Obey God, Suffer Well

Opposition intensifies as the apostles are arrested and threatened—but God’s mission moves forward. In this passage, we see a Church that refuses to obey man rather than God. Empowered by the Spirit, the apostles rejoice even in suffering, confident that Christ is worth any cost. This text calls us to bold obedience rooted in joy, not fear.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right. Acts 5. We're diving in. I'm ready. I'm reset. I'm recalibrated here. First off, look, the 845 gathering showed up. I have never wanted to run a lap so much at the first gathering. They're usually sleepy and tired, but uh, but they let loose. And so I'm excited. If you don't meet my excitement, we're gonna have problems afterward, okay? All right. Hey, there we go. Hey, here we go. Acts 5. Most of us have a price point. And here's what I mean by that. We have a threshold where following Jesus publicly begins to feel too expensive, too damaging to our reputation, our relationships, the comfortable life we've worked so hard to build. And when we hit that threshold, we tend to do one of two things. We either soften what we say to make it more acceptable to those around us, or we quietly stop saying anything altogether. Now we do this because the risk of loss feels too great. But here in Acts 5, the apostles show us that the risk of loss and the cost of following Christ is worth everything. You see, the apostles, they had already been rested, Peter and John, they were threatened and commanded to stop preaching the very name of Jesus. And now here they are back in custody. But it's not just Peter and John, it's every single apostle this time. And here they are facing the very same counsel that condemned Jesus to death. Now, how do they respond to suffering for both the message and the mission of Christ? They don't soften the message, they don't try to make it more palatable by offering it on a silver platter of the satisfaction of men. But neither do they retreat into quiet, safe living. They obey God, they preach Christ, they take the beating, and they walk out rejoicing. Now we have to ask ourselves, what would produce this kind of response? What would cultivate this faithfulness in a man's chest? That's what this passage shows us this morning. Let's set the scene together. The high priests and the Sadducees, they are filled with jealousy, it says. And they're filled in this way because they realize that the gospel is advancing and crowds are responding and they can't control it anymore. What happens when we're gripped by fear? We reach for control. And here they are, grasping at what they don't realize yet is simply straws in the middle of an ocean. They arrest all the apostles. The opposition to Jesus and his people, it's escalating here, right now, in this moment. But verse 19 shows us that after their public arrest, this angel comes and releases them during the middle of the night with a command that actually is kind of peculiar and demands our attention. The angel says to them, verse 19, go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life. Now, this is important because they're talking about what the Pharisees and Sadducees believe is a dead man. This capital L life, this resurrection life of Jesus, this would be very important to this group called the Sadducees. They were a very distinct sect of the religious leaders of that time who did not believe in the physical resurrection of the body. That's why they were sad, you see. Right? Corny but helpful. And so for them to proclaim Christ not just crucified but resurrected is an offense. But notice what God doesn't do through his messenger angel. He doesn't deliver them from the mission, he delivers them for it. He frees them for the mission in front of them. He doesn't open the prison doors so that they can just simply lay down low and regroup for some time. He sends them straight back to the place and to the task that got them arrested in the first place. And they obey. Actually, they obey immediately. Because it says that right at the break of dawn, they're back in the temple teaching about that very life. Now, meanwhile, the council, they're unaware of the events that had taken place that night, and they send some to get the apostles out of prison. But as they assemble and send for them, they find that the prison is empty. And it's a very confusing scene. The guards are standing at their posts, the doors are locked, but there's no apostles anywhere. And then this word arrives to them. Oh, they're teaching in the temple again. Gluttons of punishment, or simply faithful to a Lord who has saved them. Now, the officers, they go and they actually bring back the apostles carefully. The text tells us that they were actually afraid of what might happen to them. It says that they brought them back before the council without violence, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people. You see, even the authorities are sensing that they're dealing with something that they simply cannot control. And the high priest's response, man, it reveals the fear that's growing with inside of them. Yes, sir. Here's what they say. We strictly charged you not to teach in this name. Yet here you are, have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. Now, this is not an over-exaggeration. This is not hyperbole. This filling of Jerusalem with the glorious gospel of Jesus is what faithful, uncompromising obedience produces. A culture that's transformed by the light that is dispelled upon them. Peter's response is the center of this entire passage in Acts 5. He looks them dead in the eye without wavering and says, We must obey God rather than men. And then what does he do? Look what he does. He preaches the gospel again to the same council in the same room. Jesus, whom you killed, God raised and exalted, he alone offers repentance and forgiveness, and we are witnesses, and so is the Holy Spirit. Peter's not softening anything. He's looking at the risk of ultimate loss, the very loss of his life, dead in the eye, and he preaches with boldness and clarity. Now I think it's important for us to pause and just address something quickly here. I think it's fair to say that the Christian life is marked by submission. And here's the reality. Submission is not a humiliating word, it's a holy word. We think of submission as a humiliating word, but it's a holy word. We're all called to submit to God. Children are called to submit to their parents, wives submit to their husbands, members submitting to one another, Christians submitting to the local authority. We are called to submit. And the reason we know that it's a holy word because Christ Himself submitted fully to the will of his Father. The humiliation of Christ was not in his submission to the Father. The humiliation of Christ is in his crucifixion for our sin. Submission is a holy word, it's not a humiliating word. And so we are called to submission, and there's this essential part to our living within a culture as aliens and exiles that we are called to submit to the power and rulers of the land of which we reside in. That is, until their authority and God's authority collide. So I want to say this clearly. If what earthly rulers call us to submit to is in opposition to what God has called us to, then we submit to God and we defy earthly powers. Because at the end of the day, we must obey God rather than men. Now, after Peter's bold preaching, the council just wants to kill him. They are enraged. But there's this Pharisee there among them who tries to speak some counsel and wisdom. Gamaliel, this respected Pharisee. Actually, the apostle Paul was a student of his. Counted worthy to suffer. It's a very peculiar phrase for us. When we think about our effort in life, we are probably very consumed with the thought or the notion, have I been counted worthy to experience God's blessing? Have I done enough good and been counted worthy to experience his favor? Have I been good enough and strived hard enough to be counted worthy to be lavished upon me his goodness? But rarely do we look at our life and examine it in such a way as if we're counted worthy to suffer for his name. What an honor, what a privilege. What a grace to us that our life would be found by our King as one which is worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus. And if we're going to understand the weight of this worthiness, the weight of their rejoicing, we have to look at the severity of their beating. The apostles they received the infamous 40 minus one lashes given to them by this small leather-braided three-chord whip that had bits of bone or metal weaved into the end of it. And here's why they called it 40 minus one. They believed that the 40th lash would kill the victim. And so they took one off. Ultimately, what they wanted to create was the most intense, ultimate suffering that they could provide without giving the release of death. Rejoicing. For the sake of being considered worthy to suffer for Jesus. You see, it was from this blood-soaked, torn flesh suffering that the apostles went out rejoicing. And then what did they do immediately? Every day it says, every day in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that Christ is Jesus. Here's what they did they took the message and they went straight back into the mission joyfully without hesitation. Yes, they did. And here's what the Lord's calling us to through this passage: to obey God and suffer well. Obey God and suffer well. Look, these two things belong together in the Christian life.

unknown 14:58

Yes, they do.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

The apostles didn't just obey despite the suffering, they rejoiced in it because they understood it as participation in Jesus' mission, as being identified with Christ Himself. And here's what's crucial for us: the message and the mission cannot be separated from one another. You cannot have one without completely abandoning and discarding the other. If we try to simply preserve the message, we will lose the mission. And if we only go into the mission without the message, all we are is hopeless social justice.

unknown 15:37

My, my, my.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

They held the message without compromise. Jesus is the crucified and risen Lord, the only name by which people can be saved. And they carried it everywhere they went, into the temple courts, house to house, filling entire cities with it. And hear me clearly. It was both the message and the mission that cost them. Because it was the message that provoked the opposition. But it was the mission that put them directly in harm's way. Church, you cannot have one without the other. Because a message without mission is dead. You might be able to articulate it technically correct, but practically it's useless. And a mission without the message is just social activism. It's busy and it looks virtuous, but it's powerless to save. Because for us as Jesus' church, the gospel is both announcement and advancement into the culture with the transforming power of Christ. And when you hold both together faithfully, the one promise we can be sure of is suffering will come. But let me tell you something. Suffering for Jesus' name is not a sign that things are going wrong. In fact, suffering for Jesus' name is confirmation that things are going right. It means you're actually following Jesus into the very world of which he came to save. If they hated me, they will hate you. The question is, will you obey anyway? Yes. And will you suffer well when it does?

unknown 18:15

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

But many of us, we disobey God to avoid suffering. We disobey God to avoid suffering. We know God has commissioned us to make disciples, to bear witness to Jesus, to live as his sent people into the world. That call is clear. It's so clear, it's written on our back wall. Why does sacred mission exist? We are sent on mission to make disciples and plant churches so that all may know the joy of his salvation. But when obedience starts carrying a price tag, when following Jesus publicly begins costing us relationships, reputation, or the stability, safety, and security we have worked so hard to build, we look for a way out. And I believe that this often exit takes one of two forms. And both involve protecting ourselves from the very cost we're called to. Both involve losing either the message or the mission, and ultimately I would submit both. Many of us, we we change the message to satisfy man. We change the message to satisfy man. I believe that this has plagued the American church for the last several decades. We've removed as much offense as we possibly can. We don't talk about sin, repentance, hell, judgment. We talk about blessing, favor, breakthrough. We don't call sinners to repentance. And we're wondering why we have evangelical churches filled with unregenerate people. Yes, sir. You see, this first response, it's all about accommodation. How can I accommodate what the other person desires to hear? When the culture declares that certain biblical truths and convictions are offensive, what do we do? We begin to soften them. We qualify our language, we emphasize only the agreeable parts of the gospel. I don't like to say that we've sinned, I just like to say we need another chance. We find creative ways around difficult passages. And when a relationship feels threatened by gospel truth, we pull back from what's hard and we seek to offer something more palatable. When our workplace or our friend groups let us know that biblical Christianity is unwelcome in their midst, we start presenting a Jesus, a more pathetic Jesus who won't provoke that kind of reaction. But that pathetic Jesus is powerless to save them in the way that they truly need to be. Dangerous. We comply by saying things differently enough that the discomfort disappears. And so the result is a gospel with all offense removed. Powerless. A Jesus that people find agreeable. Rather than a Jesus who demands their surrender and submission. You see, you've preserved yourself from suffering, for sure. But at what cost? Because you've lost the glorious gospel of the Son. And without the true message, the mission, it just becomes pointless. Because all you're offering up to them is empty religious sentiment of a works-based faith instead of the very power to save them. But some of us, we actually live a very quiet Christian life that's absent of mission. And the second response actually looks nothing like compromise because you're so eloquently able to articulate what you so believe. Now, this person, they haven't changed the message at all. They're theologically sharp. They're able to articulate the gospel. They hold it with both precision and conviction. But throughout their years of hard work and faithful living, what they've done is constructed a life that's quietly insulated from the very cost of mission. They've built a stable Christian home, a good reputation, a comfortable routine, and somewhere along the way, protecting that, protecting those things became your primary reason for living. If you asked them, they would tell you, but they would never tell you without you asking them. Church, mission is disruptive. Yes, it is. It's meant to cost us our comfort because this world cannot provide the comfort that our soul actually longs for. We long for another city that has yet to come where our comfort and rest is found at the foot of the throne of God. You see, genuine gospel engagement with neighbors and coworkers, it creates this tension, this friction, invites opposition and the kind of suffering that the apostles face. But some of us we've worked too hard to risk that kind of disruption. Look at what I've built, look at what I've created, look at what is at risk of being lost. And so what do we do? We just retreat into preservation. Yes, sir. Maintaining our own household of faith while quietly disengaging from the world around us. Well, we are the ones who have worked so hard. We are the ones who have made all the right decisions. We are the ones who have built this stable, quiet Christian life, and now what do we do? We subconsciously treat that stability as something to be protected rather than risked for the sake of the mission. At the end of the day, this is self-righteousness expressed in utter isolation. And it's just as much disobedience as changing the message. Because the same God who calls us to hold the gospel faithfully also calls it to carry it boldly into the world. You see, you've preserved the message. You can be proud of such a thing, but you've simply preserved it in your own heart. You've abandoned the mission. You've locked it behind safe and key because of the risk of what you would lose. But church, let me tell you, Jesus died for the message and the mission. You see, both of these failures, they find their correction and redemption in the very same place. The cross. Peter told the Sanhedrin, the God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. Peter didn't soften the message because he witnessed a Savior who didn't soften the message. Jesus proclaimed the kingdom, confronted sin, named hypocrisy, called people to repentance all the way to the cross. He never edited the truth so that he could lower the cost of speaking it. He held the full message of the kingdom that sinners need a savior, that God's wrath is real, that repentance of sin is required, that he alone is Lord. And Jesus never retreated from the mission. He set his face toward Calvary, knowing exactly what awaited him. He didn't try to construct some quiet life that he could protect. He walked straight into the very opposition that cost him his life because the Father's mission required it. He submitted to the Father's plan even when it meant the worst suffering imaginable. Jesus bore the full cost of both the message and the mission. He held the message without compromise. And he carried it on mission to the very place that cost his life. And here's the beauty of the gospel: He did this for cowards like me. My goodness. Who have been unfaithful to his message and unwilling to advance his mission. You see, the apostles, they were cowards too. When Jesus died and was crucified on the cross, they retreated into self-preservation. They acted as cowardly men. But in the face of a resurrected Lord and King, they became men who would boldly lose their very life for the message and the mission of Jesus. This is why it's important to preach the life. This is why it's critical for us to preach a resurrected king, because if he was still simply just dead in a tomb, we would have every right to be cowards in the face of opposition that stands against us. But because he rose from the dead, because he lives again, because he reigns victoriously at the right hand of the Father, you and I can be emboldened that this life isn't what we're looking for. It's to be spent on the fullness of gospel mission that we might obtain the life that is yet to come.

unknown 29:43

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

You see, the suffering he endured on the cross was the suffering your disobedience deserved. Every time I've softened the truth to protect myself, every time I've retreated from mission to preserve my comfort, that failure deserved judgment.

unknown 30:05

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

But Jesus took it. Willingly, completely, in your place. And because Jesus suffered well in obedience to the Father, we're freed from the very punishment that our failure has earned and deserved. And because he rose from the dead, you have the Spirit's power to obey in ways that you never could have before. Yes, sir. He turns cowards into conquerors through his resurrection.

unknown 30:36

Hallelujah.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

So the church, the message and the mission, they belong together. Because they were purchased together by the very same blood on the very same cross that purchased us. And so my prayer for us church is this: that we would obey God in the mission and suffer well for the message. That we would obey God in the mission and suffer well for the message. Man, the apostles walked out of that beating to one strike less than death, rejoicing because they were counted worthy to be able to suffer for the name of Jesus. They didn't walk out rejoicing because suffering has some sick, sadistic pleasure that they found, but because they understood that suffering for Jesus' name is confirmation that they are following after him. So hold the message faithfully without wavering. Don't edit it to lower the cost. Trust that the Spirit works through the full truth, not a partial truth, not a half truth, but the Spirit works through the full gospel of the risen Son, even the parts that provoke opposition. And then carry it boldly. Let the very disruption of the gospel cause us to find this longing for a city yet to come. Let it cause our eyes to be lifted and fixed heavenward that we might, like Stephen, see him as more glorious and desirable than protecting what is here tangibly in front of us. Your stability is never meant to be preserved, it's meant to be spent. That's faithfulness. And we need to rejoice in that.