Sunday, February 19, 2023 AM

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for gathering us here today. Thank you for the many blessings that you have poured out upon our lives. You answer our prayers. You forgive us of our sins.

You give us hope. You grant wisdom. You have given to us your Son, so we know that with Him you freely give us all things. Working all things together for the good of those who love you, who are called according to your purpose.

We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit, that we are in fellowship with you by His presence in us. Accepted to you by your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and our King. And truly these blessings are the ones that make up knowing you, knowing our Lord.

Blessings and riches and treasures that can never, ever be taken away. So we give you praise for that. And ask today that as we read your word together and consider its truths, that we would rejoice in Christ.

And I pray that you would equip us and encourage us and lead us into righteousness for your name's sake. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 5.

Acts chapter 5, and we're going to be reading verses 17 and following. The story really goes from verse 17 through verse 42. We may not read all 26 verses standing up, but we do need to know that they all kind of go together.

There's been an increasing contrast that we've been reading about in the book of Acts, one that is rooted in the teaching and ministry of Christ. There's a real difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

And you just can't put new wine into old wineskins. It doesn't work. Something's going to give. And in many ways, the city of Jerusalem is an old wineskin, brittle and hard. It has its shape petrified, and it is chock full of new wine.

As many are coming to the Lord, coming to Christ, a burgeoning church, a New Covenant temple, many coming to the Lord, rejoicing in His truth. And well, something's got to give. Things are beginning to crack, and we begin to see open conflict in our passage here in Acts chapter 5.

The Apostles Arrested and Delivered by an Angel

Well, I invite you to stand with me as we begin to read from verse 17. Here is the word of the Lord. Then the high priest rose up and all those who were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees, and they were filled with indignation and laid their hands on the apostles and put them in the common prison.

But at night, an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, go stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life. And when they heard that, they entered the temple early in the morning and taught.

But the high priest and those with him came and called the council together with all the elders of the children of Israel and sent to the prison to have them brought. But when the officers came and did not find them in the prison, they returned and reported saying, indeed, we found the prison shut securely and the guards standing outside before the doors.

But when we opened them, we found no one inside. Now, when the high priest, the captain of the temple and the chief priest heard these things, they wondered what the outcome would be. So one came and told them saying, look, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Maybe you've seen some commercials lately or heard about this $100 million evangelistic campaign called He Gets Us. They ran the commercials during the Super Bowl and got a lot of people talking about Jesus, which I think in the main is a net positive that more people are talking about Jesus.

But it was interesting the way that they chose to portray Christ. These evangelistic ads, very polished and well done, invite the viewer to identify their story. The viewer to identify their struggle with the story of Jesus.

Do you have a struggle? Do you have a story that is filled with difficulty? Jesus had that very same story. And the goal is that even though we all have our various stories and struggles, if we would all just understand that all of our stories connect with Jesus' story, then we can stop fighting one another.

After all, if He gets us, that's how we get one another. We can just all be at peace. When you investigate the website connected to the campaign, they clearly state that they believe the story of Jesus is the greatest love story ever told and that when it is handled wrongly and conveyed wrongly, that's when people begin to get angry and upset.

And there's a need to handle it rightly. So we put that to the test today. We look at God's Word today and think. How should the message of Jesus Christ, the good news of the kingdom, be handled rightly?

What should be said about Jesus? How much should be said about Jesus and to whom and in what way? And if it is rightly handled, what should be the result? You know, something to consider. It is a good desire.

It is a good goal that the gospel of Jesus Christ be handled rightly. Spoken truly and clearly to those who are in need of salvation. And you know, the person who did that best was named Jesus of Nazareth.

And those whom He taught directly and appointed especially and gifted incredibly by His Holy Spirit. You know, they did a really good job. So we should go to the Word of God, to the scripture and see how is the Word of God, how is the gospel handled?

How is the good news of Jesus declared? And let's see what's entailed in that and then we'll see what happens. I think that'll be helpful to us. It was interesting that in this passage, we see the beginnings of persecution, hostility.

In fact, we'll even read about the Sanhedrin being furious. Full of wrath, ready to just kill the apostles on the spot. And it was interesting that the opponents of Christ having been forced to watch a Jesus commercial on Super Bowl Sunday.

It took them about 2 .5 seconds to learn who funded the hundred million dollar campaign. And to discover that these folks were against homosexuality, against transgenderism and against abortion. And so, they felt awfully tricked about an evangelistic campaign that says He gets us, He gets all of us.

Except the people funding the campaign are in agreement with the Bible about some of those hot-button issues. And so they said, this is a deception. These are people full of hate. Interesting, we're going to come back to that in a moment.

What did Jesus have to say about persecution? What did Jesus have to say about opposition? What did Jesus have to say about when people react strongly with a great deal of blasphemy and anger and hatred upon the preaching of His good news?

What did He have to say? He said, We're going to see that in this passage. And this verse is 17 -42. These 26 verses are all one story. And there's three characters in the story. The first character is a group called the Sanhedrin.

And there are Sadducees in there and chief priests. And they have some guards. They have some officials. And one or two Pharisees are in their group. That's character number one. They don't like Jesus very much.

And they do not care for this gospel being preached in their city and all of these wonderful miracles being done. That's the first character is the Sanhedrin. And they are in opposition to Christ. The second character, of course, is the main character.

And that's the Lord. And we see how God works in a way to overcome the opposition of the Sanhedrin. How He does not allow His mission on earth to fail, but only to succeed. And the third character is a group called the Apostles.

And we get to see what happens to them as they seek to obey their Lord, how they experience the persecution, and how they follow through on the Lord's instructions and rejoice in His deliverance. Three characters.

We have the Sanhedrin. We have the Savior. And we have His servants. And these characters show up time and again throughout these 26 verses. And I want to take each one of those characters in a row. The first, the Sanhedrin, the opposition to Christ.

This will be helpful to us to understand opposition to the gospel, opposition to Christ, how it occurs, and why. Notice, first of all, that the Sanhedrin are awfully frustrated. Awfully frustrated. Multitudes and multitudes of people are coming up to Jerusalem, and they're not coming to the temple, and they're not coming to see the Levites and the priests, and they're not coming to give tithes to the temple, and they're not coming to make offerings and sacrifices.

They're coming because the gospel of Jesus is being preached, and people are being healed, and demons are being cast out. And so they're coming to hear the gospel preached and to be healed by the hands of the Apostles.

So they're coming, the multitudes are coming not to the old covenant temple, but they're coming to the new covenant temple. They're not coming up to the old covenant Jerusalem. They're coming up to the new covenant Jerusalem.

And this is very frustrating to the chief priest, to the Sanhedrin, to the Sadducees. So they rise up and they lay hold. They're filled with indignation. They are very angry. They are jealous of all the attention being garnered by these Apostles, and they are zealous to protect their power and their authority.

So they rise up and they lay hold. They finally say, we've got to do something about this. And they arrest the Apostles, and they throw them in the people's prison, the common prison. Enough room there for all the 12 Apostles, so we'll just throw them in there.

They probably didn't have enough room in the Sanhedrin cell that they use for Peter and John, so we'll throw them into the people's prison, and we'll deal with them in the morning. Only in the morning, they had a problem.

Now, you can understand how frustrating that could be. I mean, when you schedule a meeting, right? The chief priest is there. The chief priest's family is there. The elders of the people are there. The members of the Sanhedrin are there.

The notable council members are there. They have the officials there. And they sent the guards to the prison, and look, the prison is still there, and the guards are still there, and the doors are still there, but the Apostles are no longer there.

And they don't know what's going to happen now. They are a little concerned. This quickly turns into fear. As they doubt as to how this is going to grow, what's going to happen, they begin to fear, especially when they hear that those whom they had imprisoned the day before are out and about freely preaching the good news of Jesus Christ once again in the temple courts, and they are afraid.

You see their fear? They send the officers. They send the captain and the officers to bring in the Apostles once again, but notice verse 26, without violence. Then the captain went with the officers and brought them without violence, for they feared the people lest they should be stoned.

Apparently, they had arrested the Apostles earlier without a lot of witnesses, best time to do it. But this time, they're a little frightened about how the people are going to respond. They are afraid of men.

They are fearing men. Verse 27, And when they had brought them, they set them before the council, when the high priest asked them, saying, Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name? Remember chapter 4.

And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood on us. They are afraid. They fear the crowd and what may happen, and they fear that if the Apostles keep on teaching and preaching this way, filling Jerusalem with this doctrine, with this teaching, that the Sanhedrin are going to look like they're murderers or something.

It's going to be like they're going to be guilty of the blood of Jesus, as if they had said something along the lines of, His blood be upon us and our children. If you keep on going on like this, people are actually going to believe that.

And what then? Where is their legitimacy to rule then? Where is their power as a ruling council then? And what happens if the word gets out past that, and it's known that Jerusalem has gone rogue, and there's no justice and no peace in Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is in a riot?

What happens when Rome finds out about that? What happens to this ruling council, the Sanhedrin, who they were there specifically in league with the Romans to keep the peace? And what happens if they can't?

They are afraid. They are frustrated, they are afraid, and they point the finger at the Apostles, and the Apostles preach the gospel. And they say the same thing that they said back in chapter 4. Verse 29, Peter and the other Apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.

We also told you that earlier, right? The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him, God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him. So about seven different ways they tell the Sanhedrin, You are entirely in the wrong.

And the Sanhedrin respond with fury. Verse 33, When they heard this, they were furious and plotted to kill them. The translation may say, cut to the quick. The word picture in the Greek word is sawn in half from the inside.

They were shredded. They were torn apart. They were devastated by what the Apostles said. They couldn't stand it. This is the exact same sensation that the Sanhedrin and the Jews had at Stephen's preaching in chapter 7, and they rushed him and stoned him to death.

They are murderously angry at Peter and John and the other Apostles. And Jesus said that was going to happen. In Matthew 23, after these many woes that He declared upon the Jewish religious leaders, He pegged them as the ancestors of those who killed the prophets, or the descendants of those who killed the prophets and said, You're doing the same thing.

You're just the same type of rebellious Israel as before. He says in Matthew 23, verse 32,. Fill up then the measure of your father's guilt, serpents, brood of vipers. I'm just trying to think about how that works with that campaign, you know, He gets us.

There's a lot of mercy in this confrontation. Nobody called them what they were, and it needed to be said. Only in the light of God's truth can we see the reality of sin and the need for salvation. He says, serpents, brood of vipers, how can you escape the condemnation of hell?

Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify. Some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city. That on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barakaya, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. And here they are, following through in what Jesus said was going to happen. So they are frustrated, they're afraid, they're furious, and they're ready to kill the apostles at this point, and there was a sage man among them by the name of Gamaliel.

And he says, hold up, hold up, hold up. We may end up making this worse. Let's not kill them. Let's just see where this goes, and it may just all fizz out. You never know. Let's take a neutral position here.

It'll probably go away, and in the meantime, we don't have to look like villains or murder a whole bunch of people and then get in trouble for it. Let's just see what happens. If this is the way that God wants to do things, we don't want to get in His way.

We don't know what is going on here. He says, let's just be neutral. Verse 34,. And all who obeyed Him were dispersed. And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone. For if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing.

But if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest you even be found to fight against God. See? Maybe God has some point in all of this, and there's a role to play. Don't get in the way. Like, look, let's be neutral on this.

We'll come out like we always do. We get to keep our power. Let's just have a neutral approach. That ended in really stunning failure. It's a failure, first of all, because there's no neutrality concerning Christ.

You can't just sit back on the sidelines and be neutral and say, well, we'll just see what happens. There's no salvation there, just damnation. Further, that worked for, in terms of the book of Acts, for less than a chapter.

Because all of a sudden, once again, they're furious, mad at Stephen for preaching the gospel, and they end up killing him. And then they unleash Saul of Tarsus to kill even more. So that neutrality principle didn't really work very well for them.

Now, Jesus said this was going to happen, and the reason why it happens is simply because of who he is. There's no neutrality concerning Jesus Christ. He is God's son. He is God of very God and man of very man.

He is the one who has been promised long ago, Shiloh, the one to whom it all belongs. He is the son of man who receives for himself an eternal kingdom, a dominion which has no end. He is the name which is above every name.

There is no neutrality concerning Christ. It is a problem for the Sanhedrin that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand. It is a huge problem because their whole authority is rooted in something that rejects him and rejects that.

It is a problem, and this is something that doesn't get mentioned at all in the He Gets Us campaign. It is a problem in our world today for many that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead and that he has ascended to the right hand of the Father.

It is a problem for those who are committed to trafficking children. It is a problem for those who are committed to spreading sodomy and promoting abominable desires. It is a problem for those who practice witchcraft and use chemicals and surgery to mutilate and castrate.

It is a problem for those who use chemicals and surgery to murder the unborn. In every place where the image of God is consistently attacked, degraded, and destroyed, we see the work of Satan. We see the work of the demonic.

And I don't know if you've noticed in the Word of God, but whenever Jesus shows up in authority, the demons get really mad and must give way. So, when we preach Christ, we preach the whole Christ. We don't preach just a reduction of Christ.

Oh, he sorrowed too. Yes, he did. Oh, he had some bad times. Yes, there were. But who is Jesus Christ? And where is he today? Which is why even if you try to hide all of the parts about the gospel about Jesus, even if you try to hide it through some slick, comforting ad campaign, you still can't hide the fact that Jesus is Jesus at the right hand of the Father.

Which is why the rage immediately hit. Oh, you oppose sodomy? You oppose transgenderism? You oppose killing the unborn? I mean, in the Old Testament, when the prophets preached against Asherah and Baal and Molech, that didn't go over so well with the people.

It still doesn't go over well for people today. And that is the origin of the opposition to Christ. It's because Christ is in authority. We live in his world. So, understanding the opposition. When people get angry at the idea that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him.

When people become angry at the idea that righteousness is defined by God himself and revealed in his word, in the glorious person of Jesus Christ. That we are rebels against the image in which we are made.

We are made in God's image and we are rebels against God. And we are in need of salvation. That without a mediator, we stand condemned and justly so before a holy God. When we begin to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ, our need for a savior, and his sufficiency alone to save, and people get angry at that, it isn't because there's been a failure in the message, or a failure in the delivery of the message.

The anger, the opposition is indicating we are right on target. There are a lot of encouraging testimonies of people hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, and flying into a rage, and then later on coming to the Lord and realizing what happened.

Yeah, that was absolutely true. I needed to hear that. Nobody else told me that. I needed to know. We are not to twist the word, we are to preach Christ. Now, opposition to Christ is clear here in the Sanhedrin.

They don't want to hear it, they want to just kill the apostles. Even after Gamaliel says, let's just give it some time, they still beat the apostles and send them out and say, don't ever talk about Jesus again.

But notice how the Lord works in the midst of all these things. Where would the church be without our Savior? Look at what goes on here. How could they ever have survived such opposition, such tyranny?

But we have a Savior. Look at how the Lord works to ensure the success of what he calls the apostles to do. What he wants done will be done, his will done on earth as it is in heaven. And so he delivers the 12 apostles from the common prison, from the people's prison, even though the guards are still there and the doors are still there, suddenly the apostles aren't there.

And God sends his angel to the apostles and says, yeah, we're breaking you up. Wait a second, I thought that the civil government was God's magistrate and whatever they say is gospel truth. What is the Lord doing during a jailbreak?

Well, here they are treating his servants as if they are evildoers, but they're not evildoers. Right? They're the ones who are the evildoers. And so the Lord breaks them out of the common prison and tells them, you need to go back to the temple, stay in the temple, speak to the people, all the words of this life.

He delivers them so that they are able to continue in the work that he has called them to do. And when they are called back before the Sanhedrin, do you see how they answer? They don't change what they had said before.

They don't reduce the message. They don't deduce that the Sanhedrin is a little upset with some of the themes of their message and then reduce what they say about those things in hopes that maybe we can find some common ground.

This is a very robust proclamation of the good news of Jesus. Let's listen to that again. Verse 29,. But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you murdered by hanging on a tree.

Him God has exalted to his right hand to be prince and savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses to these things. And so also is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.

Now that's rich. That is full. Think about how they preach. They preach that Christ is king. They preach that he is the fulfillment of the old covenant promises. They preach that the Christ is none other than this Jesus of Nazareth, whom they murdered upon the tree.

But God raised him from the dead. They preach that he has all authority. They preach that there is need for their audience to repent of the sins that they have committed. And that repentance is a gift from God.

They preach that they need forgiveness of their sins. And they preach the superiority of the new covenant, the Holy Spirit being given to the true people of God. And that is a full and robust response to those who don't want to hear a single word of it.

Were they doing the wrong thing or were they doing the right thing? If we determine whether or not it was a right handling of the gospel, based upon the response of those who heard, we would have to say, in today's terms, that the apostles are a bunch of haters using clobber passages to ruin these people's day in self-righteousness.

Because, obviously, when the Sanhedrin get furious, it's a total failure. But, in fact, what the apostles are doing here is preaching the gospel fully and robustly, declaring the good news of Jesus, heralding him as king of kings, and they did exactly the right thing.

This is exactly how Jesus proclaimed the gospel and preached the truth. And so, being delivered by the Lord, they declare his doctrine, his truth, and the reality of his dominion is inescapable. I mean, even the Sanhedrin, after they put the men out of the room, say, there's nothing we can do against God if this is of God.

Now, the question is, is it of God? Is it of God? How would they know? Do you see how they try to understand the situation? They say, well, we've had these past experiences. This guy had a movement, that fell away.

This guy, he had a movement, that fell away. I guess if it sticks around, maybe that will prove that it's of God. They're trying to determine whether or not something is of God based upon their experiences.

But in fact, these are the keepers of the Scriptures. They have been given the law and the prophets and the writings. They have the word of God. In fact, many of them were copiers of the words of God.

And they're not even looking into the Scriptures to see whether or not this is really of the Lord. They could have answered their question instead of speculating based upon their past experiences. Indeed, it is of the Lord.

Indeed, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him. And to Him was given dominion and glory, and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. All of the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament in Christ, in His person and in His work, all of those fulfilled prophecies, this was to fulfill, this was to fulfill, this was to fulfill.

They had the Scriptures. They should have known that it was of the Lord. They should have known that it was of God. And indeed, it was not going to go away any time soon. Peter and the apostles preach to the high priests, the captain, the chief priests, all those there.

And they say, there is a new covenant, and you're not in it. There is a Savior, and you're against Him. There is righteousness, and you're not a part of it. Now, those are fighting words, aren't they?

And necessary for salvation. Necessary that this should be preached and declared. I mean, they don't say, you know, He gets us. They don't say to the Sanhedrin, you know, we know you're having a tough time with the Romans, you know, these occupying forces in your land, and they oppress you.

You know, and you oppress Jesus. He really gets you. That's not the message, is it? Testing it against the Word to see whether things are so. Christ's supremacy is such that we ought never shy away from proclaiming it.

Now, think about what just happened here in our text, and let's lay it alongside what Jesus told His apostles to do. Let's see if they're obeying their Lord. Are they doing it correctly? Are they obeying their Lord?

Let's see. Luke chapter 24, verses 44 through 49. Let's see if the disciples are on the right track here. I mean, are they following through on what Jesus told them to do? Verse 44, Luke 24. Then He said to them, these are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me.

And He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures. And He said to them, thus it is written and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high. Now, how many specific statements and phrases and instructions there do we find here in Acts 5?

They just happen over and over and over again. They're just following the pattern, just following the instructions that their Lord gave them to do. They're just following Jesus in this, doing what He told them to do.

So, rather than fearing men, rather than being afraid of what the results are going to be, we need to trust in the Lord. We need to trust in the Lord. Every generation of Christians has been told that simply following what Jesus told us to do is never going to work.

In some way, in some fashion, every generation of Christians has been challenged on this, but we are to walk by faith and not by sight. Oh, it's never going to work if you preach the resurrection to a bunch of Greek philosophers.

Oh, it's never going to work if you preach the resurrection to a bunch of Jews. It's never going to work if you simply declare the gospel to your neighbors when your neighbors are a bunch of idolatrous pagans.

Oh, it's never going to work. It's never going to work to preach about sin and the need for repentance and warn people about hell and talk to people about heaven and preach the good news of Jesus who died on the cross, a bloody death, a sacrifice before God satisfying His justice for our sins and calling people to faith and repentance.

That's just never going to work. That's been said in every generation and we're told time and again things are just never going to get better. You're never going to see success. And all of this are lies.

Because on the other side of it, the people who said all of that are muttering to themselves walking away. Well, that wasn't supposed to happen. It isn't about us and our quality and our ability. It isn't about the polish of the message.

It is about the power of our Savior. It is about our Lord. We are not to be afraid, but rather trust in the Lord. And do not be afraid of zealots using the system. All manner of zealots exist today and they use the system.

And they'll use whatever they can. They'll use anything from a city council to the FBI. They'll use the system to try to come after Christians. You better believe they're going to. Fear not. Fear not.

Obedience to Christ in the Face of Persecution

There's someone who is Lord over them all. Finally, we consider the apostles as our third character and consider obedience to Christ. We see the opposition to Christ. We see overcoming in Christ in our story.

But also, we see obedience to Christ. And we've been talking about it already. Jesus said, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Well, how do we know what the right thing is?

Well, Jesus tells us. It's pretty simple. He's the king. He defines the right. So, we do things that he tells us to do. And we get persecuted for it. That's called being persecuted for righteousness sake.

It's not a mystery. But we see that the apostles are trying to do their best. They're preaching the gospel by their hands. Many people are being healed and delivered. And they're preaching the good news of Jesus.

And they get arrested. They get arrested. Thrown into the common prison. And, you know, that's bad. But then the angel shows up and says, guess what? No time to rest. We're breaking you out. You're going to go back to the temple.

And we're going to do this all over again. Well, what do they do? They go stand and speak all the words of this life. And they go and they preach the words of life in the temple. And, you know, they're just kind of waiting.

They're watching the sundial over there just waiting. How long is it going to take for them to come out and arrest us again? Yep. Resilience. Now, God could have sent his angel to them in the prison and said to them, Look, what we're going to do is we're going to start singing hymns all night long until the guards outside get saved.

And they start singing. And that's how we're going to handle this situation. It could have been that. But it wasn't. It was get back out there and preach. And so they did. But notice, and I think this is extremely important for us, that when they get back in front of the Sanhedrin, not only when they were in the temple, but when they were back in front of the Sanhedrin, it wasn't capitulation but repetition that marked their speech.

They didn't say anything new, anything different. They didn't add any kind of spin. They simply repeated themselves, saying the very things the Sanhedrin said we don't want you to say. I mean, how boring can you get?

They didn't come up with anything new? They just repeat themselves? This is extremely important for faithfulness as Christians. We are not to go out and try to find new things. We are to say the old things.

We are to say the things that we have been given. We are to say the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are not to innovate on the message and change it up and try to reduce it down and maybe add a bunch of spices to it.

We are to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And obedience to Christ means there's going to be some repetition. And that's a good thing. But thirdly, there's also rejoicing. And these are the verses we haven't read yet in verses 41 and 42.

After they were beaten and warned again. Verse 41, so the apostles, they departed from the presence of the council rejoicing, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple and in every house they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.

Rejoicing. Why rejoicing? Not saying, oh, pain is fun. No. They're rejoicing because Christ's words are true. He said, if you do what I tell you to do, you are going to be persecuted. Hey, he was right.

And Christ, if that's true, then it means that his words are true. We are indeed blessed. See, that's true, too. And so they're rejoicing that they are being helped by the Lord to do the work he's called them to do.

And when they're persecuted, they believe his promises that indeed they are blessed. It's very clear who's in charge now here in Acts. Jesus is in charge. It's not the Sanhedrin. He's the faithful son.