1. "The fruit of the Holy Spirit's work in your life alone won't save anybody. But it may awaken them questions that lead them to want to hear the good news of Jesus."

2. "We may not have the silver and gold people think they want from us, but brothers and sisters, we have something far better than they even know to ask for. We have the good news of Jesus Christ."

3. "Notice who believed. It doesn't say those who simply saw the sign. It's interesting—hearing the word, not a one of them is shown as believing then. They're amazed, they wonder. No, it's when they hear the word and they believe."

4. "Our God is so loving that He would provide a way of forgiveness even for those people who had killed His only Son."

5. "They could stop the apostles from preaching, but they couldn't stop the people from believing what the apostles had preached. So they could stop the apostles, but they couldn't stop the faith."

6. "Our boldness of witness should not come from how confident we are with our clever words. It shouldn't come from college degrees or law school degrees or seminary degrees. No, it should come like these first witnesses from our having been with Jesus."

7. "When people are big—that is, in your own eyes—you act as if people are the big deal and God is small. God's never small. But we may act as if God is small."

8. "If you want to be bolder in your evangelism, here's one very practical thing you can do: Study the sovereignty of God. Study to see how He is in control, so you will have the emotional energy to keep going when the people seem entirely disinterested."

9. "Of course they're disinterested. They're spiritually dead. The only way the cemetery is going to start dancing is if God does some raising."

10. "Testifying to the reality of the next life leads to generosity in this life. The more you understand and tell others of the life to come, the better you'll handle this life, the more generous you will be."

Observation Questions

1. According to Acts 3:1-8, what did Peter say to the lame man before healing him, and what happened immediately after Peter took him by the right hand?

2. In Acts 3:13-15, what three specific accusations does Peter make against his audience regarding their treatment of Jesus, and what does he say God did in response?

3. According to Acts 4:1-3, who came upon Peter and John while they were speaking, what were they "greatly annoyed" about, and what action did they take?

4. In Acts 4:8-12, what does Peter declare about the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and what Old Testament imagery does he use to describe Jesus?

5. According to Acts 4:13, what two things did the rulers observe about Peter and John, and what did they recognize about them?

6. In Acts 4:19-20, how did Peter and John respond to the command not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus, and what reason did they give for their response?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why do you think God used a miraculous healing to gather an audience before Peter's sermon, and what does this pattern (seen also at Pentecost) teach us about the relationship between signs and the proclamation of God's Word?

2. Peter boldly accused the religious leaders of killing Jesus while simultaneously offering them forgiveness through repentance. How does this combination of honest confrontation and gracious invitation reflect the nature of the gospel message?

3. In Acts 4:24-28, the early church prayed acknowledging that Herod, Pilate, Gentiles, and Israel all did "whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place." How does this understanding of God's sovereignty over even the crucifixion shape how we should view opposition and persecution today?

4. The rulers recognized that Peter and John "had been with Jesus" (Acts 4:13). What does this suggest about the source of true boldness in Christian witness, and why is this significant given that Peter had denied Jesus just weeks earlier?

5. How does Peter's statement that "there is salvation in no one else" (Acts 4:12) serve as both a warning to the religious leaders and a central truth for all people, and why is this exclusivity essential to the Christian message?

Application Questions

1. Peter and John gave the lame man something far better than the silver and gold he expected. Who in your life might be looking for something from you that is less valuable than the good news of Jesus, and how might you redirect that conversation toward the gospel this week?

2. The sermon emphasized that the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your life may awaken questions that lead others to want to hear the gospel. What specific relationships or situations in your life right now could become opportunities for witness if people saw Christ-like love, kindness, or hope in you?

3. Peter and John chose to obey God rather than the religious authorities who commanded them to stop speaking about Jesus. What pressures—from employers, family, friends, or culture—tempt you to remain silent about your faith, and what would it look like to fear God more than man in those specific situations?

4. The early church responded to persecution by gathering together and praying for boldness rather than for the removal of opposition. When you face resistance or discouragement in sharing your faith, do you tend to withdraw or pray for boldness? What concrete step could you take to cultivate a habit of prayer for boldness?

5. Acts 4:32-35 describes believers freely sharing their possessions because they were secure in their eternal inheritance. In what area of your finances, time, or possessions is God calling you to greater generosity this week because you trust that you "have a better possession and an abiding one" (Hebrews 10:34)?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Luke 24:36-49 — This passage shows the risen Jesus teaching His disciples how the Scriptures pointed to Him and commissioning them as witnesses, which directly prepared them for the bold preaching we see in Acts 3-4.

2. Psalm 118:19-29 — Peter quotes verse 22 about the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone; reading the full context reveals the messianic celebration that Jesus fulfilled.

3. Joel 2:28-32 — Referenced in Peter's Pentecost sermon (Acts 2), this prophecy explains the outpouring of the Spirit that empowered the disciples' bold witness.

4. Hebrews 10:32-39 — This passage illustrates how confidence in future inheritance produces present endurance and generosity, directly connecting to the early church's response to persecution and their sharing of possessions.

5. 1 Timothy 2:1-7 — Paul's instruction to pray for rulers so that believers may live peaceful lives connects to the sermon's call to pray for God-fearing governments and for freedom to proclaim the gospel.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Preacher's Journey from Agnosticism to Faith Through the Disciples' Changed Lives

II. The First Church Grew by Preaching (Acts 3)

III. The First Church Grew by Persevering Through Persecution (Acts 4:1-22)

IV. The First Church Persevered with Prayer (Acts 4:23-31)

V. The First Church Demonstrated Generosity and Unity (Acts 4:32-37)

VI. The Disciples' Faithful Witness Spread the Gospel to the Ends of the Earth

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Remember how we began this series a few weeks ago with a thought experiment?

Imagine a world without Christianity.

Now, assuming that most of us sitting here in church on a Sunday morning are Christians, I imagine that world sounds bleak, unsympathetic, lonely, directionless, no certain knowledge of God or how to know Him or be with Him, sins, damages, irreparable, no one to give us hope through our life's darkest passages. No way to God, no way to understand the holiness or the humility that we learn through Christ, our moral and personal brokenness that everyone naturally senses our fate forever.

I've shared with you something of my own story and that it was the story, the history really, of Christianity, which won me out of agnosticism and that first woke me up out of my moral slumbers to the truth of who God is, who I really am, who Jesus is. And Christianity is all about the answer to those questions, who God is. Who Jesus is, who I am.

And it was the change in the collection of ordinary people that we know as the disciples, that was my final clue that caused me, by God's grace, to stumble upon the empty tomb of Christ. His bodily resurrection from the dead after having been crucified. It was their change that became the key. Their change is the farthest I could go with my naturalistic worldview, no miracles, that my agnosticism allowed. I could observe their change, with no alteration of my materialism, no supernaturalism needed.

And I could follow their history through the studies in the Gospels, and it all made sense, even their dissolution at the end into betrayal and denial and desertion at the cross. Honestly, it sounds realistic. I could imagine that happening. And on the other side, going back through history, I could easily allow their real existence, and even many of the stories here in the book of Acts giving us the story of that first church growing through their preaching and witness.

But that's as far as I could get. I was stuck, like trying to get over some impenetrable snowbank on Capitol Hill. You can make it this far from one side and this far from the other, you just can't make it over. That was exactly the situation I was in. I could get this far through the Gospels, and the trail ended at the cross with the disciples scattered and hiding.

Or I could go around to the other side and work back through history, and I could pick up the trail and go backwards into their very lives. In the book of Acts in 50 A.D. and get back to 40 A.D. and even back to the very sermons that we're seeing Peter preaching here in these earliest chapters of Acts, because people can do all those things. I don't need God for those things to happen. People can do those things. But it was getting the disciples from the day Christ was killed to the disciples just weeks later professing this strange tale of Jesus being raised from the dead by God and not just professing it quietly to each other, you know, I like to think of it like this, but professing it loudly, saying it in front of the very people who had killed Jesus, and then standing up and boldly arguing from the Hebrew Scriptures, that was so inexplicable to me.

And the fact that they don't simply do that for a day, and then it's a fever that breaks and passes, or a week while they are under the power of some hallucination, But they persisted in this for weeks and months, even through the kind of opposition that we'll see beginning in the passage we look at this morning. And then they don't stay in Jerusalem to build some psychologically self-reinforcing community, but they do exactly what Jesus had commanded them to do. They scatter all over the known world, telling this same strange story. From Rome to Libya to Spain to Egypt to Ethiopia up to the Black Sea to Armenia, even to India, as we heard in the story of the disciple Thomas last week. And so I realized that I was acting like an atheist, that I knew there was no God instead of an agnostic.

Who admitted that he didn't know. And friends, this is where my rationality maybe ends. It's at that moment that I thought that this God could be true and that the resurrection of Jesus Christ could be true, then that immediately seemed the best explanation for the change in these men. And it all became clear. God took over.

I became a Christian.

These changed men and the stories of their lives as the Christian church begins get tied up with my own story. Through their eyes, I share their experience exactly as Jesus had planned when He made them witnesses of Himself and His ministry from His baptism all the way through His resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father. And so my name becomes simply one more added to the long list of those one to Christ by the witness of these 12, these 12 called here in chapter 4:13, uneducated common men.

Open your Bibles again to Luke's second volume, the book of Acts. Let's go to the first chapter to verse 13. To remind ourselves of their names, largely forgotten today, you'll recognize a few of them.

I think that's page 925 in the Pew Bible. Somebody want to confirm the page number? 925.

Peter and John and James and Andrew Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James.

So these were the men who had been with Jesus and who had deserted Him.

These were those to whom He appeared who said that He was raised from the dead. These were those the risen Christ met with to teach them how they should understand what the Scriptures, the Law, the prophets, the Psalms said about Him. These were those who saw Him ascend into heaven and who were filled with His Spirit at the first Pentecost after Christ's ascension. We saw last week what happened on that day and how the church began. Today we continue to follow the history here in Acts about how the first church grew and we find that it grew through preaching, as we see in Acts 3, and by perseverance, as we see in Acts 4.

Preaching in Acts chapter 3 and persevering in Acts chapter 4. So let's turn now to that amazing account. You'll find the passage beginning on page 927 in the Bibles provided. How did the first church grow? Well, the summary answer to that question that we see in these two chapters are by preaching in chapter three, but persevering in chapter four.

Let's start with chapter three. How did this first church grow? By preaching. That's what we see. Let's look at the text here.

The setup for the sermon. Comes in these first 10 verses. Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate, to ask alms of those entering the temple.

Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, Look at us. And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

He took him by the right hand and raised him up. And immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up, he stood and began to walk and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God and recognized him as the one who sat at the beautiful gate of the temple asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

Friends, you notice this is just like we saw last week at Pentecost, as we see God did in the ministry of Jesus, as he done In other days of specially concentrated revelation, God brought a spectacle to bring an audience together for the sermon. The wonder came before the word to draw attention to it and show that it was a special word and that it did indeed come from God. So here the healing of this lame beggar prepared those around to hear what Peter would say. Interesting isn't it that last week at Pentecost where the sounds of the mighty rushing wind and the sight of the flaming tongues and the hearing of the mighty works of God in their own languages gave Peter the opportunity to preach. So here, this healing is what drew people's attention.

Other than this, you would just have crowds going to the temple at the normal time of prayer, three in the afternoon. But now this healing caused those coming in to be filled with wonder and amazement and what had happened. The spectacle built an audience for the speech, the sermon. The wonder built a platform of intrigue and interest for the Word.

So why does anyone today listen to a presentation of the gospel?

What's going on that someone who does not profess themselves to be a Christian will sit and listen to an individual share or even a speech be given about Christ. For instance, often it's the change that's taken place in your life or mine that God uses that cause people to ask for an explanation. What's going on? Why is Sasha like this now? Who's she doing with these things?

Why is she doing it this way? What's going on? Or why is Steve so kind? Why would he be like that? I know if I were in his shoes, I wouldn't be.

Friend, the fruit of the Holy Spirit's work in your life alone won't save anybody. But it may awaken them questions that lead them to want to hear the good news of Jesus. I love how this man fixes his eyes on Peter and John there in verse 5. And then in verse 11, you even see he's clinging to them. If you show someone the new way to life in Christ and they believe you, you will have their full attention.

And we may not have the silver and gold people think they want from us, but brothers and sisters, we have something far better than they even know to ask for. We have the good news of Jesus Christ. We want to live in such a way that provokes those closest to you to wonder, How can you love so well?

But as at Pentecost, the spectacle is there to draw attention to the speech. So listen as I keep reading chapter 3, beginning at verse 11. While he clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's. And when Peter saw it, he addressed the people, Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this? Or why do you stare at us?

As though by our own power or piety we have made him walk. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and who was denied in the presence of Pilate when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses, and His name, by faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given this man this perfect health in the presence of you all. And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He thus fulfilled. Repent, therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. The times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets long ago. Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you.

And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people. and all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and those who came after him also proclaimed these days, 'You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.' God, having raised up His servant, sent Him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.

Peter saw all these people running toward them. And so this fisherman-turned-preacher addressed them. He gave them the word, the message about Jesus right there in Solomon's Portico and Solomon's Colonnade, surrounded by hundreds at least of regular worshipers and pilgrims there from the Jewish diaspora. Peter preached a sermon with allusions to even more Scripture. That his sermon at Pentecost had held.

And then he had needed to explain the tongues that they had heard and seen, so he went to Joel. Now he needed to explain this healing. What was going on? Who is this person who can heal in whose name it is? Peter says clearly that this healing happened because not of him, but because of Jesus whom they killed.

He is relentless in the way he asserts their guilt, isn't he? Did you notice that in verses 13 and 14 and 15? He's just fearless. Verse 13, God's servant Jesus whom you delivered over and denied. Or verse 14, you denied the Holy and Righteous One.

Verse 15, you killed the Author of Life. Peter had clearly not gone to the seeker-sensitive school of evangelism. He hadn't seemed to have read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. But He calls them clearly to repent of their sins and to believe in Jesus Christ as the only Savior.

My non-Christian friend, I'm guessing you haven't seen some miraculously healed person in the name of Jesus like the people here had that day.

But something's brought you to church or to listen to this sermon.

Something like your mother or your father, maybe they brought you faithfully for years to this place and you've listened. Maybe it's your brother or your sister who you're visiting today and they regularly go to church so you're coming along with them. Perhaps you've seen things in the lives of Christians that you work with or live around that interest you and intrigue you. Maybe you want the kind of faith that causes us to sing as you've heard us singing today, or to live in a community of love and mutual help as we have here, praying for each other, reaching out and caring for each other, working for each other's good. Maybe you have a sense that you have sinned against God and that you want forgiveness of your sins and a restored relationship with God as your heavenly Father.

And you've realized that your own ignoring God does not mean that He will ignore you.

But you see here that our God is so loving that He would provide a way of forgiveness even for those people who had killed His only Son.

Maybe you felt as blown around by the circumstances of life as a piece of trash in the high winds.

But friends, you're wanting purpose and truth to settle and guide you. Well, here's the good news. There is a God. He has sent His only Son, Jesus, to live a life of complete love and trust of His heavenly Father. The life all of us made in God's image were made to live and that none of us have.

He died on the cross, taking God's appropriate and good wrath for our sins and for the sins of all those who would believe in Him on Him, paying the price fully in a way we never could, even through an eternity of suffering. And then God raised Him from the dead to show He accepted the sacrifice. He ascended to heaven as these very disciples witnessed and promises to return. And He calls all of us now to repent of our sins and to trust in Him for new life, for forgiveness. Jesus, the long promised Messiah, that Peter goes over all these prophecies from the Old Testament in a compact sense.

He has come to save sinners like you and me if you'll only acknowledge your wickedness and turn from it. Believe the word that you are hearing about him right now. Speak to me, speak to one of the other pastors at the doors out on the way out afterwards, or speak to the person you came with, if you came with somebody, if you want to know more about what this could mean in your own life. What happened as a result of this healing of Peter's sermon? We'll look down in chapter 4 for a moment, just look at verse 4 in chapter 4.

But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand. Wow! Just think, a few days earlier there were 120 of them in the upper room that morning of Pentecost. Maybe just a few days earlier. Now there were thousands right under the noses of those temple authorities.

Thousands.

Notice who believed. It doesn't say those who simply saw the sign. I know we think that signs and power, wonder working, is really where the answer of great revivals are. It's interesting hearing the word, not a one of them is shown as believing them. They're amazed, they wonder.

No, it's when they hear the word and they believe. That's when. It's when they hear this word about Jesus Christ. Jesus gives hope to the hopeless and His own holiness and righteousness to the sinful. My dear Christian brothers and sisters, I hope this encourages you to share the word.

This is how the first church grew 2000 years ago. This is how this church grows in the year 2026 on Capitol Hill. If you would know Jesus better, study Peter's sermon here to learn about him. The first church grew by preaching. This first church also grew by persevering.

That's what we see in Acts 4. This church grew by persevering through persecution. Persevering through persecution. Look there, beginning in chapter 4, verse 1.

And as 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 and 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 had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand.

On the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and all who were of the high priestly family. And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, By what power or by what name did you do this?

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, Rulers of the people and elders, if we are 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 before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And 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 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, 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 as evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

We cannot deny it. But in order that it may spread no farther among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name. So they called them back in 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, 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 on whom this sign of healing was performed He was more than 40 years old.

This group of Jewish leaders seems to have been the council that led the nation under Roman occupation. It was dominated by human leaders who were among the most prominent families of Jerusalem, highly trained men in the law and the Scriptures. Many were Sadducees and they were sad, you see, because they denied the resurrection.

You see there, that cannot be the first time you've heard that.

You see there in chapter 4:2, they seem to be one of the matters which drew both their attention and their concern and criticism against these leaders, the leaders against Peter and John. That's why they're arrested, it says in verse 3. Now, if you're new to Christianity, you may be forgiven for thinking that proclaiming good news about Jesus would bring popularity. But even this very room here in Washington, D.C. can provide testimony after testimony of how this message brings not always popularity, but sometimes persecution.

That's not only on the pages of the Bible, it's in the pages of the newspapers. You find it so today, especially in Africa and Asia. The statistics I saw about Christians being killed through the first seven months of last year simply in Nigeria alone was over 7,000.

In India, conversion growth is stoking the fears of many Hindus who see Christianity as alien, as a threat to their identity.

The Taliban in Afghanistan increases persecution against Christians there. And the situation is worsening in Algeria so much so that in the last 12 months, a number of church leaders fled the country.

I could go on. Getting back to first century Jerusalem, what these rulers and elders and scribes, together with the high priest and their family, could do is they could arrest the apostles, just like they could arrest Jesus, but that's all they could do. They could stop the apostles from preaching, but they couldn't stop the people from believing what the apostles had preached. So they could stop the apostles, but they couldn't stop the faith.

In some circles in America, I know persecution gets a good reputation.

What I mean is people will say that, oh, persecution is hard, but it purifies the church. They see it as a kind of, like the song we sang earlier from the words of Jesus, Taking up our cross and following Him. It'll weed out the casual, nominal Christians. Bring forward the true Christians, which then is healthy for the church and will forward Christian growth. And I understand what such comments mean.

They often will quote Tertullian from 197 AD saying, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. He's reflecting on some Roman persecutions of Christians back then. He observed that as Christians were mown down, more took their place. Certainly the bodily resurrection of Jesus means we Christians are not to be ultimately intimidated by physical death. And stories of suffering undergone for devotion can thrill our souls, stiffen our spines, encourage obedience.

But, friends, it has to be said at the end of the day, there are only so many Christians to be killed. Vast swaths of North Africa and the Middle East that were Christianity's homeland in its first centuries are now largely without Christian witness or with very limited Christian witness. Under great persecution because they were pressured and persecuted, some to death, others simply so much they would flee elsewhere or even forsake the faith or at least trim their sails so as not to publicly endanger themselves and their witness with any conversion of Muslims.

Friends, we should desire to use the earthly means of justice to oppose the persecution of people for their honestly held religious faith. Many of you are in positions of authority where you can use your authority at work in your job to help influence governments and other kinds of authorities not to persecute people for their faith. Are the long-term interests of a people served by silencing some of their own most devoutly conscientious and religious men and women? Can we not persuade those with power to treat people made in the image of God better?

Another thing to notice here is Peter's striking honesty there in chapter 4 verse 10 when he says to his persecutors, 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. Peter is now not talking to a large crowd speaking kind of anonymously. He was speaking literally to Caiaphas who had said that in John's gospel better one man die for the nation than the whole nation perish. He is speaking to the very men who in fact did make the decision to incite the crowds to call for the death of Jesus. And they use the Romans as their tools.

And yet Peter who was so scared a few weeks before he had denied he even knew Jesus, now is standing to the face of those leaders and charging them plainly with what they'd done. Peter said that these very leaders were the builders rejecting the cornerstone. He goes to the scriptures as Jesus had taught him, undoubtedly in that amazing seminar in Luke 24 where he goes through the whole Old Testament explaining how Jesus is there. He goes to Luke I mean, to Psalm 118:22, and he explains that he is the cornerstone that the builders have rejected. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

He honestly charged them with killing the only Savior. Look again at that extraordinary passage in chapter 4, beginning at verse 10: 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, notice how different the leaders' actions are and God's actions, they're exact opposites. But God raised from the dead by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you the builders, which has become the cornerstone. They all knew he was quoting Psalm 118.

They knew that He was saying that they were the fulfillment of the prophesied bad men who did the wrong thing, who rejected the key good from God. And then Peter goes on and says, and there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Not only did you make a mistake in throwing this one away, this one you threw away is your only hope. And you, the shepherds of the people, who should be celebrating and bringing the news of this One to the people, what they most need, you yourself led the way in rejecting. So Peter was calling them to repent and believe.

You've got to love verse 13 then. 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. Brothers and sisters, our boldness of witness should not come from how confident we are with our clever words. It shouldn't come from college degrees or law school degrees or seminary degrees. No, it should come like these first witnesses from our having been with Jesus.

We were in the prayer meeting earlier this morning where all the teachers of the Sunday School classes get together and pray. And Nick was reading for us from the end of 2 Timothy. And Paul prays, the Lord be with you. How common is that prayer in the New Testament? It's frequent.

Because one of the main things we pray for each other is that presence of God, that the Lord be with you. That we be with him in his word, by his Spirit. How else do we understand what he is like than spending time with him? As Jesus taught, Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. These rulers could tell what was in the hearts of Peter and John.

They could see these were no political plotters from Galilee that come up with some kind of Machiavellian scheme. These were simple, straightforward men who had been with Jesus and they had the zeal of someone whose eyes had seen and who knew what they were saying was true.

Consider for a moment what these leaders had done. They were annoyed at the apostles and their message and so they sent soldiers to arrest them. They held them in custody overnight because they could. That's the little ways, you know, when you have power you jerk people around with it a little bit. Just make it clear who has the power.

They gathered and called them in to be questioned. They were astonished by both what the apostles said and how they answered them. And then you look at chapter 4 verse 17. 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. They charged them to speak no more to anyone in the name of Jesus.

They issued the anti-Great Commission. Right, the great commission, Jesus tells them to do the exact opposite of this. And now here they are, the people in authority, in worldly authority, and they are telling them the exact opposite of what Jesus had commanded them in his final command.

What Jesus had told them to do, Caiaphas and company explicitly tell them not to do. They forbid. It's a stark difference, isn't it? Now here's a little thought experiment for you. Grab your life.

Look at this last week. Who did it look like you were obeying?

You know what Jesus said? Tell them to observe all that I've commanded or more what the Sanhedrin commanded. Don't speak to anyone. In the name of Jesus.

Left up to you and your witness. Does this church in Washington survive?

Or do we age out and die with those of us who currently are believers? Does it grow? How will other people in Washington hear the good news?

Of course, the Sanhedrin doesn't simply charge them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus, but once Peter and John answer as they do in verses 1920, they respond there in verse 21 with, we see, further threats.

Of course, they shouldn't do that. But in a fallen world, governments can sometimes be some of the biggest persecutors of Christianity.

That's why Paul in 1 Timothy 2 instructs Pastor Timothy, First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

Brothers and sisters, you notice how we do that every Sunday when we pray here? We obey that command. We can do that in our own lives as we turn headlines into prayer points. We can look at what it is that's going on in the world and try to think, as a Christian, how should I ask God to act in this matter?

We should do that in our daily lives. We should pray that God will decrease gospel resistance on the one hand from governments and leaders, and increase our perseverance and boldness, on the other hand. Give us the strength to endure.

I've been struck during my wife's own illness this last year by the New Testament's pattern of prayer. And it's very often not to change the circumstances to favorable ones. It's very often for God to give us endurance of the circumstances that are there. It's a challenging order for us in our prayers. How do we Christians get this kind of boldness?

Well, we get it by doing what we see Peter doing here. The rulers in Jerusalem had issued threats and warnings, implied in this, We will get you if you don't do what we say. They puff themselves up and their power in the disciples' eyes. They exploit any fears that might have been in them from seeing their own popular rabbi, Jesus, just a few weeks before, grabbed from in front of them, and within a few hours, painfully crucified to death.

But Peter and John are given wisdom by God to reframe the narrative. Friends, sometimes the way people put things at you has errors in the very assumptions they're making in the way they explain it. So, if you're going to think rightly about it, it's not simply a matter of answering their questions. It's a matter of reframing the whole thing. That's exactly what Peter and John are given wisdom to do here.

Look in verse 19, chapter 4, verse 19.

And I don't think we're to learn from this that Peter was just the wittiest fisherman in Galilee. I mean, I think we're to learn in this that God the Holy Spirit through God the Son has taught Peter how to think Christianly. He knows who the real one to fear is. Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, there's the key move, say it plainly, you must judge for we cannot. So no alternatives there.

We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard. Facts are stubborn things. Too many people had seen this lame man decades long at this prominent point. If you're going into the temple, you have to go through that gate. That's the way in.

And they had seen this man healed. This man whom if he's more than 40 years old and had been there for a long, long time, Jesus probably walked by him many times, didn't heal him. Now, for some reason, this is the time that God chooses to heal him. And these apostles knew the power of God. They knew that they would be in more trouble if they ignored God's commands than the commands of these merely earthly leaders.

They feared God more than they feared their persecutors. Ed Welch captures this idea beautifully in the title to his book, When People Are Big and God Is Small. You understand the little riddle there is communicated in that book. It's really the whole thesis of the book. When people are big, that is in your own eyes.

You act as if people are the big deal and God is small. God's never small. But we may act as if God is small. We may act like, oh, I care about what this group of people thinks about me. Much more than God, who of course knows the entire truth.

And what we should do is care what God thinks and set little by what others may think compared to what God thinks. I wonder what you are being tempted to fear more than God today. Oh my Christian friends, we should beware the fear of man and replace it with the fear of God. What is tempting you to hypocrisy? What is tempting you to want to appear one way toward this set of people rather than to appear truly as you really are?

Why do you so fear what they think of you? It's good to pray that God make us aware of our sins, and then it's good to confess them to others, and so destroy the idol of their false opinions of us, and replace it with the healthy truth that we are sinners in need of a Savior. Surviving only by God's amazing grace.

We should look at the rest of this chapter though, what these Christians persevered through the persecution, but what they persevered with was prayer. They persevered through the persecution, but they persevered with prayer. Look there starting in verse 23.

Chapter 4:23, When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priest 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 gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed. For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with 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 your servants to continue to speak your words with all boldness.

While you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your Holy Servant Jesus. 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. So they go from the presence of the earthly leaders to join with their brothers and sisters to turn to the true leader of all, the Lord Almighty. And what a prayer they pray. So if you look at that prayer for a second, verses 24 to 28 are framing who this God is that they're approaching in prayer.

That's really what we've done this morning in the prayer of praise that John let us in. He's framing our minds of who this God is that we're approaching. I wonder where you turn in Scripture to understand the Bible and particularly its teaching on God's sovereignty and predestination. I'll tell you where I go to in the Bible when people want to know about the sovereignty of God, which is like one of the most common questions a preacher gets asked. Hey, what about this predestination stuff?

You know, two passages, one in the old, one in the new. The Old Testament, I go to Job chapter one. The New Testament, I go to this passage. Why do I go to these passages? Because it shows multiple causations and levels of motivation for a single act.

So in Job chapter 1, you have Job's kids getting beat up on, robbed, even killed. Well, what's going on there? Well, you have earthly raiders raiding. They have their own motives. They want to do it.

But we know, because we've read Job chapter 1, also you've got Satan provoking them to action because he's trying to make a point to God. But we know behind even that, there's God's purpose is knowing who Job is. And going to reveal that and so reveal more about himself and his goodness and worthiness. So every actor has their motive, God is sovereign over it all. Just exactly what's going on here.

If you look in here in Acts 4, I love the fact they put them all together here, these different actors that we see in the story of the crucifixion. Herod, so you've got the Jewish king, the half Jewish king, and Pontius Pilate. Well, that's unusual right there, those two don't do things together. You've got the unpopular occupied native ruler, and then you've got the imposed military governor. Well, they're naturally enemies, but here they're both together along with the Gentiles, so that's the people of the nations, maybe even including Pilate's troops who want peace, and the peoples of Israel.

That would be like the leaders that they were just talking to, the people who are all of these groups together are against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, he says, and they did whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. The crucifixion was not a mistake. It was not a whole plan gone terribly wrong. It was the plan of God for the substitutionary death of Christ as the suffering servant in the place of sinners like us. And then look at their request in verses 29 and 30.

This is what they pray. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus. And then look at what happens, verse 31. 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. I love the fact that they prayed.

And then they kept right on boldly evangelizing just like they had been doing when they were arrested and before they were arrested. So they don't stop, they keep going, and there are more results. Friend, here's a little practical tip for you. If you wanna be bolder in your evangelism, if one thing you're taking away from this sermon is, I wanna be bolder in my evangelism, here's one very practical thing you can do. Study the sovereignty of God.

Study to see how He is in control. How he is to be regarded and asked for and relied on and not worried about and rejoiced in, so you will have the emotional energy to keep going when the people seem entirely disinterested. Of course they're disinterested. They're spiritually dead. The only way the cemetery is going to start dancing is if God does some raising.

There has to be some resurrecting going on, and you and I can't do that. We share the news through which the Holy Spirit works, but it's not in our power to raise the dead. But we can share the gospel, which is the street the Holy Spirit comes down to get the dead and bring them to life, so you can school your heart in understanding who is sovereign over the conviction of sin, who is sovereign over the regeneration of the Spirit, who gives the gifts of repentance and faith.

Also, join with us in praying for God-fearing government where earthly might is aligned with heavenly right. And when in God's providence you have hard circumstances, unfriendly governments, unhealed physical conditions like this man's lameness, continue to trust God. Value Him, value His timing. How many things that I have prayed for have apparently not been answered? A whole bunch of them.

Do I think that means they will never be answered? No, I don't think that's true. Are some of them going to be answered in ways I currently don't understand? I think so. Am I worried about that?

Well, no, because of what I know God is like. But I have seen many prayers answered that I prayed for decades, and then they are answered visibly in a wonderful way. The Lord is kind. The apostles should never listen to instructions that contradicted God's own. And that lame man laying there at the temple gate, he should trust the Lord for every day, every year he was lame.

He was more than 40 years old, but you realize every year he laid there was building a bigger platform for Peter to preach from that day when he would be healed. The Lord had his purpose in what he was doing for a bigger platform for the good news about Jesus. Finally, friends, look at what happened beginning verse 32 to the end of the chapter. Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet. And it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus Joseph, who was called by the apostles Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. What's going on here? Well friends, it's exactly what we saw last week at the end of Acts 2.

And it makes sense if you think about it. Testifying to the reality of the next life leads to generosity in this life. Testifying to the reality of the next life leads to generosity in this life. The more you understand and tell others of the life to come, the better you'll handle this life, the more generous you will be. Unity for us as a church comes from being filled with the same spirit with having the same purposes and objectives, with the same values, with a shared ultimate love.

Friends, there's no IRS agent that's making you a comparatively small congregation compared to megachurches give $5 million a year for the Lord's work here in this place. But you've done it year after year. No one's conscripting that from you. We don't even tell you that we think the Bible tells you you're supposed to give 10% all of you. We think that the tithe is an Old Testament matter and we think what you're to give is going to be varying depending on your circumstances.

And yet you, dear brothers and sisters of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, freely give generously again and again to the Lord's work here. It's extraordinary. It's the Holy Spirit's work. It's this kind of stuff. You take what you have every right to and you say, Hey, I can meet all my obligations for my family and give the church this, and then I can be part of knowing what the church is gonna do that I wanna see done, but I can't do by myself.

But now that can happen and the Lord will provide for us. And that's what happens. I love this Christian logic of giving. You see it in Hebrews chapter 10. Let's just run over there for a second, since we're right on this passage.

Hebrews 10:32.

Starting down in verse 32.

Well, it's concerning when the preacher writes the wrong verses down. He's quickly got to find what he's talking about. Yeah, okay, yeah. Hebrews 10:32-34, But recall the former days, when after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

So you see, because of the knowledge you have of what you have before you in heaven, eternally in Christ, what happens with the possessions of this world, this life, matters less. Because ultimately you're not trying to leverage everything on this life, this world, these things. You've got that all secure in Christ. For us as a church, we don't think private property is wrong. And that'll be clear again in the beginning of chapter 5 next week when Peter says as much to a couple that sell their property.

He said, you didn't have to do this. But we do want a church marked by generosity and transparency. And I praise God for how much he has worked that in this congregation. So we covenant together as members to bear each other's burdens and sorrows. And to be an example of Christ's love to the world.

So friends, when we read these accounts, they should cause us to believe the truth of the apostle's teaching about Christ and his resurrection and to pray for God to intervene supernaturally and to give new life to those who are spiritually dead. May our church be one which frequently witnesses the blessing of God's Spirit giving new life to those who are, as we once were, lost and dead in our sins. This first church grew by preaching and by persevering.

I love the record of what's going on here. All these lives transformed. You know, as you look at this first church in Jerusalem, you may think, Wow, that sounds like heaven on earth. If I could be a part of a church like that, if I could find a church that good, I would never leave it. And yet, all the time in the hearts of these first Christians, you know what those who had actually heard Christ personally were thinking?

He told us to go, to go to the ends of the earth, to tell people about Him, to tell people about His salvation. And in this book of Acts, we'll follow Luke's account as he tells us how a Christian named Philip took the gospel to the Samaritans, and Peter took the gospel to the Romans in Cornelius' house. The second half of the book explains how the Apostle Paul took the gospel throughout the Eastern Mediterranean all the way to Rome. And yet Luke only follows one strand of the story. The change in the lives of those other disciples bear testimony to the reality of Christ that are less known but are no less eloquent when they're found.

Think of last week when we heard about Thomas. A lot of you didn't know that story. The forthright doubter whose doubts were resolved who confessed Christ as my Lord and my God and who history seems to tell us took the gospel of Jesus Christ, not west like Paul, but east, going to Babylon and then down into the nations of India where he was killed for preaching this message.

But friends, that's just Peter, Thomas. There are a bunch of other guys just in that list. There's still more witnesses that contributed to Christianity's widespread, even among those lesser known. Look back at chapter 1 again at verse 13, that list of names.

Acts chapter 1, verse 13, Peter and John and James and Andrew, and Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James.

Friends, the New Testament will bear witness to the further ministry of some of these.

Others like Thomas we learn from other histories and traditions. Even those who are least in the Bible, those who are named only in such lists and nowhere else, have left a heritage of witness obeying the Great Commission of Christ. So take Bartholomew, for instance. We know less about him than about Thomas, but his name is no less there. He too witnessed Christ's baptism, He too heard Christ's teaching, saw His miracles, felt His love, saw His arrest, His crucifixion, and His resurrected self appearing to them, being touched and handled, and as we read in Luke 24, teaching them what the Scriptures taught of Him.

Bartholomew too heard Christ say, Go and make disciples of all nations. And though Luke doesn't tell us the story of most of these men, Certainly not a Bartholomew, the best evidence we have from history's pages suggests that most of these men at some point left this first church in Jerusalem and scattered, telling people about Jesus, and usually at the cost of their own lives.

Friends, the faintness of the memory of their life's work echoing down to us. Does not make it any less toward God or the people of their own day. If we listen hard, we can hear the echoes of Bartholomew's faithful witness to Christ through the pages of Jerome in the fifth century, Eusebius in the fourth century.

We can surmise that Bartholomew took the gospel north. To what we call Armenia, and maybe even to the east in India, around Mumbai, and the Marathi-speaking people. Some place he was martyred for his witness. His blood joined that of most of the other of these original disciples in being poured out in order to tell people that there was one who had come who is a friend of sinners.

Without witnesses like the unheralded Bartholomew, how would we know that this world is not bleak, unsympathetic, lonely, directionless, that we can have certain knowledge of God and how to know Him and be with Him, that sin's damages have been absorbed and we can now have hope through our life's darkest passages? As Peter said to these national leaders gathered as it were, the national prayer breakfast of their day, there is salvation in no one else, no one else than Jesus, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Let's pray.

Lord God, we pray that in our own hearts, in our souls, as we reflect on this portion of youf Word, that the Lord Jesus will be prominent. What yout have done in and through Him for us and for sinners will be clear. We pray, Lord, that our lips will be used, that our hearts will be full. We pray, Lord, that the lost will be won. And that yout name will be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Amen.