The Church Without Compromise - [Acts 4:23-31]

Well, please take a Bible and open it, Acts chapter 4, as we continue our relentless march through Acts, week by week, mas o menos. Well, you know, I say this almost every time I'm up here, but I like history.

So as I contemplated this text here, I thought, and the title, The Church Without Compromise, my first search was great compromises in history. That really didn't go very well. I guess if you compromise, you don't go down in the, you know, annals of history.

I did find a couple, but they weren't that great. They weren't that awesome to really talk about. So then I looked for treaties. Treaties, and I thought some of these are particularly interesting. We have some folks here of Brazilian heritage, so this first one is pretty cool.

Portuguese, too. The Treaty of Tordesillas between Portugal and Spain. Guess who negotiated that? The Pope. It divided newly discovered lands outside of Europe between the two countries along a line of longitude through what is now eastern Brazil.

So if you ever wondered why they speak Portuguese in Brazil and Spanish throughout most of the rest of South America, here's your reason. It's the Treaty of Tordesillas. Now you could just rattle that off.

Impress all your friends and family. There's also the PD, the peace, the Treaty of Westphalia, and that consisted of two related treaties, and it ended the Thirty Years' War. How many have ever heard of the Thirty Years' War?

You should know that, and I say you should know that as somebody who didn't know it until probably 15 years ago. But it ended basically the war between the Catholics and the Protestants in Europe. So this treaty eventually had global consequences.

Fourth treaty, or third treaty, the Treaty of Paris. How many are familiar with that? Okay. I'd ask, but somebody would answer. It's the oldest treaty signed by the United States that's still in effect, and it ended the American Revolution.

And guess what? We won, just in case you were wondering. And then the last one I have here is the Treaty of Versailles. Now if you're familiar with the Treaty of Versailles, you know that it wasn't a very good treaty.

Treaties are signed for a lot of reasons. Typically it's like the Treaty of Tordesillas. The idea is two parties negotiate from relative strengths, and they both give up something and they get something.

Well, the Treaty of Versailles, it ended the First World War, and that was the war to end all wars. The problem was they had a treaty that started the Second World War right at the end of the First World War, because it was so one-sided, it was so lopsided that it made it easy for somebody to come along like Hitler and really just abuse it.

But like I said, treaties happen when there's benefit to both sides, or when one side is utterly defeated, as in World War I. In our text today, there is a war raging. It's a spiritual war. It's a war of ideas.

It is a battle that, by the way, cannot end in a peace treaty. Well, why not? Because on one side we have God, and on the other side we have the forces arrayed against him. This is truth versus error.

Our text, Acts 4, verses 23 to 31. When they, Peter and John, were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who threw the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and his anointed. For truly in this city, there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. Now, you probably haven't forgotten since last week, but since you might have, I'll fill you back in.

It's Luke the physician who wrote Acts. He wrote the Book of Luke, the Gospel of Luke, which we soon will be endeavoring on. In fact, I'm looking forward to Pastor Mike kind of passing me, you know, as he goes through Luke, so that it will help, I think, us even understand better who Luke is and how he thinks and how he organizes things.

But he wrote Acts, and it's a history of the early church, specifically how Jesus instructed it and how the Holy Spirit empowered it. In Acts 3, if you recall, Peter and John just go for a regular, I don't know what night of the week it was.

Let's say it's a Wednesday night, but we know it's a night during the week. They were going up to the temple for prayer. And as they approached the beautiful gate, they saw this man who had been lame from birth, begging, typically.

What did you do? Not lock eyes with him, not, you know, just kind of walk by, or maybe you throw him a few coins. But if you recall, they wind up engaging with this man and healing him. And then the three of them enter into the temple with Peter and John, preaching to a crowd which had gathered because they recognized this man as being lame from birth.

He's in his 40s now, and they are stunned. So everybody wants to see what's going on. So the miracle causes a crowd to gather. Peter and John take advantage of it and preach. And of course, the Jewish leadership of the temple is not pleased, and they arrest them.

And the next day they try them. And even at the trial, Peter is filled with boldness. We saw that multiple times in our text this morning. Boldness. He's filled with the spirits. And he preaches to them, preaches to the Sanhedrin, to this Jewish leadership.

He preaches Christ and the resurrection to them as well. And recognizing that they were, that the powers that be were, in effect, trying to stop the apostles from spreading the gospel any further, and that they had him on trial for healing somebody, for doing a good deed.

The Sanhedrin ultimately realizes that they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. We can't punish these men. These powerful men were afraid of the people who had seen the miracle. Acts 4 .21. And when they had further threatened them, threatened Peter and John, they let them go, finding no way to punish them because of the people.

What will the people think if we punish these men who've just miraculously healed this man who's been lame since birth? We have to let them go. We can tell them to stop talking about Jesus, but we have to let them go.

Paul wrote that believers are to pray without ceasing. And I think this morning, we have really kind of a model for that, for praying without ceasing. Why do we pray? Peter wrote, caster cares upon him because what?

He cares for you. And I think these men, I'm sure they understood this. So what we're going to see this morning is first, a prayer of concern. Secondly, a prayer of confirmation. Third, a prayer for continuing confidence.

I threw a lot of C's in there because I knew you'd be impressed. The easy route for the apostles would have been to back off. Look, we're in trouble. If we go and we keep preaching Jesus, what's going to happen?

We're going to get arrested again. Maybe something worse is going to happen than warnings, right? Maybe they'll beat us. Maybe they'll even crucify us like they did to our master. The Sanhedrin was fully capable of carrying out their threats.

They'd done it before. But instead of retreating, these men reloaded. Instead of capitulating, the church refused to compromise. So first, the prayer of concern. And I have three R's, three sub-points below that.

The prayer of concern has three sub-points. First R, released. When they were released. Okay, and you say, what's the big deal there? What do you suppose is going on while they're on trial? I think it's something like this.

Pastor Steve, did you know Peter and John have been arrested? They're on trial. Sent out a BBC announce. Do you think the Jerusalem church was praying for them? I sure hope so. I sure hope so. Like I said, they were kept overnight.

Everybody knows that they're on trial. I mean, no Facebook, no Facebook messenger, no email lists, no phone calls. But word spreads fast. I'm confident there was a prayer meeting. So they're praying. These men are then released.

And look, the second R, be reunited. Verse 23 continues, they went to their friends. How many of you don't have the ESV? Blessed are you in this particular passage, because they went to their friends.

Now, I have to be a little bit fair here. The Greek really is, they went to their own. And so the ESV sort of fills in their friends. The NAS and the New King James have their own companions. I think that's better.

The New King James has, or I'm sorry, the Net Bible, the New English Translation, which is really kind of, it's mostly online, but it's pretty good. It says, and again, this is kind of adding to the text, but I think it gives a better sense of it.

They went to their fellow believers. You're on trial. You're in jail. You're facing a potential death penalty. You get released. Who do you go see? You know, you don't go to the Cheers pub. You go to the people who care about you, who've been praying for you.

You go to your fellow believers. You go to your own, your own kind, the Christians. Those who love you. Those who've been praying for you. So they're reunited with those. Now it's not the whole church that they go to.

We'll see later that they're in a, in a house. So it's not 5 ,000 people. It's a small group, but it's probably the inner circle of the church. Third are recounted, recounted. They give a report of what the chief priests and the elders have said to them.

What was said to them? I mean, that's kind of like minimizing it, right? But that's because you've just read the whole thing. Basically they were told to stop it or else stop preaching about Jesus. Stop doing that.

Here's your choice. Your choice is obey us who are the legal authority, the church authority, because we have the in with the Romans. We tell them to crucify you and they will, or as they put it, as Peter put it, should we obey you or should we obey God and implied then is obey Christ who told them what to go out and be his witnesses everywhere.

What do you do when your prayers are answered? And there are new challenges. In other words, the prayers of the church have been answered. These men have been released. They were no longer in fear for their lives.

So what do they do now? Okay, well, you know, we're out of jail. Let's all go home and I'll see you guys tomorrow. They kept praying. So we've seen first the prayer of concern. Secondly, the prayer of confidence.

I mean, do you think if you just, this is just reasonable, what happens when, well, I mean, this is easy. What happens when prayer is answered? Are you encouraged? Do you like that? Do you think, okay, I've learned, I've seen, I can trust the Lord.

I'm going to pray to him more. And that's what they do. I want to turn for a moment to Isaiah chapter 37, Isaiah 37. Hezekiah. I mean, I just like saying Hezekiah for a number of reasons. It's a fun word, but Hezekiah is an interesting guy.

And what he does is foolhardy. It's dopey. He shows the ambassador of the king of Assyria, his riches. And so Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, sends messengers to Hezekiah and says, hey, really like that loot.

And I think I'll have it. You know who we are, the Assyrians who skin people alive and, you know, make trophies out of our enemies, et cetera, et cetera. So my advice to you is surrender or prepare to lose everything.

We're going to pick the story up here in Isaiah 37, verse 14. Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. And Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord, as if to say, here's my need, Lord.

Here it is. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, above the angels. You are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see. And hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. Not to mock me, but to mock the living God. Because he tells him, well, I'll just keep reading.

Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire. For they were no gods, but the work of man's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed.

So now, O Lord, our God, save us from his hand, from Sennacherib, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord. Sennacherib said, your God, Hezekiah, is no different than every other God.

And I picked them up and I threw them in the fire. And I'm going to do the same to your God. What do you think about that, Hezekiah? If I were you, I'd be afraid. They were known throughout the world for being vicious, vicious people.

Hezekiah's prayer for deliverance from a situation, what? That he brought on himself. He was the one who was unwise. He was the one who didn't obey. He was the one who showed the treasures. He was the one that brought judgment upon his people.

Was it fair that Judah, the nation of Judah, was facing this judgment? No, but their federal head, their king, had blown it. But the Lord forgave Hezekiah, and he would ultimately deliver the nation. Go back to Acts.

There are a lot of parallels, and the reason I want to go there, because there's a lot of parallels between what the apostles are about to pray and what Hezekiah prayed. There are some differences, though.

The apostles did nothing wrong. They weren't like Hezekiah. They hadn't disobeyed the Lord. They had fully obeyed him. And when we think about the ending there, what did Hezekiah want? He said, you know, basically, deliver me from Sennacherib.

Don't let the Assyrians conquer Judah. Don't let them take this trophy. And by the way, don't let them dishonor you. You are the god of our nation. Don't let Sennacherib treat you like he treated so many idols.

Are they going to say, the disciples, the apostles? Don't let them get us. Don't let them persecute us. Don't let them destroy us, because that would be a shame to you, oh God. We'll see. Their prayer is uttered in absolute faith.

Look at verse 24. And when they heard it, when this band of believers, this inner group, heard it, they lifted their voices to God and said, Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth, and the sea and everything in them.

You could see the parallels. They're appealing to this God that they know is sovereign. This is kind of, I mean, we could go to multiple places in the Old Testament, starting in Genesis, and we can go to the Psalms.

Job, who is it that created everything? It's God. Now, you think about it, and it says here that they lifted their voices together. It's a phrase that's used a few times throughout Acts, and the idea is not everybody praying vocally in some kind of cacophony, some kind of unintelligible mess, like some so-called church meetings I've been in, where everybody just babbles.

This is the idea of speaking as one, just being spiritually united, praying in unity. And the first thing they do is acknowledge God's attributes. Sovereign Lord there in the ESV is actually one word, and it's the Greek word despota.

And when you hear that, what do you think? Despot, right? In charge, hefe, the ultimate. He's the boss. So Sovereign Lord is right. The definition is one who has legal control and authority over persons such as subjects of slaves, or subject or slaves, and he's the lord or master.

There is no one, repeat, no one God does not rule. Every person, regardless of his or her position or title, cannot thwart his will. If you recall, as I'm thinking about his name, Daniel, the king, Nebuchadnezzar, said this, Daniel 4 .35, all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing.

And he, talking about God, does according to his will among the hosts of heaven. In other words, throughout the entire supernatural realm and among the inhabitants of earth, the natural realm. And none can stay his hand.

None can stop him or say to him, what have you done? Nobody can question him. Why? Because he's the despot. He's the Sovereign Lord. Everything on the earth, everything in the universe is his, and he's free to do with it what he will.

He's also the creator. He created everything out of nothing. He sustains everything that exists. He controls every event. The psalmist writes in Psalm 115 .3, our God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases.

Whatever pleases him, he does. We also see the fulfillment here. And we're going to see just for a moment, a brief description of inspiration of scripture. John Stott wrote this. He said, if God is the God of creation, and he is, he's also the God of revelation.

Listen to the second part of verse 25, who threw the mouth of our father, David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit. When we see that, we see the human author, David. We see the divine author, the Holy Spirit.

Both man and God are credited with composing what comes next, which is Psalm 2. A quotation from Psalm 2. Look at this. Really, this is the fulfillment of one on the face of it. It doesn't look like a prophecy from Psalm 2, but it is.

Verse 25 again. Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and his anointed. Verse 26 says that they set themselves, which means they appeared with hostile intent.

Not like they were relaxed. They were ready to go to battle. They were in combat formation. They were ready to take on even God himself. Now, it sounds kind of foolish, but consider the setting here. What did these people do to Jesus, who was God himself?

They took him on. You will recall that after these powerful people set themselves in opposition to God, he responds in Psalm 2, verse 4. He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision.

Why? Because all their plotting, all their scheming, all their plans, all their fierce posturing is in vain. They're not as powerful as they think they are. They can't overrule or override God. They're human rulers basically drunk on their own power.

This is the God that these believers are appealing to. This is the one they're praying to. This is the one they're trusting in. And they're really ultimately explaining or telling us what Psalm 2 is all about.

Listen to verse 27 for this explanation. In other words, what was prophesied in Psalm 2 has come to pass here. In Jerusalem. Simon Kistemacher makes this parallel. Psalm 2, the nation's rage. In Acts 2, we have the Gentiles.

See that there in verse 27. In Psalm 2, the people's plots. In Acts 4, in verse 27, we have the people of Israel. In Psalm 2, we have the kings and rulers. In Acts, and in the trial of Jesus, we have Herod and Pilate, king and a ruler.

In Psalm 2, we have of the earth. And in Acts 4, we have in this city. In Jerusalem, this is where it happened. And then there's against and against. And then the Lord in Psalm 2. And in Acts 4, your holy servant, Jesus.

And in Psalm 2, the anointed one. And in Acts 4, whom you anointed. So we have that parallel there. The idea is this. These people who ostensibly we should fear. The Jewish leaders, the Jewish rulers.

We should be afraid of them. But against them is who? God. And His anointed one, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus. Now I entitled this sub point here, freedom. Meaning sovereignty. In verse 28.

Because I think every time I've ever gone through Acts 4, or even read it, I just focus on this, on the sovereignty of God. I almost rush over this parallel that they've just drawn between Psalm 2 and the situation with Jesus when He was on trial.

But it sets this up. It seems like the biggest tragedy in history, right? But verse 28 shows us it's not a tragedy at all. This is a sovereign plan of God. Look at verse 28. To do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

In other words, everything that happened to Jesus was by the power and the plan of God. For ordained ahead of time. He had planned it. You know, basic questions. Was the father surprised at the rebellion against his son?

Was he surprised that his son was put on trial? Was he surprised by the fact that wicked men put him to death? No. The creator and sustainer of life. The sovereign of the universe was not shocked. He, through David, predicted it.

Our sovereign creator ordained it all ahead of time. He planned it. He predestined it. But since that is true, since He's truly sovereign, how can God hold anyone accountable? He planned it from the beginning.

He's sovereign. Nobody can withstand His will. Nobody can stay His hand or say to Him, why have you done this? But the Jewish leaders acted of their own free will. The Roman soldiers, they were ordered by Rome, but they did what they were supposed to do.

Rome participated willingly. The Jewish crowd could have set Jesus free, but they wanted a murderer set free instead. They acted of their own free will. Well, we need to qualify that. Was it free? They acted within the scope of what they could do.

Unsaved people, those dead in their sins and trespasses, choose sin. I want to read from our confession for a moment. God has decreed in Himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, He's free, it's His free will, and unchangeably.

In other words, from before anything existed, God decreed what would happen, and it never changes. How do we know that? Because it says so, all things whatsoever comes to pass. Yet so thereby is God neither the author of sin, nor does He have fellowship with any therein, nor is violence, listen, offered to the will of the creature.

In other words, God doesn't overrule their will, because He doesn't have to. He lets them do what they want to do. Nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established, in which appears His wisdom and in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing His decree.

As we like to summarize it, God is sovereign and man is responsible. Good. I want to just take a moment to, you know, because I like history, to just talk about a counterfactual. What's a counterfactual?

It's where you look at something that happened in history, and you say, well, what if the opposite happened? You know, there are dopey books, dopey authors who write things like, you know, what if the South won the Civil War?

That kind of thing. Here's the counterfactual. What if God was not sovereign? What if He's not sovereign? Because some people say, well, you can't override man's free will. We have to have free will, etc., etc., etc.

So if we have a non-sovereign God who promises that He will keep you safe, that you will make it, you will go to heaven no matter what. If we have a non-sovereign God, then what? He can't keep that promise.

He can't do it. Something could come up. Somebody could make a decision that He didn't plan on. Well, what about the whole, you know, spreadsheet, and He just adapts as He goes on? The Bible doesn't teach that anywhere.

And that would not be God the sovereign. That would be God the, you know, flow chart guy. He is completely free. He's completely sovereign. Faith, this prayer of confirmation, is done in faith that God will fulfill His promises and that He has the absolute freedom, the sovereignty to do that.

So first, we've seen the prayer of concern. Second, the prayer of confirmation. And by the way, these are good ways to pray for us. And the third P here is prayer for continuing confidence. Prayer for continuing confidence.

I like this first sub point, because it just makes me think music, and I get an earworm. We won't back down. Verse 29. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.

Don't shut them down. Don't stop their mouths. Don't take away their power. Don't even smite them with a mighty smiting. Don't send, you know, as Hezekiah asked, and his prayer was answered, 186 ,000 Assyrians are put to death by the angel of the Lord.

But for these men, the Jewish leadership tried to get the apostles in the church to stop preaching about Jesus. And ultimately, this is the beginning of persecution that's going to go on until the Lord returns.

It started then, and it continues now. How does Jesus view persecution of the church? As if it's persecution against Him. Right? What did He say when He met Saul on the road of Damascus? Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

Saul was persecuting the church, but Jesus so identifies with His bride that if you're after the church, you're after Him. Daryl Bach said this. He said, the church leaves to God the moral judgment of the opponents and their actions.

We'll let God decide about that. It does not pray explicitly for opponents to be crushed, nor does it seek to be spared opposition. It asked to face the opposition, that is to say persecution, and suffer faithfully.

And they didn't just pray to be faithful, they asked for boldness. We just want to, no matter what the consequences are, we want to be bold. It's an attitude that stems from a complete lack of fear. Whatever happens to us in the body, is that important?

It's important in the moment, but in the eternal perspective, it's absolutely meaningless. Somebody asked me earlier, and I say this all the time, how are you doing? And I go, well, if I was any better, I'd be dead.

That's the truth. That's the truth, and that's what these men were, I mean, because they knew it was a reality for them, right? What's the best thing that can happen to a Christian, is to die. And once you really internalize that, it gives you a certain sense of fearlessness, and that's what they had.

Boldness, fearlessness. I mean, how'd they respond during the trial? Peter, in Acts 4 .13,. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated common men, they were astonished, and they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

That boldness, that lack of fear. No fear of man. What can man do to me? They wouldn't back down, and finally, they would also trust God. Final sub-point here, we will trust you. Verse 30, While you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

They'd just seen this wonderful healing. And Peter didn't hesitate. He just said, this is what I have for you, and healed him. Why? We talk about this often. Why were miracles prevalent during this time?

It's to authenticate, as Charlie was saying, both the message, the message of the gospel, and the messengers. In Acts chapter 5, in Acts chapter 5, I'm going to look at that really quickly. In Acts chapter 5, we see this.

Verse 12, Now many signs and wonders were regularly being done among the people by the hands of the apostles. They were all together in Solomon's portico, a portion of the temple. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem.

And more than ever, believers were being added to the Lord. What happens when they see this? When they understand that the message is really from God? They believe. Multitudes of both men and women. So that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by, by at least, yeah, by at least his shadow might fall on some of them.

The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits. And listen, and they were all healed. And people say today, well, this ought to happen today.

Why? We have the message. The messengers are all dead. We understand the truthfulness of the message. We know that they told us the truth. We need to believe, not look for signs and wonders. Why did Jesus and the apostles, why were the Sanhedrin afraid of them?

Because they saw these powers, the powerful things that they were doing, and knew that this had to be of God. Now you think to yourself, logically and reasonably, what they should have done is repent and believe, right?

Why didn't they? Because their wills were bound by sin. And look, finally at 31, they get an instant answer. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God, listen, with boldness.

What was the shaking? You know, I read somebody who said it was, you know, maybe a thunderstorm or something. Okay, let's say it was a thunderstorm. It was a supernaturally timed thunderstorm, whatever.

God heard their prayer. You want to know that God is with you. He said, not audibly, but he gave them that sign. He'll heal people, but he won't shake the house. Yes, he will. And notice they were, again, all filled with the Holy Spirit, but notice what it doesn't say.

Unlike Pentecost, some want to say this is second Pentecost. It's not. Why? Because they don't go around speaking in tongues. What do they do? They continue to speak the word of God. They continue preaching.

They continue even talking to each other, giving each other the gospel, encouraging one another with that. But their prayer was answered in that they continued to preach fearlessly. So, prayer of concern, prayer of confirmation, prayer for continuing confidence.

To go back to the treaty analogy, they could not agree to the terms set out by the Sanhedrin. They rejected them. To cease preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, to cease preaching in his name, would be to commit treason against Jesus.

They'd seen him. They'd seen him after the resurrection. They'd watched him ascend into heaven. How could they turn their backs on that? They knew what the truth was. And we can't do that either. We can't sign that treaty.

We have to remain bold. We have to pray for more boldness. Every person, from the moment of conception, is a sinner by nature and by choice. We are rebels born into sin, and our sin alienates us from a holy God.

I'm going to close with Romans 5, 8 -10, because we were talking yesterday in the magent class, which, you know, there should be more guys there for. But liberals say that what a horrible picture of God to say that he's alienated from man, and that he's waiting for his son to do, you know, to die this horrible death before he'll have grace and mercy on people.

What a horrible picture of God that he's alienated from man. Is it a horrible picture? Romans 5, 8 -10 answers that. But God shows his disdain for us. No. His love for us, in that while we were self-improving, getting better every day.

No, still sinners. Christ died for us. He looked at our pitiable state. He had mercy on us. Since therefore, verse 9 says, we now have been justified by his blood. Much more shall we be saved by him, by Jesus, from the wrath of God.

God is alienated from the natural man, the unsaved man, the unbelieving man, because of sin. Verse 10, for if while we were enemies, that's alienation. We were reconciled passively. God reconciled himself with us through Christ.

We were reconciled to God by the death of his son. Much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life, by his perfect life. We've been forgiven of our sins and we have his righteousness imputed to us.

Why do we get to heaven? Because of our goodness? Because of his perfection. We have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust him. And when we meet unbelievers, we need to think in our minds. What's the worst that that unbeliever can do to me?

I need to be bold. I need to be fearless. I need to be willing to be rejected. It's not like they're going to put me on trial or crucify me. Not yet. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the example of the early church.

Father, we admit we stumble, we struggle. We are not at all times faithful. We fail. We don't even sometimes think about the opportunities that you present to us. Father, give us that kind of fearless attitude that no matter what, we want to represent the Lord Jesus Christ and represent him well.

That we want people that are maybe moments from eternity in hell to hear the gospel, to hear the good news that all their sins, every sin can be forgiven. Strengthen us. Encourage us. Grant us your spirit that we might just be fearless, fearless, fearless.

In Jesus name. Amen.