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Bentley Baptist Church Sermons
Where Authority Lies
Acts 5.17-32 | Alex Huggett | 13.10.2024
Part of a series on Acts
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So verse 17,. Then the high priest rose up. He and all who were with him, who belonged to the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. So they arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail during the night, brought them out and said go, stand in the temple and tell the people all about this life. And hearing this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach. When the high priest and those who were with him arrived, they convened the Sanhedrin, the full council of Israelites, and sent orders to the jail to have them brought. But when the servants got there, they did not find them in the jail. So they returned and reported. We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing in front of the doors. So they returned and reported. We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing in front of the doors. But when we opened them, we found no one inside.
Speaker 1:As the captain of the temple police and the chief priests heard these things, they were baffled about them, wondering what would come of this. Someone came and reported to them look, the men you put in jail are standing in the temple and teaching the people. Then the commander went with the servants and brought them in without force, because they were afraid of the people that they might stone them. And after they brought them in, they had them stand before the Sanhedrin and the high priest asked didn't we strictly order you not to teach in this name? Look, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood. I just have to have an aside here. This is so ironic because when Jesus was on trial and Pilate is like what do you want me to do? You know, he's like I'm not guilty of this and they're like. These people are like his blood be on our head and those of our children. You get what you want sometimes, unfortunately. Anyway, peter and the apostles replied we must obey God rather than people. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had murdered by hanging him on a tree. God exalted this man to his right hand as ruler and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him. And when they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law who was respected by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered the men to be taken outside for a little while. He said to them men of Israel, be careful about what you're going to do to these men.
Speaker 1:Some time ago, theodos rose up claiming to be somebody and a group of about 400 men rallied to him. He was killed and all the followers were dispersed, and it came to nothing. After this man, judas the Galilean, rose up in the days of the census and attracted a following. He also perished and all his followers were scattered. So in the present case, I tell you stay away from these men and leave them alone, for if this plan or this work is of human origin, it will fail, but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You may even be found fighting against God. They were persuaded by him. After they called in the apostles and had them flogged anyway, they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus and released them. Then they went out from the presence of the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to be treated shamefully on behalf of the name, and every day in the temple and in various homes, they continued teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. Well, there's a lot to unpack there and of course, we're not going to be able to unpack it all this morning, but I wanted to talk this morning about authority.
Speaker 1:In 1517, martin Luther sparked the Protestant Reformation when he posted 95 theses, or propositions, on a public notice board in Wittenberg in Germany. Now, luther had an issue with some of the practices that were going on in the Roman Catholic Church at the time, and they were pretty bad, and he wanted to see the church reformed. Instead, what ended up happening was he launched a third branch of the church alongside Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity, what we broadly call Protestantism, which Baptists and everyone who's not Catholic or Orthodox is part of. Everyone who's not Catholic or Orthodox is part of it. One of the key points between Catholics and Protestants was over the authority of the Bible Picture of Luther up there the authority of the Bible. Luther and other reformers argued that church doctrine was subject to the Bible, what they called sola scriptura, or scripture alone. While the Roman church said so, the Protestants are like tradition beneath scripture, the Catholic church said no tradition alongside scripture. They have equal authority.
Speaker 1:Europe went to war over this, sometimes literally, and ordinary Christians were caught up in the crossfire. Who was right? What gave Luther and the other reformers the right to start new churches that weren't subject to the Pope or the bishops, that had a line that could be traced right to the apostles? Well, the early church was in the same situation, as they formed a new movement called the Way, or the Nazarene sect, originally what began as a reform movement within Judaism and eventually started a new religion, christianity. This is actually all the more complicated because on one occasion, jesus said the scribes and Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses. Therefore, do whatever they tell you and observe it, but don't do what they do, because they don't practice what they teach.
Speaker 1:And yet, in our reading today, the apostles completely ignored the ruling council's orders. In chapter 4, verse 17,. After their first arrest, the religious and civic leaders had ordered the apostles to stop speaking about Jesus. And the apostles said nope. Church prayed, the earth shook, the spirit moved powerfully and now the Sadducees were filled with jealousy Interesting word, jealousy. What were they jealous of? Well, the apostles were preaching and the church was gathering in Solomon's colonnade, which was a part of the temple, and the temple, of course, is where the priests worked. This was their workplace, their turf. The priests worked. This was their workplace, their turf. The apostles posed a direct threat to the authority of the priests. So Luke tells us, the party of the Sadducees were the ones who were upset.
Speaker 1:The Sadducees dominated the Sanhedrin, which, as he says, was the ruling council of the Jews, and now they were mostly priests. The Sadducees was mostly made up of priests, who were the legitimate, god-given spiritual authority in Israel. You're going to read it in the Old Testament. And they had, as the Sanhedrin had, some legal authority over people as well, and, given the ancient world didn't really separate the secular from the spiritual like we do, it was all one. They had a lot of power over the everyday life of faithful Jews. And so put yourself in the place of a devout, torah, observant Jew who goes to temple and tries to follow God's law. The God-appointed priesthood and the scribes, whose authority even Jesus acknowledged, are saying one thing, but then this new charismatic Jewish movement is saying another. Christianity is not a separate religion, yet Both claim biblical authority.
Speaker 1:How do you decide who you're going to listen to? Who has the real authority from God when a new ministry rolls into town or someone stands up in church claiming to have a word from God or Christian leaders are overturning centuries, millennia of Christian belief, sometimes about core doctrines and traditional ethics. Do you know some people? We talk about penal substitutionary atonement, the doctrine that Jesus died for our sins on our behalf and took our punishment. Some people reject that, and I don't. Your pastor says something else. When everyone is claiming to speak for God, who do you listen to? How do you discern who has the authority where the truth lies? Which church should you belong to? Who really carries Jesus' authority? So I think there are several keys in this story that we can pick up to help us discern where God's authority is lying, and the first and most important key is also the lens through which we view everything else, and it's the criteria by which we assess our own lives. I hope you can guess what I'm going to say. It's Jesus.
Speaker 1:When the Sanhedrin accused the apostles, it was because they were preaching the gospel of Jesus, and when the apostles answered the council in verses 29 to 32, they preached the gospel of Jesus Back at you His death, resurrection and exaltation and the forgiveness found in him. When we repent, we turn to him. God raised Jesus from the dead, thus demonstrating where the true authority lies. The resurrection of Christ is crucial to God's view of what's happening in the world. The apostles didn't just talk about the gospel as an idea, as a doctrine, as a message. They spoke about their experience of Jesus. They were witnesses, they had been with Jesus, they had seen everything that was happening, they knew Jesus, and so they could speak from personal experience and with that authority. In Mark 3.14, when Jesus called the apostles, he had called them to be with him and to do what he did. And, friends, as Jesus' apprentices, his disciples, he calls us to be with him, to become like him and to do what he did. He calls us to be witnesses to his work in our lives and in our world.
Speaker 1:The Sadducees denied the Jesus whom their God had raised. The apostles were Jesus-centered, and so, when deciding who we should listen to and where the authority lies, the first question to ask is are they like Jesus? Not just do they believe in Jesus, that's obviously important. Not just do they believe the Bible, that's also vital but are they like Jesus? Do they sound like someone who knows? Jesus Is their life and message. Faithful to Jesus? Is their life and message faithful to Jesus? Do they do the kinds of things Jesus did? Is Jesus the center of their life and teaching? Here's the thing. This isn't only about discerning where authority lies, but stepping into the authority that you have in Christ yourselves, friends, are you growing closer to Jesus, becoming more like him, learning to do what he did? Because as you grow into that and as we grow into that as a church, people are going to see God's authority in you because it's all about Jesus. Going to see God's authority in you because it's all about Jesus. Because the apostles knew Jesus and had his authority. They were spirit-filled and moved in God's power. So in the previous passage we saw a couple of weeks ago, god responded to their prayer for boldness Remember I just talked about that by giving them power to perform healings and signs and wonders.
Speaker 1:Now here we read. In this passage we read of a spectacular prison break. An angel opens prison doors, leads them out and commands them to speak the message. I think this is kind of a living parable to Jesus' words in Luke 4.18, where he said, among other things God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives. Who is the one who has true authority, if it's not the one who has the power to open prison doors. If it's not the one who has the power to open prison doors, people get locked up in prisons of fear, injustice, violence. Here I even say bureaucracy, one of my pet peeves. People even try to lock up the gospel, but God opens prison doors and the gospel will not be contained.
Speaker 1:In Revelation 1.18, jesus said I hold the keys to death and Hades. Jesus has the key. Jesus is the key that unlocks every door and he gives these keys to those who go in his name. And he manifests his power in doing this through the work of the Holy Spirit, who is now Jesus reciting with us. And this is what the apostles meant when they said that the Holy Spirit bears witness to Jesus. The healings, the signs and wonders, the supernaturally bold proclamation of the gospel, the changed lives, these were how the Spirit witnessed to the truth of Jesus. And in verse 32, peter says the Holy Spirit is given to those who obey God.
Speaker 1:So how do you discern if someone has spiritual authority? Well, it's by the Holy Spirit. Now we have to be careful here, because Jesus said not everyone who works a miracle is of me. So, as I'm going through these, we're looking for the whole package, but the work of the Spirit, the witness of the Spirit, is part of how we'll discern where God's authority lies. Does the Holy Spirit bear witness to the gospel through them? Does the power of the Spirit infuse their words and ministry? Are prison doors opened and are people led to repentance and freedom in Jesus' name? And again, what about us? Does the Holy Spirit bear witness to the gospel through you and me and through us as a church? Friends, the Holy Spirit indwells you and he indwells me. He is present among us, which means you and I and we as a church carry his ministry, and when we move in the power of the Spirit, we are moving in the power and authority of Christ.
Speaker 1:So the question is is the Holy Spirit our witness? Well, I said that the angel of the Lord told the apostles to speak a message, but he actually told them to speak about this life. What does he mean by this life? Well, we've been reading about the life of the early church, a lifestyle of love, joy, hope, generosity and power. That's the flavor of what we're seeing the life of the Holy Spirit, the life of the risen Jesus, flowing in and around and through the church, giving the believers life and bringing life to their community.
Speaker 1:There's a whole lot of stuff going on here in this life, and here's the thing. In that context, is it any wonder that everybody was going over to the disciples? Luke says in the previous passage that everyone was terrified of them. No one wanted to go near them because God is so obviously at work, and yet their numbers are added to daily. It's no surprise, because that's where the life is.
Speaker 1:The Sadducees, on the other hand, didn't believe in this kind of supernatural life at all. They didn't believe in angels, they didn't believe in demons, they didn't believe in resurrection, not now, not ever. They didn't believe in the Holy Spirit. They practiced the worst kind of dead religion. And here the church has a kind of life that they couldn't comprehend, does not compute. Friends, we have the kind of life that the world cannot understand, cannot comprehend, that, sadly, even many christians deny. They may acknowledge it in theory, but they don't experience it, they don't live it, they don't lean into it. And, friends, where does real authority lie? Jesus came that we may have life and have it to the full. Look for the life. And again, are we a church where people can find life. Church, if we take nothing else away from this passage, take hold of life. Let the life of God flow in you and us and through us and around us, by faith, by the Spirit, by pressing into Jesus. Proclaim the life to everyone who will listen. Bring life through blessing, because that's an authority no one can argue with. They will try, but to no avail. Which leads me into the final key, I think Because, of course, the council doesn't like any of this.
Speaker 1:As the apostles proclaimed Jesus in verse 33, the council became enraged and wanted to kill them and would have, but for the wise counsel of Gamaliel Didn't stop them from beating the apostles, of course, and this was probably the traditional 39 lashes. Now, I don't know if you've ever received a proper lashing I haven't. But you know the stretchy resistance bands. I use them from time to time and one day I'm doing this exercise, the band's under my heels and it slipped and whipped up to my back from full stretch. Yeah, I yodeled. That was excruciating. Had an angry welt there for over a week. I heard a story from an ex-SAS soldier. So he once got 10 lashes for some misdemeanor in Hong Kong. This is an SAS soldier Toughest of the tough. He said it was the hardest thing he's ever had to endure. I can't imagine 39 lashes.
Speaker 1:But by now it's clear where the real authority lies. The council is trying to impose their authority with violence, but the world doesn't see what heaven sees. All the world sees is the threat to its own power and authority. It can only work by brute force. In so doing, they prove themselves to be part of Satan's dominion by their response to the gospel and its messengers, to the gospel and its messengers. When we move in the power and life of the gospel, even with God's authority, be prepared for opposition. And yet even in this the apostles demonstrate they have the true authority.
Speaker 1:In verse 41, despite all that is coming on them and will come, as we'll see, they patiently endure the humiliation of suffering. And not only do they patiently endure, they do so joyfully, because this is an opportunity to be more like Jesus. Jesus suffered, and so do they, and they continue proclaiming the gospel, even in the face of threats. You know there's a change when someone suffers for the gospel and when they persevere in it. Don't you hear those stories? Maybe you know people who have suffered, and they just go up a level in our estimation because they've proven themselves. I think even heaven notices that. So the endurance of the apostles is a testament to the truth, and so is 2,000 years of gospel ministry. Gamaliel was right the gospel has not only survived but thrived. The Sadducees couldn't oppose it, and neither can any human or force today.
Speaker 1:So who has the authority? Look for the one who suffers and endures in suffering patiently and joyfully for the gospel and friends, through your suffering and patient endurance, you'll wear a crown as well. So how do you discern where the spiritual authority lies? How do we know who to listen to for the truth? Where do we look?
Speaker 1:Well, jesus said we'd know them by their fruit. Is their life, character and message Jesus-centred? Is their ministry spirit-filled? Does their ministry and message bring life? Have they been proven through suffering? What about you? What about me? What about us as a church? Are we growing closer to Jesus and becoming more like him, doing what he did? Are we moving in the power of the Spirit? Are we living in giving resurrection life? Are we ready to suffer for it? Because the degree to which we can say yes to these things is the degree to which we will carry his authority and that we will see Jesus' kingdom come not only in our lives, but out there in our community as well. And so we say come, holy Spirit, come Lord Jesus, let your kingdom come.