March 16, 2025 • 43 mins
What happens when doing exactly what Jesus commanded leads to beatings, imprisonment, and threats to your life? In Acts 5:17-42, we discover the apostles experiencing precisely this scenario—faithfully preaching the gospel, experiencing miraculous success, and then facing brutal opposition from jealous religious authorities.
The high priest and Sadducees arrest the apostles out of jealousy, but God miraculously frees them through an angel. Instead of hiding, they immediately return to the temple to continue teaching. When arrested again and reminded they were forbidden to preach about Jesus, Peter boldly declares, "We must obey God rather than men." This fearless response nearly gets them killed until Gamaliel, a respected Pharisee, intervenes with wise counsel: "If this plan is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them."
Even after being beaten and warned again, the apostles leave "rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name." Their response challenges our expectations of the Christian life. Contrary to popular teaching, faithfulness doesn't guarantee comfort—it often invites opposition. As Paul wrote, "All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted."
This passage offers profound insights on responding to persecution: maintain unwavering faithfulness, love your enemies rather than retaliating, and recognize the powerful outcomes of persecution—an unstoppable church, unexpected joy, evangelistic impact, and eternal glory. As Paul describes it, our "light momentary affliction" is preparing for us "an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison."
Are you prepared for opposition? Have you embraced Jesus' call to take up your cross? True discipleship means counting Christ as infinitely greater than anything we might surrender—even our comfort, reputation, or life itself.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So I'm in Acts, chapter 5, verse 17 through 42,
and, as is our custom, we standfor the reading of the Word.
But the high priest rose up andall who were with him, that is,
the party of the Sadducees, and, filled with jealousy, they
arrested the apostles, put themin the public prison.
(00:21):
But during the night an angelof the Lord opened the prison
doors and brought them out andsaid go and stand in the temple
and speak to the people all thewords of this life.
And when they heard this, theyentered the temple at daybreak
and began to teach.
Now, when the high priest cameand those who were with him,
(00:42):
they called together the council, all the senate of the people
of Israel and sent to the prisonto have them brought.
But when the officers came,they did not find them in the
prison.
So they returned and reported.
We found the prison securelylocked and the guards standing
at the doors, but when we openedthem, we found no one inside
(01:04):
Verse 24.
Now, when the captain of thetemple and the chief priests
heard these things, they weregreatly perplexed about them,
wondering what this would cometo.
And someone came and told themLook, the men whom you put in
prison are standing in thetemple and teaching the people.
Then the captain with theofficers went and brought them,
(01:25):
but not by force, for they wereafraid of being stoned by the
people.
And when they had brought them,they set them before the
council and the high priestquestioned them, saying we
strictly charged you not toteach in this name, yet here you
have filled Jerusalem with yourteaching and you intend to
bring this man's blood upon us.
(01:47):
But Peter and the apostlesanswered we must obey God rather
than men.
The God of our fathers raisedJesus, whom you killed by
hanging him on a tree.
God exalted him at his righthand as leader and savior to
give repentance to Israel andforgiveness of sins.
(02:07):
And we are witnesses to thesethings, and so is the Holy
Spirit whom God has given tothose who obey him.
When they heard this, they wereenraged and wanted to kill them
.
But a Pharisee in the councilnamed Gamaliel, a teacher of the
law held in honor by all thepeople, stood up and gave orders
to put the men outside for alittle while and he said to them
(02:30):
Men of Israel, take care ofwhat you are about to do with
these men.
For before these days, judasrose up claiming to be somebody,
and a number of men about 400,joined him.
He was killed and all whofollowed him were dispersed and
came to nothing.
After him, judas the Galileanrose up in the days of the
(02:50):
census and drew away some of thepeople after him.
He too perished and all whofollowed him were scattered.
So in the present case, I tellyou keep away from these men and
let them alone, for if thisplan or this undertaking is of
man, it will fail, but if it isof God, you will not be able to
overthrow them.
(03:11):
You might even be foundopposing God.
So they took his advice andwhen they called in the apostles
, they beat them and chargedthem not to speak in the name of
Jesus and let them go.
Then they left the presence ofthe council, rejoicing that they
were counted worthy to sufferdishonor for the name.
And every day, in the templeand from house to house, they
(03:33):
did not cease teaching andpreaching that the Christ is
Jesus.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Amen, the word of God for the people of God.
All right you may be seated,all right.
Faithfulness to jesus does notequate to a life without
(04:17):
suffering.
You know I've had through theyears.
Many people come to me,christians, and they say, listen
, I'm doing everything I know todo, I'm praying every day,
reading the Bible, serving inministry, giving of my finances,
sharing the gospel, and yet I'mexperiencing problems and
(04:38):
difficulties.
And they'll say something likewhat have I done to deserve this
?
My question is, while beingsympathetic, who told you that
when you become a Christian,that you're not going to deal
with any trouble anymore?
I know that message is outthere, but it's erroneous and it
leaves people jaded whentrouble comes their way.
(05:00):
All of us, as Christians, we arestill affected, though we
believe, to be sure, in divinehealing.
We have sickness, right.
We're impacted by that.
All of us lose loved ones.
They die and each of us, shouldthe Lord tarry, will do so as
well.
We're impacted by naturaldisasters, tornadoes and
(05:24):
hurricanes and tsunamis.
Let me just say it like thisThrough many dangers, toils and
snares, I have already come.
So we all experience thosethings.
But in addition to those kindsof issues and sufferings,
christians go through a uniqueform of suffering, namely
persecution for the name ofChrist, persecution for the name
(05:49):
of Christ.
So we're on this journey throughthe book of Acts and in Acts,
chapter 1, verse 8, we find whatI believe is the theme verse
and it serves as an outline forthe entire book.
Remember what Jesus says.
He says when the Holy Spiritcomes upon you, you will be my,
what, my witnesses, in Jerusalem, in all of Judea, samaria and
(06:13):
to the other most parts of theearth.
And that's exactly what happens.
And what we've seen so far inthe book of Acts Is that the
apostles are faithful to do thisand, as people are being saved,
they are faithful to the callof God.
Is that the apostles arefaithful to do this?
And, as people are being saved,they are faithful to the call
of God in their life.
Thousands of Christians now, atthis point, faithful to God.
(06:33):
So, as a matter of fact, youknow we started today in chapter
5, verse 17.
If you just go to the previoustext, what you're going to see
is that God was blessing thechurch.
The apostles were faithful, thechurch was see is that God was
blessing the church.
The apostles were faithful, thechurch was faithful and God was
blessing the church.
Luke tells us that you know,miracles were happening, demons
(06:55):
were being cast out, multitudesbeing healed, and it says the
church was growing.
In other words, more peoplewere coming to salvation than
ever.
That's a successful church,amen, god is blessing it.
So Luke kind of celebrates that.
But I want you to look at ourbeginning verse today, verse 17.
(07:17):
And what is the first word?
But I'm going to see how matureyou guys are this morning, but
anytime you're serving the Lordand God's blessing upon is upon
you, there's always going to bea but.
Sometimes, you know and that'sthe same for a church Sometimes
(07:38):
in the church things are goingwell, things are growing, and
we've got to prepare for this.
Somebody within the church isthe but.
All right, there's always a but, and what happens in our text
(07:59):
is things are going great,everybody's being faithful, but,
and what we find is that theapostles, apostles, in the midst
of their faithfulness,experience tremendous
persecution because they arepreaching the gospel, doing
exactly what Jesus has told themto do.
(08:19):
Now the question is, is thisrelevant to us today?
This is a question I'veaddressed a couple of other
times.
But are American Christianspersecuted?
Well, I'm reluctant to say yesbecause, comparatively to what
(08:41):
other Christians around theworld for instance the 70 who
were killed by beheaded just afew weeks ago by Muslim
extremists in Congo Like,compared to them, okay, it's
almost absurd to call what we gothrough suffering, but or
persecution.
(09:01):
I am going to call itpersecution and the reason I'm
going to call it that is becauseI think the Bible does.
In 2 Timothy 3.12, paul writesthese words Indeed, all,
everybody say all, all whodesire to live a godly life, and
I sure hope that you, in ChristJesus, will be persecuted If
(09:27):
you don't.
So well, let's say this what'spersecution look like for us?
It's being mocked, it's beinghated Some of you have lost jobs
because of your Christianconvictions.
It's being ostracized, it'sbeing falsely accused of being a
bigot or an elitist.
What have you?
And while that's not torture,physical torture, while it's not
(09:50):
losing your life for the sakeof Christ, it's not nothing Like
.
We're always livingcounter-cultural and, by the way
, things are getting worse bythe day in our country as far as
the way people respond to us.
And so could it be I hope not,god forbid, but could it be that
one day we're going to gothrough greater persecution.
(10:12):
It seems like that is certainlya possibility.
All will experience persecution.
Let me say this according toPaul's words in 2 Timothy 3.12,
if you claim to be a Christianand you aren't experiencing some
level of persecution, one oftwo things is happening in your
(10:32):
life.
Number one you call yourself aChristian, but you're a
hypocrite and you're not livinga godly life.
All who desire to live a godlylife will be persecuted.
Or you're a moralist because itsays all who desire to live a
godly life will be persecuted,or you're a moralist because it
says all who desire to live agodly life in Christ Jesus will
be persecuted.
So you might just be trying tolive a good life, so to speak,
(10:57):
like a lot of people, but that'smoralism if it's done apart
from Christ.
But if you are in Christ andyou want to proclaim Christ and
you want to live in a way that'scongruent with Christ's word,
then you will be persecuted onsome level.
And so let's begin by looking atthe reasons for persecution,
(11:21):
and the first is this it's foundin verses 17 and 18.
And it is jealousy, or youcould say pride, verse 17,.
The high priest rose up.
Now think of this.
The apostles are teaching thepeople and miracles are being
done.
The high priest rose up and allwho were with him that is the
(11:43):
party of the Sadducees and,filled with jealousy, they
arrested the apostles and putthem in prison.
They see these miracleshappening, a power that they do
not have and understand.
The Sadducees, these are thearistocrats right.
These are wealthy people.
(12:04):
These are wealthy peopleamongst the Jewish people.
They willed a great amount ofpolitical, social and religious
power within the temple, amongstJerusalem.
Now they love the power, theylove prestige and if something
(12:28):
good, if a profound teaching isgoing to to come, if, if some um
display of power is going tohappen, it ought to be done
through them, or so they think.
And now you've got these simplegalileans and they are teaching
the people in a profound way,preaching circles around the
(12:50):
Sadducees and the high priest,and they're doing all these
great miracles in the name ofJesus.
And it causes jealousy insteadof rejoicing.
It causes jealousy and you knowpeople in the world might be
jealous of you because you claimto know God, you claim to be
(13:12):
close to God and if you walk inthe power of God, people could
be jealous.
Instead of repenting and comingto Christ themselves, they
could be antagonistic towardsyou.
But there's another reason forpersecution and that is
conviction.
We're going to jump ahead justa bit to verses 27 through 31.
(13:35):
And it says when they hadbrought them the apostles, they
sent them before the councilthis is the Sanhedrin who was
responsible for crucifying Jesus.
And the high priest questionedthem, the apostles, saying this
we strictly charge you not toteach in this name, the name of
(13:56):
Jesus.
Yet here you have, filledJerusalem with your teachings
and you intend to bring thisman's blood upon us.
Did you get that?
You intend to bring this man'sblood upon us?
And Peter and the apostlesanswered we must obey God rather
than men.
The God of our fathers raisedJesus, whom you killed, boy.
(14:19):
They didn't mince words, didthey?
You killed him, god's MessiahBoy.
That's convicting, is it not?
You know John says this.
He says that when Jesus came hewas the light, but people
rejected the light because theyloved the darkness.
See God's presence.
(14:39):
Christ's word in his essenceconvicts people of sin.
And we are, by the power of thespirit.
We are temples of God's spirit,which means we take the
presence of God with us, as Johnsaid, I believe, in chapter 16,
that rivers of living waterwill flow from us.
(15:02):
That's God presence.
And you ever notice that whenyou're witnessing to somebody
who's living in sin, you don'teven have to sometimes say
anything about their sin, andthey're just uncomfortable
around you because you've gotthe light of Christ within you.
Jesus said in Matthew 5, youare the light of the world.
Well, why light of the world?
(15:29):
Well, why Because Christ, byHis Spirit, is in you.
Some people know they'resinners and they welcome the
conviction that leads them torepentance.
But others don't have thathumility and it's an offensive
message.
And so, again, they persecutebelievers for that reason.
They persecute believers forthat reason.
But there's another reason forpersecution that I must point
(15:49):
out and that comes from, orthere are many places in the New
Testament I could turn to, butparticularly I want to think
through Ephesians, chapter 6,beginning in verse 12, or we'll
just look at verse 12.
And Paul there, you mightremember, says we do not wrestle
against what Flesh and blood,but against rulers, against
(16:12):
authorities, against the cosmicpowers over this present
darkness, against the spiritualforces of evil in heavenly
places.
In other words, when peoplecome at you for your faith, you
know what they are.
They're puppets for the enemy.
(16:32):
Your enemy is not necessarilythose people.
You have an adversary, thedevil, who's going about like a
roaring lion seeking whom he maydevour.
So Paul challenges us to put onthe full spiritual armor that
(16:53):
we may withstand these spiritualforces.
Why would the devil come againsta church that God is blessing?
I'll tell you why.
Because it's a threat.
I mean, if we're a churchwalking in power and a church
walking in faithfulness, likethe apostles beloved by God's
(17:14):
grace, we can turn Richmond andthe world upside down.
If 12 men can do it, a churchof 100 can do it.
Amen, the devil's threatened bya faithful church.
See, he doesn't care about achurch, whether it's 100 or
10,000 people, if the church isthere to entertain the folk, not
(17:35):
preaching the whole counsel ofGod.
If the church is not beingfaithful, the devil's not
threatened by that.
And he's not threatened, by theway, by a Christian who says
one thing and does another.
Actually, he's quite pleasedwith you.
When you come to church onSunday and live like hell Monday
through Saturday, come onsomebody.
You see the devil is threatenedby us and he'll come against us
(17:59):
so hard.
Have you ever noticed thatsometimes, the more you try to
serve God, the more things seemto go wrong.
You ever notice that?
Now, sometimes that'scoincidental.
I don't see the devil behindevery, you know, behind every
bush, so to speak.
But I will say this that thedevil's not omnipresent like God
(18:20):
is, and so I think he precisely, very intentionally, attacks
those who are most faithful toGod.
Amen, all right, so that's thereasons for persecution.
Number two is what should ourresponse be to persecution?
(18:46):
What should our response be topersecution?
You know, if you're doingexactly what Jesus tells you to
do and something like thishappens, you're arrested, you're
(19:06):
beaten, as they are later inthis text.
Some of us might say you knowLord, why would you treat me
this way?
I'm just trying to do whatyou've told me to do, right?
Do the apostles complain?
No.
Do they question God and hisgoodness?
No.
(19:27):
How do we respond?
Let me tell you first.
We respond with continuedfaithfulness and loyalty to the
Lord.
Jesus Christ, blessed be yourname.
As we sang, you give and youtake away.
Jesus Christ, blessed be yourname.
As we sang, you give and youtake away.
And in every situation, myheart would choose to say Lord,
blessed be your name.
(19:47):
The psalmist said I will blessthe Lord.
When.
Sometimes, I will bless theLord.
When things are going well Now,I will bless the Lord at all
times.
His praise shall continually bein my mouth.
So look at verses 18 to 21.
They arrested the apostles,they put them in a public prison
, but during the night, an angelof the Lord opened the prison
(20:09):
doors, brought them out.
It's like, oh great, and thisis awesome, we can get away.
But then listen to what theangel says.
Go and stand in the temple andspeak to the people all the
words of life, in other words,the words of Jesus.
And when they heard this, theyentered the temple at daybreak
and began to teach.
Now think of this.
(20:29):
You've been arrested for yourfaith.
God, by his grace and power,brings you out.
And then you're like okay, lord, where do I go?
Where do I hide?
And he's like actually go backto the place that you were
arrested and just keep preachingJesus.
What Is that not crazy?
And how would you respond?
(20:50):
Well, how do the apostlesrespond?
Watch this 21,.
When they heard this, theyentered the temple at daybreak
and they just began to teach.
We were arrested, we were setout.
Jesus told us through the angelthat we're to keep preaching.
What are we going to do Atdaybreak?
We're not going to wait.
(21:10):
We're not going to take a dayoff, we're just going to keep
being faithful.
Oh, we need some people that,through every danger, toil and
stare, will just continue tosing.
Oh, he's given me amazing grace.
I'm just going to keep servingHim, amen, amen.
You know perseverance andsuffering.
(21:32):
You know what it is.
It's a sign of true, genuinefaith and salvation.
It's a sign of true, genuinefaith and salvation.
In Matthew, chapter 13, jesusgives this parable of the sower
and the seeds and he says youknow, one of the things he
teaches there is that somepeople will believe for a while,
they'll claim to believe thegospel, but when persecution
(21:56):
comes, they will fall away.
The gospel hasn't really takenroot.
Because they're fine, they wantJesus as Savior, and when
things are going good, they'regreat.
Man, I'll serve Jesus.
But when hardship comes,particularly persecution, man,
I'm out.
Persecution is a sign.
(22:19):
Jesus talks a lot.
The Bible talks a lot aboutpersevering to the end.
That's the sign of ultimate andtrue salvation.
So how do we respond?
One with continued faithfulness.
Number two we respond with love, not retaliation.
Number two we respond with love, not retaliation.
You know, throughout the textyou never get the idea that the
(22:45):
apostles are militant towardsthese people.
They're candid, they speak thetruth, which we're called to do.
But if you notice, when they'rebrought before the Sanhedrin,
this is after they've come outof prison and the temple guard
comes to get them, to bring themto the Sanhedrin.
This council, the senate therein Jerusalem, it says that they
(23:06):
did not bring them by force,which implies that the disciples
did not.
The apostles didn't resist andyou know the church is thousands
of members strong at this pointand what they didn't do is
start a revolt where they saidyou know, they didn't send one
of the apostles out and say, hey, listen, go, start an army and
(23:30):
come back and just wipe thesefools out.
No, what did they do to them?
They just continued to preachthe word of life to them,
calling them to repentance fortheir great sin beloved, that's
love.
That's love.
On a february, the 23rd AD, 155Romans killed a man by the name
(24:02):
of Polycarp, who was the Bishopof Smyrna.
Polycarp is known andremembered for his courage.
One of the governors threatenedearly on to burn him at the
stake and he said that fire willsoon go out.
I'd rather that than the firesof eternal hell.
(24:23):
It just set me ablaze.
Pretty crazy.
He was willing to ultimately goto his death and he refused to
renounce Christ.
He was courageous and we shouldcelebrate that.
But there's something elseabout Polycarp that we should
celebrate and remember, and thatis his kindness.
(24:44):
It's an interesting story thatPolycarp heard that he was going
to be arrested and so he fledto the country, to this little
villa, knowing that his arrestwas inevitable.
But he fled to this littlevilla so that he could just pray
, and he prayed not just forhimself but for the whole
persecuted church.
(25:05):
What a guy.
And it didn't stop there.
The soldiers found a farmhand,tortured him until he gave up
Polycarp's location.
And when the soldiersapproached the house, polycarp
(25:26):
was tipped off and he could havegone through the window and
escaped, but he didn't.
He just stayed again, knowinghis arrest was inevitable.
And then he did something justremarkable.
You know what he did.
The soldiers came in and hecommanded the house help.
(25:46):
He said give them.
It was late at night, they hadtraveled a long way.
Give them whatever they want toeat or drink before we go, in
other words, before they lead meto my death.
Talk about loving your enemies.
How would we do that?
Is that not how Christ hasloved us?
That while we were yet sinners,christ gave His life for us?
(26:10):
Amen, amen.
Pretty phenomenal, you knowwhen you suffer.
Pretty phenomenal, you knowwhen you suffer.
What the Bible teaches is thatwe should suffer for the right
reasons.
What's interesting in this textis that the apostles do not
(26:30):
give the council a justifiablereason for persecuting them.
In 1 Peter 2.20, peter writesthis For what credit is it if,
when you sin and are beaten forit, you endure, but if, when you
do good and suffer for it, ifyou endure, this is a gracious
(26:54):
thing in the sight of God?
This is a gracious thing in thesight of God.
In other words, you can't bemean and cynical and critical
and then call what happens toyou persecution.
I'll just give you an example.
Let's say that you are a.
Let's say you have anundependable employee who's
(27:17):
always gossiping about everybodyelse in the office.
They show up late, they leaveearly, do the bare minimum of
work Just horrible, calling insick when they're not sick, and
then they're fired.
They cannot claim that theywere fired because they just
(27:38):
love Jesus so much.
No, they're fired becausethey're a horrible employee.
And so what Jesus is saying isdon't or Peter is saying there
is don't give people a valid,justifiable reason to be mean to
you.
Don't go slam people onFacebook.
Don't be rude and cynical, mean, negative.
(28:04):
Don't be a bad employee, don'tbe a bad friend.
No, he said, if you're going tosuffer, the kind of suffering
we're called to is unjustsuffering, where the reason
you're suffering is because youlove people so much, you give
them the gospel of Jesus Christ.
That's pleasing to God.
(28:25):
So there it is.
That's how we respond topersecution.
Finally, this is the good news Iwant you to consider the
results of persecution.
The results of persecutionNumber one is an unstoppable
church.
(28:45):
An unstoppable church.
Now, while preaching in thetemple, after being released
from prison, the temple guardagain they come, they find the
disciples and they take thembefore again the Sanhedrin, this
council of men againresponsible for crucifying Jesus
.
And the council begins toinquire why is it, apostles,
(29:10):
that you are preaching andteaching Jesus when we strictly
forbade you to do so?
And in verse 29, peter justsays we must obey God rather
than men.
Well, he didn't mince words,did he?
And the council's response isthis Peter goes on to say again
yeah, you crucified.
(29:30):
His blood is on your hands,jesus' blood.
But the council's response isfound in verse 33.
Luke tells us that they wereenraged and wanted to kill the
apostles, but then somethinghappens.
As they're ready to take theirlives, something happens.
This respected, well-knownteacher, gamaliel, spoke up
(29:57):
imploring the council not to putthe apostles to death.
Now this is profound, and let'sread.
This is so good.
He talks about formal revoltsthat didn't go anywhere because
they weren't of God.
But watch what he says in verse.
Let's go to verse 38.
He says so in the present case.
(30:19):
I tell you, keep away fromthese men and just let them
alone, for if this plan orundertaking is of man, it will
fail.
But watch this If it is of God,you will not be able to
overthrow them.
Isn't that great?
It's so great.
Listen, we all want to be partof a winning team.
(30:40):
Amen.
We want to be fans of a winningteam.
It's March, which means it's amonth of madness, amen.
And here's the thing we all youknow, as we fill out our
brackets and do all those things, there are certain teams we
expect to win, but anything canhappen.
We cannot predict every game.
(31:01):
We can't predict any game.
All right now I'm going to hurtyour feelings for a minute, but
who would have thought Alabamawould beat us by what?
29 points?
Is that right?
But then who would have thoughtthat Florida would turn around
and beat Alabama by 22 points?
Who saw that coming?
(31:22):
And the point is this we canhave a great team and we've had
in Kentucky many great teamsthrough the years but do
injuries not frustrate you tothe core?
You have an injury or just onebad game in the in the.
I don't like single eliminationtournaments, but one bad game
(31:42):
and you're out.
The lowest seed can beat thetop seed.
See, my point is this is wecan't predict the outcome of any
organization.
You can buy stock that looksreally good and not know what
it's going to do the next day,but there's one entity that we
(32:07):
know the end Right.
That is the church, and apersecuted church it is.
Or a faithful church is apersecuted church.
But hear me, a persecutedchurch who's still faithful to
christ is an unstoppable church.
Beloved jesus said I will buildmy church and the gates of hell
(32:27):
will not prevail against it.
So I've got great news for youtoday.
If you are a faithful man, awoman of god.
If you are truly in the LordJesus Christ, you're on a
winning team.
Amen.
The devil himself is but adefeated foe.
Hallelujah.
If God be for us, who can beagainst us?
(32:47):
What's the worst they can do?
Kill us.
To be absent from the body isto be present with the Lord,
amen, hallelujah.
So the first benefit, firstbenefit of persecution it's an
(33:14):
unstoppable church.
The second is this persecutionleads to unstoppable joy.
Look at verses 40 through 42.
Oh, I love this.
And when they had called in theapostles, they beat them and
they charged them not to speakin the name of Jesus and let
them go.
Now.
They just got a beating.
They were just in prison andwatch.
Here's their response.
(33:34):
41.
Then they left the presence ofthe council, complaining,
depressed, rejoicing that theywere counted worthy to suffer
dishonor for the name of Jesus.
And every day they went to thetemple and from house to house,
(33:54):
and they did not cease teachingand preaching that the Christ is
Jesus.
When we grasp the beauty andthe wonder and the glory of
Christ, the supremacy of Christ,we will understand what it
(34:15):
means to belong to him and howhonorable it is to be so
identified with Him that we arepersecuted for His namesake.
Oh, my goodness.
Paul said you know, paul losteverything right.
And he said this I count it all, but loss according to what
(34:39):
I've gained in Christ, jesus,christ is sufficient.
If you have Christ, you havereason to rejoice.
Paul why, in prison, said inPhilippians 4, rejoice in the
Lord at all times.
And again I say rejoice.
What could we rejoice?
How could we rejoice inpersecution?
(35:02):
Well, there's a great verse andI left it out of my notes, but
2 Corinthians 4.
Well, you know what?
I'm going to go there in just aminute.
Okay, so persecution leads tounspeakable joy.
Number three persecution leadsto the eternal good of other
(35:22):
people.
This is it's worth every bit oftorment, it's worth death.
If somebody's life can be achange, can be changed for all
of eternity.
In Matthew 25, verse 46, jesussays he's talking about the
final judgment and he'scontrasting the righteous, those
(35:44):
in Christ, with the unrighteous, those who have rejected Christ
.
And he's contrasting therighteous, those in Christ, with
the unrighteous, those who haverejected Christ.
And he says and these will goaway into eternal punishment.
That's, the unrighteous, thesewill go away.
To what?
Eternal punishment?
But the righteous, into eternallife.
And do you know what?
Our willingness to bepersecuted for the sake of the
(36:07):
gospel, that's what leads people.
That's what leads people froman eternity of hell to an
eternity of life.
You know, there's a verse inRevelation 12, 11 that says and
(36:29):
this is so misquoted,misinterpreted we overcome by
what?
Remember that verse the bloodof the Lamb and the word of our
testimony.
And so we overcome by the bloodof the Lamb.
That's our only chance ofsalvation, and that's true.
And then people take the part,the word of our testimony, and
they say see, what you need todo is share your testimony with
(36:49):
somebody.
Tell them how you came to Jesus, tell them what God has done
for you.
Now, is that a good thing to do?
Yes and amen.
But that's not what the verseis talking about.
And all you have to you don'teven have to go to the next
verse, just read the rest of it.
We overcome by the blood of theLamb, the word of our testimony
, and here's the testimony thatwe love not our lives, even unto
(37:13):
death.
Oh, anybody can say Jesus isthe Christ, I'm going to serve
Jesus.
But when a knife is put to yourthroat and you are threatened
to be beheaded for your faithand you still say Jesus is Lord.
Oh, what a witness.
What a witness.
It's worth every ounce ofpersecution if your persecutor
(37:41):
can know Jesus.
Finally, persecution leads toour eternal glory.
So now let's go to 2Corinthians 4, verses 16 and 18.
Did we put that in there?
Oh, we did.
Hey, paul.
This is Paul writing to thechurch at Corinth.
(38:01):
He's talking about suffering.
He's been shipwrecked, snakebitten, left for dead,
imprisoned, stoned, abandonedand so on.
And here's what he says we donot lose heart.
How many would lose heart ifall that happened to you?
Maybe he says our outer self iswasting away.
Anybody feel that this morningbut our inner self is being
(38:25):
renewed day by day.
For this light, momentaryaffliction.
Light, momentary, snake, bitten, shipwrecked, left for dead,
stoned, imprisoned, abandoned.
How can you call that light andmomentary?
Well, it is when you compare itto the eternal weight of glory,
(38:46):
beyond all comparison, as welook to the things that, not to
the things that are seen, but tothe things that are unseen, for
the things that are seen aretransient, but the things that
are unseen are eternal.
I love that.
Can you go back one slide?
Watch this your affliction.
(39:07):
It's not neutral in eternalglory.
Watch this, your affliction asyou persevere.
You know what it's doing.
It is actually preparing foryou eternal glory.
Let me just say it like thisI'm so sorry what some of you
are going through, but it's notuseless, it's not meaningless.
(39:29):
If you'll just continue totrust Jesus, it will prepare for
you an eternal way to glorybeyond comparison.
In the end, he says we don'tlook to the things that are seen
, but to the things that areunseen, for the things that are
seen are temporary, they'retransient, but the things that
are unseen.
For the things that are seenare temporary, they're transient
, but the things that are unseenare eternal.
So I want to say it like thisGet this okay, I'm almost done
(39:53):
here.
Christian suffering istemporary.
Christian glory is eternal.
It's worth it.
Oh, it's worth it.
So, in closing, what do you dowith this?
Well, I would tell you first toprepare yourself, prepare your
(40:13):
mind for persecution, becausethings could get worse for us
here in America as Christians,and realize that, just because
things are going wrong in yourlife or because people are
coming against you, that God'slove is not failing in your life
.
His love is steadfast.
(40:34):
And I would say to you justchange the way you think about
persecution.
Rejoice in it, not because it'scomfortable, but because it's
working for God's glory and yourgood.
If you're not sufferingpersecution on any level, you
(40:57):
might just test this morning thegenuineness of your faith.
Paul said make your electionsure.
You know, following Jesus, itinvolves bearing your cross.
Jesus said in Luke 14, 27,.
Whoever does not bear his owncross and come after me cannot
(41:21):
be my disciple.
Well, you don't hear that froma lot of TV preachers, do you?
Cannot be my disciple.
Well, you don't hear that froma lot of TV preachers, do you?
What's the message that is sopopular today that people are
flocking to?
Well, come to Jesus and allyour wildest dreams will come
true.
Come to Jesus and you'll neverbe sick again.
Come to Jesus, you'll never bepoor.
(41:41):
Okay, how's that working?
It's working for them, becauseeverybody's giving them their
money and they get the bestdoctors and all the food they
want and all the money they want, and so on and so forth.
Jesus said if you're notwilling to take your cross,
pastor Jerry, you're not worthyto be my disciple.
(42:04):
The cross, it's a symbol ofdeath and sacrifice and
suffering.
You know when we are in just amoment.
We're going to end this sermonwith baptisms.
It's so great.
Which is a symbol when you'redunked under the water.
(42:24):
It's a symbol of being buriedwith Christ and then raised to
the newness of life.
We are buried with Christ.
It's as Paul said, it's nolonger I who live, but Christ in
me.
He said.
I've been crucified with Christ.
My desires, my dreams,everything that I've chased
(42:45):
after my comfort, I've given itto Christ.
And not just given it to Christ, not just laid it down at
Christ's feet, but I've gladlydone it.
I've gladly done it.
It's an honor to suffer for Hisname.
Being a Christian does not meanthat it will cost you your life
(43:06):
, but it means you're willing.
You're willing to follow Christ.
If it does cost you your life,it may just get you laughed at,
it may get you beheaded.
But to be a Christian this iswhat baptism represents is to
say Jesus, you are infinitelygreater than anything I could
(43:28):
give up.
Take it all, take my life,you're worth it.
So I'm in Acts, chapter 5, verse 17 through 42,
and, as is our custom, we standfor the reading of the Word.
But the high priest rose up andall who were with him, that is,
the party of the Sadducees, and, filled with jealousy, they
arrested the apostles, put themin the public prison.
(00:21):
But during the night an angelof the Lord opened the prison
doors and brought them out andsaid go and stand in the temple
and speak to the people all thewords of this life.
And when they heard this, theyentered the temple at daybreak
and began to teach.
Now, when the high priest cameand those who were with him,
(00:42):
they called together the council, all the senate of the people
of Israel and sent to the prisonto have them brought.
But when the officers came,they did not find them in the
prison.
So they returned and reported.
We found the prison securelylocked and the guards standing
at the doors, but when we openedthem, we found no one inside
(01:04):
Verse 24.
Now, when the captain of thetemple and the chief priests
heard these things, they weregreatly perplexed about them,
wondering what this would cometo.
And someone came and told themLook, the men whom you put in
prison are standing in thetemple and teaching the people.
Then the captain with theofficers went and brought them,
(01:25):
but not by force, for they wereafraid of being stoned by the
people.
And when they had brought them,they set them before the
council and the high priestquestioned them, saying we
strictly charged you not toteach in this name, yet here you
have filled Jerusalem with yourteaching and you intend to
bring this man's blood upon us.
(01:47):
But Peter and the apostlesanswered we must obey God rather
than men.
The God of our fathers raisedJesus, whom you killed by
hanging him on a tree.
God exalted him at his righthand as leader and savior to
give repentance to Israel andforgiveness of sins.
(02:07):
And we are witnesses to thesethings, and so is the Holy
Spirit whom God has given tothose who obey him.
When they heard this, they wereenraged and wanted to kill them
.
But a Pharisee in the councilnamed Gamaliel, a teacher of the
law held in honor by all thepeople, stood up and gave orders
to put the men outside for alittle while and he said to them
(02:30):
Men of Israel, take care ofwhat you are about to do with
these men.
For before these days, judasrose up claiming to be somebody,
and a number of men about 400,joined him.
He was killed and all whofollowed him were dispersed and
came to nothing.
After him, judas the Galileanrose up in the days of the
(02:50):
census and drew away some of thepeople after him.
He too perished and all whofollowed him were scattered.
So in the present case, I tellyou keep away from these men and
let them alone, for if thisplan or this undertaking is of
man, it will fail, but if it isof God, you will not be able to
overthrow them.
(03:11):
You might even be foundopposing God.
So they took his advice andwhen they called in the apostles
, they beat them and chargedthem not to speak in the name of
Jesus and let them go.
Then they left the presence ofthe council, rejoicing that they
were counted worthy to sufferdishonor for the name.
And every day, in the templeand from house to house, they
(03:33):
did not cease teaching andpreaching that the Christ is
Jesus.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Amen, the word of God for the people of God.
All right you may be seated,all right.
Faithfulness to jesus does notequate to a life without
(04:17):
suffering.
You know I've had through theyears.
Many people come to me,christians, and they say, listen
, I'm doing everything I know todo, I'm praying every day,
reading the Bible, serving inministry, giving of my finances,
sharing the gospel, and yet I'mexperiencing problems and
(04:38):
difficulties.
And they'll say something likewhat have I done to deserve this
?
My question is, while beingsympathetic, who told you that
when you become a Christian,that you're not going to deal
with any trouble anymore?
I know that message is outthere, but it's erroneous and it
leaves people jaded whentrouble comes their way.
(05:00):
All of us, as Christians, we arestill affected, though we
believe, to be sure, in divinehealing.
We have sickness, right.
We're impacted by that.
All of us lose loved ones.
They die and each of us, shouldthe Lord tarry, will do so as
well.
We're impacted by naturaldisasters, tornadoes and
(05:24):
hurricanes and tsunamis.
Let me just say it like thisThrough many dangers, toils and
snares, I have already come.
So we all experience thosethings.
But in addition to those kindsof issues and sufferings,
christians go through a uniqueform of suffering, namely
persecution for the name ofChrist, persecution for the name
(05:49):
of Christ.
So we're on this journey throughthe book of Acts and in Acts,
chapter 1, verse 8, we find whatI believe is the theme verse
and it serves as an outline forthe entire book.
Remember what Jesus says.
He says when the Holy Spiritcomes upon you, you will be my,
what, my witnesses, in Jerusalem, in all of Judea, samaria and
(06:13):
to the other most parts of theearth.
And that's exactly what happens.
And what we've seen so far inthe book of Acts Is that the
apostles are faithful to do thisand, as people are being saved,
they are faithful to the callof God.
Is that the apostles arefaithful to do this?
And, as people are being saved,they are faithful to the call
of God in their life.
Thousands of Christians now, atthis point, faithful to God.
(06:33):
So, as a matter of fact, youknow we started today in chapter
5, verse 17.
If you just go to the previoustext, what you're going to see
is that God was blessing thechurch.
The apostles were faithful, thechurch was see is that God was
blessing the church.
The apostles were faithful, thechurch was faithful and God was
blessing the church.
Luke tells us that you know,miracles were happening, demons
(06:55):
were being cast out, multitudesbeing healed, and it says the
church was growing.
In other words, more peoplewere coming to salvation than
ever.
That's a successful church,amen, god is blessing it.
So Luke kind of celebrates that.
But I want you to look at ourbeginning verse today, verse 17.
(07:17):
And what is the first word?
But I'm going to see how matureyou guys are this morning, but
anytime you're serving the Lordand God's blessing upon is upon
you, there's always going to bea but.
Sometimes, you know and that'sthe same for a church Sometimes
(07:38):
in the church things are goingwell, things are growing, and
we've got to prepare for this.
Somebody within the church isthe but.
All right, there's always a but, and what happens in our text
(07:59):
is things are going great,everybody's being faithful, but,
and what we find is that theapostles, apostles, in the midst
of their faithfulness,experience tremendous
persecution because they arepreaching the gospel, doing
exactly what Jesus has told themto do.
(08:19):
Now the question is, is thisrelevant to us today?
This is a question I'veaddressed a couple of other
times.
But are American Christianspersecuted?
Well, I'm reluctant to say yesbecause, comparatively to what
(08:41):
other Christians around theworld for instance the 70 who
were killed by beheaded just afew weeks ago by Muslim
extremists in Congo Like,compared to them, okay, it's
almost absurd to call what we gothrough suffering, but or
persecution.
(09:01):
I am going to call itpersecution and the reason I'm
going to call it that is becauseI think the Bible does.
In 2 Timothy 3.12, paul writesthese words Indeed, all,
everybody say all, all whodesire to live a godly life, and
I sure hope that you, in ChristJesus, will be persecuted If
(09:27):
you don't.
So well, let's say this what'spersecution look like for us?
It's being mocked, it's beinghated Some of you have lost jobs
because of your Christianconvictions.
It's being ostracized, it'sbeing falsely accused of being a
bigot or an elitist.
What have you?
And while that's not torture,physical torture, while it's not
(09:50):
losing your life for the sakeof Christ, it's not nothing Like
.
We're always livingcounter-cultural and, by the way
, things are getting worse bythe day in our country as far as
the way people respond to us.
And so could it be I hope not,god forbid, but could it be that
one day we're going to gothrough greater persecution.
(10:12):
It seems like that is certainlya possibility.
All will experience persecution.
Let me say this according toPaul's words in 2 Timothy 3.12,
if you claim to be a Christianand you aren't experiencing some
level of persecution, one oftwo things is happening in your
(10:32):
life.
Number one you call yourself aChristian, but you're a
hypocrite and you're not livinga godly life.
All who desire to live a godlylife will be persecuted.
Or you're a moralist because itsays all who desire to live a
godly life will be persecuted,or you're a moralist because it
says all who desire to live agodly life in Christ Jesus will
be persecuted.
So you might just be trying tolive a good life, so to speak,
(10:57):
like a lot of people, but that'smoralism if it's done apart
from Christ.
But if you are in Christ andyou want to proclaim Christ and
you want to live in a way that'scongruent with Christ's word,
then you will be persecuted onsome level.
And so let's begin by looking atthe reasons for persecution,
(11:21):
and the first is this it's foundin verses 17 and 18.
And it is jealousy, or youcould say pride, verse 17,.
The high priest rose up.
Now think of this.
The apostles are teaching thepeople and miracles are being
done.
The high priest rose up and allwho were with him that is the
(11:43):
party of the Sadducees and,filled with jealousy, they
arrested the apostles and putthem in prison.
They see these miracleshappening, a power that they do
not have and understand.
The Sadducees, these are thearistocrats right.
These are wealthy people.
(12:04):
These are wealthy peopleamongst the Jewish people.
They willed a great amount ofpolitical, social and religious
power within the temple, amongstJerusalem.
Now they love the power, theylove prestige and if something
(12:28):
good, if a profound teaching isgoing to to come, if, if some um
display of power is going tohappen, it ought to be done
through them, or so they think.
And now you've got these simplegalileans and they are teaching
the people in a profound way,preaching circles around the
(12:50):
Sadducees and the high priest,and they're doing all these
great miracles in the name ofJesus.
And it causes jealousy insteadof rejoicing.
It causes jealousy and you knowpeople in the world might be
jealous of you because you claimto know God, you claim to be
(13:12):
close to God and if you walk inthe power of God, people could
be jealous.
Instead of repenting and comingto Christ themselves, they
could be antagonistic towardsyou.
But there's another reason forpersecution and that is
conviction.
We're going to jump ahead justa bit to verses 27 through 31.
(13:35):
And it says when they hadbrought them the apostles, they
sent them before the councilthis is the Sanhedrin who was
responsible for crucifying Jesus.
And the high priest questionedthem, the apostles, saying this
we strictly charge you not toteach in this name, the name of
(13:56):
Jesus.
Yet here you have, filledJerusalem with your teachings
and you intend to bring thisman's blood upon us.
Did you get that?
You intend to bring this man'sblood upon us?
And Peter and the apostlesanswered we must obey God rather
than men.
The God of our fathers raisedJesus, whom you killed, boy.
(14:19):
They didn't mince words, didthey?
You killed him, god's MessiahBoy.
That's convicting, is it not?
You know John says this.
He says that when Jesus came hewas the light, but people
rejected the light because theyloved the darkness.
See God's presence.
(14:39):
Christ's word in his essenceconvicts people of sin.
And we are, by the power of thespirit.
We are temples of God's spirit,which means we take the
presence of God with us, as Johnsaid, I believe, in chapter 16,
that rivers of living waterwill flow from us.
(15:02):
That's God presence.
And you ever notice that whenyou're witnessing to somebody
who's living in sin, you don'teven have to sometimes say
anything about their sin, andthey're just uncomfortable
around you because you've gotthe light of Christ within you.
Jesus said in Matthew 5, youare the light of the world.
Well, why light of the world?
(15:29):
Well, why Because Christ, byHis Spirit, is in you.
Some people know they'resinners and they welcome the
conviction that leads them torepentance.
But others don't have thathumility and it's an offensive
message.
And so, again, they persecutebelievers for that reason.
They persecute believers forthat reason.
But there's another reason forpersecution that I must point
(15:49):
out and that comes from, orthere are many places in the New
Testament I could turn to, butparticularly I want to think
through Ephesians, chapter 6,beginning in verse 12, or we'll
just look at verse 12.
And Paul there, you mightremember, says we do not wrestle
against what Flesh and blood,but against rulers, against
(16:12):
authorities, against the cosmicpowers over this present
darkness, against the spiritualforces of evil in heavenly
places.
In other words, when peoplecome at you for your faith, you
know what they are.
They're puppets for the enemy.
(16:32):
Your enemy is not necessarilythose people.
You have an adversary, thedevil, who's going about like a
roaring lion seeking whom he maydevour.
So Paul challenges us to put onthe full spiritual armor that
(16:53):
we may withstand these spiritualforces.
Why would the devil come againsta church that God is blessing?
I'll tell you why.
Because it's a threat.
I mean, if we're a churchwalking in power and a church
walking in faithfulness, likethe apostles beloved by God's
(17:14):
grace, we can turn Richmond andthe world upside down.
If 12 men can do it, a churchof 100 can do it.
Amen, the devil's threatened bya faithful church.
See, he doesn't care about achurch, whether it's 100 or
10,000 people, if the church isthere to entertain the folk, not
(17:35):
preaching the whole counsel ofGod.
If the church is not beingfaithful, the devil's not
threatened by that.
And he's not threatened, by theway, by a Christian who says
one thing and does another.
Actually, he's quite pleasedwith you.
When you come to church onSunday and live like hell Monday
through Saturday, come onsomebody.
You see the devil is threatenedby us and he'll come against us
(17:59):
so hard.
Have you ever noticed thatsometimes, the more you try to
serve God, the more things seemto go wrong.
You ever notice that?
Now, sometimes that'scoincidental.
I don't see the devil behindevery, you know, behind every
bush, so to speak.
But I will say this that thedevil's not omnipresent like God
(18:20):
is, and so I think he precisely, very intentionally, attacks
those who are most faithful toGod.
Amen, all right, so that's thereasons for persecution.
Number two is what should ourresponse be to persecution?
(18:46):
What should our response be topersecution?
You know, if you're doingexactly what Jesus tells you to
do and something like thishappens, you're arrested, you're
(19:06):
beaten, as they are later inthis text.
Some of us might say you knowLord, why would you treat me
this way?
I'm just trying to do whatyou've told me to do, right?
Do the apostles complain?
No.
Do they question God and hisgoodness?
No.
(19:27):
How do we respond?
Let me tell you first.
We respond with continuedfaithfulness and loyalty to the
Lord.
Jesus Christ, blessed be yourname.
As we sang, you give and youtake away.
Jesus Christ, blessed be yourname.
As we sang, you give and youtake away.
And in every situation, myheart would choose to say Lord,
blessed be your name.
(19:47):
The psalmist said I will blessthe Lord.
When.
Sometimes, I will bless theLord.
When things are going well Now,I will bless the Lord at all
times.
His praise shall continually bein my mouth.
So look at verses 18 to 21.
They arrested the apostles,they put them in a public prison
, but during the night, an angelof the Lord opened the prison
(20:09):
doors, brought them out.
It's like, oh great, and thisis awesome, we can get away.
But then listen to what theangel says.
Go and stand in the temple andspeak to the people all the
words of life, in other words,the words of Jesus.
And when they heard this, theyentered the temple at daybreak
and began to teach.
Now think of this.
(20:29):
You've been arrested for yourfaith.
God, by his grace and power,brings you out.
And then you're like okay, lord, where do I go?
Where do I hide?
And he's like actually go backto the place that you were
arrested and just keep preachingJesus.
What Is that not crazy?
And how would you respond?
(20:50):
Well, how do the apostlesrespond?
Watch this 21,.
When they heard this, theyentered the temple at daybreak
and they just began to teach.
We were arrested, we were setout.
Jesus told us through the angelthat we're to keep preaching.
What are we going to do Atdaybreak?
We're not going to wait.
(21:10):
We're not going to take a dayoff, we're just going to keep
being faithful.
Oh, we need some people that,through every danger, toil and
stare, will just continue tosing.
Oh, he's given me amazing grace.
I'm just going to keep servingHim, amen, amen.
You know perseverance andsuffering.
(21:32):
You know what it is.
It's a sign of true, genuinefaith and salvation.
It's a sign of true, genuinefaith and salvation.
In Matthew, chapter 13, jesusgives this parable of the sower
and the seeds and he says youknow, one of the things he
teaches there is that somepeople will believe for a while,
they'll claim to believe thegospel, but when persecution
(21:56):
comes, they will fall away.
The gospel hasn't really takenroot.
Because they're fine, they wantJesus as Savior, and when
things are going good, they'regreat.
Man, I'll serve Jesus.
But when hardship comes,particularly persecution, man,
I'm out.
Persecution is a sign.
(22:19):
Jesus talks a lot.
The Bible talks a lot aboutpersevering to the end.
That's the sign of ultimate andtrue salvation.
So how do we respond?
One with continued faithfulness.
Number two we respond with love, not retaliation.
Number two we respond with love, not retaliation.
You know, throughout the textyou never get the idea that the
(22:45):
apostles are militant towardsthese people.
They're candid, they speak thetruth, which we're called to do.
But if you notice, when they'rebrought before the Sanhedrin,
this is after they've come outof prison and the temple guard
comes to get them, to bring themto the Sanhedrin.
This council, the senate therein Jerusalem, it says that they
(23:06):
did not bring them by force,which implies that the disciples
did not.
The apostles didn't resist andyou know the church is thousands
of members strong at this pointand what they didn't do is
start a revolt where they saidyou know, they didn't send one
of the apostles out and say, hey, listen, go, start an army and
(23:30):
come back and just wipe thesefools out.
No, what did they do to them?
They just continued to preachthe word of life to them,
calling them to repentance fortheir great sin beloved, that's
love.
That's love.
On a february, the 23rd AD, 155Romans killed a man by the name
(24:02):
of Polycarp, who was the Bishopof Smyrna.
Polycarp is known andremembered for his courage.
One of the governors threatenedearly on to burn him at the
stake and he said that fire willsoon go out.
I'd rather that than the firesof eternal hell.
(24:23):
It just set me ablaze.
Pretty crazy.
He was willing to ultimately goto his death and he refused to
renounce Christ.
He was courageous and we shouldcelebrate that.
But there's something elseabout Polycarp that we should
celebrate and remember, and thatis his kindness.
(24:44):
It's an interesting story thatPolycarp heard that he was going
to be arrested and so he fledto the country, to this little
villa, knowing that his arrestwas inevitable.
But he fled to this littlevilla so that he could just pray
, and he prayed not just forhimself but for the whole
persecuted church.
(25:05):
What a guy.
And it didn't stop there.
The soldiers found a farmhand,tortured him until he gave up
Polycarp's location.
And when the soldiersapproached the house, polycarp
(25:26):
was tipped off and he could havegone through the window and
escaped, but he didn't.
He just stayed again, knowinghis arrest was inevitable.
And then he did something justremarkable.
You know what he did.
The soldiers came in and hecommanded the house help.
(25:46):
He said give them.
It was late at night, they hadtraveled a long way.
Give them whatever they want toeat or drink before we go, in
other words, before they lead meto my death.
Talk about loving your enemies.
How would we do that?
Is that not how Christ hasloved us?
That while we were yet sinners,christ gave His life for us?
(26:10):
Amen, amen.
Pretty phenomenal, you knowwhen you suffer.
Pretty phenomenal, you knowwhen you suffer.
What the Bible teaches is thatwe should suffer for the right
reasons.
What's interesting in this textis that the apostles do not
(26:30):
give the council a justifiablereason for persecuting them.
In 1 Peter 2.20, peter writesthis For what credit is it if,
when you sin and are beaten forit, you endure, but if, when you
do good and suffer for it, ifyou endure, this is a gracious
(26:54):
thing in the sight of God?
This is a gracious thing in thesight of God.
In other words, you can't bemean and cynical and critical
and then call what happens toyou persecution.
I'll just give you an example.
Let's say that you are a.
Let's say you have anundependable employee who's
(27:17):
always gossiping about everybodyelse in the office.
They show up late, they leaveearly, do the bare minimum of
work Just horrible, calling insick when they're not sick, and
then they're fired.
They cannot claim that theywere fired because they just
(27:38):
love Jesus so much.
No, they're fired becausethey're a horrible employee.
And so what Jesus is saying isdon't or Peter is saying there
is don't give people a valid,justifiable reason to be mean to
you.
Don't go slam people onFacebook.
Don't be rude and cynical, mean, negative.
(28:04):
Don't be a bad employee, don'tbe a bad friend.
No, he said, if you're going tosuffer, the kind of suffering
we're called to is unjustsuffering, where the reason
you're suffering is because youlove people so much, you give
them the gospel of Jesus Christ.
That's pleasing to God.
(28:25):
So there it is.
That's how we respond topersecution.
Finally, this is the good news Iwant you to consider the
results of persecution.
The results of persecutionNumber one is an unstoppable
church.
(28:45):
An unstoppable church.
Now, while preaching in thetemple, after being released
from prison, the temple guardagain they come, they find the
disciples and they take thembefore again the Sanhedrin, this
council of men againresponsible for crucifying Jesus
.
And the council begins toinquire why is it, apostles,
(29:10):
that you are preaching andteaching Jesus when we strictly
forbade you to do so?
And in verse 29, peter justsays we must obey God rather
than men.
Well, he didn't mince words,did he?
And the council's response isthis Peter goes on to say again
yeah, you crucified.
(29:30):
His blood is on your hands,jesus' blood.
But the council's response isfound in verse 33.
Luke tells us that they wereenraged and wanted to kill the
apostles, but then somethinghappens.
As they're ready to take theirlives, something happens.
This respected, well-knownteacher, gamaliel, spoke up
(29:57):
imploring the council not to putthe apostles to death.
Now this is profound, and let'sread.
This is so good.
He talks about formal revoltsthat didn't go anywhere because
they weren't of God.
But watch what he says in verse.
Let's go to verse 38.
He says so in the present case.
(30:19):
I tell you, keep away fromthese men and just let them
alone, for if this plan orundertaking is of man, it will
fail.
But watch this If it is of God,you will not be able to
overthrow them.
Isn't that great?
It's so great.
Listen, we all want to be partof a winning team.
(30:40):
Amen.
We want to be fans of a winningteam.
It's March, which means it's amonth of madness, amen.
And here's the thing we all youknow, as we fill out our
brackets and do all those things, there are certain teams we
expect to win, but anything canhappen.
We cannot predict every game.
(31:01):
We can't predict any game.
All right now I'm going to hurtyour feelings for a minute, but
who would have thought Alabamawould beat us by what?
29 points?
Is that right?
But then who would have thoughtthat Florida would turn around
and beat Alabama by 22 points?
Who saw that coming?
(31:22):
And the point is this we canhave a great team and we've had
in Kentucky many great teamsthrough the years but do
injuries not frustrate you tothe core?
You have an injury or just onebad game in the in the.
I don't like single eliminationtournaments, but one bad game
(31:42):
and you're out.
The lowest seed can beat thetop seed.
See, my point is this is wecan't predict the outcome of any
organization.
You can buy stock that looksreally good and not know what
it's going to do the next day,but there's one entity that we
(32:07):
know the end Right.
That is the church, and apersecuted church it is.
Or a faithful church is apersecuted church.
But hear me, a persecutedchurch who's still faithful to
christ is an unstoppable church.
Beloved jesus said I will buildmy church and the gates of hell
(32:27):
will not prevail against it.
So I've got great news for youtoday.
If you are a faithful man, awoman of god.
If you are truly in the LordJesus Christ, you're on a
winning team.
Amen.
The devil himself is but adefeated foe.
Hallelujah.
If God be for us, who can beagainst us?
(32:47):
What's the worst they can do?
Kill us.
To be absent from the body isto be present with the Lord,
amen, hallelujah.
So the first benefit, firstbenefit of persecution it's an
(33:14):
unstoppable church.
The second is this persecutionleads to unstoppable joy.
Look at verses 40 through 42.
Oh, I love this.
And when they had called in theapostles, they beat them and
they charged them not to speakin the name of Jesus and let
them go.
Now.
They just got a beating.
They were just in prison andwatch.
Here's their response.
(33:34):
41.
Then they left the presence ofthe council, complaining,
depressed, rejoicing that theywere counted worthy to suffer
dishonor for the name of Jesus.
And every day they went to thetemple and from house to house,
(33:54):
and they did not cease teachingand preaching that the Christ is
Jesus.
When we grasp the beauty andthe wonder and the glory of
Christ, the supremacy of Christ,we will understand what it
(34:15):
means to belong to him and howhonorable it is to be so
identified with Him that we arepersecuted for His namesake.
Oh, my goodness.
Paul said you know, paul losteverything right.
And he said this I count it all, but loss according to what
(34:39):
I've gained in Christ, jesus,christ is sufficient.
If you have Christ, you havereason to rejoice.
Paul why, in prison, said inPhilippians 4, rejoice in the
Lord at all times.
And again I say rejoice.
What could we rejoice?
How could we rejoice inpersecution?
(35:02):
Well, there's a great verse andI left it out of my notes, but
2 Corinthians 4.
Well, you know what?
I'm going to go there in just aminute.
Okay, so persecution leads tounspeakable joy.
Number three persecution leadsto the eternal good of other
(35:22):
people.
This is it's worth every bit oftorment, it's worth death.
If somebody's life can be achange, can be changed for all
of eternity.
In Matthew 25, verse 46, jesussays he's talking about the
final judgment and he'scontrasting the righteous, those
(35:44):
in Christ, with the unrighteous, those who have rejected Christ
.
And he's contrasting therighteous, those in Christ, with
the unrighteous, those who haverejected Christ.
And he says and these will goaway into eternal punishment.
That's, the unrighteous, thesewill go away.
To what?
Eternal punishment?
But the righteous, into eternallife.
And do you know what?
Our willingness to bepersecuted for the sake of the
(36:07):
gospel, that's what leads people.
That's what leads people froman eternity of hell to an
eternity of life.
You know, there's a verse inRevelation 12, 11 that says and
(36:29):
this is so misquoted,misinterpreted we overcome by
what?
Remember that verse the bloodof the Lamb and the word of our
testimony.
And so we overcome by the bloodof the Lamb.
That's our only chance ofsalvation, and that's true.
And then people take the part,the word of our testimony, and
they say see, what you need todo is share your testimony with
(36:49):
somebody.
Tell them how you came to Jesus, tell them what God has done
for you.
Now, is that a good thing to do?
Yes and amen.
But that's not what the verseis talking about.
And all you have to you don'teven have to go to the next
verse, just read the rest of it.
We overcome by the blood of theLamb, the word of our testimony
, and here's the testimony thatwe love not our lives, even unto
(37:13):
death.
Oh, anybody can say Jesus isthe Christ, I'm going to serve
Jesus.
But when a knife is put to yourthroat and you are threatened
to be beheaded for your faithand you still say Jesus is Lord.
Oh, what a witness.
What a witness.
It's worth every ounce ofpersecution if your persecutor
(37:41):
can know Jesus.
Finally, persecution leads toour eternal glory.
So now let's go to 2Corinthians 4, verses 16 and 18.
Did we put that in there?
Oh, we did.
Hey, paul.
This is Paul writing to thechurch at Corinth.
(38:01):
He's talking about suffering.
He's been shipwrecked, snakebitten, left for dead,
imprisoned, stoned, abandonedand so on.
And here's what he says we donot lose heart.
How many would lose heart ifall that happened to you?
Maybe he says our outer self iswasting away.
Anybody feel that this morningbut our inner self is being
(38:25):
renewed day by day.
For this light, momentaryaffliction.
Light, momentary, snake, bitten, shipwrecked, left for dead,
stoned, imprisoned, abandoned.
How can you call that light andmomentary?
Well, it is when you compare itto the eternal weight of glory,
(38:46):
beyond all comparison, as welook to the things that, not to
the things that are seen, but tothe things that are unseen, for
the things that are seen aretransient, but the things that
are unseen are eternal.
I love that.
Can you go back one slide?
Watch this your affliction.
(39:07):
It's not neutral in eternalglory.
Watch this, your affliction asyou persevere.
You know what it's doing.
It is actually preparing foryou eternal glory.
Let me just say it like thisI'm so sorry what some of you
are going through, but it's notuseless, it's not meaningless.
(39:29):
If you'll just continue totrust Jesus, it will prepare for
you an eternal way to glorybeyond comparison.
In the end, he says we don'tlook to the things that are seen
, but to the things that areunseen, for the things that are
seen are temporary, they'retransient, but the things that
are unseen.
For the things that are seenare temporary, they're transient
, but the things that are unseenare eternal.
So I want to say it like thisGet this okay, I'm almost done
(39:53):
here.
Christian suffering istemporary.
Christian glory is eternal.
It's worth it.
Oh, it's worth it.
So, in closing, what do you dowith this?
Well, I would tell you first toprepare yourself, prepare your
(40:13):
mind for persecution, becausethings could get worse for us
here in America as Christians,and realize that, just because
things are going wrong in yourlife or because people are
coming against you, that God'slove is not failing in your life
.
His love is steadfast.
(40:34):
And I would say to you justchange the way you think about
persecution.
Rejoice in it, not because it'scomfortable, but because it's
working for God's glory and yourgood.
If you're not sufferingpersecution on any level, you
(40:57):
might just test this morning thegenuineness of your faith.
Paul said make your electionsure.
You know, following Jesus, itinvolves bearing your cross.
Jesus said in Luke 14, 27,.
Whoever does not bear his owncross and come after me cannot
(41:21):
be my disciple.
Well, you don't hear that froma lot of TV preachers, do you?
Cannot be my disciple.
Well, you don't hear that froma lot of TV preachers, do you?
What's the message that is sopopular today that people are
flocking to?
Well, come to Jesus and allyour wildest dreams will come
true.
Come to Jesus and you'll neverbe sick again.
Come to Jesus, you'll never bepoor.
(41:41):
Okay, how's that working?
It's working for them, becauseeverybody's giving them their
money and they get the bestdoctors and all the food they
want and all the money they want, and so on and so forth.
Jesus said if you're notwilling to take your cross,
pastor Jerry, you're not worthyto be my disciple.
(42:04):
The cross, it's a symbol ofdeath and sacrifice and
suffering.
You know when we are in just amoment.
We're going to end this sermonwith baptisms.
It's so great.
Which is a symbol when you'redunked under the water.
(42:24):
It's a symbol of being buriedwith Christ and then raised to
the newness of life.
We are buried with Christ.
It's as Paul said, it's nolonger I who live, but Christ in
me.
He said.
I've been crucified with Christ.
My desires, my dreams,everything that I've chased
(42:45):
after my comfort, I've given itto Christ.
And not just given it to Christ, not just laid it down at
Christ's feet, but I've gladlydone it.
I've gladly done it.
It's an honor to suffer for Hisname.
Being a Christian does not meanthat it will cost you your life
(43:06):
, but it means you're willing.
You're willing to follow Christ.
If it does cost you your life,it may just get you laughed at,
it may get you beheaded.
But to be a Christian this iswhat baptism represents is to
say Jesus, you are infinitelygreater than anything I could
(43:28):
give up.
Take it all, take my life,you're worth it.
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