Acts 5:17-42 | The God Who Can't Be Stopped

And that Lord, we would just receive your word that you have prepared for us. We ask these things in your name. Amen. Our call to worship this morning is in Psalms chapter 95. The psalmist says, psalm, psalm. Psalm psalm. By our God, for we believe the Word. And through our faith we have assumed the Spirit of the Lord. The Spirit guarantees our hope until redemption's done, until we join in endless praise to God the three in one. To the praise of your glory, to the praise of your mercy and grace, to the praise of your glory, you are the God who saves. Blessed be your name in the land that is plentiful, where streams of abundance flow. Blessed be your name. Blessed be your name when I'm found in the desert place. Though I walk through the wilderness, blessed be your name. Every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise. Blessed be your name. Blessed be your name. Your glorious name. God, you are the name. I'll be your name. God, I'll be your name. God, I will be your name. God, I will. Father, we just pray that you speak to Cody and let your presence be known here. Lord, we pray for those that don't know you grow a very firm relationship with you and know what you can provide for them. You're very dependable. Father, and just thank you for Jesus and what he's done for us. Thank you for the bloodshed. Thank you for taking our place on that cross as we very well deserve it. Lord, thank you for you and your love and all that you give us. Father, we love you and praise you. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, if you have your Bible, and I hope that you do, turn with me to Acts chapter 5. We're going to be pushing the accelerator a little bit today. Just it's a longer narrative passage as we've been just going through the book of Acts. We're looking at finishing Acts sometime in 2027. And so it's over a year away. But we've got some breaks in between there. Of course, Christmas is coming. Love Christmas. And looking forward to that. Galen, thank you so much for sharing about the disaster relief ministry. Seriously, I know a lot of you guys, we live in a retirement community. And there's a lot of folks that are like, I've got so much time on my hands. And there's a lot of wonderful local nonprofits that a lot of you have plugged into. And that's wonderful. This is great ministry. And so before you're unable to serve in that physical way. And so before you're unable to serve in that physical way, take advantage of the opportunity. We all have a limited shelf life, right? And so pour yourself out before it's too late. We're talking about pouring yourself out today. Before I do that, one other quick thing. We've got teacher prayer lunch tomorrow. And it's one of the great things. And it's one of the great things that I love to do with our teachers before we go and bless them before we go and bless them and pray for them before they handle a bunch of little blessings. There you go. There you go. That's a great word for it. They are blessings. I'm joking. And so we're going to have a bunch of teachers here tomorrow. I've got some pork butts if anybody wants to smoke them. I know some of you. I know some of you are really into smoking meat. But anyways, they're down in the refrigerator. Grab them, bring them back. Have them pulled and everything like that by 11 o'clock tomorrow. That'd be great. Last week, we looked at how the church faced the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira and how there was this tension because people saw God work. And so people were really hesitant in joining the church in a very casual way. It's very easy in today's world. To just come into our front doors and to take a seat somewhere there in the back. And I see you. Okay. And then quickly slip out. Right? It's a very common thing in our culture to try to engage with the least amount of investment possible. And people, they, in the early church, they took these things very seriously because apparently people just dropped dead in services. If they stepped out of line. I'm joking. I'm joking. We all know. You can go back. You can watch the sermons from a couple of weeks ago, of course. But then we also see that the church took holiness seriously. And we covered that last week as well. And we looked at the four marks of effective ministry. It's about how everyone is unified, being in step with the Lord. It empowers ministry. We talked about how there's a great need for us to get a view of God, which impacts everything that we're going through. And we're going to get a view of God. And we're going to get a view of God. And we're going to get a view of God. And we're going to get a view of God. And we're going to get a view of God. And we're going to get a view of God. And we're going to get a view of God. God, I'm going to get a view of God. We ask, Father, and we plead and we pray and ask that you administer to our hearts today. Let it be a healing balm. Let us see you work in our lives, God. We come in with a holy expectation, expecting to hear from you. And Father, I just pray that you administer to our hearts today. Help us to hear you. In Jesus' name. Amen. We're going to hear you. In Jesus' name. God in Jesus' name. And why is that? And why is that? Why were the Pharisees and the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the entire Sanhedrin and the high priest, the ones that are supposed to be the closest to God, why were they opposed to God? It's because they didn't actually love and know God. Opposition to God's work is motivated by our own sinful desires. It comes from all sorts of different places. And Satan knows that. And Satan knows that. He knows the temptations that we face and the temptations that we bear. Our flesh naturally opposes the work of God. But notice how things escalate here. Because sin always leads to more sin. The opposition to God's Gospel doesn't end with jealous feelings. It continues on to imprisonment. And it's not just Peter and John this time. It's not just Peter and John this time. It's the word of God. It's the word of God. No, what does it. No, what does he say. He says, go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life. Get back out there and preach. That's what the freedom was there for. Not for their comfort. Not for their safety. Patrick Schreiner in his commentary, he says, safety is not the inheritance of Jesus' disciples. Only witness. You see, that is what you and I are saved for. We are saved for our comfort. We are saved for our comfort. We are saved for our kingdom to grow. We are saved for Christ's mission to go into the world. That's what we're saved for. That's what we're saved for. That's why he redeemed you. That's why he called you out of darkness and into his light was to go forth on mission and to share the Gospel and the hope that you've received. It's a great place to say amen. Not for comfort, not for ease, not for personal gain, but for the glory of God. This shows us that God's people cannot be contained. If we're walking with the Lord, who is going to stop you? If you are walking the path that God has for you, who can oppose you? No one. If we are walking in obedience step and step with the Spirit, it doesn't mean that things are going to be easy. I'm not saying that, but I am saying that you cannot be opposed. These 12 men, they go back to preaching and they're preaching and they are teaching while the religious leaders are gathering each other around and scheming. I like to think that they're getting false witnesses together because that's exactly how they handle all of these different situations. They're getting ready and what's happening. They're getting ready and what's happening. They think that they are imprisoned and that they got all the time in the world. Meanwhile, they're right across the courtyard preaching the Gospel openly, honestly, just sharing about Jesus being the Christ, the promised one. See, God, he doesn't just save his people. He doesn't just deliver his people. But God also makes his enemies look like He doesn't just save his people. Can you imagine. He doesn't just save his people. Can you imagine?

He doesn't. He doesn't just save his people. He doesn't just save his people. He doesn't save his people. He doesn't save his people. In his commentary that this is almost a confession because Jesus isn't just some name that can be dismissed. That's all the people. They said, his blood be upon us and our children. They incited the people. They're the ones that performed the sham of a trial. They brought Christ before Pilate. They cried out for the crucifixion. If Jesus was really a blasphemer, then why are they so defensive of his crucifixion? Why are they wanting to distance themselves so much from the situation that they created? Guilty men don't flinch at lies. They flinch at lies. They flinch at the truth. Especially a truth that they can't escape or deny. Why do you keep preaching in this name? Why do you keep preaching in this name? And what does Peter say? We must obey God rather than men. This is not about civil disobedience. Sorry, my friends. We must obey God. We must obey God. We must obey God. We must obey God. We must obey God. We must obey God. We must obey God. God. We must obey God. We must obey God. We must obey God. God. God.