MPC, 20th May 2001.Acts 3-4:1-31 - "What's in a name?"
Phil Campbell MPC, 20th May 2001.
On April first this year, Pakistani police arrested a 33 year old high school principal for slandering the prophet Mohammed. Pervaiz Masih is a Christian. The police came for him late at night. And he's facing a death sentence if he's convicted. According to his accuser, he made offensive comments about Mohammed to three teenage schoolboys he was tutoring privately. He's currently in the District Jail, and his family hasn't been allowed to visit him.
Ten days later in Azerbaijan, two Christians were sent to jail on charges of "disobeying the police." They were detained three days earlier at a picnic and accused of conducting MASS EVANGELISM. And warned not to do it again. Apparently they didn't listen. Because three days later the police came to their homes. And took them away.
In Brunei, Yunus Murang is in prison for evangelising Muslims. He's also been charged with smuggling Indonesian Bibles into the country and given a two-year prison sentence. Another six Christians were detained because of what the authorities called "participation in a well-organized prayer program." Brunei authorities say they are concerned… about the growth of Christianity.
And the list goes on and on. Of places where speaking in THE NAME OF JESUS is a very dangerous thing.
Which is exactly how it's been RIGHT FROM THE START. As the apostles started spreading the word that Jesus wasn't a DEAD REBEL. But a RISEN KING.
Now I guess it’s no surprise to find that’s not a message any OTHER SORT OF KING wants to hear. For anyone else with ambitions to RULE, Jesus gets in the way. Whether it’s the Roman Governor. Or the high priest. Or just people like you and me. Who want to run our own lives our own way. We should EXPECT the gospel won’t be a popular message.
By the end of Acts 2 where we left it last week, there are 3000 new Christians; sharing together; devoting themselves to the TEACHING of THE APOSTLES, and to prayer. And we’re told at the end of chapter 2 that these APOSTLES are performing MANY WONDERS and MIRACULOUS SIGNS. And we’re about to see one here.
Chapter 3 starts with Peter and John on their way up to the temple for the 3 o'clock prayer meeting. And there’s a beggar just inside the inner court-yard, a cripple since birth, and he’s sitting beside this huge 67 foot high polished bronze gate that the people called THE BEAUTIFUL GATE.
Your eye is swept up by this huge imposing gate. And it runs down it. To the small, huddled beggar leaning on the pillar. Trying to attract people’s attention on their way into the temple. Maybe he's sitting outside because he's not allowed in. Unclean.
I saw a guy yesterday. It's a sad sight. In a wheel chair, with a tray fixed at the front, and a sign; these days they call it FUNDRAISING. And maybe give you a plastic pen. But here's this beggar at the Beautiful gate, he says, HOW ABOUT IT? How about a small donation. And he says it without even looking in their eyes.
To which Peter says the words you can see from verse 4 to 6. Peter says, LOOK AT US. And so he does. And then he says this. We haven't got any silver and gold if that's what you're wanting. But what I DO HAVE, I give you.”
And Peter reaches out his hand, and takes him by the arm, and he says this. He says “IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH, WALK.”
In the office I used to work in, I was allowed to send out letters in the name of my boss. His name was RICK CHASELING. Rick Chaseling had plenty of authority. I had none at all.
Except the authority he DELEGATED. And so whenever I wrote a letter that was meant to make something happen, it wouldn’t be signed PHIL CAMPBELL. It would be signed RICK CHASELING. And it went out with HIS AUTHORITY. And things happen.
Well, Peter’s acting under the authority of Jesus. Jesus has sent him as an Apostle; with delegated authority. And Peter’s acting IN HIS NAME. You can see that in what he says, can’t you. I haven't got any silver or gold. But you can have this. IN THE NAME OF JESUS OF NAZARETH… get up and walk.
And you can see that's what happens. And you can see it in what Peter says to the crowd that gathers afterwards.
The guy gets up and walks straight away. His feet and ankles that haven’t been able to hold him for 40 years, suddenly they’re strong. And he’s up. And for the first time, instead of being left outside the temple as UNCLEAN, he goes with them into the temple courts. Whole. And he’s not just hobbling. He’s walking; and he’s leaping. And he’s praising God.
And the people, we’re told in verse 10, the crowds in the temple courts, when they recognise this guy who’s been begging in the same spot for years, they’re filled with WONDER AND AMAZEMENT at what happened to him. And the buzz spreads through the courtyard, and a crowd gathers in Solomon's Colonnade, which was a long walkway with columns where you could look from the temple out over the valley.
And as the crowd gathers, Peter starts to PREACH. The people are running from everywhere. And in verse 12, Peter starts speaking.
And in a nutshell, this is what he says. He says, don’t look at US. We didn’t do it. JESUS DID. Because the fact is, THE JESUS YOU KILLED, is STILL ALIVE AND WELL. Doing exactly the same sort of things he was doing before. Through US, his apostles.
Take a look at verse 15; it's a summary. "You killed the author of life, but God raise him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. BY FAITH IN THE NAME OF JESUS, this man who you see and know was made strong. IT IS JESUS NAME and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.
You know, it’s interesting, the prophet Isaiah talked about a time when THE LAME WOULD LEAP FOR JOY like this guy. The time when God would restore his Kingdom. Isaiah 35. He called it a time when "THE LAME WOULD LEAP LIKE A DEER, and THE TONGUE OF THE DUMB WOULD SHOUT FOR JOY."
Isaiah said, the parched land will be refreshed. Water will gush forth in the wilderness, streams in the desert; and there’d be a highway called THE WAY OF HOLINESS.
And PETER SAYS here in his speech, ALL THE PROPHETS HAVE BEEN FULFILLED. He says, HERE IT IS! Here's the time. So for you Jews who played your part in killing Jesus, WAKE UP! It's time to change roads.
Verse 19. REPENT. Repent then – TURN TO GOD – so your sins may be wiped out – and get this. Isaiah talked about the time when the dry desert would spring to life. And Peter’s picking up on it. Repent and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, THAT TIMES OF REFRESHING may come from the Lord. Springs of life.
Repent. Turn from your wicked ways. To the road to Holiness, following Jesus. Simple as that.
Did you hear on the news a couple of weeks back, that stolen four wheel drive that was being chased by police in Perth, it crossed over to the wrong side of a dual carriage-way highway. And kept going, full speed. With it's lights out.
I mean, the police did everything they could to stop it. But they just kept going. The WRONG WAY. No matter what the police tried to do to signal them and stop them, they kept going. And it ended in tragedy. A couple in a car coming the other way, killed instantly. The driver of the stolen car killed as well. Two others injured.
Well, let me tell you, these Jews who are listening to Peter, they’ve been going the wrong way down a one way street as well. They’ve killed the author of life. They’ve ignored the prophets. Now here’s a CLEAR SIGNAL. The lame guy from beside the gate LEAPING LIKE A DEER. In the NAME OF JESUS. And they've got the FIRST OFFER. Peter says in verse 25, it's an offer that's going to go out to all the nations. But when God raised up his servant, he sent him FIRST TO YOU JEWS to BLESS YOU… by turning each of you from your wicked ways.
Funny, isn't it. Did you ever think of it that way? That being called to REPENT and TURN FROM YOUR WICKED WAYS, it's a BLESSING. It's turning you from DEATH TO LIFE. It's trying to attract your attention and let you know you're heading up the one way street the wrong way. And that's going to lead to DISASTER.
Being called to REPENT is A BLESSING. I hope you see it that way. But the question here is, what are the JEWS going to do?
Well, you can see it in chapter 4. There are two responses. And here’s the first one. PERSECUTION. Speaking in the NAME OF JESUS is dangerous. Calling on people to REPENT, it's not always going to be seen as the BLESSING IT IS.
And so the priests, and the captain of the temple guard, and the Sadducees, they move in. They’ve been there listening. And now they make their move.
And they grab Peter and John, and they arrest them, and they THROW THEM IN JAIL.
Just quickly, there’s the other response. You can see it in verse 4. Peter said REPENT. Do a U-Turn. And notice a lot of them do. The end of chapter 2, you've got 3000 Christians. Verse 4 says that many who heard the message THIS DAY believed as well – and the number of men grows to about five thousand. That’s an increase of 2000. Without even counting the women and kids. They've seen Peter and John arrested and dragged off to prison. But they going to believe ON THE NAME OF JESUS anyway.
After a night in jail, Peter and John are brought before the Sanhedrin. The high priest is there, and his family, and the rulers and the elders and the teachers of the law.
Now here's where you start to get a sense of DÉJÀ VU. This is the same court where they tried Jesus. Two months before. What's today? May 20. Think back to the weekend Jim Ramsay was here. March 18th. Two months. That's about how long ago this SAME SANHEDRIN put Jesus to death. If you were Peter and John, you'd be quaking in your boots. And it's intimidating. The Sanhedrin members sit around in a semi-circle, the accused men stand in the centre, and the members of the Sanhedrin fire off questions at them. And the big question is the one in verse 7. “By what power… or by what name… did you do this?” Who do you represent?
Well, here’s Peter; who two months ago was speechless. Here's John. A fisherman. But Jesus promised this was going to happen. And he'd promised that the Holy Spirit would give them boldness. And the words to say. And so verse 8 says Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he says to them, KNOW THIS. If you want to know the answer, here it is. Verse 10. “It’s by the NAME OF JESUS OF NAZARETH – whom YOU CRUCIFIED, but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you completely healed.
Now keep in mind, when Jesus was in court they condemned him. And it would have been the easiest thing in the world for them to do the same with Peter and John. Peter’s probably expecting the worst. But he doesn’t shrink back at all. He keeps going. And he quotes from Psalm 118. It's just like Jesus said it would be. The stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone. The most important stone of all.
Don’t you hate it when that happens. You kick over a bit of old rock. And the person behind you picks it up and it’s a diamond. You dump that old painting in a junk shop. And an art dealer walks in a recognizes it's a Streeton. Leonardo da Vinci's LAST SUPPER was painted on the wall of a monastery dining room. A few years later the Monks decide to cut a doorway through the middle of it. A few years after that, the room was turned into a store-room. Then a stable. They had NO IDEA of the value of what they were neglecting.
And that's how it is with the Sanhedrin. The off-cut they’ve thrown on the scrapheap turns out to be the cornerstone that holds up the whole arch. They treated Jesus like rubbish. They killed him. But God raised him.
And verse 12, Peter says “Salvation is found in no one else – for there’s NO OTHER NAME UNDER HEAVEN given to men by which we must be saved. Except the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Now Peter’s hardly trying to be conciliatory, is he. He’s hardly backing down. He’s hardly saying, SORRY FOR THE MIX-UP. He’s saying, HERE ARE THE FACTS. There’s NO WAY BUT CHRIST.
You can try every other way to be saved you can think of. But it’s not going to work. Full stop.
Which means we Christians are going to keep running into brick walls. It's a tough message, isn't it. At the University of NSW, the Christian group ran a week of evangelism a few years back. They advertised it with the slogan NO CHRIST NO LIFE. And there was a HUGE OUTCRY. People who want to say what Peter says here are going to face exactly the same sort of opposition Peter and John did. But it's exactly the reason you'll find Christians in places like Pakistan. And Azerbaijan. And Brunei. Who'll keep PROCLAIMING the NAME OF JESUS. No matter what the cost.
But back to Peter and John. At this point the Sanhedrin doesn’t know what to do. Because they can’t deny the miracle. But they want to stamp out any talk of Jesus. So verse 18, they give them a final warning. They tell them not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus. EVER AGAIN.
Now don't you reckon for most of us, that wouldn't be too hard. I mean, how long since you ever DID speak to anyone in the name of Jesus anyway. So Peter and John, they'll just bow and scrape and they say, Gee, thanks, okay, if you let us off we won’t mention him ever again. We'll be CLOSET CHRISTIANS. And just decide to BE NICE TO PEOPLE. Because we realise if you talk about Jesus, people get offended.
Well, it doesn’t quite go like that, does it? Peter and John do the exact opposite. They say, what would YOU do? Should we obey YOU? Or should we obey GOD? Verse 20. For we cannot help speaking about what we’ve seen and heard. We're APOSTLES. Eye Witnesses. Commissioned with a MESSAGE. And we've got to do what we've got to do.
Well, they threaten them a bit more. Then they let them go. Because all the people are still praising God for what had happened to this guy who had been crippled for 40 years.
And so Peter and John head back to the other Christians and they tell them what’s happened. And so they PRAY.
It’s a great prayer, you can read it in verse 24 to 30. They’re absolutely confident in the God who made the universe. And they’re absolutely UNSURPRISED there’s opposition. Because the scriptures always said there would be. Psalm 2 says it’s a clash of kingdoms. This world – against God. So they’re not surprised. And they know how the world treated Jesus.
So look what they ask for. They’ve praised God for his sovereignty; and now they pray this. Verse 29. Now Lord… consider their threats… AND ENABLE YOUR SERVANTS TO SPEAK YOUR WORD WITH GREAT BOLDNESS.
Is that YOUR PRAYER in the middle of opposition? Because in the light of what’s just happened, they want to do it all over again. And the apostles want to keep speaking and healing and performing wonders IN THE NAME OF JESUS. The name they’ve been BANNED FROM USING. They want to do it all over again. Only moreso.
And after they pray, says verse 31, there’s a rumbling. And the place they’re meeting in shakes. And all of them are filled with the Holy Spirit. Which has exactly the same result as before. Verse 31 says “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, AND SPOKE THE WORD OF GOD BOLDLY.”
See, I don’t know about anyone else, but I get scared out of my wits when there’s opposition. I get scared out of my wits when I have to talk about Jesus to unbelievers. You reckon it's easier if you're a minister, you're wrong. And it’s so easy for all of us, isn’t it, just to crawl back in your shell.
But I’ve done it enough to know one thing, and that is, if you pray for the BOLDNESS THAT COMES FROM GOD’S SPIRIT, it’s a prayer that God loves to answer. And you’ll find that even ORDINARY PEOPLE – like YOU - can actually stand up and be counted. And we don’t have to shrink back at all.
Friends, I’m not much of a prophet. But it seems to me that the way things are going, it’s only going to get harder for us as Christians; so we need to start praying this sort of prayer a bit more often. And a bit more sincerely. So that as we get pushed harder, instead of backing off we’ll go forward with the gospel. In spite of the cost. In spite of the suffering. In spite of the opposition. Because in the end we know, salvation is found in no one else – and there’s no other name under heaven by which we must be saved – than the name of JESUS.