Who is Really Working? | Pastor Johnnie Simpson Jr.

Acts 4:5-12

⁵ The next day the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. ⁶ Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family. ⁷ They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”

⁸ Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! ⁹ If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed,¹⁰ then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. ¹¹ Jesus is

“‘the stone you builders rejected,     which has become the cornerstone.’

¹² Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

 

When someone who is not working very hard is put next to someone who is working hard you can spot the difference easily. There are real workers in Acts chapter 4, the Book of Acts tells the early history of the church. Peter and John are in this part, two disciples with different personalities going around preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Peter, a brasher, and louder person, while John is calm, cool, and collected. There is a place for both types of people in the church. Peter and John are going around preaching about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the church is growing. The Church is growing by leaps and bounds, Jesus started with 12 disciples, by the time we get to chapter 1, there are 120, by chapter 2, we have 3,000 and by chapter 4, another 5,000 souls have been added to the Kingdom.

 

Peter and John regularly go to the temple to worship while they are growing the Kingdom of God, one day on the way to the temple there is a man at the temple gate called beautiful down on his luck. This man was lame from birth and is at the gate looking for some help, seeing if anyone can spare him some change. Peter says to the man silver and gold have I not, but such as I have is this, in the name of Jesus take up your bed and walk. Immediately this man is healed, and he went into the temple courts praising God for his deliverance. That is a great testimony, however, those actions did not get Peter and John celebrated, Peter and John were incarcerated.

 

Acts 4:4-12, Peter and John are arrested and put on trial before the Priestly family, Annas, his son-in-law Caiaphas, and others, a family that controlled the area. The Romans were in charge but they made sure that they had some insiders helping them keep the people in line. Peter, John, and the other disciples are out here growing the Church of Jesus and that is upsetting the powers that be. Annas and Caiaphas were some of the same people that persecuted Jesus and now they are coming after his followers.

 

Chapter 1-4 proves to us the disciples know what they are doing and that they are effective, however people will resist change especially when it seems like that change is going to make them lose power and control. Peter and John were raising a church of believers and it stood to take the Pharisees and Sadducees out of power, so the Sadducees had Peter and John arrested. This is not the Roman Government that arrested Peter and John, these are the Sadducees, these are the church folk. These are oppressed people because everyone is under the Roman Government, but these oppressed people are oppressing others.

 

First, the priestly council has a problem with the disciples preaching that there is resurrection in Jesus Christ. Then the council wants to know by what power or name did Peter and John heal this man. The council moved the goalposts, they said I may not be able to get you this way, but I will get you another way. In verse 2 they had a problem with the teaching, in verse 7 they had a problem with the actions, I would submit to you that they had a problem with the loss of control. Thousands of people were being filled with the Holy Spirit and the old guard had to take notice. The old guard thought they were going to stop this Jesus problem before it got any worse. The Sadducees believed if they did not fix the Jesus follower problem, they would soon have a Roman soldier problem to deal with. The Romans kept the Sadducees and others in power to stop any potential Jewish uprisings and people are following Jesus by the thousands after he has been crucified. The Priestly council probably thought if they could bring Peter and John to court, that would shut this thing down, oh but they were wrong.

 

Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit when he answers. If you want to make a difference in your life, if you want to make a difference in the world you are going to need the Holy Spirit's help. The Holy Spirit will make you speak when others are quiet, the Holy Spirit will make you quiet when everyone else is running their mouths. The Holy Spirit helped Peter in his situation and the Holy Spirit can also help you. Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and that helped him answer anything the Sadducees wanted to know.

 

Peter focuses on the good work being done (a man was healed), instead of worrying about who is in charge, who has the power, who is in control, worry about the work being done. Peter points out the stone which they rejected turning out to be the cornerstone. Peter was quoting Psalm 118 when he said that phrase, the High Priests rejected Jesus, now he is the most important person. Peter who also rejected Jesus is out here working hard for him now. If there is hope for Peter, then there is hope for me.

 

There is power in the name of Jesus

There is healing in the name of Jesus

There is salvation in the name of Jesus

 

Love Makes Us Family | Pastor Johnnie Simpson Jr

1 John 3:1-7

3 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

I remember growing up and visiting my grandparents during the summer. I would spend time with my grandmother in Freeport Illinois and my grandmother in Chicago Illinois. I would be in Freeport and go to the gas station, or the pizza place, or the park, and my grandmother, I called her Grandma Bruce. Grandma Bruce would say "that's your cousin" she introduced me to so many cousins that I grew up thinking I was related to everyone black in Freeport. I would go to Chicago and at my grandmother Grandma Hargrave as I would call her kept a picture on the wall of the stairs between the basement and the ground floor of the house, that picture had little squares on it with names, children, parents, grandparents, great grandparents going as far back as what had to be sharecroppers and slaves, I talk with my aunt all the time about this picture. Both Grandma Bruce and Grandma Hargrave instilled something in me, the importance of knowing who my family is. 

We all have ways to identify who is in the same family, some people have the same shaped nose or same eye color, natural athletic ability, accents, freckles, style of hair and/or hairlines, the list goes on and on, there are many ways to identify who all are in the same family. Even with ways to tell who is in the same family, sometimes people can be excluded from a family

There is an example in scripture about identifying family in 1st John. 1st John is attributed to John the Elder, written just like the Gospel according to John, it is written to a community or person scholars say that with this book we are reading someone's mail-in this book. This was written after the resurrection of Christ and the people of God were waiting for Christ to return but doing nothing while waiting. While they were sitting around doing nothing, they were also trying to determine who was in and who was out. They deciding who were children of God and who were not. Not only were the church folk trying to keep people already in the family out, but there were also people on the outside who couldn't get in. 

Those who are born of him are true “children of God.” We are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27). At the beginning of the gospel of John, we read that Jesus, the Word made flesh, is the perfect image of God, the one who has “made him known” to the world” (John 1:18). John 1:12-13 tells us that those who receive him have been given “power to become children of God, who were born not of blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).

All of this is at God’s initiative, out of God’s imagination, and through God’s love. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are” (1 John 3:1). But we aren’t merely God’s children now, John goes on to say. We are to imagine something more. “What we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure” (vv. 2-3). In other words, the children of God are to imagine that they can and will become like Jesus, the perfect image of God!

We can't just sit around waiting for Christ's return, we can work while we wait. Christ beat sin now it’s our turn to act like it. The community is being encouraged to dwell where they are but prepare for Christ's return. Preparing for Christ's return mean just sitting around doing nothing,

The Love of God makes us nothing less than the children of God. I am a child of God because God loves me, you are a child of God because God loves you, we are all children of God because God loves us. We are all God's children because God loves us. God's grace is his love bestowed on us without us having to earn it. 

Whose love do we want to claim? 

 I was sinking deep in sin,

Far from the peaceful shore,

Very deeply stained within,

Sinking to rise no more;

But the Master of the sea

Heard my despairing cry,

From the waters lifted me–

Now safe am I.