Jesus 4 Everybody: A Movement of The Spirit

Welcome in the name of Jesus Christ to our worship gathering this morning. If you're new to our church, we're going to take a moment to pass these black welcome pads down the aisle. We'd love to welcome you into the life of our church. If you have questions about CTK after our service, I would love to help you navigate your way in a church. We know coming to a new church is always a challenge and we want to welcome you.

This morning, we are continuing a series in the book of Acts and we're going to be in Acts chapter four verses one through 22. If you want to find that in your Bible or up on the screen or in your worship guide, we're going read together out loud as is our custom. So a one or two, you know what to do.

While they were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple police, and the sadducees confronted them because they were annoyed that they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. So they seized them and took them into custody until the next day since it was already evening. But many of those who heard the message believed, and the number of men came to about 5,000. The next day, their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem with Annas, the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and all the members of the high priestly family. After they had Peter and John stand before them, they began to question them. By what power or in what name have you done this? Then Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today about a good deed done to a disabled man, by what means he was healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead, by him, this man is standing here before you healthy. This Jesus is the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone. There is no salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved. When they observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus. And since they saw the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in opposition. After they ordered them to leave the Sanhedrin, they conferred among themselves saying, what should we do with these men? For an obvious sign has been done through them, clear to everyone living in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But so that this does not spread any further among the people, let's threaten them against speaking to anyone in this name again. So they called for them and ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. Peter and John answered them, whether it's right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than to God, you decide. For we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. After threatening them further, they released them. They found no way to punish them because the people were all giving glory to god over what had been done. For this sign of healing had been performed on a man over 40 years old. This is the word of the lord. Thanks be to god. — Acts 4:1-22

It's appropriate to laugh after that last line—it's like, this had been done on a man over 40 years old, right? Like most of a lot of people in this room.

Last year, Sony Pictures released this film called "It Ain't Over" about the legendary baseball player Yogi Berra. Most people know Yogi Berra because of him being one of baseball's greatest players of all time. You can see on his hands right here, 10 rings from World Series wins, 18 All Star Game appearances, three MVPs. He caught the only perfect game in World Series history. He's just an incredible baseball legend. And yet this movie was put out and it's telling his story and it's called "It Ain't Over" because actually Yogi Berra takes much more pride in what happened after and off the baseball field than what happened on it.

He's most proud, if you watch the documentary, of being a D Day veteran, of being a dad, of a life of giving these kind of pithy words, aphorisms that have made their way—yogi isms is what they're called—into everyday life. And I love the title of this film, "It Ain't Over," because it really focuses on the fact like the other part of his life was what really mattered.

And I think that same title, "It Ain't Over," could rightly be put on the book of Acts which we're studying all this summer. The writer, Luke, says something really peculiar at the beginning of this book. He says something really odd. Now, Luke wrote two books of the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke and this, the book of Acts, but the way he begins this book is really significant. He doesn't say this—this is what you might expect to say.

After Jesus's death and resurrection, this is what his followers continued to do. That's not what Luke says. Instead, he says, "I wrote in my last book about what Jesus began to do and teach," and the inference is that the book of Acts is about what Jesus continued to do and to teach after his resurrection.

This is really odd. We have a lot of famous people, maybe history makers whose followers we could say carried on their teaching or their tradition. Think of Martin Luther King Junior. Think of Mahatma Gandhi, for example. We could say their followers carried on doing things in their name afterward, but that is not what's being described here in the book of Acts. We're not reading about what the followers continue to do. We're reading about what Jesus, by the power of his spirit, continued to do. This is really something remarkable, and it tells us: it ain't over.

Now, this was actually the thing that in the passage we just read this morning that was startling. Here are the leaders of Israel—the religious leaders, the Pharisees, the chief priests, all those of the temple guard—assembled, and to their consternation, there's a healing that's been done through two disciples, Peter and John. And Peter stands up and says, "This man, Jesus, whom you crucified, this guy has been healed in his name now." They thought the actions of the crucifixion had put down the rabble rouser Jesus and all the movement that had come after him. But no, this is the "he's back" moment, right? Jesus is still here. He's still working. The name didn't die with the person. This is why I'm saying it ain't over. It ain't over. Jesus' work has just begun.

The Title and Meaning of Acts

The title for this book, Acts, was actually not part of the original manuscript. It's not part of the original text. It was added to this book in the second century AD by a man named Irenaeus, and it's been hotly debated as to whose acts it's about. Is it about the acts of the disciples? Is it about the acts of Jesus? I think Luke would say, no—this is the acts of Jesus by his spirit through his people. That's what this book is about. It's the beginning of the age of the spirit.

Last week, Paul Deshams preached for us on Pentecost, and I want you to picture what happens after Pentecost this way. Imagine you're on a walk in the woods and you come upon one of those really calm days. There's no wind, and you come upon a pond—one of those days when the water is just like a mirror. It's like glass, and you see reflected in the water the trees behind it. Now you pick up a rock and you throw it in the middle of the pond. What happens? What comes after the plop? Ripples, right? The rings start going from there outward. It's really fun to disturb the water like that.

This is a picture for us of what happens in the book of Acts. It's not a one-and-done event. It's not the rock just dropping in the water. It's the ripples. And that's what we're going to look at over the summer as we walk through the book of Acts. It's not one time. It's ongoing—what the spirit is doing.

The Healing of the Beggar

So here's the context of what we just read. Peter and John, two ordinary disciples, are on their way to the temple to pray one day. They see a man begging by the side of the road asking for money, and they turn to him and say, "We don't have anything to offer you, but in the name of Jesus, stand up and walk." And what happens as a result is a complete miracle. It's not just that the man's muscles got better, but his brain was able to connect with his muscles and know how to move, know how to stand, know how to walk. A complete miracle that's done before them. And this is what causes all this consternation among the religious leaders.

So how did it happen? Three things I want to look at this morning: I want to look at the extraordinary name, the power of the spirit, and then the ordinary ones. Let's dive into this together.

The Extraordinary Name

When you're reading, did you notice the one word that's repeated five times in this passage? If you go back and listen to it again, if you listen to what we read out loud: the name, the name, the name, the name. That's what seems to be the main theme of this passage. The name of Jesus has special significance.

Now, there's lots of Harry Potter fans in our church. You'll remember how the wizarding community referred to Voldemort in the Harry Potter books. Do you remember what they called him? "He who must not be named." Not be named, right? He who must not be named. And the fear of this among the wizarding community is like, "This is such an evil guy and he's so powerful that if we say his name out loud, somehow we might even conjure up or connect with him in some kind of personal way. It's that dangerous."

That's how the religious leaders felt about Jesus in this moment. Jesus was he who must not be named. They were afraid of him. So they ask this odd question in verse seven.

When these two disciples performed this miracle, they asked two things: by what name, by what power did you do these things? Now, that's not a question we would ask. That's an odd question. If you did something at work and a coworker came up to you and said, "by what name do you do this?" you would scratch your head. We don't live in a society that thinks of name being tied with authority. And yet, that's entirely what this culture was about. When they asked the question, "by what name do you do these things?" they're asking on whose authority, with whose permission, with whose power?

What's the big deal with the name? Even Christians today, we are obsessed with the name. Radio personality Paul Harvey used to tell the story about a mom and a little boy going to the grocery store. The little boy asked in the car on the way there, "Can we get chocolate chip cookies?" And she's like, "Don't ask me in the store. We are not getting chocolate chip cookies today." So you know what's going to happen. They go up and down the aisles through the produce, they finally get to the cracker cookie aisle and he says, "Mom, mom, mom, mom, can we have chocolate chip cookies?" And she said, "No. I told you not to ask me. We're not going to get chocolate chip cookies." He keeps going through the rest of the store and then they snag back by the end of that aisle on the way to the cash register and he asks again, "Mom, can we please get chocolate chip cookies?" She says, "No. I told you we're not getting chocolate chip cookies." So they finally get to the checkout and he thinks, this is my last chance. So he stands up in the kid's seat part of the cart and says, "In the name of Jesus, can we get chocolate chip cookies?"

Now, what's happening in this passage is all about calling on the name. When people call on the name, why is there so much power associated with it? What's the big deal with the name? In that time period, it was a sense of delegated authority. The Roman authorities could come to your door and pound on the door and say, "Open up," and you may or may not open the door. But if they say, "Open up in the name of Caesar," that name implied that those soldiers were working in his place with his authority, with his power. And if you do not obey them, you're not just crossing the soldiers, you're crossing Caesar himself. There was something about the using of that name. Pilate was a sort of governor of the province and he was operating in the authority, with the name, under the express instructions of Caesar. That's what it means to take the name.

So the religious leaders recognize something amazing's happened and they say, "a notable sign, it's evident to all. We can't deny it." But they don't do what modern people do. They won't go, "Well, I guess that's kind of interesting." They say, "By whose name? What Caesar is behind this? There's some other Caesar who's at work right now. Some other authority." And Peter meant it that way too, because the name of Jesus stands for the reality of Jesus—the presence of Jesus, the delegated authority of Jesus. This is his power. When Peter stands up, he says to the man who's disabled, "In the name of Jesus Christ, stand up and walk." When he stands in front of the authorities, he says, "I'm doing this in the name of Jesus."

Throughout the Bible, there's always a significant amount of power associated with God's people knowing his name and using his name. Now, I want to remind you of something that you may or may not know. The first part of the Bible, the people of God did not know God's name. Do you know that Abraham did not know God's name? Noah did not know God's name. Isaac, Jacob, Joseph—all the patriarchs—none of them knew God's name. It's not until the burning bush where God reveals his name to Moses.

He reveals his name: Yahweh. I am that I am.

I mean, it's one of those phrases that means—what does that mean? It means existence itself. Power itself. Holiness itself. I am that I am. I always was. I always will be. And this is what's revealed at the burning bush.

And this became so sacred to the Israelite people that they would neither write it out the right way nor pronounce it the right way. In fact, in Hebrew, it looks like YHWH, and it's unpronounceable on purpose so that you couldn't just be reading along the Hebrew scriptures and accidentally say it out loud. The Hebrew people were so protective of the divine name that they would substitute the word Adonai for Yahweh. I mean, this is why they regarded this as so precious, so unbelievable that God would reveal his name and give it to his people as their sacred possession—that they had a right to call on his name.

This is what's so startling about your New Testament because the New Testament begins with the revelation of the second person of the trinity, Jesus himself, the very image of god and the very most fullest expression of the godhead that we've ever seen as human beings. That name, Jesus, is given to two teenagers who are betrothed to be married. The angel says to Mary and Joseph, his name will be Jesus, which means God saves, Yeshua. Then the angels come to the shepherds—people who have no standing in society, not the powerful and elite, the weak, the ones who had no place that you could even give testimony in a court of law—and says, he will be called Emmanuel, god with you. This is what's shocking. The name given to us. This is what's so important to god's people even now.

Jesus in his earthly ministry taught his people, pray in my name. Speak in my name. You have the right to call on my name. You have the right to ask anything you will in my name. This is why it's so powerful that we have the name of Jesus. Why Christians, we don't just talk about god generally—we are obsessed with the name. The name is our Caesar. His name opens doors. His name is delegated authority. His name is given to us. In Philippians, it tells us that at the end of time, every person on earth will bow the knee and confess that name.

Jesus is Lord — Philippians 2:10-11

Whether in anger and consternation or in absolute joy and revelation, this is why Christians we don't just talk about God. We say all the promises of God find their yes in Jesus, in his name.

So back to Acts four. This is why you get it now? Why the religious leaders are like, you may not say the name. You may not talk about the name. We don't want you proclaiming anything in the name. They knew.

But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more in this name — Acts 4:17

Because they knew there's another Caesar in town. We don't want anything to do with this one. Do you know the power of the name? Is this at work in your life? Do you recognize? If you're a believer in the lord Jesus Christ, you have the name of god. It's your possession. It's in a sense written across your life. You are his. Are you calling on the name? Are you using the name? Do you treasure the name? This is how the first disciples understood what was being given to them. The unbelievable, the extraordinary name.

The Power-Giving Spirit

Second thing we see are the power giving spirit. Look at verse seven. The authorities asked Peter and John this question, and it's a two parter:

By what power or what name did you do this thing, this miracle? — Acts 4:7

By what power and by what name? We just covered the name. So, by what power? And the question is answered in the next verse.

Peter filled with the Holy Spirit said to them — Acts 4:8

The spirit. This is how we're going to read through the book of Acts this summer. I know I've preached through parts of Acts before in this church. Probably many of you have heard people preach on the book of Acts, but here's how I'm choosing which passages we're going to look at and what we're going to do through the book of Acts. We're looking at all the passages that describe the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit is the main character of the book of Acts. It's not about Paul. It ain't about Peter. It ain't even about the early disciples. It's about what the spirit is doing. Each week, we're going to ask, what is the spirit doing? What is he up to?

Now, truth be told, I'm a little guilty of something in my younger days as a pastor. I have preached the book of Acts in a way that's like, this is what they did, this is what we do. This is what they did back then, this is what you should do. Maybe some of you all heard sermons like that or sat under me before where you end up leaving going like, oh my goodness, I have all this load of stuff I gotta carry out of here that I'm supposed to do. Of course, you can talk about Acts that way, but I think the main point of the book of Acts is, what is the spirit doing? What is he up to?

And then what we see is the spirit gives power over and over for ministry. In the chapter before this, when this healing takes place, the power of the spirit comes right at the moment when they need it. Not beforehand. This is really important. I want you to understand this. It's not like they're like, we feel really juiced up today. Now, let's go out and find somebody to help. It was they're walking down the road. This man accosts them and asks them for help and in that moment, in the act of faith, they step out and the spirit is provided for them. In that moment, for the need that's right there in front of them. It's not before. It's not that they had a great Bible study that morning. They felt really jazzed up. It wasn't their seminary class.

It was awesome the week before and they were super inspired. It was in the moment. This is when the power of the spirit is provided for God's people—when we trust him and step out in faith. That's when we need him.

There's a really old movie from several years ago called Four Weddings and a Funeral. It stars Rowan Atkinson, Mr. Bean. I love this movie. He's a minor character, a bumbling priest who seems to butcher everything. In the famous scene, he's doing a wedding and he butchers the name of the bride and groom throughout the entire ceremony. He opens the prayer saying, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Goat instead of Holy Ghost." He asks the husband, "Will you be married to your awful wife instead of your lawful wife?" And then he closes the entire ceremony this way: "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spigot. I mean, Spirit."

I love this because it's just a verbal blunder, and yet "holy spigot" is a great picture for us of how the Spirit works. In this passage, it describes Peter being filled with the Holy Spirit. When we hear that, I'm afraid we think filling up like somebody fills up a glass or a vase. When you fill up a glass or a vase, it's full. There's no more you can get into it, and then you could pour it out. That's not what we see in the book of Acts about how the Spirit works. People don't get full and then suddenly get poured out. Something more is going on—something much more like the holy spigot.

Think of a spigot on the side of somebody's house. You attach a hose to a spigot. You would never say, "Hey, can you fill up the hose? Turn on and fill up the hose for me so I can use it." When is a hose full? When the water is going through it. You turn it all the way up and the water is going—that's when it's full. It's being poured out. It's not filled up to be poured out. It's full as it's being used. This is much more a picture of how the Spirit works in God's people.

If you're a believer, the Spirit is the permanent possession of God's people. Nothing could take that away. That is given to you as part of the regeneration of faith by the Holy Spirit who has worked in you, and you're receiving that and responding to that in faith. The Spirit is poured on your life. It's given to you as a permanent possession. And yet this picture of the filling of the Holy Spirit is something other. It is the Spirit being given to God's people, flowing through us for ministry—God using his people.

When you read the Bible, you see the work over and over, especially in the book of Acts, of the Spirit. We're going to read about the promptings of the Spirit, the conviction of the Spirit, the leading of the Spirit, the power of the Spirit. The Spirit is given to us not just for our enjoyment but for God's use—for things to flow through us. The Spirit will reveal things to us, warn us, prompt us into prayer or action.

Tuning Into the Spirit

Here's the main big idea for this summer: Do you know how to tune into the Spirit? As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, do you know how to listen to the Spirit, to access the Spirit, to pray in the Spirit, to ask the Spirit to work in the lives of other people? We're going to distinguish your own internal conversation from the Spirit's prompting in your life. This is what I want you to get from studying the book of Acts this summer: Acts is not just history. It's rocking the pond, creating ripples. We're expecting God to continue to work. It ain't over, y'all.

Maybe you're like me in this. I've spent years asking God to bless my plans. I'm like, "Here's my plan, God. Here's what I want you to do. Would you bless my plan?" Instead, this is what we see in the book of Acts: "Oh, there's where the Spirit's at work. I want to go join God, by the Spirit, in what he's already doing." Looking and understanding what the Spirit is up to. And we see in the book of Acts that it's the Spirit—the one who's directing traffic. It's not Peter or Paul or anybody else.

This summer, let's ask to understand more of what it means to be people of the Spirit, the community of the Spirit. Let's figure out how to be in tune with the Spirit, receptive to the Spirit, listening to the Spirit. Over the course of the summer, we're going to see how the Spirit's at work in the lives of people all around us, and he is constantly provoking and convicting. We'll see conversions in the book of Acts among the powerful and the powerless, the rich and the poor, the seeker, the pagan—people who weren't even looking for him. He comes and he taps them on the shoulder. We're going to see how the Spirit works.

Here's what I want you to ask this summer about your life. This is what I want you to be curious about. What is the Spirit calling me to do right now? What's the Spirit's call on me today? What is the Spirit up to in my life right now? Those are the right questions.

The Ordinaries

Finally, the ordinaries. I love how explicitly this passage goes over and above to make sure that everybody knows there ain't much special about Peter and John. Read this in verse 13:

When they observed, the religious leaders, when they observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed. — Acts 4:13

These are ordinary people doing extraordinary things. I said this a couple weeks ago and I just want to say it again. It is so easy to cartoonify your Bible. To make the people in scripture to be some kind of superheroes like Peter and John are walking around with capes on, right? Like, they're very different from us and yet, what's very obvious in this passage: uneducated and untrained. Nothing about these guys is remarkable.

But what was not ordinary about them? What does it say here? When they observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated, untrained men, they were amazed and what? Recognized that they had been with Jesus.

The disciples were remarkable only in this: they had been with Jesus. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things because they had been with Jesus. And I know some of you are like, "Yeah, no duh. I mean, if I had been with Jesus, if only I had been one of the disciples and saw what Jesus did and heard what he said, of course, I would be like that too." No, you wouldn't. And they neither were they.

Because what do we see in the gospels, in the early part of Acts? Peter and John went back fishing. They hid out in Jerusalem after the resurrection of Jesus. These were not bold people who suddenly became like superheroes overnight. These were ordinary people who were ordinarily scared just like we are.

And yet, what's the significant difference? They had been with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so can you. I mean, isn't this what we are trying to practice regularly as his people? This is what it means for us to be disciples: to learn to be with Jesus. That's not just a back then there—that's a right now here thing.

This is what we do when we come together for worship. We are drawing near to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. When we come in this place and worship him, this is what we are longing to see happen in the lives of one another. When we do one-to-one Bible reading, when we get together in small groups, when we pray and encourage one another—we are seeking to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. In your personal times of devotion, this is what is available to you: to be with Jesus.

This is one of the main things we've got to learn to do as a church: learning how to regularly be with Jesus.

I want to remind you of this. My friend, apostle Philip Walker preached here in April and he gave this extended illustration which he went through really fast and I'm not sure you got it. So I'm going to go over this again. He used an example of a Russian doll—you know, a Russian wooden doll—and he says this is a picture for us of what the Christian life looks like.

First layer of this: I am in Christ. This is the refrain of the New Testament, and what this means is when God looks at you, if you're a believer, you are robed in the righteousness of Christ. God looks at you as if you are as perfect as the Lord Jesus Christ is because you are in him. His name is written across your life. This is how God regards you: justified in him, righteous in him. This is your standing. Nothing can change this. But that's not the end of the story, right?

We also have the Holy Spirit inside of us. So the Spirit is at work. This is the deposit of God given to us at conversion—that is the power of God in your life. Nothing can remove this. So the Spirit is in me as I am in Christ. This is an incredible set of truths to figure out how these go together. This is what we see over and over in the New Testament, and yet, that's not all.

The picture in the book of Acts and what we read this morning is one of learning to be aligned—where we're putting his word in us as the Spirit's in us, as we are in Christ—and the alignment of those things. God's word in me, his Spirit in me, me in Christ. This is where the power comes from.

When we become people—this is what made Peter and John extraordinary in this passage even though they were ordinaries—because they recognized they had been with Jesus. His Spirit is the one who's flowing through them and they are in him. His name written across their life. The power is in the alignment of those things.

So here's my question for you. For this Sunday and for this series: number one, do you believe in the power and authority of the name?

The name of Jesus written across your life. This is the ultimate thing that could be said about who you are. I am in Christ. Do you believe that? Are you laying hold of that? Are you realizing that in the way that you talk to God? Do you stand on some foundation other than how you feel this week? You are in him.

Second, are you aware of the daily and hourly and minute by minute presence of his spirit in your life? Are you learning to listen to the spirit, to obey the spirit, to discern the thoughts of the spirit, the promptings of the spirit? Are you learning to follow the spirit, or are you asking the spirit to follow you?

And finally, are you aligned? Are you in his word? Are you finding ways to be with him?

The Battery Illustration

Let me close this way. I don't know how many times this has happened in the Bradford household, but regularly, we would buy electronic gadgets for our kids for birthday or Christmas and wrap them up, put them under the tree or have them on the table for the birthday celebration. Then there's a big celebration, everything's opened up, and dad forgot to read what was on the box. Every electronic gadget and gizmo has the same three words. What are they? Battery is not included.

So what happens in that moment is there's a mad dash for the battery drawer in our house. I don't know if you have a battery drawer. Unfortunately, a lot of times it's filled with where the kids have opened up something and put the old batteries back in there. So it's not very helpful, right? But you know, you think after six kids, we'd be down with, "Oh yeah, we should have bought size triple A, double A, D"—all those that you're supposed to have. But here's the thing about us as Christians. Your life is one where I can guarantee because of God's word that this is true. On the outside wrapping of your life, if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if His spirit is in your life, batteries are included.

You are not some gadget that looks great, but nobody can turn on. And maybe you don't know how to put the batteries in. That's another problem. We'll get to that this summer. Maybe you don't know how to access the power of that. That's where we're going to get to this summer. But batteries are included, y'all. It ain't over.

Closing Prayer

In the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for your word. There's nothing like your word. Help us to believe what is unbelievable. That we are in Christ, that your Spirit is our treasure and possession, that we have the name. Father, help us to align ourselves with you and your purposes. Teach us to follow your Spirit and not lead it. Teach us to be people who are operating in the spirit and the age of the spirit. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's stand and respond to God's word and sing together.