Sermon Tone Analysis

No Other Name

Ac

acts4.1-12

In this text today we have what is one of the most distinctive Points of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

One of the most controversial ideas in Christianity today!

One of the five Solas and the Basis for the doctrine of Salvation.

CHRIST ALONE!

To be clear we believe that Salvation comes through Christ Alone, and that we do not contribute to that Salvation.

Simply put - The Gospel = Jesus+ nothing

Where do we get this idea?

One of of the key passages is before us in the text today and it is the big Idea for us today.

But before we look at it we need to understand some things here.

Remember this scene is all started by Peter and John going to the temple to pray for the evening prayer, when they encounter a lame man and heal him in Jesus name.

The Lame man begins to run and jump around the temple praising God which of course causes a big scene.

It would seems as though Peter and John have a captive audience who cannot concentrate on their evening prayers.

Peter preaches to them that repentance and Faith in the resurrected Christ will save them from their sins.

In the text today we witness an arrest and a trial.

It is a scene that is tense and it is a foundation for what God is doing in Jerusalem through his people.

As we look at this today, I want you to try to understand the context of what a trial looks like in order to understand what one of the most foundational statements to our Faith means.

The Arrest

This is the arrest of Peter and John.

We notice that they are speaking to the people when all of the sudden the authorities of the temple come upon them… And they are not happy...

Why are they so upset?

isn’t this a good thing that this lame man has been healed?

All the people are marveling in wonder at the greatness and graciousness of God.

If there is any place where people should be in Awe of God, you think it would be in the temple.

Why are they so mad?

In order to understand this we must first understand who the key players are here.

This is where study of the culture and history comes in handy when trying to understand the Bible.

When we don’t take the time to learn about the Context of scripture it becomes too easy to make it all about us… If we aren’t careful with scripture it becomes about us and we lose an understanding of who God is and how he works.

Let’s be clear, there is comfort we get when we read stories of how helps his people in time of need and we can get encouragement from that, but there is a lot more happening here than that.

here is what I mean...

Who are these people who arrest Peter and John?

The Priests, the Captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees.

The priests were organized into 24 groups which served on a rotation at the temple.

the priests administered the morning and evening sacrifices at the temple.

These priests are all in submission to the High Priest and the Captain of the temple guard.

The Captain of the temple guard is the priest in charge of the temple police force.

He is second in command to the High Priest, and he was there to maintain order in the temple.

The sadducees… these guys are of priestly descent and it is thought they are in the line of the former High priest Zadok from when David and Solomon reigned.

They were different from the Pharisees, which is another common title for the religious leaders and priests in the temple.

The sadducees were more a formal political party that was trying to control the temple and infiltrate the high priesthood.

In fact the High priests during this time Caiaphas and Annas were sadducees.

The really interesting thing about sadducees was their view on scriptures.

They accepted as authoritative only the five books of Moses, (which of course includes the Law); the rest of the OT had only secondary value to them.

The sadducees denied the doctrines of the Messiah, angels and demons, and especially immortality and the resurrection.

You may remember a time when the sadducees tried to question Jesus about the resurrection in and Jesus answers them by quoting from … The sadducees have been shut down publicly by Christ and now these guys are coming against Peter and John in the temple in front of a large crowd.

And this gives us much better insight in the 2nd verse and shows a tension we should be feeling...

The sadducees are Greatly annoyed… I love this line… Can’t you just imagine what that looked like?!?!

These guys are really triggered here.

They have been trying to convince people of their piety and have finally gained some position in the temple with their high priests.

They really didn’t like Jesus and wanted to keep the peace so as to keep their Roman occupiers out of their business in the temple.

They have to keep things nice and quiet in the temple and they have already made sure Jesus was put to death rather than have the people be in an uproar and attract attention from the Roman soldiers.

And they are Greatly Annoyed because these guys are Proclaiming 2 things...

1 - Jesus, whom they have killed.

Jesus who made them look dumb when he answered about the resurrection that they deny.

2 - The Resurrection from the Dead.

There couldn’t be any more outrageous things to be proclaimed in the temple that they were in control of than to Preach about Jesus and the resurrection fo the dead.

So not only is there a guy who is causing a ruckus by jumping and running around the temple during the evening prayer hour, but now there is a large crowd that is listening to these two guys that are proclaiming that Jesus was resurrected and they can have salvation in him if they repent and distance themselves from those who killed Jesus.

After these Jewish leaders rid the earth of ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ by nailing him to a cross, his followers begin to speak about his resurrection.

Some seven weeks later multitudes of people listen to Jesus’ followers, all of whom proclaim the doctrine of the resurrection.

Can you start to feel the tension here?

What are these guys going to do?

They just needed to shut it down as soon as they possibly could.

Evening prayer was from 3-4pm and then the temple would be closed till morning.

They arrest them and put them in jail for the night.

And we will get no other details about their stay in jail, no details of where the Lame man went.

We do not get a picture of what Peter and John were thinking during this overnight stay… Not like in when Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God all night… we have no idea what happened, and here is why...

God was glorified in their obedience already and nothing needed to detract away from the Big idea.

This story is not about Peter and John, it is not about the Sadducees, or even the Lame beggar that was healed… The bible is not about any of the people in it and it is not about you and me… the Bible is about God.

thats why we don’t get any details sometimes and yet we do at other times.

Because it is about putting the spot light on God not man.

Im sure their stay in jail wasn’t fun or comfortable.

I’m sure they stayed up and talked about what they might say the next day, they may have been nervous, they might have slept like a baby for all we know… none the less it doesn’t matter because this story isn’t really about them.

It is all about God being Glorified… So how do we see that?

Notice that 5,000 men HEARD the WORD and BELIEVED!!!

A couple thing here… First is that God’s word needs to be preached so that there can be those who hear and believe.

For whatever reason that is the way that God has ordained it to work.

And we see it all through his word...

Notice when you HEARD the WORD… When you HEAR the GOSPEL and Believe!

But it seems like when we hear this and think that the ones who are proclaiming the Gospel have to have it all together, they need to have all the answers.

And so this is work for someone else because I am not ready to share what I know yet.

But think about what is going on.

We are given no indication that they were finished sharing about Jesus, because they are seized while they are still talking.

Even though they rushed these guys off to jail, still, those who heard believed!

There was no Altar call, or response room for prayer.

Just thousands of men who left the temple that day believing that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, that he was alive and they needed to repent of their sin and trust in him for salvation.

Where do these men go? who counted them to tell Luke that 5,000 men believed?

Peter and John certainly didn’t because they were in jail.

It stands to reason that these men go home and tell others about what they heard and somehow found the other Christians in that area.

Can you imagine when the first Christians find all these people coming to them asking about Jesus?

Verse 4 is powerful because it shows us...

God is glorified when his word is Proclaimed!

While we do not have a promise that guarantees us results, we do see that God is Glorified when his word is proclaimed.

and we see this all through the rest of the NT.

So even though they are now in Jail, the story doesn’t focus on what might have been a difficult night for Peter and John, but rather points us toward an incredible work that God does.

I’m sure if someone could ask Peter and John that night how God was glorified they would answer with, “A Lame man was Miraculously healed and we had a chance to tell the whole temple area about the resurrected Christ.

We got to Preach the Gospel”.

And they would’ve been right, except that they had no way of knowing in that moment that God did something extraordinary because the preached the Gospel… He saved people!

god was certainly Glorified!