When You’re Out Of Control |07.14.24| Actions Speak Louder! pt.5
When You’re Out of Control – Acts 4:1-22
Pastor Drew Williams
One of the scariest times in my life was when I was inner-tubing down a flooded and swollen river. The current was too fast to be able to fight it, the river was full of debris, and I had lost sight of the friends I had started the day with.
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Another time that was scary for me was when I was riding on a dirtbike. My front wheel caught a rock, and the whole bike bucked me up like a horse, and the only hand that stayed on was the one pulling the throttle, so I was stuck hanging on for dear life while the bike peeled away faster and faster.
A final time that comes to mind that was scary for me was when I was home alone with my first baby for the first time ever. Megan was out to dinner with some friends, and Emmy was maybe two or three months old. I told her, “I’ve got it, go!” And then when she was gone, at some point Emmy was crying uncontrollably and I couldn’t do anything to make her calm down.
And the common trait of all of those moments in my life? I had no control. The situation was out of my control and I felt scared, desperate, cornered… angry even.
How many of you have been in a situation where you didn’t have control? And it was scary? Or frustrating?
When we are in a situation like that, it’s easy to feel scared, or feel threatened, because we aren’t sure how it’s going to turn out. We aren’t sure it’s going to go well for us. We aren’t sure we’ll get through it unscathed.
And one of the most common reactions to a situation like that is for us to try and regain CONTROL. Try and take hold of the situation. Try and exert whatever power we have to ensure our safety. Because if we don’t TAKE CONTROL, it might end badly.
That’s a natural reaction right?
But as we’ll see from our Bible passage today, moments like that reveal to us what truly has power in our lives. The thing we put our hope in to save us — the WAY that we try to regain control — THAT is the thing that is the most powerful thing in our lives. And in those situations, we get to see whether the most powerful thing in our lives… is enough.
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So let’s open our Bibles to Acts chapter 4, which is on p92 of the NT in the black, seat-back Bibles. And as you find it, this is actually part two of the story we started reading last week.
Peter and John are on their way to prayer at the temple in Jerusalem, where they are telling people all about Jesus when they are stopped by a beggar who can’t walk, asking for money. Peter doesn’t have any money, but still gives him from what he does have, which is faith.
The guy is healed and is immediately able to walk and starts jumping around and praising God. It draws a crowd, and so Peter tells everyone around that it was all because of the power of Jesus, the true savior of the world.
And that’s where we pick up our story today. So let’s read together Acts 4:1-22…
[ACTS 4:1-22]
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While Peter and John were speaking, right in the middle of some amazing explanation that Jesus is the reason the lame man was healed, all the church leaders show up. This group includes the priests who are in charge of the proceedings at the temple: like the flow of people in and out, the offering of sacrifices, keeping the incense burning, leading little prayer groups. In our modern idea, it would be pretty much everyone who volunteers on a Sunday to make this whole gathering work. The greeters, the coffee crew, the ushers, the tech people, the communion servers, etc.
They’re accompanied by the “captain” of the temple, who would be an administrative guy who keeps it all running smoothly, so maybe someone like our finance team or possibly a pastor who oversees it all and fills in the gaps.
And then we’ve got the Sadducees, who are the group in charge. Similar to a church council, or that one Bible study group that actually has all the authority and sway in some churches. Or maybe an even better image would be a city-wide religious group that interfaces with the city government and dictates how things are to be run in all the churches to keep the relationship between the churches and the government running smoothly.
And maybe you learned in Sunday school just like I did when I was a kid that the Sadducees are “sad, you see,” because they didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead. They were devout jews, who followed God, and were waiting for the Messiah, but they thought this life was all there was. They didn’t believe that the Messiah would bring the dead back to life at some point.
[SLIDE 5] v2
And so, when they heard about the healing miracle, and then showed up to find Peter and John preaching to this HUGE crowd about the resurrection of the dead, they were “much annoyed.” Another way to translate that would be “completely exasperated.”
“Wait, WHAT the heck is going on?! We heard there was some guy who got healed, and we come out to the temple courtyard and see that all the prayer groups and sacrifices have STOPPED because there’s a huge crowd of people over here. And then we find two random guys in the middle of the crowd and they are talking about JESUS?! The guy who was crucified a few weeks ago? No no no, we’ve got to get to the bottom of this.”
So they arrest them and hold them overnight until they can gather the right group to hear them out.
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And I want to point out that, so far, there is no disagreement about the healing that happened. There isn’t even a conversation about whether or not Peter and John should have been gathering a crowd. It’s all about the fact that they are talking about Jesus and the resurrection of the dead. It’s a theological dispute. That means that this isn’t a conflict between people who believe and those who don’t believe.
This is a conflict between believers. All these people believe in God. But the ones in charge don’t agree with one of the beliefs of Peter and John. So they arrest them.
Can we imagine if that happened in church today?
Theological disagreements still happen. Some people disagree over what baptism means, or whether the Holy Spirit is still active today. People will disagree about what translation of the Bible to use. People will disagree over what things are sin and what things aren’t sin.
But these guys didn’t want to let things get out of control, so they grabbed Peter and John and put them in custody overnight. Wild.
[SLIDE 7] v4
Unfortunately for them, however, the crowd that had been listening and had seen the miraculous transformation of the guy who could now walk, believed what Peter and John were saying about Jesus.
And I love this part of this story, because it truly shows that as followers of Jesus, all we have to do is tell people what we’ve seen and experienced, and the Holy Spirit does the rest.
Right after Jesus ascended to heaven, there were about 120 people who believed in him and had decided to follow him with their lives. At Pentecost, Peter and the other disciples talked about what they had seen Jesus do, and 3,000 people repented and put their belief in Jesus that day.
In the weeks since, more and more people have joined the Way of Jesus every day as God keeps adding to their number. And then here today, the crowd sees the healed man, and Peter and John and the healed man just talk about what they’ve seen and experienced, and 5,000 people believe.
All YOU’VE got to do is be willing to talk about what you’ve seen and experienced from Jesus at work in your life and your family. The Holy Spirit does the rest with how people will respond to that or not.
[SLIDE 8] vv5-7
Well, back to our story. The next day, all the higher-ups are gathered and start to question Peter and John.
But they don’t ask them about the miracle healing. They don’t ask them about the claims they’ve made about the resurrection of the dead. They don’t ask them about all the stories they’ve heard about how the followers of Jesus are actually caring for each other and flourishing.
They ask about authority. “Who gave you permission yesterday?” By what power, or by what name? Whose authority were you acting on? Who do you think you ARE?
The religious leaders knew that THEY hadn’t sent Peter and John to do any miracles or lead any teaching groups. And they were pretty sure no other synagogue or group had sent them as official emissaries.
“Don’t you know who’s in charge around here? You don’t get to come in here and start changing things. I don’t care what good comes from it. I don’t care that the guy got healed. You don’t get to come in here and do something unless WE give you permission.”
[SLIDE 9] vv8-9
And I like this little detail that the author of Acts gives us, that Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit before he spoke, because it’s supposed to be clear to us that this next response isn’t because Peter is some amazing speaker.
He’s not leaning on his own power and taking control of the situation.
No, he’s a regular guy. Just like any one of us. And it’s the Holy Spirit of God at work in him that allows him to speak.
“If we’re being questioned because of this guy being fully healed…”
[SLIDE 10] v10
“…make sure you all get that all of this is only possible because of Jesus. You know, the guy YOU crucified, but God raised him from the dead?!”
BOOM, in your face, Sadducees!
Peter is kind of being sassy, isn’t he? But this next part is all serious:
[SLIDE 11] vv11-12
“This Jesus is the one that was prophesied about in Psalm 118. That’s the passage we used in our call to worship this morning. He’s the one you rejected, but God has made him the most important piece.”
And if you want to know who’s NAME we operate under? Whose authority? Who gave us permission? Jesus.
It’s Jesus’ name that has all authority and power. For this healing. For our teaching. For salvation itself.
[SLIDE 12] vv13-14
And the religious leaders are dumbfounded. They’ve got no response. They can clearly see that Peter and John aren’t visiting rabbis from another town. They aren’t from a different religious group that is trying to crowd in on their territory.
They’re normal guys. Who work with their hands. Who rub elbows with normal people. They aren’t scholars. They aren’t elites.
And the religious leaders don’t know how to respond. The healed guy was clearly healed. Even the higher up priests recognized the guy who had spent every day begging outside the temple for decades. And now he’s been healed, and they can’t explain it away.
So they send them off to discuss it in a private meeting.
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They clearly can’t deny what happened to the beggar. Because everyone who was at the temple the day before has already seen it and word has gotten out.
But they know they need to stop it.
And I want to pause here, and ask, “Why?”
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Why do they need to stop it? Why is it that the religious leaders desire to squash the whole thing? The healing? The teaching?
Because the beggar who was healed responded very differently, right? He was healed and he worshiped God and jumped around and told anyone who would listen about what happened to him and WHO was the source of his healing.
The crowds who witnessed it all responded by being amazed, and then they worshiped God and believed in Jesus.
But the elders? They…arrested Peter and John and the beggar, and then tried to squash the whole thing. Why?
Were they guilty because of how Peter said they were the ones who had missed Jesus and had actually gotten him crucified? Were they ashamed?
Or were they threatened? Did they feel control slipping out of their fingers? This whole religious way of life that they sat at the top of, where people listened to them and came to them for advice and followed their rules… someone else was threatening that. The way things worked that they were used to… it was changing. And they couldn’t control it.
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How do you feel when you’re not in control? Afraid? Angry? Do you try to grab on tighter?
When something is happening to you that you can’t control, do you cope by diverting your attention to something you CAN control? I do that.
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The last few weeks have been a little stressful at home. We have little kids and messy dogs, and I always feel like I’m trying to catch up. I always feel like there are a million half-finished projects waiting for me. So a few days ago, I went outside and mowed. I just wanted to actually ACCOMPLISH something. I wanted to start AND finish something.
After the kids went to bed, I even went out and used the leaf blower to get the grass clippings off the back patio. When I came back in the house, Megan was surprised I had gone back outside to do that little part.
I had just wanted to feel like I had FINISHED something instead of leaving it unfinished like I felt about all the other things on my list at the time.
And it felt good to do that, because it had successfully distracted me from all the other things in my life that I couldn’t control
But it didn’t fix the feeling of the lack of control.
For a few hours, I was a MANIAC outside, controlling every part of what I COULD. Because it helped me feel big. It helped me feel productive. It helped me feel like I had worth, like I was earning my keep.
If I’m honest, I’ve actually responded that way to a lot of different situations. When I feel out of control, or when I feel threatened in some way, I react by trying to grab tighter.
Maybe I raise my voice at the kids to get them to listen.
Maybe I obsess about some little project.
Maybe I try to get my way through coercion or manipulation.
We do those things when we are trying to regain control. Because something is making our authority feel threatened. Something is taking our comfort away. Something is frustrating us and we just want to CONTROL it.
And when we react in those ways, it reveals to us what we think is the most powerful thing in our life. We think our effort is how we regain control.
We think our intelligence or charisma or ability to talk to people and convince them is how we regain control. That’s the most powerful thing we have.
Or we think violence is the most powerful thing. If we raise our voice enough, if we threaten enough, THAT will bring the outcome we want. But that’s not the way of Jesus.
[SLIDE 17] v19
The elders of the Jewish people were threatened by Peter and John and the message of Jesus as savior, so they told them to stop teaching and speaking in the name of Jesus.
But Peter and John answered them, saying, “You, the leaders of God’s people, whose role it is to encourage us to follow God better… you want us to follow YOUR will instead of God’s will? …yeah, no.”
[SLIDE 18] v20
“We can’t stop. Because we aren’t just spreading some propaganda for our agenda. We’re talking about what we’ve seen and heard. And it’s Good. News. We can’t stop sharing it.”
Peter and John had found the thing that was truly most powerful in their life, and that was being an apprentice of Jesus, a follower of Jesus. Next to that, their safety, their control, their influence…all of it seemed less important next to the most important call on their life: to follow Jesus and point others to him.
Because that’s what it means to be a follower of Jesus. It means we point to him.
We don’t do it to look better. We don’t do it to gain recognition. We do it because HE IS THE ONLY ONE WHO IS WORTHY.
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Peter and John had discovered the truth that God’s call on your life is the most important thing you will ever pursue.
Everything else is second, because everything else will either fade, let you down eventually, or it will enslave you.
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The elders of the Jews put their faith in their own authority as the most important thing to pursue. But they only had authority because of the Roman leaders who let them operate.
In previous generations, Babylon had destroyed the temple and the authority of the priests. In fact, about 40 years after this story involving Peter and John, a new Roman emperor came to power and ended up destroying the temple again.
So the thing the priests put their trust in didn’t last.
Rome’s method for power and authority was taxation and money and fear of violence. But here we are and the Roman empire is just a part of history.
And it will all fade.
So we can either spend our lives pursuing other things for our comfort, our safety, our influence, or our power. And we will come to the end of life wanting. Searching. Grabbing to try and regain control.
Maybe you already feel that now. Maybe you feel “wanting” now.
Maybe that’s why you’re here today, hoping that church has something of worth.
And I’m sorry to tell you, the church building doesn’t have anything different to offer. These church services that we spend our time in, that we have opinions about, even these won’t last forever.
Even when we have opinions on whether the music is too loud, or whether the songs are the ones we like, or whether it’s too cold in here or too hot in here.
Whether we have opinions on whether our favorite seat is available, or if the kids are cute or just loud, or whether the pastor is doing a great job today…or not.
THIS…doesn’t have the power to save you. Only Jesus does.
And what Jesus saves you FROM is the type of life we’ve described already. The one that leaves us wanting. The life that feels empty at the end. Dark at the end. Bleak at the end.
Jesus saves us from that and he invites us INTO true life. A life spent following him and pointing to him.
So have you decided that God’s call on your life is the most important thing you will ever pursue? Or is there something else that becomes the center of your life?
When you are threatened or scared, how do you react? What is the thing that you naturally turn to in order to be saved? In order to regain safety and control?
I truly want to encourage you to spend a few moments considering that today. Because we can spend our whole life in church and still MISS the full, abundant, true life that Jesus offers.
Because he doesn’t just want your Sunday. He wants your Monday through Saturday as well because he wants you to experience what life was meant to be. And I don’t want you to miss that, because there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other thing in heaven or earth by which we must be saved.
So how is God speaking to your heart today? Who do you relate with in our story today? Do you find yourself clinging to what is familiar and trying to regain control through your own power?
Maybe God is inviting you to cling to him.
Do you find yourself wanting and searching for true fulfillment? Maybe God is inviting you to invest in deepening your relationship with him, getting involved in growing as his apprentice and pointing to him for others to see.
How is God speaking to you today? How can you take the next step in obeying him? Let’s pray.