OK, well good morning again and I'm very glad to be here this morning. And as was already said, I, my name is Willie Simons. I am one of the lay pastors at the Stratfordville EMC. So we had a little bit of a drive this morning, but it was sunny and it was nice. I don't know how it's been over here this last week, but over in Stratfordville it's been grey and cold and rainy pretty much all week. So it's nice. It's refreshing to see some sun and so very good.
So yeah, I am, I'm very honored to to be here. I'm humbled. I always am humbled when I get asked to speak. Jake had asked me a few weeks ago if I could preach here today. And so I had nothing up at the home church. And so I was glad, glad to do that. I have preached here before, but in checking back in my records, I, I think the last time I preached here was way back in 2020. That's the that's when I could find it in. So it was about five years ago and a lot has changed in five years.
Of course, COVID went through that and, and so, and then when I come here, I see some familiar faces, a lot of new faces that I don't know. And so if I forgot your name, please forgive me. I'm, I have a hard enough time remembering the faces, the names in our home church. And so I really struggle with that. So I apologize if I if I forgot your name. I always appreciate it when we have guest speakers at our church when they come and they introduce themselves a little
bit just for for context sake. So I figured I would do that this morning. I have a little bit of a picture here if you can see it. There's a relatively recent picture from our daughter's wedding back in October. So I am married to my lovely wife Tina there. She came with today and we have 3 kids. And there they are on the screen there. If you don't know who I am, I'm the short 1 and then there's my son beside me and then the other son on the other end and then my
daughter. So it's been, it's been good. As you can see, my daughter's husband is quite tall. And when he came and approached me and asked me if he could date my daughter, I said I thought he was a little too tall. And so I was like, I was like, I just about said, no, you know, I, and so I, I'm just kidding, of course, but US short guys can be pretty insecure. Anyways, we're, we're glad to have them in the family. It's, it's really a blessing.
And so definitely we are, we are blessed beyond what we deserve. So we're very thankful for that. So I know, like I said, that a lot has changed since the last time that I've been here. And I know that you guys are, are going through a difficult time right now. And so I, I hope that I just just want to let you know that we've been praying for you and, and want to encourage you. And so to be, to be patient and to trust in the Lord. That is a good thing.
Well, we as a church in Straffordville, we've been preaching through the lectionary, which is basically, it's like a church preaching schedule and it's used by many churches around the world. And it's basically organized around the different biblical themes according to the calendar year. And so we've been preaching on passages that are selected in the lectionary schedule. So during Easter, which we are just recently coming out of, we rightfully focus on the resurrection.
And this is of course a good thing. But I do believe that we do not, that we often fail to think about the implications of the resurrection. I think I truly, truly believe that. Like, what does it actually mean that Jesus rose from the dead, that he died and rose again? And so that's what I want to focus on this morning. And I'm going to start with a question, very simple question. Do you believe in the
resurrection of Christ? I would suspect that most of you do. You're here in church, and that's good. So here's another question. Do you live like it? Do you live like it? And now you might be a little bit uncomfortable because you're probably thinking, well, you're thinking of your failures in some way. You're not quite living up to this wonderful truth. And I can relate to that. But some of you might be thinking, well, what?
What would it even look like to live like Jesus rose from the dead? And that's a very good question to ask because I do believe that we all sense that if it is true, if it really is true, then believing it should make a huge impact on our lives and the way that we live. You see, there are many things that if they weren't true, wouldn't make that much difference in our lives. Even some pivotal historical events, let's say like the the
moon landing. If it turns out that it wasn't true and some of you maybe believe that it wasn't true and that's fine. It's just an illustration, but you know, like it would probably affect your, your view of the media and the government, but it wouldn't be earth shattering for you. But the resurrection on the other hand, if it didn't happen, if the resurrection did not happen, then the apostle Paul says we as Christians should be the most pitied group of all people because we're living an
illusion. But if it did happen, then again, I think we would all agree that the consequences would be almost immeasurable if someone that claimed the claims that Jesus claimed, like being one with a father, for example, if he died and rose again, well, that has enormous implications. And so in our passage this morning that I'd like to look at, which is you can turn your Bibles to Acts chapter 5, verses 27 through 32. That's going to be our main
passage today. I'll have most of the passages that are referenced are going to be on the PowerPoint, not all of them. If you'd like, you can follow along your Bibles. So that's our main passage this
morning. And in this passage we can see a glimpse of the implications of the resurrection of Christ and the implications of the gospel, the death and resurrection of Christ. And so I say a glimpse because obviously the impact of the gospel is so vast, we can hardly scratch the surface of it here in in one message. But I would like to at least start scratching this morning.
So again, if you turn your Bibles to Acts chapter 5, verses 27 through 32, we'll be looking at three things that this passage describes as being transformed by the truth of the death and resurrection of Christ, the truth of the gospel. And so these are gospel transformations. And those 3 transformations that we see in this passage are firstly, fear to faith, secondly, old to new, and thirdly, Jerusalem to the world. So firstly, from fear to faith.
And we'll read the first part of the passage verses chapter 5. Acts chapter 5, verses 27 through 29 says this. The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, he said. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood. Peter and the other apostles replied. We must obey God rather than human beings.
So the first gospel transformation that we see here is from fear to faith, or I could say even specifically a a bold faith. A bold faith. So what's happening here? Well, the church is brand new after the ascension of Christ back to heaven and asking the apostles to wait in Jerusalem until the coming of the Holy Spirit. The apostles then start to proclaim the gospel in Jerusalem and it's accompanied by signs and wonders and a lot of people start to believe their message.
The message of the gospel spreads and what happens is, is the religious leaders get jealous. The religious leaders were jealous, but they were not jealous for the glory of God or for they weren't concerned for God's Kingdom. Probably what was the case is they were jealous because their power and influence was starting to be threatened by the apostles as people started to believe their message. And So what the religious leaders do is they have the apostles put in prison.
But during the night, this is in in the earlier part of the chapter, chapter 5, during the night, an Angel of the Lord frees them from the prison and orders them to go proclaim the gospel in the temple. And they did that. And after realizing that the apostles had been freed from the prison, they discovered that they were teaching in the temple. So they went to get them.
The authorities went to get them, and they brought them to the Sanhedrin. Now, the Sanhedrin is basically like the Jewish High Court. And so there they are reminded in no uncertain terms to not teach in this name is what it says. They couldn't even get themselves in this case to say the name of Jesus, just this name. And so the authorities reminded them what they had previously told the apostles don't preach Jesus. We see this just one chapter back in chapter 4, verses 18 and 20.
I'll read it. It says this. Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, which is right in God's eyes to listen to you or to him. You be the judges. As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. And so the apostles answer here is virtually the same as it was there in in chapter 5. We must obey God rather than human beings.
Now we have to say here that the Bible actually commands God's people to obey the authorities, to obey the authority structures that are are put in place into their lives. So children are to obey their parents, citizens to their governments are commanded in the Bible to honor, respect and obey those in authority over them. This is a good thing. Scripture calls us to that. And so the apostles are not purposely trying to rebel against the authorities here.
That's very important to highlight. The issue at hand is a description of a scenario where what the authority wants and what God wants are in conflict. They don't match up. And in those cases, we are called as believers to honor God above whatever authority figure is asking us to compromise our obedience to him. And so here you can really see the boldness of the apostles,
right? So this is the Jewish High Court. The apostles lives were at risk and yet they boldly proclaim we're going to listen to God. He told us to preach Jesus and that's what we're going to do. And besides that, we can't even help it. We can't help but proclaim what we've seen. And so the apostles were more concerned with what God thought than what man thought. This is no small thing. How many things do we do or not do because we are afraid of what
other people think? It's humbling to admit, probably a lot more than we'd like to admit. Has it ever LED you to compromising your faith, your fear of man? We need to consider here the transformation of the apostles. The transformation of the apostles. The boldness that they display here isn't the picture you get when you read of their behaviour
just a short while previous. In the Gospels we see the the apostles often wavering in their faith, being rebuked by Christ for their doubting, and so you have many examples. Peter, of course, because of his fear of man, denied Christ three
times. And after Jesus rose from the dead, although the disciples didn't know it yet, we read in John 2019, it says on the evening of the first day of the week when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said peace be with you. So here they feared the Jewish leaders. And so the contrast that you see
here is unmistakable, isn't it? Fear was prominent in the disciples, but now we see them willing to die for Christ and not just saying it like Peter did, but wasn't actually going through with it. They were living examples of having the attitude that the Apostle Paul speaks of in Philippians chapter 3, or to I forget, in Philippians. Anyways, to live as Christ and to die is gain. And so we must ask ourselves the question, what happened?
How did this transformation of the apostles come about? Well, the answer to this is surely twofold. Firstly, it's the reality of the resurrection and then secondly the power of the Holy Spirit. The reality of the resurrection is obvious here, right? Because they, they have, they had come to realize that they hadn't followed this Jewish rabbi in vain. They weren't duped by him.
All that he said would happen, happened, and all that the the thing that they struggled with comprehending the most, that Christ would die and rise again, has happened. And they were eyewitnesses to it all. Having seen the risen Christ in person, it must have felt like for the apostles that it was really too good to be true, but it really wasn't it. It was true. So firstly the reality of the resurrection changes everything for the apostles and secondly the power of the Holy Spirit.
Before Jesus ascension he had promised the apostles the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts chapter one, verse 8 says, But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And as soon as the Holy Spirit comes upon the apostles, they start boldly proclaiming the gospel of Jesus. So it's worth noting here that the boldness came only after the
Spirit came. This teaches us that it is not facts alone that transform us. Facts are crucial. The truth is crucial. The historical fact of the resurrection of Christ is the bedrock of Christianity. If Christ has not risen, then it's all bunk. But as important as these facts are, we need the presence of the Holy Spirit to imprint these truths in our hearts and to reveal to us what the implications of the resurrection
are. And the amazing thing is, is that the Holy Spirit is given to all who believe the gospel. The apostles say as much a few verses later in verse 32 says we are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him. And so the obedience here, that the obedience here is referring to receiving the message that the apostles were on trial for the Holy Spirit is not only for the apostles but for all who
believe their message. Ephesians chapter one verse 13 says this says, and you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when you believed, you were marked in him with the seal, the promised Holy Spirit. So if you're a believer here today, you have the Holy Spirit. So the gospel transforms the apostles from fear to faith and can transform us as well.
We can, by embracing the reality of the resurrection and the power of the Holy Spirit, walk away from fear and into a bold faith. But we need to be cautious here. We really do, because some people might be unnecessarily discouraged. Perhaps you think of your own life and you feel that this bold faith doesn't describe you. I often struggle with this exact thought. We need to remember a couple things. First of all, we have all we need.
We too have been given the Spirit of God to dwell within us. And a bold faith is not limited to some kind of special super believers #2 there are no special super believers. Even the Apostle Peter, for example, wasn't always so bold and courageous even after this display here. There was an event sometime after this where we can see an example of this. The apostle Paul actually ends up rebuking Peter publicly. He describes it in Galatians 2 verse 12 which I will read.
It says for before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belong to the circumcision group. This is an amazing thing. So the church is growing and the apostle Peter is, we can use to say an example. He's maybe eating with everyone,
Jews and Gentile believers. But then there's this group that comes around, this circumcision group, these religious leaders, and Peter's afraid he doesn't want to be on the wrong side of these guys. So he withdraws. He pulls away, avoids the Gentile believers. It's amazing. Why did he do that? Look at what it says for fear of the Jewish leaders. He says he was in in fear of the circumcision group.
Isn't that fascinating? This bold Peter that we find here is now scared again of the religious leaders. I actually find this encouraging because no Christian is perfect. No Christian is always living in accordance with the power that they've been given by the Spirit. The transformation is real. The transformation we see in the apostles is a real transformation, and it is real for us as well. What the apostles, you, what it used to be a feature for the apostles.
Fear and doubt later becomes only a bug, but failures are still present on occasion. I think I really just want to stress this point because we need to hold these true truths in tension that the gospel transforms, but we are not yet living in the reality of the fullness that will take place in the new creation when we get new bodies and are perfected. Until then, we are not yet perfected. And so we sometimes struggle, we sometimes sin, we fail.
Actually, just by way of example, last night, so during the night, I hadn't thought this through very well. So this might come out really weird, but so we live out, we live out in the country and they're across from us. There's a Bush, there's, there's woods there. And it's not our property, but there was a Bush party. So some young people had decided they would have a Bush party. And so there were vehicles going down the road back and forth.
It's very annoying because they were supposed to go on the field and the party was way back in the woods somewhere. And so we heard the vehicles going back and forth. And often they would end up turning around on our driveway because they couldn't find out where the driveway actually was. And on top of that, there was this other vehicle that just parked right by our driveway. And we live on a back Rd. So like this guy was like half on the road and I was like, this
is just not safe. And now there's other other vehicles coming. They were going to the party but didn't know where it was. And so I walk out there, this is like this is like 11 last night. And I walk out there and I'm like, I go up to one of the truck and I'm like I said, hey, this vehicle over here. Do you know whose it is? Because he's. You should move it because somebody's going to hit it. It's not safe here.
No, I don't know. We're just trying to go to this party, but we don't know where it is. Well, the driveway's right over there. And then, then I walk over and here's a, a Tesla cyber truck. So I go up to the truck and there's, there's a, a dad there. He's probably 50 years old. He's like, he goes to me. He's like, oh, are you in charge of this party? And I'm like, no, I just live right here. I'm just trying to get these people away from the road here.
He's like, oh, OK, so he's got his son there. He was dropping his son off at this party, the Bush party, which just blew my mind. I'm like, what? Father dropped off his son at a Bush party at 11 at night? I'm like, so if that's what I'm thinking, right. And then he's like, he's like, yeah, is it? Is this a good idea? And I'm like, well, you need to make good decisions. And and that's all I said. I'm like, come on. I could have said, hey, you should repent and come to Christ.
I mean, this is terrible. That probably wouldn't have been good either, but I could have done better than that. And so after I left, I'm like, whatever, he dropped his kid off and I was so disappointed in myself. But anyways, I wasn't living a bold faith there. And often times there's the cases, right? We have opportunities to share of Christ and we miss it and we fail, maybe because we're afraid. And so we need to hold those two truths in tension.
The gospel transforms us, but we're not yet perfected. So the gospel transformation that we see there firstly is from fear to faith and to bold faith. That brings us to the second gospel transformation, which is from old to new. So let's continue reading in the passage verses 30 and 31. So the God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead whom you killed by hanging him on a
cross. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. So here in this part of the apostles response we we see a short really A2 sentence summary of the gospel. You see a reference to sin. He says you killed Christ and we see a reference to Christ's death in his resurrection. It says he raised Jesus, God exalted him, and we see a
reference to our response. It says repentance, and we see the result of the gospel, which is forgiveness. But what I want to highlight here is something that can easily be overlooked is that phrase the God of our ancestors. A number of times I've heard people ask over the years how ask questions about how God seems different in the New Testament than he does in the old. He used to do this or be that way, and now He's not.
I believe this is a misunderstanding of how the Bible portrays God in both the Old and New Testaments. The God of the Old Covenant is the same as the God of the New. He never changes. Some people, some more progressive church leaders and theologians, want to detach the gospel from the Old Testament because often times they're embarrassed by it. But we need to remember that God never changes, although he never changes.
The gospel that the apostles were preaching certainly was something new that God was doing in redemptive history. So there is a newness, there is a transition from the old to the new, but it was not new in the sense that it was a surprise or not planned. The gospel transformation is from the old covenant to the new, but not something that is
completely other than the old. The apostles believed the apostles message ushered in the movement from the old covenant to the new covenant, but it was not new in the sense of something detached from the old. This is very important because the apostles did not see their message as something detached from the story of Israel in the Old Testament. They viewed, excuse me, they viewed their message as one that brings the story of of Israel and the Old covenant to
fulfillment. And again, although the gospel ushers in a new covenant, it does not present to us a different God. Maybe it's a little bit like when a Caterpillar turns into a butterfly. The Caterpillar was never designed to remain a Caterpillar, but a butterfly. In a similar way, the old covenant was never instituted to remain forever. It was always moving to what it was pointing towards the whole time, Jesus and the ushering in of the new.
When the council heard the apostles connect their message of Christ to the God of their ancestors, what was their reaction? Verse 33 says they were furious and wanted to put them to death. So there we are again with the religious leaders. Anger, jealousy. Pastor and author Casey Clark says this. He says the council's reaction was fury.
Our reaction should be to recognize the the good news seen in Jesus and to recognize this good news was not a Plan B God did not abruptly change directions starting with the New Testament. God's coming to us in Jesus has always been the plan, and we can even see it in Genesis. So the Gospel transforms the old to the new by shining a light on what was there all along. The God of ancient Israel is the God that raised Jesus from the dead.
And so the gospel transformation that we see there is from the old to the new. Thirdly, another gospel transformation we see in this passage is from Jerusalem to the world, verse 28. We'll read that again. The beginning part of it. It says We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, He said. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. So here again you can see the religious leaders indicate how the apostles message of Christ had already filled Jerusalem.
Only a short while, probably about a few months after the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church. Many people believe their message. In fact, in Acts chapter 2, we find that after Peter's sermon at Pentecost about 3000, received his message and were baptized, the gospel was being preached, people believed and the church was growing exponentially. And then at the end of chapter 2 in Acts we we see that the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
And this cycle continues throughout the book of Acts. And then in chapter 17 of Acts verse chapter 17, verses 6 and seven, which is about 19 years after the events here in chapter 5, the gospel has reached the Greek city of Thessalonica. And once again the gospel is preached. Once again people believe and once again the Jewish leaders are jealous and they go after the apostles and the town
leaders as well. Acts 17, verses 6 and seven says when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities shouting.
These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus. So we're at a place now where the spread of the gospel has so transformed everywhere it went that it is described here, by its enemies no less, as having turned the world upside down. The gospel transforms people and then transforms society through those people wherever it goes.
I really do believe this is another thing we tend to take for granted. There are values that are held by most in society today as being a given, but in reality are anything but. Author Glenn excuse me, Glenn Scrivener has written a wonderful book on the on the topic called The Air We Breathe. It covers this topic quite well. We went through it in adult Sunday school a couple of years
ago at our church. In the book he shares of how many of the values that we hold dear today were not the values that were held in the world where Christianity began. As one example, consider the common Roman practice of the exposure of infants. So this was an ancient form of abortion. Really. If children were not healthy, or in many cases even if they were just a girl, then the parents would basically throw them out and leave them to die. Well, the Christians took note
of this and they responded. And author Glenn Scrivener writes in his book He Says This about the Christian's reaction to this. He says a similar story can be told about the ending about ending the exposure of infants. Once again, the early Christians made no their implacable opposition to the practice, and at the same time they demonstrated sacrificial love in addressing it.
Right from the beginning, the early church took up collections for the poor and sick, not just for their own but those of the surrounding culture. It was this combination of word and deed which later saw legislation catching up. But culturally, what made the enduring difference was not the changes in law, but the changes in hearts. A new kind of heroism had gripped the world.
It was evident in monks like Telemachus or nuns like Makrina, whose life of radical generosity included touring the rubbish dumps to rescue exposed infants and adopt them into her community. He goes on to say in the book that the best societies protect their weakest members rather than eliminate them. And I think that's obvious to us. This attitude towards the weak and vulnerable has its roots in Christian theology that says all people are made in the image of God and have value.
People are more than what they can bring to the table. And that's just one example among many of how the Gospel transforms societies. The author of the book makes the bold claim that values like equality, compassion, science, freedom and progress all have their roots in the spread of Christianity to the nations. He says of everyone at least living in the West that they are like a goldfish swimming in the water of Christianity, whether you know it or not.
Now, sadly, many people in our day are trying to detach these values from the teachings of Christianity, and therefore they are at great risk of being forsaken. And that's another reason why we as believers should keep being faithful to spread the gospel and the love that springs from it. This is the power of the gospel to truly transform lives individually and then through that societies around them. To preach this gospel to the whole world is the calling of the church.
And so the resurrection really changes everything. The resurrection really changes everything. If we believe it, we will be truly transformed. We should never underestimate the power of the gospel to change lives. I read recently of the testimony of a woman who described how the gospel transformed her relationship with her dad. The relationship was one of tension and pride, resulting in anger and avoidance.
After becoming a Christian in her late teens and beginning to read the Bible, she said God's words began to chip away at my guarded and calloused heart. During one particular season of conflict and tension between the two, she felt a burden to apologize to her dad, and by this one act, just this one apology, the relationship was transformed. She apologized, and to her amazement, her dad apologized
back. She was 20 years old at the time and her dad was 50. And that was the first time ever in his life that he said, I'm sorry, She said. I'll never forget the day Dad and I decided to put her claws to rest, to stop walking over each other with pride and anger and instead walk side by side with love and empathy. You know what that is? That's the power of the gospel to transform. The gospel, having having taken hold of this young lady, ended up transforming the whole
family. And this gospel is available to us all. Do you believe that? Do you believe the gospel has the power to transform you, to transform your family, your church, your community? It does. Jesus really did die and he really did rise again. And the Bible says he did it for us, He did it for you. So if you're here today and you have not received this gospel, this good news, then I would ask
what's stopping you? Why not turn to Jesus today, place your trust in Him, and be transformed by the power of the gospel? For those of us that have received this gospel, my encouragement is to let us walk in step with the Holy Spirit that dwells within us. Let's cast off our fear and live in the faith and the power that he gives. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, once again, we come before you and just want to
thank you. Father, we thank you for your word, which is a treasure, which transforms our hard hearts. And so, Lord, so many areas in our lives that don't align with the power and the freedom that you have given us. And so Lord, we, we just confess that before you and we trust that in Christ we are completely forgiven. We thank you so much for that. And our prayer is that you would
go with us from here. I pray that you would bless this church to your honor and glory, and that your Kingdom would come and your will would be done. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.