Two close followers of Jesus, Peter and John, were dragged before the religious court of their time and challenged by its leaders to stop speaking publicly about Jesus. How did Peter and John respond? What happened to them and what does this passage teach us about the role of Christians in a culture that isn’t always friendly to faith in Christ? Join Pastor Jim for this helpful study of Acts 4:1-23.
Sermon Notes
1. Religion often reacts negatively to grace
“I often wonder if religion is the enemy of God. It’s almost like religion is what happens when the Spirit has left the building.”
Bono
2. God often speaks through unlikely spokespersons
“The Church’s responsibility is not only to hold to the basic, Scriptural principals of the Christian faith, but to communicate these unchanging truths ‘into’ the generation in which it is living. Every generation has the problem of learning how to speak meaningfully to its own age. It cannot be solved without an understanding of the changing existential situation which it faces.”
Francis Schaeffer
3. When it comes to any real conflict between the two, we should always obey God rather than men
“The right to believe anything does not mean that anything anyone believes is right. The former is freedom of conscience and must always be respected unconditionally; the latter idea is nonsense and must often be opposed, for it can be a license for evil itself. Many an evil would have done none of its terrible damage downstream if it had been challenged upstream at its source.”
Os Guinness
Unspeakable
“The Church that forgets to say ‘we must obey God rather than human authorities’ has forgotten what it means to be the Church.”
N. T. Wright
“If sinners be dammed, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”
Charles Spurgeon