save, and the means that you have given for their salvation is the proclamation of your word.

Lord, that will face resistance 100% of the time.

We pray that you would give us unity and boldness in the face of that resistance and train our hearts to encourage one another and train our hearts to receive, to hold that boldness together as a church, Lord.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.