All right. Well, beautiful singing if I’ve not met you. My name is Aaron and preaching pastor here and glad you’re with us on this Mother’s Day. So if you have a Bible with you, open up to Acts 4. Acts, chapter 4.
And if you don’t have a Bible with you, if you’re not, there are Bibles scattered throughout the pews. Make your way to Acts.
So this time here, I’m actually going to read verses 1 through 22. A little bit longer passage for us this morning, but I’m going to read the text and then we’re going to pray, ask the Lord’s blessings time, and then we’re going to get to work. So Acts 4, starting in verse one, I’m reading out the ESV. So the Bible says, and they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple. And the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people, proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. But many of those who heard the word believed the number of men came to about 5,000. The next day, the rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem. Ananias, the high priest, and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high priestly family. When they had set them in the midst, they inquired, by what power or by what name do you do this?
Then Peter, Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we’re being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead by him, this man is standing well before you. This Jesus is the cornerstone, the that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there’s salvation and no other, no one else. For there’s no other name under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved. And when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, they 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, 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. We cannot deny it. Whenever the night spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone. In this name they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.
But Peter and John answered them what is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God. You must judge. We cannot but speak what we have seen and heard. When they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them because of the people. For all were praising God for what had happened.
For the man of on whom the sign of healing was reformed was more than 40 years old. Okay, so that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me?
Lord, it’s good to be here. Thank you for your church. Thank you that in your wisdom that you saw it good for your people to gather together to be your church. And Lord, thank you for just preaching the folly of preaching that through it that you speak to your people, to your church and God. That’s why we’re here.
We want to hear you speak. Please help me, Lord, to be a good communicator. Please help me to claim this text. Well, please be with the congregation. Give them listening ears to hear what the Spirit is saying.
Pray us on Jesus name. Amen. Okay, so I mentioned this a few weeks back. So we’re in a bit of a short three week window between sermon series before the next sermon series that we start up next week through the fifth book of Psalms. So I mentioned previously, over the course of this short three week window, I wanted to go through a bit of a miniseries on three different characters in scripture who I think we would label as unlikely evangelists.
With my hope that this short sermon series would be helpful for us as we do the evangelism baseball that we started in March. Whereas a church I’ve been working on even getting just like little evangelistic base hits as a way to maybe take some false pressure on ourselves. Where we think evangelism only takes place if we like hit the home run, where we share the message of Christ with someone and in that moment they believe, which obviously is our hope, obviously is our prayer. We love it when people trust in Jesus. The moment we share the message of his love, the message of his death and resurrection for the victims of sin.
However, as we know, often that’s not how things work. Most often, as God is drawing people to faith in his son, Jesus Christ, it’s through like a series of like base hits, like many base hits where Each base hit is like planting and watering of seeds that in due season reach a harvest where God draws the person home. Now, in this little mini series on unlikely evangelists, my assumption is that most of us probably would label ourselves as that as unlikely evangelists because evangelism just doesn’t come like easy or natural to us where we can really struggle to share our faith to the world around us. Just as a bit of a review, we’ve had the last two sermons. So two weeks ago we looked at the story in 2 Kings 5, which tells the story of a little slave girl who evangelized a powerful military leader named Naaman, who was a military leader in Syria, Israel’s great enemy.
But Naaman also was a leper, where in the story God used this little girl, a slave of Naaman, to be an unlikely evangelist who pointed Naaman to the one true and living God as she sent him to God’s prophet, Elisha. Where in this story, not only did God heal Naaman of his leprosy, but more importantly, God healed Naaman’s heart. We’re at the end of the story. Naaman believed in God, an unlikely convert. Then last week we looked at John 4, which tells the story of a sinful, ostracized woman who was a Samaritan who is at the well.
And Samaritans or pastors even told us last week is a group of people that Jews typically had no dealings with. Yet in the story, Jesus loved on this woman in ways he also healed her heart, making her also an unlikely convert as this woman drank from his living waters. Where then in the story, very quickly, after receiving the ministry and the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ, this sinful, ostracized woman became an unlucky evangelist as she went to her town, which by the way, she also was ostracized from because of sin. Yet she goes to them to evangelize them, which she did through the sharing of her testimony as she invited people to come and see Jesus. So, so in many ways we talked about this last couple weeks and the last two sermons.
This, this little girl, this woman at the well, like unlikely evangelist, yet used by the Lord in great ways to share his message. Now, today, as we enter our passage, we look at one more unlikely evangelist. We’re going to look at the story of John and Peter. I just read for you two men who boldly proclaimed Christ. And of these two characters, I want to focus a little bit more today on Peter, who actually thinks a little bit more focus of the passage.
And this morning I want to focus a little bit more on Peter by reminding us that Peter, too, was an unlikely evangelist. And the reason why Peter was an unlikely evangelist, because most of you probably remember just prior to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross on the night that the Lord was betrayed, remember how Peter failed mightily as an evangelist. This opportunity was given to him. Remember how famously Peter denied the Lord three times that night before the rooster crowed twice. And Peter denied Christ that night, even though just like hours before the Lord told Peter, the denials would come only for Peter to aggressively rebuke the Lord Jesus Christ for making that claim.
Where Peter promised that he would never deny the Lord, even if that meant he would die because of these past failures, because Peter mightily, like, face planted, you would think that the Lord would be like, you know what, Peter, I gave you three shots, and three times he failed. So. So I’m just gonna move on. And going forward, you’re just gonna, like, permanently sit on the evangelism bench. In fact, actually, if you remember the story of the end of John’s Gospel, so after the resurrection, that’s exactly, exactly what Peter thought.
He was embarrassed, crippled, defeated by his failures. He just assumed he was done only for the end of John’s Gospel. The Lord came to restore Peter by three times, matching the three denials, telling Peter to feed his lambs, to care for his sheep, to feed his sheep. So, yes, Peter was a failure. Yet the Lord still had desires, a plan to use him, which is actually what we see Lord doing in our text today, where Peter the failure, boldly sharing Christ, boldly doing the work, an evangelist.
So this morning I was working this passage. As we see this boldness, let’s just remember, in many ways, he is an unlikely, or was an unlikely candidate to do this. By the way, the reason why I want to finish off this little mini sermon series here with the story of Peter boldly evangelizing is to hopefully encourage those of us here who know, like, you’ve been failing at this, where you have failed too many times with different opportunities given to you to evangelize, where your past failures have been so discouraging to you that you’re like, put yourself on the bench where you can’t even remember last time you had any type of even simple base hit with someone who have yet to believe. So. So my hope that’s you, my hope for you this morning in this third final sermon in this miniseries is that you would find hope, you’d find confidence in this area.
Not confidence, not Hope in yourself, but in the Lord, that by his grace he is able to grow you in this area, in this area, and he is able to use you in this area as unlikely an evangelist that you might think you are. So today, as we leave here, hopefully by faith this week, all of us are striving to be bold and get some base hits, trusting that God can use us. Okay, so that’s the instruction. Please look back at the passage. So this passage takes place after the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus Christ as he went back into heavenly places.
And this passage takes place after the coming of the promised Holy Spirit, who came to empower God’s people to be his witnesses, which we see in Acts, which is empowerment that Peter proves to be. And not just in our text, but really in chapters two and three as well. So today as I work through this, this is not like Peter just having like a one off evangelism, but through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is just who God was growing Peter to be. He just kept growing him, growing him in this area.
So verse one, if you want to keep your eyes in the text as they meaning Peter and John, as they were speaking to the people. So we see in the passage that the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them. And then you come to Peter and John who are speaking the message of Christ. The people then come like to hear more. Is there like humbly interested of all the commotion that’s taking place around Peter and John?
Rather, in verse two we see these two men, or they came to these two men greatly annoyed. And the reason why they were so annoyed with these two men, because they actually knew what the two men were speaking about. As Peter and John were teaching the people, proclaiming the message of Christ and the resurrection of the dead, right? They were being witnesses, evangelists proclaiming Christ, proclaiming the gospel, doing so with great boldness in the public square. This is much different from where Peter was on the night of the crucifixion of Christ, where he was a coward shrinking back.
We may even remember in Peter’s denials, he even shrunk back from like a young girl who that night asked Peter if she was with Jesus. Remember how even for that young girl he violently denied the Lord shrunk back even from her. But now at the resurrection, as the Spirit came to empower, Peter along with John are declaring Christ, boldly doing so in public square. Verse three, as a chief priest, the captain of the temple, the Sadducees came to Peter and John greatly annoyed because what they’re doing, we see the primary purpose of why they came to the two evangelists, which was to arrest them and to put them in custody, which in text we read is where Peter and John would stay until the next day. Because their text let us know that they are arrested in the evening.
So the next day would come, they would put these two men on trial. However, as they arrested the two men that evening, I’m sure must much to the dismay of religious leaders. We see in verse 4 that by time of the arrest, many of those who have heard the word that these men proclaimed, I’m sure doing it all throughout the day. Many believed as the number of men came to about 5,000. Right.
Just, just a great work of God. And to keep stressing it, this great work is God using Peter, the past failure, the unlikely evangelist to proclaim this message. Verse 5 and to 6. The next day came and for the trial of Peter and John to take place, we see that the rulers and elders and the scribes all came together in Jerusalem, along with the high priest Caiaphas and John, which is a different John, as well as Alexander, who seemed to be like influential members of the high priestly family. And they came and joined all the others of the high priestly family.
And they had like one big meeting for one big trial where all the most powerful religious leaders of the day would sit Peter and John down in their text in their midst, where the powerful religious leaders started to inquire of the two men, asking by what power, by what name did you do this? And this is referring to what happened at the beginning of chapter three. If you want to take your eyes up there, where the Lord used the two men to bring a healing to a lame beggar, where in this healing the lame man was able to walk. So in this sit down inquiry as a man, we’re on trial. This was the pressing issue for religious leaders.
Peter, John, how did you do this? How did this happen that this lame man can now walk? Verse 8. And Peter the failure, the one who denied Christ, St. Peter now filled the Holy Spirit responds back to them, to the powerful leaders. If we’re being examined today concerning this good deed that I did, that God did to a crippled man and by what means this man is healed.
If that’s really why you arrested me and now inquiring of us because of this good deed, verse 10. Well, I have something to tell you. In fact, let it be known to all you and all the people of Israel, if you’re really wanting to know by what power, by what name this happened. It’s by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the very one who you crucified, who God raised from the dead. It is by him, the Lord Jesus Christ, that this man is now standing well before you, no longer a cripple.
Furthermore, let me tell you in verse 11, this Jesus, he’s the stone that was rejected by you, the building, even though Jesus is the very cornerstone. And this here, this is Peter actually quoting Psalm 118, a Psalm the powerful religious leaders certainly would have been well aware of. Psalm 118 is actually a psalm of like prophecy. Prophecy revolved around the promised Messiah. Psalm 118 foretold the Messiah would be the great cornerstone, but would become and be rejected by his people, which is what clearly Jesus was according to God’s eternal plan, sinful man crucified God’s eternal Son, which would include the group here that’s now harassing Peter and John.
Also in the text, according to God’s good eternal plan, because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead, because he is the cornerstone of our faith. We see in verse 12, because of all this, because of Jesus Christ, there is salvation in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved. Now we know this. This is Peter, like spitting fire here to the powerful religious leaders.
He’s holding nothing back. He’s speaking full of conviction, full of power from the Holy Spirit, a bold witness, a bold evangelist. Now, for me, I’m not sure what heaven’s gonna look like, but I kind of like to think in heaven somehow we’re able to watch, like, all the different stories that make up scripture, just to see, like, the fullness of those events. And I sure like to watch this scene, right? This large, proud, arrogant religious leaders all confronting, surrounding Peter and John, trying to intimidate them into silence, assuming that they would shrink back in their faith only for Peter to stand up in their midst with fire, conviction, power of the Holy Spirit to proclaim to them the name above all names, the Lord Jesus Christ, the only name under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved.
I love to watch that story, and not just to see the fire, you know, Peter is speaking with, but I think even more so. I’d actually love to see the reaction of the powerful group, you know, just to see their faces as they’re on the receiving end of this sermon from Peter. Keep going. Verse 13. We usually do get to see a bit of the reaction we read that as Peter boldly, passionately proclaimed Christ to them, they perceive that Peter and John were uneducated common men.
They could tell they were not part of like the educated elite that the group of religious leaders certainly were part of. And as we see this about Peter and John, we read in the text, they became astonished, amazed, dumbfounded, like things were not computing, not normal common people like Peter and John, who Scripture tells us were fishermen, how could they speak with such boldness, such passion? I’m sure they’re also confused how Peter had the ability to like recall and interpret scriptures such as Psalm 118. However, as they’re astonished by this, as they’re trying to figure out all this, how all this could happen, there was something that they certainly understood about these men. When we read in the text, they did recognize, they did understand that Peter and John, they had been with Jesus.
They had no doubt, no confusion about that and the certainty that they had that Peter and John were with Jesus. I think it’s more than just like a statement of fact. Yeah, yeah, we saw those guys in the past with Jesus. It feels more like the religious leaders could not only see their common men were different, but I think they understood why they were different. They understood it’s because they were with Christ that they could do this.
By the way, what an awesome testimony to have others say about you. I’m just thinking about how awesome to be like co workers or neighbors or friends, not only just recognize maybe there’s something different, different about you. And maybe they can’t fully explain, understand why that is, but they notice something different because they know that you’re like been around Jesus, you know, may God give us a testimony like this as a church, the Red Village church, they’ve been with Jesus. 14 after hearing from Peter, they saw the man who was healed standing beside them. We see that the power group had nothing more to say in opposition.
And they understood this is not a debate that they could win. So in verse 15, they asked Peter and John to leave, which did in part so they could come together to confer among themselves, which they did in verse 16. Come on, take your eyes there. By saying to one another, what should we do with these men? Clearly a notable sign has been formed through them.
After all, lame people just don’t start walking around. And this notable sign was done in such a public way that is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem that this took place. So even for us, as much as we hate Jesus, his message, his followers, even we can’t deny a great sign took Place we know a man that was lame just doesn’t start like walking around. So they conferred among each other as they understood. There’s no way they give some type of press release to try to like spin this story.
They understood it happened, they understood they could not deny that it happened. So they conferred among each other. They’re basically grasping at straws on what to do now. What they should have done is they should have believed in the sign in ways that they embrace the message that Peter just proclaimed to them. What they should have done is they should have turned from their sin and put their faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sin.
What they should have done, they should have joined the growing number of Christ followers that is now filling the city so they’d be saved from judgment, saved eternal life, which by the way, for you here this morning, have yet to believe. You should also do this as well. You also must do this. You must call upon the name of Jesus as the only name given among, given under heaven among men, by which he must be saved. Don’t, don’t be like the religious leaders who should have done that but didn’t.
The text. They didn’t do what they should have done. But we see what they did do in verse 17. We see they just came to further, like threaten Peter and John and really anyone who was reclaiming the name of Jesus, believing in his name. And this with the hopes that the threats would like shut Peter and John up once and for all.
The hope was the message of Christ would stop spreading among the people. So the plan the religious leaders came up with was to warn, to threaten, to intimidate so that Peter and John would no more speak about the name of Christ, whoever. Keep going. Verses 19 and 20 of the text. The hope that the powerful leaders had, that was a pretty silly hope, is not only did Peter and John ignore the warnings, ignore the threats, but the warnings, the threats they just put like fuel on the fire that already was burning hot.
So in the passage, with more fire in their bones that they could not contain, Peter and John responds back to religious leaders saying to them, whether it’s right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than God, you must judge. For we cannot but speak what we have seen and heard. We talk about like an all time great backfire. Here as a group conferred together to put their plan in place. This isn’t the outcome they’re expecting.
This is clearly not the outcome that they’re hoping for. That God would like twist their plans in ways that he would Pour gas on already burning hot fire.
Verse 21, verse 22, which we’re going to end this morning. They had further threatened them eventually read, they let Peter and John go, doing so finding no real way to punish them. The main reason why in the text, because of all the people, they couldn’t further punish Peter and John because the people, it’s in the text for all the people were praising God for what had happened. Which I think just further illustrates how much an all time great backfire this was. Not only did Peter John become more bold to proclaim Christ as the boldly proclaimed Christ crucified and risen, the message was landing in hearts in ways that more and more we’re experiencing.
How sweet it is to trust in Christ. And finally the last verse we’re gonna look at this morning, read this. For the man of whom the sign of healing is informed was more than 40 years old, which seems to be just information that stresses like this is like a legitimate healing here where for years and years this man was lame before the Lord healed them. Which further stresses why even the powerful religious leaders who hated the Christian faith, who hated Peter and John, who hated people coming to faith in Christ, even they just could not deny the sign that took place. Now for us, as I mentioned, we’re going to end our text today.
But if you want to let your eyes scan through the rest of chapter four, you can see more and more people coming to faith in Jesus Christ. You’re going to see the commitment of the early church to help care for one another. You’re going to see Peter and John, the other apostles, continue to give testimony of the resurrection of Christ with a great grace coming upon them as they continue to be evangelists. This is just who God was growing them to be as they poured out their life sharing testimony, inviting people to come and see Jesus. Which by the way, maybe a little side note, that’s a reminder from last week.
Sharing testimony is what they do. At the end of chapter four. The woman at the well did in the story last week. Friends, God uses it. Don’t bottle up your testimony.
Share it with the world around you. Not only is this a powerful thing that God uses, but this is actually one of the ways we really can worship the Lord, is by worshiping him, by sharing testimony of his work in our life through the message of Christ Jesus. Okay, now real quick, just to finish off this sermon and this mini series, I said three, just quick concluding thoughts for us. So first, be encouraged. God is able to use failures to accomplish his mission, which brings us back to our start of the sermon.
The reason why we’ve gone through Acts 4 is for this passage, I hope is an encouragement to those of us here who have a track record of failing in evangelism. Let me say it again. Peter, unlikely evangelist, why he had a track record of failing. Yet here in the text to accomplish his mission, the Lord used Peter to declare the message of Christ as the first Christian church to be established as God used Peter to proclaim Christ crucified, Christ risen, the rock by which God would build his church, where even the gates of hell would not prevail against this morning. While I want all of us to be encouraged by this truth, that God is able to use failures to accomplish his will, my hope, my prayer for those who feel most encouraged this morning, or those who maybe walked in here feeling most defeated because of your past failures, where you’re so defeated, you, you just given up, as mentioned earlier, the Lord just maybe put you on the evangelism bench.
So, friend, if that’s you this morning, you walk in, you just feel, you just know you’ve been a failure. So. So yes, confess your failure to the Lord. Yes, receive his forgiveness and receive it in ways that you can trust that he can indeed use you.
And in that, let me encourage you to take steps of faith and to try again, even if right now all it is is just getting base hits. Don’t let past failures prevent you from like present and future obedience. Which by the way, before the second thing we also mentioned after Acts 4 part of Peter’s story included more failures like he wasn’t perfect in this. You can read more about that in Book of Galatians. But even though he continued to have failures, God continued to use him in great ways.
Second, be challenged to be bold in your witness. Now, I’ve said many times the past few weeks, little base hits can be seeds that God uses that over time he brings people to faith in Christ. Meaning advantage is more than just like hitting home run. Even little base, base hits can be helpful. While that’s all true, something I do want to encourage us in, let us also challenge ourselves to be bold and sometimes just take like the home run swing, where we’re just trusting God in ways that we’re just.
We’re just going for it. And for me, that really is the challenge of our passage today. Just how bold Peter and John were. Boldly proclaiming Christ in a public square. Boldly proclaiming Christ in the face of religious leaders, boldly proclaiming Christ in the face of warnings and Threats, boldly calling people to repent and believe.
They’re not shy, they were not timid, they were not shrinking back.
They were bold. And God used their boldness to bring many home. He brought many to Christ. So for us as a church, yes, let’s continue to work hard to be faithful, to get basics. Let’s be encouraged as we get base hits.
Let’s trust that God does use base hits. But also let’s seek to be bold. Bold in ways we’re sharing the gospel, calling people to repent and believe, calling people to come to Christ, which is the third and final leads to the third and final thing. So just be trusting in the power of God at the end of the day for us to truly do evangelism, at least effective evangelism. Friends, it’s only because of the power of God.
And that’s where we must put our trust, our confidence. Evangelism is not in like our own success or even our own failures or insecurities. It’s nothing to do with our own power or the lack thereof. Rather, for us as we seek to evangelism, friends, it’s all about the power of God. Let us rest and trust in his power, the power of God through the Holy Spirit.
The third amendment of the Blessed Trinity. It’s mentioned in Acts one comes and fills us to empower us to do this, to be witnesses. We’re in this power of the Holy Spirit. He works with the power of the Gospel. The message of Christ, crucified and risen as the Gospel, is the power of God to salvation for all who believe as the power of the Holy Spirit.
The power of the Gospel, the power of God’s holy word. God uses it to change sinners, to bring people to faith. And not only that, to keep and to grow us in our faith, where through his power he’s even able to grow us in this area of our faith where he’s given us all the power that we need to make us bold. Evangelists as unlikely as it might seem to us that he would use us. Reverendville’s Church May God give us a reputation of those who have been with Jesus.
May he put fire in our bones that we cannot contain that which we believe as we boldly declare Christ crucified and risen. Reverend Church May we be faithful evangelists all of our days where evangelism just becomes more and more who we are as we live out our faith. And may God use us to draw many, many, many more to Himself. Let’s pray.
Lord, thank youk for Acts 4 and just a reminder that you do use people who have failed to do great things for your great glory.
So God, please do forgive us for the many times we have failed, where we have shrunk back in our faith, where we’ve let opportunities pass by.
And Lord, I do pray you just help our church to grow in this area for your glory, for our joy, just for the good of those around us. Lord, we long to see more and more people come into faith in Christ.
So God, please help us to be found faithful. Pray so in Jesus name, amen.