We Cannot But Speak

Well, good morning again.
Meet me in Acts chapter 4, if you would. I was thinking of what I might preach on. Bob was kind enough to let me choose the text, and this is something I've been reading and studying the last six months.

And as you're headed there, let me just say thank you again. What a blessing it is to get to be here. I love getting to come and worship with you guys. Such a sweet spirit in the room. We were just joking. I brought my daughter Hope. It feels like it's becoming a tradition now, so that hope gets to come with me. And gosh, I told stories here from when she was tiny and she was over there giggling. So it's fun to get to be here from time to time with you all. And let me just say a quick thank you to you guys as a body.

When I pitched this idea of having, you know, 50 to 70 teenagers come and learn apologetics, you know, a lot of churches and, you know, building coordinators and... Executive pastors think to themselves, like, what a nightmare. And just from day one, Bob, the team, Cole, said, if we're not for that, what are we for? Training up young people to defend their faith. And so it is a little bit crazy, and it is a little bit of a nightmare. Sorry, Cole.

But it's worth it. And so thank you all for using your facility in this way and supporting us.
I was just sending an email to our whole team that's coming. and saying, and we're all volunteers.
There's no organization here. It's just kind of a wild idea. And I said, let's make sure we take
care of this facility because they're not just someone we rent from. They're someone who believes
in us. And so thank you. Just be praying. In just 24 hours, there'll be a team of 12,
a team of 12, a team of 12, a team of 12, all through here. We'll be covering 50 apologetics
questions for kids ages 12 to 18. So it's going to be awesome. So thank you guys again.
Well, as we get into the text, let's look at chapter 4, and I'm going to read it for us, starting
in verse 13. It says, Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were
uneducated common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.
But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, I'll kind of get you some context in just a
second, they had nothing to say in opposition. But when they had commanded them to leave the
council, they conferred with one another, saying, What shall we do with these men? For that a
notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
and we cannot deny it. But in order that it may spread no further among the people,
let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name. So they called them and charged them not
to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them,
whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge.
For we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.
And when they had further threatened them and let them go, finding no way to punish them, because
of the people, for all were praising God and for what had happened. For the man on whom this sign
of healing was performed was more than 40 years old. 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 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 servants to continue to speak your word
with boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through
the name of your holy servant Jesus. 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. Father, as we dwell on your word,
We invite you into this place, and we remember that we don't even need to invite you.
The fact that we are indwelled by your Holy Spirit reminds us that you are with us even now.
And even so, with the distractions of our world, we want to posture our hearts in that welcoming
way to say, God, speak to us. May we hear your voice. May we be shaped into your image for your
glory's sake. Amen.
Well, let me give a little bit of historical and kind of literary context before we go here.
Because if you're like me, when you hear these things, you start going and you go like, okay, what
is that? I don't quite understand the meaning of this unless I understand what's going on. So let
me give you a few things really quick. First, what we call the literary context. And what's going
on in Acts, you've probably heard this and read this before, but let me just get you up to speed.
So remember, Jesus in his post-resurrection appearances appeared to them for 40 days.
And then he ascends. In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit comes. They are speaking in other languages.
Peter preaches and 3,000 are saved. And then there's this healing in Acts 3 of the lame man at the
gate. And then they continue to preach and heal in the name of Jesus.
And in Acts 4, they're brought before this council. And the idea is,
what they're going to proclaim is, there is salvation in no one else but Christ.
So, all the way up here to 13, we're at the very beginning. We're at the very beginning of church
history. This is actually the very first account of Christian persecution that we see.
Because they're out doing the Great Commission, they're doing what God called them to do, what
Jesus left them to do, and now they're immediately faced with these legal challenges.
So when you're looking at this text and you see some kind of weird historical things, let me just
kind of explain some of these. These are the questions I ask when I read this. First, the
Sanhedrin. They're brought before the Sanhedrin. What is the Sanhedrin? Some of you may know this,
but it's made up of Pharisees and Sadducees who were basically the religious and political
authority of the day. Now, again, I'm sorry if you already know this, but this is the kind of stuff
that fascinates me. We just read through this and we forget. But what exactly was the governmental
structure at the time? This matters because they're going to be given a legal command here. Who are
they talking to and do they have the authority here? So the Roman Empire is in control. And so if
you remember, this is not long after Christ, and so you remember with the trials of Christ, he was
put in front of the religious leaders of the day, and then they would appeal to a higher authority,
a higher authority, a higher authority. We're going to see that with Paul, too, when Paul's
arrested. He's going to appeal up all the way to his Roman citizenship. So this Sanhedrin right
here was basically delegated this huge responsibility of governing their own people.
And so when you think of them coming before, they're coming before the local government. You might
think they have 95% authority. Why not 100? It's because Rome. Rome has the final say.
But they have the power and they've been given the authority to execute.
with their people, execute leadership with their people. So what's going on here?
Well, there's a huge movement. The scriptures say there's at least 3,000 and then 5,000 men,
which could mean 10,000 to 20,000 total people now are followers of Jesus.
This is not just like a little ragtag thing. Now, don't forget, they thought they were squelching
this, didn't they, with Christ. Let's just put an end to this. We're going to kill him,
and we're going to kill the movement. Did it happen?
Not exactly. Look how quickly it's expanding. Are you starting to see why they have such a
reaction? I better not be doing anything in his name anymore. That's what they're about to say.
Why? This thing's blowing up. It's spreading. The opposite effect is happening.
In all of redemptive context, we would say, don't forget that they were awaiting the Messiah in the
Old Testament. Christ came and revealed the kingdom.
Then he is killed, crucified, resurrected, ascends,
and now he's commissioned his followers to go out and make disciples of him. So this is really a
new era, we might say, and it's the church age, we would say, that basically now his followers are
going to carry out his mission. So let me give you four observations here. I'm going to give you
them on the front end, and then I'll kind of walk through each one. And what we'll see in this
text, it actually has a great deal of relevance for us today. But number one is there's a cost to
following. And this is really the primary meaning of this, is that when you follow Christ and trust
Christ and obey Christ, there's a cost. Number two, there's a comfort in fear. There's a real fear
that takes place in the lives of these early disciples. And there's a comfort there from God.
Three, we'll see a cry for help. And then four, we'll see the courage to continue.
It's like a good pastor, I gave you the four C's. Are you happy? Are you happy about that? Some
people are rolling their eyes and some people are like, thank you, sir. That is memorable.
Number one, a cost to following. Look at verse 13 through 22. First,
the council was amazed, and the text says that they resembled Jesus,
or they recognized that they were... with Jesus. Now, the scholars debate a little bit on this.
Are they saying that they recognize them like you guys are the ones that were with Jesus earlier?
Most scholars believe it's actually more important than that. It's more significant than that. They
looked like Jesus. They resembled Jesus. Now, think about this for a second. This should be no
surprise to us. Why? Because what was Jesus doing? Preaching the gospel,
healing the sick in his name. What are the disciples doing now? They're doing the same thing.
So the disciples going, it's kind of interesting, it's like deja vu, isn't it? They're coming
before the same councils that Jesus was coming before. And what are they being brought there for?
The same thing Jesus was. Would that be true of us? Would we be held accountable?
Would we be convicted guilty for obeying the commands of Christ in this way?
Then the council, if you look at verse 14, had no explanation. Now, I got kind of personally
offended. I don't know if you guys read this verse here, but if you bring your finger down to verse
22, it says that they didn't have an explanation because the person who was healed was more than 40
years old. Did you see that? And when I first saw that, I turned 40 last year. When I saw that,
I was like, I mean, what is it? It's extra miracle that somebody over 40 gets?
Well, evidently, the idea was if it was somebody younger, They might have had another explanation.
They might have said, this person just has a health condition and they're just improving. But
they've walked by this person for 40 years at the gate. Lame.
And so there was therefore no explanation. Then the council gets together,
verse 15 through 18, if you're kind of following through in the text. In verse 15 to 18, they get
together and they're like, what are we going to do? This movement is stretching out. We're not
squelching it. The opposite is happening. What should we do? There's been a miracle. Many people
saw it. We can't deny it. What now? Got it. Let's tell them you can no longer speak in the name of
Jesus. What's interesting here to note, if you're taking notes, is the miracle didn't concern them
as much.
It wasn't really about the miracle. It was that it was attributed to Jesus because that represented
a deeper movement. That represented a threat to their power. We might note here for a second,
even the miracles and the signs that we see in Acts, those are just secondary to the message of the
gospel that's being presented. And so we often think of these big signs and miracles as like the
big pinnacles of Acts, but those were just accompanying the message. They were validating the
message of the gospel, just like when Christ was doing it. It was validating his power. So now do
you see this? It's not that they can do, they might say, can do some witchcraft and do some sorcery
and cause someone to look like they were healed. It's that someone was healed again in the name of
Jesus.
So we've got to shut this down. So not only can you not heal and do these things,
don't do anything in Jesus' name, you may not speak or teach in the name of Jesus. And I was asking
myself, when you read the text, you're not really sure, but... scholars tell us that this was like
a legal charge. This wasn't like, hey guys, listen, do us a favor. Stop talking about Jesus so
much. This was a legal charge. He charged them to never speak and teach in the name of Jesus.
Look at verse 19. Look at how they respond. This is where I have titled this message.
We cannot but speak. So they're like, here's the deal. Just carry on.
You're not going to be imprisoned here. You're not going to be hurt here. Just go out and never
teach or speak in the name of Christ again. They got out of it. You would think, you put yourself
in that situation, you'd think to yourself like, whoo, okay, they're letting us go. Whatever you
say, just tell me what to do. They're like, well, darn.
Here's the problem. We cannot help but speak. I wrote down,
we cannot not speak. It feels like our modern language. We cannot not speak about it.
You asked us to do something we cannot do. And again, as I kind of read into this,
it sounds like they're saying it's bubbling out of us. And I think to some degree that's probably
true. It's like, good luck. I mean, we are transformed by Christ. We saw him. We saw him raised
from the dead. And we can't help it. It's just spewing out of us.
But ultimately, they give that kind of like riddle back to him. And what do they say?
They say, hey, you tell me whether we should report to you or to God. I think it's kind of funny.
But here's what they're saying.
You have given us a command as an earthly authority that we cannot fulfill because we have a
command from a higher authority, God. Now are you starting to see why the religious leaders get
ticked off by that?
You're not our authority.
Look, we have the power to imprison you, to hurt you, to kill you, so don't speak in Jesus' name.
Well, there's a problem. We don't report to you, we report to him.
What courage. I think it's ironic that at the end of this, they're going to ask God for courage.
They're already doing it. They are really bold in this moment.
Think of the hardness of heart for just a moment of the religious leaders. This is a picture of the
sinfulness of all of us, isn't it?
They see a miraculous healing that cannot be explained, and they don't think,
wow, I ought to bow down. I ought to humble myself. What are they doing instead? This threatens my
power. That's us. That's our sinful nature. And we're seeing it.
That's that Romans 1. The creation is rising up around us, yelling at us that there is a God that
we ought to bow down to. And here's what Romans 1 says, remember? We want to suppress the truth. We
don't want that truth to come up. That's exactly what they're doing.
So there's a cost of following Jesus then, and there's a cost now. So this was a legitimate threat.
Their safety, their lives. In fact, the fact that they never flinched,
the early church. is the reason why we're here today.
Their response to this was the beginning of a movement that stretched even as still going today.
Eventually, I don't want to steal the thunder here when you guys walk back through Acts again, but
eventually they will be brought back before this council and they won't be let go. They'll be
whipped, beaten, killed, and none of that will cause them to shrink back.
It's still happening today. According to Open Doors, 365 million Christians live in places with
high or very high persecution. About 5,000 Christians are killed annually for their faith.
3,600 churches or Christian buildings are attacked each year.
And 4,000 plus Christians are detained or imprisoned without a trial.
Just this past April in Pakistan, we have a close friend from Pakistan. A Christian father of four
was arrested on false kidnapping accusations. Within hours of being taken into custody, his family
says he was tortured by police and died.
And you're probably thinking to yourself, yeah, I hear about all the persecuted church, you know.
There's a cost of following Jesus over there.
And it's true, there's probably levels of persecution, right? There's severity of consequences.
But let me just bring this home.
We know, too, that the manager has probably at some point asked you to adjust the numbers,
to fudge the numbers to make it look a certain way. You say no,
and so you're passed up for their promotion.
You choose not to participate in some of the social scene with your coworkers, which leads to a
downgrade of your relational status in the company, which leads to you being overlooked for
opportunities and missing out on promotions and missing out on advancement. If you're a student and
you're in class and you raise the biblical position on gender and sexuality, you're immediately
isolated and labeled. Or even more, you write a paper from a biblical perspective,
you receive low marks for that paper, and you immediately fall into the temptation,
maybe next time I'll just tell her what she wants to hear.
So persecution and cost to following Jesus comes in all forms, shapes, and sizes. Even though this
seems to be extreme, the fact still remains today that following Christ is costly.
They may feel smaller, the threats, but they're there. I actually kind of find it convicting to
think to myself that while we cower under the types of things that I just said, and we actually
fall under the types of threats that we fall to, that the persecuted church around the world might
look at us and say, are you kidding?
And we wouldn't want to say back to them, look, I know the costs are different, but it costs us
here too.
This is why missionary and author Nick Ripken says, the greatest challenge facing the church in the
West is not persecution, but prosperity.
Because suffering refines and strengthens faith, comfort often weakens and dulls it.
So friends, there was a cost of following Jesus then, and there's a cost now.
Observation two, there's a comfort. Look at verse 23. They reported to their friends the story of
their threats. And at risk of making this sound like it's about us, it's not.
But I love when I see things in their humanity. That reminded me of us.
When they faced persecution, they just were in front of the council and they were just instructed
never to do this again. What do we see them do next? They got with their friends.
For us, we're closer to our spiritual family than we are our biological family. And so when things
get hot and the pressure mounts and even when persecution arises and when it is costly to follow
Christ, look at the model that we see right here. They get together with their friends. Does that
surprise you at all? Isn't this who you call when the pressure mounts? You call your family.
You get together, and you can almost just picture them saying, look, here's what happened. It was
so scary. We were in front of them, and there's the real threat here.
And it kind of reminded me for just a second, because this is the first mention of persecution for
the early church, of this verse, James 1. And you guys know James 1,
verse 2 through 4. Some of you have memorized this before, but let me tell you it again, because
often when I read this, I have this certain response. It says, count it all joy, my brothers. You
know this one? When you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith
produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and
complete, lacking in nothing. And I always have a little bit of angst with this verse because it
seems so counterintuitive and it seems impossible. Do you ever feel that? And especially when
you're going through the heat of the moment and someone sends you that verse, you know what I'm
talking about? Consider it pure joy. Well, thank you. Thank you for that. Because it seems so
impossible to think to ourself that we could have joy amidst all this suffering.
The reason why I bring this up is, look at what the disciples are about to do.
they're in suffering and they're going to get with their friends and they're going to cry out to
God and they're going to worship.
So we might think, how would we do this? And I think there's a good, not that this is necessarily
all prescriptive for us, but there's a good lesson for us in watching the disciples respond to
this.
So don't forget that persecution is only one type of trial, right?
It says, when you meet trials of many kinds, consider it joy. So if you've ever had a personal
battle with sin, where your sin is harming you, it's dishonoring Christ,
and it's harming other people, you know what a trial is. If anyone's ever sinned against you,
if God's ever corrected you or disciplined you for the sake of your sanctification,
if God brings hardships to strengthen your faith, When your physical body fails you,
or loved ones fail you, and pass away. If you've ever seen a natural disaster or experienced
financial hardship or a relational conflict, you know what a trial is.
And that's all of us. And evidently, the scripture calls us to count it joy.
So let me ask you a question. How do you respond in trial?
How do they respond?
Well, look, verse 24, they went to God.
They went to God. They rallied with their people and they went to God. Look at verse 24 and 25.
Sovereign creator of all things. I'm going to write down these three things. I want to show you
three things they do when they go to God. First, they appeal to his sovereignty. You see this?
Sovereign Lord. So like, this is scary. First thing, you're in control. You are sovereign.
Look next at verse 25 and 26. When they say, you said, and he quotes Psalm 2 there.
Look at what he's doing here. Psalm 2 ends up being prophetic of the way that the Gentiles and the
Romans at the time are going to rage against Christ and crucify him. So we find out that that's
prophetic in that. And here's what they're saying. Sovereign Lord, you said it back then that the
nations would rage. So what are they doing? They're appealing to his word because his word never
fails. Exhibit A, hundreds of years before, you said this would happen and it happened.
And they appeal third to God's faithfulness. If you look at verse 27 and 28,
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. Here it is, verse 28, to do
whatever your hand and your plan had predestined. to take place. And so they say,
God, you are sovereign. God, we remember your word that never fails.
And God, we remember that even the worst thing we've ever seen in our lives, the crucifixion of our
Savior, even then you had a plan. Even then you carried out your plan with faithfulness and what
they meant for evil, you turned to good. See what they do there?
They're anchoring themselves in the truth. in the midst of their trial. And it's the first thing
they do.
So my question to you is, in times of fear, do you go to God?
In fact, I want to ask, do you go to God first? There was a time in September when Bob was sharing
about this season of ministry that's really hard as the headquarters of the ministry that I was a
part of was deciding to restructure and it was causing us all these hard decisions as a ministry.
And man, I was hurting, I was grieving, I was confused,
almost felt a sense of depression. And what I do, what I tend to do is I go to Pinnacle.
I go hike up Pinnacle if I need to just clear my mind and think and pray. And so in these seasons
that are really hard, I would go up there just about every day. Have you ever been in that
situation where you just want to pour out your heart? And I was like, God, Doing what all of us do,
right? Why are you doing this, God?
Would you please just take this away?
What am I supposed to be learning? Just teach it to me and be done. All those things that we say to
God. And I remember after, I don't know, a month,
45 days of just kind of meeting with God and pouring out my heart, I began to kind of realize that
I was releasing a bunch of the things that I thought I had to fix. You ever do that? It's like
really why I was kind of all angsty about all this is because I felt like the ministry is changing
and I got to do this. And if it doesn't happen, then things are going to fall apart and I got to
fix this and get ahead of this. And I started going, you know what, God, you have a plan. You're
sovereign. You're in control. And I'm not. And that's the work that God was doing in my life at
that time where I was just able to just let it go and put it back in the hands of sovereign God.
I was never out of his hands.
And right. there, I think about 45 days into like hiking up there and just doing business with God,
I had this thought.
God evidently wanted me to get to a place where I could cast my fears on him and my anxieties on
him. How nice would it have been if I had done that on day one?
So like I had spent months trying to solve it, trying to fix it, trying, you know, in my own power
and the angst of not trusting God, trusting myself, and will this come true? And I end up on the
mountain crying out, God help me, I can't do this.
Wouldn't God just beckon us to the mountain on day one?
I think, man, whenever I experience any kind of trial or frustration, suffering,
persecution, this is supposed to be our default. The disciples do it. They just go straight to God.
So let me ask, do you ask that question? Why is this happening? How do I get out of this? Take this
away. There is our first inclination, God, you are God. You are sovereign. You have a plan.
Your word never fails. It's a great example for us. Three questions for you to consider about this
as we round third and head home. In times of fear, do you remember God's sovereignty?
Tozer said, Oh God, you are sovereign over all things. Nothing happens except by your will and
nothing can thwart your purposes.
Spurgeon said, I know that everything that happens is ordered by you. Therefore, I rest in your
will, even when I do not understand it.
And R.C. Sproul famously said, there is no maverick molecule. Raise your hand if you've heard that
quote before. It's such a good quote. There's no maverick molecule. You govern all things according
to the counsel of your will.
So following this text, the response is, sovereign Lord, you made the heaven and the earth and the
sea and everything in them. You see us, you reign, you are our refuge.
Question two for reflection for you is, in times of fear, first is, do you remember God's
sovereignty? But second, do you call to mind God's word?
When fear creeps in, it seems that we get spiritual amnesia. We forget the truths that have
anchored us for so long. And I don't know if you're like me, I'm going to give you some of mine
here, but I have these things that are so part of me that I have to use them to battle.
You are with me, Matthew 28. So I'm not alone. Nothing can separate me from your love,
Romans 8. I am your true son, Ephesians 1. No one can snatch me out of your hand, John 10.
You are shaping me from one degree of glory to the next, 1 Corinthians 3. You will finish the work
you began in me, Philippians 1. Don't be surprised, Danny, when the distortions of the truth are
swirling all around you, 2 Timothy 4. Don't be surprised, Danny, your body will fail you because,
as 2 Corinthians 4 says, your outer self is wasting away, but don't be surprised that God is
renewing. your inner self.
I don't know how to fight trial and temptation without that. Those things,
I don't know what yours are. I would encourage you. Maybe you have six or eight things that you can
call to, but it's just reminding ourselves. So they say, Sovereign Lord, you are in control.
Your word doesn't fail. And it's still true today.
Sovereign Lord, you're in control. Your word never fails. We can cling to it in the same way.
So I brought Hope with me today. She has a new claim to fame now.
She is the only person, I think, in recorded human history to get a concussion at a speech
tournament.
How does that happen? It just got out of hand. A heated debate, and they just started going at it.
No. It's because we have loved playing pickup football in between rounds.
So I go outside, her and her buddies are out there, and we'll play like 10 on 10, like in a parking
lot, field doesn't matter. And I love hanging out with them because they kind of keep me up to
speed on the language of the day. So I'm going to help you for just a second keep your relevance up
with the next generation because I learned a new term. And the term is locked in. Have you heard
this before? You're like, that's not new. So this nine-year-old kid,
he goes out for a pass. I hit him right in the bread basket. He just drops it. And he comes back
over and he's like, hey, it's okay. It's okay, Dr. Hinton. Hit me again. Hit me again. I'm locked
in now. I'm locked in. And apparently it has more power if you add the word bro behind it.
Bro, bro, bro. I'm locked in, bro. I'm locked in, bro.
I'm learning this, picking this up. I got it. He's focused now. So when I hit him again,
he's going to deliver. I think I'm translating this, you know, for myself.
I'm looking at my note. Why did I share that story? I'm kidding. When I read this passage,
and I was kind of thinking through this, and Hope got a concussion out there playing one time. It
was such a bummer. But I thought to myself, like, okay, the disciples were locked in.
Like it's hard to describe. It's like they were seeing things that nobody else could see. I would
say their eyes were fixed on eternity because when the world would panic, they go to God.
Like the world's playing chess or checkers and they're playing chess. They're like thinking and
living on a different plane. And I think that's a great encouragement for us.
Like they're not living in this world. They've seen the resurrected Christ. It's changed them, and
they can't help but speak, and they're locked in. I think that works. Does that work,
Hope? Is that a good translation? I think they're locked in.
So what do they say?
They let us go.
Now, God, never let this happen again. Nope. They let us go.
Now get us out of this mess. Nope. Look at verse 29, observation 3,
a cry for help. Let us continue to speak your word with boldness.
I'm telling you, man, they were locked in.
Get us out of here. Why is this happening? Take this away. Give us courage to keep going.
What a prayer for us as well.
Continue to be with us with these signs and wonders. Again, it's not that we want the signs and
wonders to come, but the signs and wonders are validating your power and the power of your son. So
stay with us. Be with us. Give us courage. Keep validating our message here.
And finally, the courage to continue. Look at verse 31. They were filled with the Holy Spirit,
and they continued.
So at the very end of here, we see another sign. The place they were gathering was shaken.
They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they continued to speak the word of God with
boldness.
So this is a tough thing for a pastor when we're reading through Acts or any of these narratives is
trying to decide, you guys have heard this before, what's prescriptive and what's descriptive? Have
you ever heard this before? So it's like, what's just telling the story of the early church and
what is prescriptive in the way like we can just take that and we should live by it? It's kind of a
challenging thing. One thing I love about this text is in Bible study, we're asking ourselves, are
there enduring New Testament principles here that can be applied? today,
if they're enduring theological principles all through the New Testament, then we do have a
prescriptive type application here. What I love about this particular passage is all of this stuff
is enduring. Nothing has changed, nothing is set on the time frame here, and I'll give you the
example here in just a second. And so, not to say that the point of this text is to tell us to do
these four things, but what I can tell you is the same theological truths that they clung to,
we cling to in the same way. Here's, let me prove it. There's a cost to following.
Persecution, surrender, sanctification, threats, still today.
Will you follow him even if it costs you greatly?
A comfort in fear. Is there fear today? Will we as followers of Christ experience fear?
We too can appeal to his sovereignty, his word, and his faithfulness.
It endures. The question becomes, will you run to him with your fears?
A cry for help. We also can ask him through the power of the Holy Spirit for courage to continue to
faithfully follow. And the question for us becomes, will you depend on him daily?
And finally, a courage to continue. One pastor said, today in Christ,
I already have everything I need for life and godliness. So the question then for us becomes,
will we lock in to that? Will we focus in on that? Will we recognize that we're dependent on him
and ask God, give me courage, give me boldness to do what? To continue to do what you called me to
do.
It takes courage, it takes boldness.
As I close here, one pastor, he was paraphrasing. John Piper and his writings about Christian
suffering. And he said this, he said, paraphrasing Piper, we spend far too much time asking why is
this happening and far too little time asking how can I glorify God in this?
And this is precisely what the early church did when they faced threats on their life.
And it's precisely what we can do today when following Christ is costly.
So when they gathered together with their people and they prayed that prayer and they appealed to
God's sovereignty and his word, I thought I might just challenge myself to write my closing prayer
in that same vein, in that same tone. And so if you would pray with me.
Sovereign Lord,
you made heaven and earth and everything in them.
Nothing happens outside your rule. The world rages, people resist you,
and many rise against your name. But you are not surprised, O Lord,
for even the suffering of Jesus happened according to your hand and your purposes. So now,
Lord, when pressure mounts, when obedience is costly, and when we are tempted to shrink back,
give us boldness, we pray. Help us speak your truth. clearly standing on your truth and without
fear may we live faithfully no matter the cost continue to shape us to refine us to make yourself
known through us all for the name of Jesus amen