Sermon Tone Analysis

Who do we Obey?

What is the Gospel???

Is it found here in this text?

The Gospel comes from the greek word EUANGELION.

The Prefix EU means Good it is where we get words like euphoric and eulogy… euphoric meaning good feeling or to feel good and eulogy to mean a good word, being something we share at a funeral to be good words about someone recently deceased.

So EU means good...

Angelion means message and we gets words like Angels from it which are messengers.

So put together Eu-Angelion means Good message or Good news.

The Gospel is therefore Good news.

But not just any old Good news, it is the Good news that God sent his son Jesus to live a sinless life, and die a substitutionary death, and rise from the dead so that sinners that repent of sin and trust in Jesus will be forgiven and have eternal life.

The Gospel is not something that we do, but it is something that God did for us.

Yet we are commanded to preach the Gospel… Which simply means we carry the message and we verbally tell others about this good news where ever we go.

So, how do we see this in the text today?

This is the question I was asking myself as I was studying to prepare this sermon.

This and what road here leads back to Jesus?

We do not explicitly see this good news here… we saw it in the passage before this one but not here.

SO how will I preach this today in an effort to preach the whole counsel of God to the church for the maturing of their faith in Jesus?

Well, we see a prohibition of the Gospel by those in authority and we see a Christ followers response to it.

That will carry with it a lot of imperatives.

An imperative is something that we should do, in this case based off of what we see prescribed in scripture.

This is not to be confused with Indicatives… Indicatives are things God has done.

The Gospel is an Indicative that carries with it a weight which requires a response in the form of an Imperative, or something that we will do.

let me give you an example here...

“Having been set free from sin, [you] have become slaves of righteousness (indicatives) . . .

[therefore] now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification (imperative).

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“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (indicative), therefore, “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (imperative).

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OR how about this one...

“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (indicative), therefore, “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (imperative).

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So this is like saying, because of what God has done in you through the Gospel, become who you are in Christ and live differently.

This is “How” the Gospel works in our life.

But if we get this wrong we will be preaching moralism and works based religion that is dead and void of the Holy Spirits power.

If you are leaving church hearing, you are not this_______, or you should do this_______, therefore, do or be this________.

Then you will feel as though you are not a good Christian and you can’t do this Christianity thing.

That is not the Gospel.

The Gospel isn’t, You are doing it wrong, Here is what the Bible says, Now do it right....

The Gospel is this… You are doing it wrong because you cannot do it right, here is what the Bible says, One did it right for you… Now live your life in response to him by drawing close to him and learning to do it right, without fear when you fail because he did it right for you.

Your strength for living differently comes from a relationship you have with the God who did a work for you that you couldn’t do for yourself.

then you will feel as though you are not a good Christian

“imperatives (your works) divorced from indicatives (God’s work in you) become impossibilities” (to quote Tullian Tchividjian).

Or another way that Tullian puts it: “

“Gospel obligations must be based on Gospel declarations.”

Tullian Tchividjian

Our works are based off of God’s finished work that is being declared.

I’m saying all this in an effort to keep us from hearing what we should do, in a way that makes us either proud and boastful because we are DOING something right, or makes us feel like bad christians because we are not doing something right.

Now I hope you are tracking with me, but you may be confused how all this relates to the text that we have before us today...

Let me show you how it is there and what it means for us.

Let’s look at the text

It says that they recognized that they had been with Jesus… This should not be turned into a text about how others will know you are a Good Christian if you spend lots of time with Jesus.

Why?

Because this is a historical narrative, meaning it is talking about real people that this really happened to, so if we are to make an application, then it should be based off of the facts.

In this case, these people actually saw and heard Jesus, so what they recognize is not equal to what people in the world will see in us when we spend a lot of time with Jesus through his word.... here is what I mean.

Maybe, like me you have heard this preached in a way that says, they knew that these ordinary fishermen were uneducated yet had taken notice that they were with Jesus… “Do people notice that you have been with Jesus?”

I would submit to you that the sadducees questioning Peter and John are recognizing something they have seen before...

I’ve heard the sermons that make this about how people will take notice of you IF you are spending time with Jesus… And while it is a good thing for sure and something we would want every Christian to do, spend time with Jesus be in his word and spend time in prayer… This verse does not show us how to have success based on what we are doing right.

These guys remember that Jesus seemed to have no formal education and yet yet he amazed people with how he handled scripture.

Jesus proclaimed a message to them that he was sent by God and that anyone who speaks as one sent is true if they seek the glory of him who sent them...

So what encouragement do we get from this?

It was true for Jesus as the messiah and now it is surely ringing in the ears of these guys as they look at Peter and John speak with boldness.

Let’s not forget that in verse 8 it says that peter is filled with the Holy Spirit as he spoke, and so their boldness is not something they are practiced in, yet it is because God is in them and with them.

And to make it more interesting they are standing next to a guy that has never been able to walk.

This is all too familiar for these religious leaders when thinking abut all they went through with Jesus and how difficult it was for them to get rid of him.

Now they have his followers in front of them, what are they going to do?

acts4

After hearing what Peter said about Jesus being the only name by which we are saved, these guys seem completely indifferent to it.

The message of the Gospel is lost on these guys.

The good news that God sent Jesus to forgive them of their sins means nothing to them apparently.

People either curse Jesus, Ignore Jesus or Adore Jesus.

Countless millions of people curse the name of Jesus and oppose the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

They are demonically inspired to fight with Christians and be at odds with God.

Then there are those who ignore Jesus… These are those people who believe that Jesus never really existed or that he was just a good teacher of morals… nothing to see here why pay any attention to him.

But for us who adore Jesus we know that he is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.

We have a message that is good news and needs to be told to all.

These sadducees are not too worried about that message, because they don’t believe in Jesus, instead they want to silence the messengers.

And this is a pattern that we see till this day.

The world is not concerned with the Message, but is trying to shut down the Messengers

Whether the preached Gospel is validated by miracles or if the ones who carry the Message of the Gospel are the walking miracles themselves, the world doesn’t care about the message, but focuses on trying to shut down the messengers.

It was what they were trying to do, and it is what people now try to do.

They were more concerned that what they viewed as a false message didn’t spread, that they tried to shut the mouths of the messengers.

There is no recourse for them but to deal harshly with the messengers because they can’t argue with what they are witnessing.

They can clearly see a miracle yet are blind to the message.

Now these men are the authority in the temple, and in the land under the roman governors.

They had the right to authorize people to teach and the right to arrest people who they didn’t authorize.

Since they couldn’t deny the miracle, they give a charge to these men not to speak or teach AT ALL in Jesus Name.

This means that they were commanded not to speak or teach by these men.

What would they do?

The bible is clear that we are to respect the authority that is over us in this world.

What would we do?

How should a christian deal with a request like this?

What if your government told you that you cannot speak in Jesus name to anyone?

What if your rights are taken away?

What about Christians in parts of the world where they can be killed for preaching Jesus?

romans13.1-

Paul is clear in this passage in romans 13 about the authority in our governments being established by God.

Are we to think that the religious authorities are less important to these guys?

If Paul taught that the Romans who were occupying their land were to be respected in every way, then how much more would you think that their own Jewish brothers who were in positions of authority should be respected?

Well that’s fine for Paul but this is Peter we are talking about… well I wonder what Peter would say about it since he was the one living through this… Does he have any advice for Christians who live under authorities in this world?

1peter2.

Sounds like Peter agrees with Paul here.

We clearly have Gospel obligations as believers to live in this world and represent our God in a way that respects the authorities over us, since our God is sovereignly in control anyways.

(This is recorded in scripture for us to see how civil disobedience can be done properly and if necessary.)