On a Mission from God
First B Jackson
2013-07-07

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

----
Well, is this thing important? Yeah. Okay. Blew that one. Think of a man set free from bondage and captivity by almighty God.

He's released. He's given a chance to grow, given a second chance, but it's not really by his choice. He doesn't know God. This man revisits all that he ever knew God, and he finds it unsatisfied. It's just dead religion.

But an old friend speaks truth into his life so reluctantly opens himself up to God's direction. Then God moves with great power. It surprises him. It surprises everybody around him. He's so totally convinced that God is and that he has moved with great power and that he has given him a mission.

His eyes are open as God expands his understanding of himself. He's so totally convinced that he commences his brother that this is their shared mission and with singular focus they set about accomplishing the mission. Worldly philosophies rise against them, authorities rise against them in opposition and they make the mission seem impossible. It's not gonna happen, there's no way. But they're resolute, no doubt about it.

They have their direction, they're gonna take it. They encounter unbelievable opposition yet the mission is clear and God provides miraculously for them day by day by day to see his mission accomplished. In the end, that great personal cost to them with much effort expended, inspired and supplied by God, they actually do accomplish the mission they set out to do. Now what I just described is kind of a plot, a general plot. What I was thinking of is that.

That's what I was thinking of. The Blues Brothers, Jake Melvin. Jake gets out of prison. He wasn't really looking for God. He went back and visited the penguin.

This is a this movie, the TBS version is better. It needs to be edited. Trust me. But these guys and act really line up together. I can't help but think of this when I think of that.

They are convinced of their mission. They know what's going on and that's their answer. And you might think blasphemy. Loretha Franklin did the movie and she said, don't you blasphemy in here. To these guys when they said we're on mission from God.

But it was not blasphemy. It was the truth. These guys knew that they had a mission from God. I know it's a movie. It's one of my favorite movies but I know that it doesn't have a whole lot.

It doesn't seem like it has a whole lot to do with Acts. If you watch it, watch the edited version. Don't blame it on me because it's not pristine, especially before they know God. But Acts five twelve three forty eight through two demonstrates a very familiar pattern. It's the pattern that's seen in that movie.

God moves with power. He does. His word interprets what's going on. It explains what's happening and then opposition arises. And what's great about that is the opposition arises and then it's toward it.

And then the witness advances. That's what we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna look through Acts five twelve through 42. And you all notice these are big chunks of scripture. You could probably pick a verse or two here and there and use the mix of Jesus and pull it out but I think narrative lends itself to just taking big chunks so we're gonna go through that in a minute.

This is ridiculous. My professor William Larkin he wrote the book that I'm using as guideline for the study of Acts, he had us memorizing Greek class a chart that was about 40 columns long and about 30 columns deep and he taught it the grammar and the head chart. He wanted for us when we looked at Greek words to know or prepositions or participles he wanted us to know these things it was only a 100 you know who knows how many. He also made this chart. I want you to see that this pattern in acts one through five is repeated several times and it's I think he's talking to Theophilus.

Luke is talking to Theophilus and he's saying this is the way things happen in the kingdom of God. This is a normal pattern of events. This is the way the church got started and this is something that we can expect in our normal lives. In chapter two, God moves with power at Pentecost and then Peter stands up and says, oh God told us this was gonna happen in Joel, he points back to Psalms, he points back to Deuteronomy, opposition arises, these guys are just drunk. But Peter answers no it's just 09:00 in the morning listen this is what's happening he answered and then the witness advances that talks about the believers getting together daily and taking care of one each other's needs, each other's needs, prayer, breaking of bread that sort of thing.

Chapter three we saw over the past several weeks it was exactly the same thing. This week it's the same too and we're going go into that in a bit but first we're going to talk about well, let me just get to the scripture first. Let me show all of this. The apostles performed in many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all believed were meeting regularly at the temple in the area known as Solomon's Garden, but no one else dared to join them even though all the people had high regard for them.

That sounds weird. No one dared to join them even though all the people had high regard for them. What just happened immediately before this last week's the last time of the sermon last week, Ananias and Sapphire were struck dead. In the church where the lame walked, the liars died. There was reason for fear among the people.

But when the apostles were performing signs and wonders, then no one else dared to join them. They were kind of standoffish from this because they recognized that something crazy was going on here. Even though people had a higher yard for them, yet more and more people believed and were brought to the Lord. The people who knew what was going on from a periphery that were just kind of outside looking in around the temple, they kind of were scared of what was going on. But if you'll see the crowds of both men and women, as a result of the apostles' work, sick people were brought out into the streets on beds and mass so that Peter's shadow might even fall across some of them as they went by.

Maybe a little bit of superstition going on there. Crowds came from villages around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those possessed by evil spirits, and they were all healed. Where are the villages around Jerusalem? Where would those be? Judea.

Jerusalem was a city in the midst of kind of a geopolitical region known as Judea, the land of the Jews. So Jerusalem's here, Judea is outlying areas. In Acts one eight, Jesus said, you will be my witnesses. You will be my witnesses to Jerusalem And so far, that's all we've seen. Judea.

So Judea is coming in now. Samaria in the uttermost parts. We're gonna see that ever expanding circle throughout that. Crowds came from the villages around Jerusalem out of Biju, bringing their sickness possessed by evil spirits, and they were all good. The high priest and his officials who were sad to see were filled with jealousy.

They arrested the they arrested the apostles and put them in a public jail. Now what? How many times have they been in jail so far? This is the second time in Acts we see them caught put in jail. But an angel of the Lord came at night, opened the gates of the jail, and brought them out.

Then he told them, go to the temple and give the people this message of life. So at daybreak, the apostles entered the temple as they were told. You can't do that when angels tell you to do something. And immediately began teaching, and when the high priest and his officials arrived, they convened the high council, Wondering where it would all land. Isn't that a great line?

Wondering where this all land. Oh, we thought we got rid of that guy. He's coming back up. Then someone arrived with startling news. The men you put in jail are standing in the temple teaching the people.

This is kinda like the Keystone Cops, isn't it? They're fumbling around trying to figure out what's going on. The captain went with the temple guards and arrested the apostles but without violence, where they were afraid the people would stone them. Then they brought the apostles before the high council where the high priest confronted them. Didn't he tell you never again to teach in this man's name, he demanded?

Instead, you have filled all the crucial with your teaching about it and you wanna make us responsible for his death. Who's responsible for Christ's death? They were and we all were. They all they were and we all are. But you wanna make us responsible for his death.

But Peter and the apostles replied, we must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead after you killed him by hanging him on the cross. Then God put him in a place of honor at his right hand as prince and savior. He did this so the people of Israel would repent of their sins. He did this so the people of Israel would repent of their sins and be forgiven.

We are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit who is given by God to those who obey. And when they heard this, the high council was furious. Literally furious right there means they were sawn apart, slid into, cut, and decided to kill them. But one member, a pharisee named Gomelian, who was an expert in religious law and respected by all the people stood up in order that the men be sent outside the chamber, the council chamber for a while. Then he said to his colleagues, men of Israel, take care what you plan to do with these men.

Some time ago, there was that fellow Theodos who pretended to be someone great. About 400 others joined him, but he was killed and all his followers went their various ways. The whole movement came to nothing. After him, at the time of the census, there was Judas of Galilee. He got people to follow him, but he was killed too, and his followers were scattered.

So my advice is, this is a guy they all respect. Leave these men alone. Let them go. If they're planning on doing these things merely on their own, it will soon be overthrown. But if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them.

You may even find yourselves fighting against God. The other accepted his advice, they called in the apostles and added them to love. It always cracks me up. The apostles left high council rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus. And every day in the temple and from house to house, they continue to teach and preach this message, Jesus is the Messiah.

I'm gonna go back now to the slides. Larry, if you could go back to the slides towards the end but let's pray that God will just illuminate what he's trying to teach this morning. God, would you do just that? Would you show us exactly what you have for us? We wanna apply the scripture to our life, Lord.

We know that you have moved with great power. We know that you want for us to pay attention to what it is that you're doing. And God, I pray that you would use us, that we would stand up, that we would interpret your word, that we do so correctly, rightly dividing the word of truth, Lord. And I pray that if and when opposition does arise, Lord, from the world, from outside influence, from, from my own interior, from sin, Lord, when that opposition arrives that you would be the one that flirts it, Lord. You get it behind us.

Thank God that your kingdom witness would advance. It's in Jesus' name we pray, Lord. Amen. So God moves with power. In that story, you can see a couple of different places where he does that.

Verses 12 to 16 jump out at me. It's impossible to perform many miraculous signs and wonders. I'll find the title of the other night. He said, I keep expecting you to say that acts as a transitional book. It's between the Old Testament and the New Testament and it is a place where things happen that we're really uncomfortable with.

My way of saying that is in the first few terms, said Acts is an uncomfortable book to study because we see things happen in Acts that we don't normally see happening at first Peter. I don't like to get into the study of miracles and have it ceased and not because God is bigger than that. He is able to do what he wants to do and I've seen some unusual things in the mission field at different times when necessary, God shows up. He just does. So but in this particular place, Acts is a transitional book.

I'll say it. It is one of those places where we see apostles doing things that seem to be not their will but we know that their wills are closely aligned with God's. All of them were together in one place and they were in one accord, they were in one heart, one mind, one soul. We've seen that and the heart, mind, soul was all joined together by one spirit as Paul says one baptism. They were all brought in together as one.

As all believers are meeting regularly at the temple in that Solomon's Colony, they were teaching but what they were they were preaching more than they were teaching. There's a difference in kerygma and daddash. Kerygma is the proclamation of the gospel. And Peter does it over and over and over in his book and so do the other apostles. So God moves with power verses 12 to 16, yes he has done this miraculous thing.

He does it again in this later section when an angel opens the jail that the guys are in. When he opens pops the clink on them and lets them out and closes the door apparently back and locks it back up because it's securely locked in that day when they get there. God moves with power. He does this at his own prerogative. He does it when he chooses to do it.

I do not think that we can twist God's arms. Do I not think that we can give a little seed money so that we can get God to do what we want. I don't think that fasting makes God do what we want. I don't think that we're in control of God's mighty movements of the spirit. So I don't think it's scriptural to believe that that's true.

It's his prerogative. When he moves with power, it is up to us to that and we do that with his word. That's what we do. That's why we have the Bible. We had forecasted beforehand all of this prophecy.

Peter knew his Bible and so he was able to stand up on the day of Pentecost and say, this is what Joel was talking about, that God was gonna pour out his spirit on us, that that old man and young man dream dreams, have vision, all of that. He knew that because he knew the word. So God's word interprets. If you look at verses 29 through 32 in this current story study, Peter and the apostles replied, we must obey God rather than any human authority. When he said that, I was looking for references in there and the references honestly are a little bit oblique but there are some.

When he's interpreting the word Psalms 106, Psalms 118, Isaiah 63, Jeremiah, Joel, Judges, he's coming up from all these places. What's interesting when he's talking about we must obey God rather than man is he immediately goes to the God of our ancestors. Now he's in a group of people who disagree with him. He's in a group of people that he knows don't believe in the resurrection and he knows the resurrection has happened in Jesus. So when he's talking to him, he he throws it out there.

We must obey God rather than men and then he asked him basically to join him. He says, the God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead after you killed him by hanging him on the cross. On a tree is a literal translation and that goes back to the prophecies that he would be common tree and curse. A little note right here for today, for all time actually, John Scott said something I thought was a great quote I ran across this week commenting on this verse, he said if the authority concerned, whatever authority that may be, if the authority concerned misuses its God given power to command what he forbids, to command what God forbids, or to forbid what God commands, then the Christian's duty is to disobey the human authority in order to obey gods. That's a difficult place when we're told to be humble and we're told to to we don't want to be known for what we're against but when the authority tells us we have to do something that we cannot do as Christians, we need to be able to say, we cannot do that.

We must obey God rather than man. That's a middle sermon application point there. I think it's great Peter preaches the gospel. At that point, when they're up against him, he lets the word interpret and he opens it up. He almost preaches and gives an invitation to him.

He says, come on and do it. Come on down. It's our spiritual responsibility to allow the word of God to interpret God's movement. Opposition arises in this orb. Point three, almost to four.

There are a couple of different places where you can see this. I mean we see it all over the place in general with the Sadducees especially 17 and 18. The high priest and his officials who were Sadducees. Y'all remember me saying sadducees and pharisees were two completely different groups. The sadducees were extremely far left, very far left.

They believed in human goings on, not divine goings on. They believed that humans made decisions. That was all that mattered. Politically, sadducees were all that. They did not really believe in the resurrection at all.

They thought it was figurative language. They did not believe that was the name of the resurrection. They didn't believe in angels or spirits. They believed in human humanity only. The pharisees were on the other side, but the high priest and his officials who were sadducees were filled with jealousy.

This is probably from a good place because they thought that they were doing right. They were filled with zeal. This kind of, I can't believe they're doing this again. That sort of thing. So they arrested the apostles and put them in jail.

That's opposition arising right there. God moves with power again and that he unlocks the door to that jail. 21 to 26 says, when the high priestess officials arrived, they convened the high council, full assembly of the elders of Israel. They sent for them to come in and as they were gonna question, they find us out. That's opposition arising.

Thirty eight and forty also goes into Gamaliel and his response. And I want to want to go into Gamaliel's response. So Gamaliel is a Pharisee. He most of us got upset and sees he's a Pharisee but he's a guy that everybody respects. Everybody thinks he's got a good head on his shoulders and he's somebody that we ought to listen to.

He tells them all about the men of Israel that have stood up and one of them pretending to be the Messiah, another one want to be zealous and overthrow the government. But he says, my advice is leave these men alone, let them go. If they're planning on doing these things merely on their own, it will soon be overthrown. But if it's from God, you'll not be able to overthrow and you may even find yourself fighting against God. This has been variously interpreted over the years.

One way is that Gamaliel was a believer or he was beginning to be a believer and so he was just trying to get the apostles out of trouble with the officials. The other is that he's just a pragmatist and he just recognizes that listen, you got a bunch of people around right now who love them but it's gonna come to nothing. If it's not of God, so he's putting his trust in God. I don't know exactly where to come down on that, but I do know this, Gamaliel did not go far enough. I will say this to you, it's not within our ability to control how opposition will rise against us.

There's nothing we can do about that. We cannot control how opposition will arise against us. We also cannot control how it's thwarted. God got them out of this situation with one of the guys that was against them speaking up. So it's not within our ability to control that.

So the first one is God's prerogative. The second one is our responsibility. The third one is not within our ability to control, but it gets us to this point. The witness advancing. When Ephesians told him that others accepted his advice, they called in apostles out of blood, then they ordered him never again to speak in the name of Jesus and then go out and go.

And this part, acts forty one and forty two. 42 is probably my favorite verse in acts. It's something I think about all the time is that we ought to be doing this all the time. It's about sustained obedience. Acts 41 says the apostles left the high council rejoicing after they had been flocked.

Rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus. But 42 says, and every day in the temple and from house to house, they continue to teach and preach this message. Jesus is the Messiah. Verse 16, alongside Jesus' promise in Acts one eight is interesting too. I told you about about Jerusalem being in Judea, and so now it's spreading from Jerusalem.

It's getting to be a wider circle out into Judea. Forty one and forty two are those summary statements about how the word spread. And I wanna tell you that the witness advancing is about our obedience, not just our obedience. 42 says that they continued, actually the Greek version of progressive action verb that says they continually were preaching. They were always teaching and preaching that Jesus is the Christ.

That was the center of their message. If you look at the apostles teaching and preaching in the New Testament, it's almost always about the Christ, almost always about Jesus. It's not necessarily like the epistles that are teaching us how we can live together, how to live together and in the world. The apostles preaching in the early days of Christianity during those times of exponential growth was centered upon the cross of Christ. Emmanuel's pragmatic report or his pragmatic advice that he gave him was really just to see this problem kind of go away.

He didn't go far enough. If he really believed that it was from God, then he should have said, and we should join. That's where it should have been. The witness advance advances. So application.

God moves with power. He has moved with power. He did that in the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Jesus lived a perfect life. He lived a sacrificial death.

He had a sacrificial death and declared innocent repeatedly. Seven times declared innocent, yet they still crucified him in the grave and on the third day he rose again. God that's God moving with power right there. God raised Jesus from the dead. Historical fact is actually did happen.

It actually does matter. So the first point, God is the prime mover. He's in charge. He has moved with power already. So where are you on this progression?

This is an application point. Have you seen God move with power? He has done it, but have you seen it? I hate to call back Jake. Jake Melwood.

But Jake, absolutely, It's an illustration. But that happens. That happens in people's lives still today. It happened in my life, happened in your life, happened in a lot of your lives. Has God moved with power?

Yes. Have you seen him move with power? Yes. Praise God. If the answer is no, I'm asking you to take a leap of faith today, step of faith and come out.

Let one of us know. Let somebody in this room know before you leave that God is speaking to you today, please. If he has shown himself, if you have seen him move with power, are you letting his word interpret for you what you're to do in your life? Has he showed you through his word or through your friends or through your circumstances what he would have you do. I would say, I want you to take a leap of faith and do it.

You will encounter an opposition. Jesus guarantees that in John 16 but it's still worth it. Looking to God in the midst of opposition, trusting in him, and proclaiming his word, that's how his kingdom advances. It is by sustained obedience by people who have seen him move with power in their own lives. We're gonna go into a time of communion here.

Carl, don't give the band come back up and we're gonna do the first song that he's gonna do the kind of invitation. The altar is open up here. If you find yourself anywhere along this continuum and feel like you need to do business today with Jesus and just kind of make a decision that you've been putting off or if you felt this nagging kind of feeling, the spirit is moving and you've not been responding. And I'd ask you please, you can come up front and pray, you can stand where you are and pray, but open yourself up to God. Allow him to work through you in you, with you today.

We're gonna sing that first song and then we're gonna prepare for communion. Fella, Elder, if you would come forward towards the end of the song when we close and we'll go right into the town.

We're gonna remain seated here and again, this is preparing us for communion and it's

a time to to be

reverent, time to listen, time to talk to God in your heart. And just ask that you would focus on on the lyrics of the song

this time. Amen.