Good morning! Welcome to worship! We are in a series through the book of Acts called “Living without fear.” So far we’ve looked at the fear of the truth and the fear that evil will prosper. Today we look at the fear of abandonment. We’ve all felt it. We fear losing our family, friends, being left alone. Maybe you’ve been abandoned by people you love. These fears are actually rooted in the fear that God will abandon us. If that’s your fear, God has a special word for you! Listen up! (Beatles – “I want to hold your hand!”) God sometimes uses strange messengers to convey his truth!
Let’s go back to those words from Isaiah 41. The Jews are in exile in Babylon, over 1000 miles from Israel. It appears they’ve lost everything. How can they escape the power of Babylon and make their way home again? They feel like a handful of earthworms at a robin convention. Yet the Lord makes them a promise -“For I am the LORD , your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear; I will help you. Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob, O little Israel, for I myself will help you," declares the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Isa 41:13-14
With that promise, let’s turn to Acts 5:12. It’s maybe 4 months after the resurrection, 2 months after Pentecost and powerful things are happening in the infant church. They have no building, no organized structure. They simply gather daily under the covered porches of the temple complex to listen to the disciples teach about Jesus.
Vs 12 The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. All the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people.” Acts 5:12-13
Maybe you remember a time when you were afraid to get too close to a “God place” because God might get you! There was this spiritual battle going on inside of you.
Vs 14 “Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.” There was a revival going on. Revivals are dangerous things! The Holy Spirit takes over and people and families get changed. Chains fall off, joy erupts, bitterness melts, healing happens.
Vs 15 “As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.” I’m always amazed at how susceptible we are to a magical interpretation of faith. The reason we do this is we want to maintain control. Instead of drawing close to God through a relationship of faith and obedience, we want a magical faith in which we can get God to do what we want without ever submitting our lives to him, or surrendering our will to obey him.
Instead of drawing close to God, these folks opted for Peter’s shadow. Yet despite this foolishness, God takes us where we are, immature, unformed as our faith maybe and he heals and delivers us. He grabs our hand when we are incapacitated by fear.
How often has God delivered you when you weren’t even aware of it? Maybe you should go back over your life this week and make a list and thank him for all the times he’s delivered you!
Vs 17 “Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. (No praise for the healings that were happening) They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. “Go, stand in the temple courts” he said, “and tell the people the full message of this new life.” Acts 5:17-20
At daylight, Peter and the disciples head back for Solomon’s Portico. At the same time the high priest and his cronies are meeting to decide how to shut down these unauthorized gatherings. As soon as the religious leaders get their stuff together, they send for the disciples.
When the officers get to the jail cell, they find the doors locked, the guards in place, but no disciples. Doesn’t God have a great sense of humor? The Lord is still doing this stuff in many places around the world. But since we can’t control or explain it, we dismiss and deny it!
The officers hurry back to tell the chief priests what’s happened and while they are all standing around scratching their heads, someone rushes in with the news that the disciples are back teaching in the temple courtyard.
It’s fascinating how the attitude of the officers change when the go back to arrest the disciples. Instead of strong arming and abusing them, they use great courtesy. Luke tells us they were afraid the people would stone them, but I wonder if they were afraid of more than that!
When they arrive in front of the high priest and the Sanhedrin, which was comprised of 70-100 religious elders and leaders of the city, it’s very apparent that Caiaphas, who ordered Jesus’ execution, is not having a very good day! In fact, he’s got a doozy of a headache!
Here’s the question! Who is in charge? To an outside observer, Peter and the disciples look like a handful of earthworms in front of a flock of hungry robins. That might even be how they feel. But what’s really what’s going on here? Where is the power focused?
Caiaphas confronts them, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet you have filled all Jerusalem with your teaching! You are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.” Acts 5:28
You’ve got it right, Caiaphas! It was you, and the Sanhedrin, and the Roman soldiers, and the crowd, and us as well. It was our sin that crucified Jesus. And for the sake of our salvation, God the Father placed our sin on his own Son, Jesus.
Peter never blames Caiaphas anymore than any of the rest of us. But Caiaphas refuses to see that it was for him and because of him, that Jesus died. Peter understands this. He knows the role he played. And he knows that through repentance and faith in Jesus, he now stands forgiven, just as if he had never sinned. And that’s the message he proclaims!
He responds to Caiaphas, vs 29 "We must obey God rather than men! The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead--whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him." Acts 29-32
When Caiaphas and his cronies hear the disciples proclaim the truth and realize they are powerless to control them, they become so furious they want to kill them on the spot. Why is it that when human beings run out of resources, we resort to murder to solve our problems?
It was one year earlier that Jesus told these same guys, “If God were your Father, you would love me for I came from God. I have not come on my own but he sent me.” Then he said, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out his desire. He was a murderer from the beginning… he is a liar and the father of lies. The reason you will not listen to me is that you do not belong to God.” John 8:42-47
You can tell how much someone loves you by how willing they are to tell you the truth! Let’s go back to Acts 5. One of the Sanhedrin, a Pharisee named Gamaliel who was the mentor of the Apostle Paul, stood up and told Caiaphas and his buddies that if the movement was of God, they couldn’t stop it, if it wasn’t, it would fall apart on its own.
So instead of killing them, they had them flogged. This is the same thing that happened to Jesus. 40 lashes minus one because it was thought 40 would kill a man. It was done with a cat-o-nine tails, a whip with multiple strands of leather with bits of lead, bone, and glass tied into them. It left permanent scarring and often permanent nerve and muscle damage.
A few months before the disciples watched as Jesus was flogged. They remembered the prophesy of Isaiah. “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds (literally stripes or bruises) we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isa 53:5-6
As they were flogged a strange thing took place. They realized the Lord had given them a great honor – to suffer as Jesus did for the salvation of the world. A mystery to be sure!
This was the disciples’ first encounter with suffering disgrace and shedding blood for the sake of the Gospel. There would be much more to come. But something had changed inside of them. They were no longer afraid of what circumstances or men might do to them. They knew the Lord had gone through all of these things before them. They knew he held their hand.
They about to learn that he would redeem their suffering and make it a platform for their witness. And he will do the same for you! The most powerful witness you will give will not be from a position of comfort, but in the midst of painful opposition and suffering. After flogging the disciples, they were ordered to speak no more in the name of Jesus. But instead of inhibiting them, the persecution only steeled their boldness and courage.
Vs 41 “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.” Acts 5:41-42
Ever feel like an earthworm at a robin convention? If you are in Christ, the power resides in you! Let’s read again God’s promise in Isaiah 41 “For I am the LORD , your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear; I will help you. Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob, O little Israel, for I myself will help you," declares the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Isa 41:13-14
