Speaking the Word Boldly - Acts 4:1-31

                        

Peter and John have just healed a lame beggar and are sharing the good news of Jesus with the people who recognize the healed beggar! Peter’s preaching in Solomon’s Colonnade when the priests, Sadducees, and temple guard come up to Peter and John and are disturbed by what they’re saying about Jesus. Peter’s telling the people that the beggar was healed by the name of Jesus and the faith that comes through Jesus. Peter also tells them that they’re responsible for killing Jesus and calls on them to repent and turn to God for forgiveness. Peter and John are thrown into prison for the night, but many who heard them believe in Jesus. The good news continues to spread and the number of those who accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour keeps growing!

What are some of the things you’re excited to talk about with friends, co-workers, fellow students, and neighbours about? Many of us have favourite sports teams, politics, and important current issues that capture our attention or hearts are some of the things that people get excited about. We talk about the things that are important to us, things that show others who we are, and what we care about, yet often, these are not important things, they’re distractions Satan uses to keep us from talking about life changing eternal things, like our salvation and Jesus. So many people are distracting themselves to death, look at how many people doom scroll, never going deeper in any relationships with others or God; there’s an emptiness in our distractions.

The greatest thing that’s ever happened in the history of the world is the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This is the foundation of the gospel message. When it comes to sharing our faith and talking about who Jesus is, and how important he is to us, many believers find themselves tongue-tied. Some of this comes from accepting culture’s insistence that public life and faith should be separate, others believe talking about faith or politics is impolite. It’s easy to find excuses to be quiet about our faith. Speaking the Word boldly begins with understanding and experiencing the power and presence of Jesus in our own hearts and lives, how Jesus is the reason for the transformation happening in our lives, our relationships, our priorities, and how we understand the world and our place in it. It begins with spending time together in reading the Scriptures to come to know Jesus more personally; so, we can teach the Scriptures to others so they can know Jesus.

The next morning, the religious leadership have Peter and John brought to them, asking them by what power or name did they heal the man. Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit boldly tells them that it’s by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and that there’s no salvation found in anyone else. This is a powerful testimony before these powerful leaders. Peter boldly declares to them that they’ve missed the boat; that with all their knowledge, they’ve missed that Jesus is “the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.” Jesus is the promised Messiah, the one from God who has come to save the people, but they can’t see it, but need to be shown this.

The leaders are afraid because they see how faith in Jesus is spreading, but can't stop it. They see the lame man walking and can’t deny the power Peter and John have; power that comes from believing in Jesus, so they command them to not to speak of Jesus any more. Before they’re let go, Peter and John tell them, “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.” Peter and John have to decide whether to listen to them or to Jesus’ command in Matthew 28, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Peter and John know Jesus, they’ve sat at his feet for three years learning about the kingdom of heaven. They didn’t always understand, even ended up denying Jesus, yet they also learned the power of grace and forgiveness, the beauty of Jesus’ way, how he’s the truth, and how we find our life in him. It’s a no-brainer for them to choose Jesus over the religious leaders. Our culture tells us to not share our faith, that it's private, but we’re called to listen to Jesus first to make disciples and teach them to obey out of a spirit of gratitude for our salvation; we have to choose who we will listen to.

Peter and John share what happened with their own people who follow Jesus as Lord and Saviour, and they praise God, acknowledging his sovereignty, asking for the Spirit to give them the ability to speak God's Word with great boldness. Sharing our faith with boldness begins with having a passion for Jesus, for recognizing and experiencing the power of Jesus and his forgiveness and grace in your life, knowing in your hearts and lives that he died for you personally, and for every other person; all we need to do to receive this forgiveness and grace is to accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.

Sharing our faith needs to be rooted in prayer, seeking the Holy Spirit's power and guidance, trusting that the Spirit will give us the words and the boldness to tell others who Jesus is, and what he’s done for us in his life and on the cross. We share what we believe is important and precious to us, what we’re passionate about, and there’s nothing more important than our salvation. Our salvation is an eternal thing; it impacts who we are and our future all the way into eternity. Our tendency is to think about the right now, where can I experience joy and fulfillment, where can I experience pleasure or fulfillment right now. Satan loves to distract us with our wants, keeping us away from thinking about our need for salvation, for an eternal relationship with Jesus.

Sharing the good news doesn't take an education or degree. The good news is for everyone and is best received from ordinary people living ordinary lives with the presence of God shaping them. This is why the apostles’ words resonate so deeply with the people, it comes through ordinary people who know Jesus. Asking the Holy Spirit for opportunities to share Jesus with those on our Praying for Five cards is a good place to begin. When an opportunity to talk with one of your five comes up, one of the best ways to figure out how to share the gospel with them is to ask them to tell you their own story. When they share their life stories, we have the opportunity to listen to their heart issues; this means we need to spend more time listening than telling in order to be able “to share the gospel of Jesus in a way that meaningfully speaks to the heart of others,” as Francis Shaeffer teaches. Listen to their stories with the gospel story of Jesus in your mind. As you listen to their stories, ask yourself, what are they looking for, what answers does the gospel provide, how does the gospel meet them where they’re at in life, who is the hero of their story, and how is Jesus a better answer than what they’re going after, or trusting in right now. This means we need to know our culture in order to speak Jesus into the lives of people.

As you learn the other person’s story, you’ll hear opportunities to share how Jesus is the reason for the on-going transformation in your life, your relationships, your priorities, and how you understand the world and your place in it and how he can bring hope and meaning to them. When we talk about Jesus, we share what we've seen and heard; how have you seen God working in your life, how have you heard God speak to you? Use resources like 10 Ways to Talk with Someone About Their Faith; we have various resources to help you talk about Jesus.

As you build these relationships, Francis Shaeffer teaches that the skill we need for evangelism and discipleship is to “have enough compassion to learn the questions of our generation.” Three of the big questions are “Who am I, Where do I belong, and What difference can I make?” Before we can answer the questions of our generation, we need to listen well to Scripture and the Holy Spirit in order to identify the gospel answers to the questions people are really asking, how their answers can be found in Jesus. Peter and John, Paul and the other apostles and early preachers and evangelists in the early church knew Scripture and Jesus, and were able to share God’s history with his people and how all his promises are fulfilled in Jesus; how Jesus speaks into our lives.

To speak the Word boldly: know Jesus as your saviour personally and deeply, be deep in Scripture with others, talk regularly with God in prayer for others, for your 5 to come to accept Jesus, listen to the stories of others so you can speak Jesus into their lives, and keep asking the Holy Spirit to help you to speak the Word with boldness. May the Lord guide you as you go to make disciples for Jesus.

 

 

The Gospel - Acts 8:26-40

                         

The gospel news of Jesus is beginning to move out from Jerusalem into the surrounding areas due to persecution against the church in Jerusalem. This began after the stoning to death of Stephen after his witness to the people that Jesus is the promised Messiah. Philip ends up in Samaria where the people respond to his message of Jesus with great joy! While in Samaria, Simon the sorcerer believes Philip’s message and is baptized. Peter and John are sent to see what’s happening and Simon’s true heart is revealed. What Simon really desires is power and influence, Peter calls Simon out, telling him to repent and pray for forgiveness and transformation. This is a reminder for us to reflect on our own relationship with Jesus. Do we follow him simply for advantages and blessing, believing if we give enough to God, he’ll pour out his blessings on us? Simon’s story ends with his plea after Peter chastises him, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”

Now Philip’s sent by an angel to the area of Gaza, a major trade route, and area very much in our news today. Here he meets an official from the queen’s court in Ethiopia, a gentile believer in Israel’s God; the gospel message of Jesus continues to spread. The eunuch had come to worship at the temple, likely for the Passover, meaning he was in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus’ arrest, crucifixion, resurrection, and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. Now he’s on his way home and reading from Isaiah. The Spirit tells Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” We see here how God arranges our encounters with others to give us opportunities to share the good news of Jesus and make disciples. When opportunities to talk about faith come up, it’s not an accident, the Holy Spirit places you in that place, at that moment, to help the other person to hear the gospel news of Jesus.

Philip obeys the Spirit and hears the eunuch reading from Isaiah. It’s normal for people to read out loud in this culture as it helps people to remember and reinforce what they’re studying, to think about it more deeply as they see, speak, and hear what they’re reading. Philip doesn’t stand there passively listening, he asks a great question, “Do you understand what you are reading?” The eunuch replies, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?” He shows a desire to learn, a humbleness in admitting that he has much to learn in order to understand. This desire to earn and study Scripture, asking others to help us learn doesn’t seem to be as present today. The average follower of Jesus today is less biblically literate than even 50 years ago. Part of it may be laziness as we can easily ask Google, some of it may be a lack of appreciation for how the regular study of Scripture keeps us connected with God and Jesus, and how the Holy Spirit uses it to transform us.

This is the heart of the Reformation, a return to the study of the Bible, to trusting in Christ alone, saved by faith alone, grace alone, all to the glory of God, being rooted deeply in Scripture, out of a deep desire to know God and his grace and glory through Jesus. The early church regularly spent time together studying the Scriptures, learning how they all pointed to, and revealed who Jesus is. Luke describes the early church community in Acts 2, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Our faith is a faith built in community, the body of Christ, the family of God, as we study and learn together.  

We live in a culture and time that often believes we’re wiser than the historical faith community, believing we don’t need the historical church’s wisdom to understand and interpret Scripture. The basic message of the Bible is clear, we’re sinners and we need a saviour who is Jesus Christ, yet there’s so much more depth, wisdom, and life guidance in Scripture. This story of the eunuch calls us to appreciate what more we need to learn, and to discipline ourselves to meet together regularly for the regular study of who God reveals himself to be in his Word, how Jesus is pointed to on every page of Scripture, and how we’re to live as Jesus’ followers, shaping our lives on loving God and neighbour, and making disciples. Scripture reminds us that we live in both a physical and spiritual world, and need to care for our soul life as well as our physical life. Just like we go to the doctor for our physical health, we need to be with the Spirit and in Scripture regularly for our spiritual health.

The eunuch was reading, “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.” Philip begins with this passage and shares with the eunuch the good news of Jesus. Philip may have begun with sharing how John the Baptist and Jesus himself often referred to him as the Lamb of God, how the sacrificial system of Leviticus points to the destructiveness and evil of our sin and the need for God’s forgiveness found in the acceptance of the sacrifices offered for the sins of the people, with the death of the lambs and goats representing our own deaths for punishment for our sin.

The gospel begins with the story of creation, how everything was created very good, but sin enters into the world through temptation, an alien in the very good creation, even after being told the punishment for sin is death. In order to truly understand the need for a saviour, we need to know the seriousness of our sin, that disobedience is rebellion against God and a disease infecting our souls. Being a royal official, the eunuch would have understood the seriousness of rebellion. However, God never gives up on us, promising a saviour who will crush the head of the serpent whose insidious words tempted Adam and Eve into rebellion, choosing to work his plan of redemption through Abraham and Israel in order to lead the nations back to God. Then, like Jesus shows the disciples on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection, the Spirit shows how all the Scriptures point to Jesus as the promised Messiah.

Dallas Willard wrote about working for money, “But the focus Jesus wanted us to have is the investment we make in people and their character: “As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” 1 Peter 4:10. This applies also to the study of Scripture, we learn so we can help others meet Jesus through the gospel news. In 2 Peter 3:18, Peter writes, “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” We seek to grow in order to make disciples. It begins with filling our lives with Jesus. Our world looks to distract us from what’s important to the things that don’t really matter. Plan your faith life, put it on your calendar whether it’s on your phone, wall, or desktop.

The eunuch believes and accepts Jesus as his Lord and Saviour and Philip baptizes him. The Spirit then takes Philip away while the eunuch heads home to Ethiopia, where tradition says he preached the gospel to the people there. Philip knew the Scriptures and knew Jesus and helps the eunuch to know Jesus too. If we’re going to be disciple makers, a knowledge and passion for Jesus in your life is important so you can teach and lead others to become disciples of Jesus.

The Gospel news can be summarized as: God created everything and it was good, and very good! However, we are all sinners and we don’t measure up to God’s standards. God is just, he can’t simply tolerate our sin, which twists the good gifts good gives us, and pretend it’s not there; as a just God he must punish sin, which is death.

There’s nothing we can do to save ourselves, no matter how good we might be, we still sin. But the good news comes because God’s also love and provides a substitute to take our punishment for us. There’s no creature able to do it, so God sends his own son, Jesus, as the perfect substitute to take our place; completely God and completely sinless human.

Our sin is placed on Jesus who takes it to the cross and to the grave and after 3 days rises from the dead, having completely overcome sin and death. Jesus offers forgiveness and eternal life, a gracious gift, to all those who will believe in him. Jesus then gives us the Holy Spirit to guide us and help us share the gospel news of Jesus. We’re saved to do good works, showing our thankfulness to Jesus, assuring us of our faith so others can be won over to Jesus.

May the Spirit speak deeply into your heart, may your passion for Jesus and the study of Scripture continue to grow so that your witness to others may lead them to come to know and accept Jesus as their Lord.