They Had Been with Jesus

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Acts chapter 4 this evening. Acts chapter 4. When I was in high school, I would sometimes get to leave school for lunch.

Well, I mean, we had open campus. I could leave anytime. But sometimes I would leave for lunch and drive home.

And my mother was working at that time at the junior high, at the junior high school where my sister went. And so she wasn’t home when I would go home for lunch. And I sort of made a game out of it to see if I could go in and have lunch and clean everything up and put everything back to where she wouldn’t know that I’d been home.

I was allowed to be there. It just became a game to see if I could stump mom. And sometimes she wouldn’t know I’d been home.

I’d ask her every day, was I home today or not, whether I’d come home or not. Sometimes she’d get it right, sometimes she wouldn’t. But the time she got it right, it was because I left some little piece of evidence.

Moms are good at noticing evidence. It might be a napkin out of place, but there was evidence. Somebody had been home in between the time she left for work and the time she got back, and she would notice in the evidence.

I love evidence, you know, as long as you haven’t done anything wrong. I love evidence. I love it in my own parenting.

How does daddy know we were playing in the rocks when we weren’t supposed to? Because I see the evidence all over the patio, little rocks. When I was teaching, I had one student in particular that used to give me fits.

I think he was in the principal’s office at least once a week for cheating because he would do his assignments, and then he wouldn’t correct the corrections I gave back to him. As you’re preparing for the test, especially math, math and English. But with math, he would get back his review sheet for his test, as supposed to do these corrections, and he would change just a few of the numbers on there.

not really correct the math, just change a few of the numbers so it looked like corrections had been made thinking we wouldn’t check and turn it back. And then I would look over it, because I always checked, and say, you know what, you have not done your corrections, you’ve lied here. Oh, how do you know?

The evidence, because you add three and four here and it does not equal 14. I can just tell you that’s the, changing one of these digits did not, did not do anything. There was evidence right there, had him dead.

I love evidence because it tells you, I mean, sometimes I’m oblivious to things, but if you’re paying attention and you see the evidence, a lot of times it will, there is no question what happened. Sometimes not even a question of who did what. There’s evidence that points you in the right direction.

I’m talking about the subject of evidence tonight because we’re going to look at Acts chapter 4, and what we see are the lives of some men who were disciples of Jesus Christ, and the world looked at them, and all they could see was evidence all over them that they knew Jesus Christ. Everything about them was evidence that they knew Jesus Christ. And I’ve heard stories from years ago about Jimmy Carter telling the story that when he was a young man, he heard the question asked in church, if being a Christian was made illegal today, would there be enough evidence to convict you? And I’ve heard him talk about how that just changed the entire course of his life, changed the course of his faith, and even in doctrinal matters, I will tell you, I don’t necessarily agree with everything Jimmy Carter believes.

He drifted away sort of from traditional Baptist belief, but he said it changed the entire course of his life. The thought, would there be enough evidence to convict me? That’s a convicting question for me.

It should be a convicting question for all of us as believers if it became illegal to become a Christian or to be a Christian, and they were going to put us on trial, would there be enough evidence to say, yeah, he’s a Christian, dead to rights, got him. What I’m going to give you tonight is not definitive evidence. This is not the only thing that we need to look for to say this is evidence that we’re a Christian, but just from the lives of these men, these are some things that, you know what, Jesus’ fingerprints were all over their lives.

The evidence was there. The people looked at them and said, you know what, we know that they know Jesus Christ. Would people look at our lives and see evidence of the presence of Jesus Christ in our lives, or would they not? That’s the question that we need to ask ourselves tonight.

But starting in Acts chapter 4, verse 1, it says, and as they spake unto the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead, and laid hands on them, and put them in hold until the next day, for it was now even tied. And if you’re wondering who is the them that they’re talking about, excuse me, you look back to Acts chapter 3 verse 1, and it talks about Peter and John going into the temple. Now, this is the same day taking place as Acts chapter 3.

What happens in Acts chapter 4 starts on that same day. They’ve gone to the temple. They’re walking in there to worship, and there’s a man who was lame.

I know that’s, I’m not sure what the term is we’re supposed to be using nowadays, but They use the word lame in the Bible. He couldn’t walk. He was laying there out by the gate of the temple, and he’s begging for charity.

He’s begging for them to give him some money. And they told him, Silver and gold have I none. I don’t have any money to give you.

But such as I have I give you. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk. I don’t have any money, but I do have this.

I can tell you in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And you know what? He stood up.

He walked. And it wasn’t just this instance of, oh, he stood up and, oh, look at that. I can walk now.

No, he jumped up and he was joyful and he started telling everybody about what had just happened. He drew in such a crowd then that Peter begins to preach a sermon to the people who had gathered to see what was going on here. And he gets the opportunity then to speak to this crowd of people gathered outside the temple and gets to preach to them the gospel of Jesus Christ, how Jesus was the Messiah who had been promised who had come to set them free from their sins and put them in a right relationship with God.

So Peter gets up and he preaches and they’re preaching and they’re talking to people individually they’re in groups and and it says as they’re teaching the people as they’re teaching the people as they spoke to them the priests the captain of the temple the Sadducees came upon them because they were upset that they were teaching the people about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Actually it says here, preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. Now what you need to know is that the Sadducees were sort of the opposite of the Pharisees. We would look at the Pharisees, and if they were around today, we would say they were the legalists of their day.

Strict adherence to the law, not only God’s law, but our man-made laws that we’ve put up as a hedge around God’s law. They were the legalists. If you look at the Sadducees, they were the liberals.

They were the ones who said, you know what, we believe overall in the religion of Judaism, but some of the stuff about angels and miracles and resurrection from the dead, afterlife, all that kind of stuff, we’re too smart and we’re too enlightened to believe in all that. So you’ve got the far right and you’ve got the far left. And I did that backwards.

You’ve got the legalists and you’ve got the liberals. The Sadducees were the liberal group. And they were the ones going to be upset because they’re out there preaching that resurrection stuff again.

They didn’t believe even as Jews, even as the Pharisees were smart enough to believe the Bible teaches a resurrection from the dead, that we will all be resurrected, and we all will stand before God, and there is eternal life. There is eternal life for everybody. It’s just a matter of where you spend that eternal life.

The Sadducees said, no, we’re too enlightened to believe in this resurrection, in this life after death stuff. And so they were upset because they were teaching about the resurrection. It says that through Jesus, the resurrection of the dead.

So not only the fact that Jesus rose from the dead, but that because he rose from the dead, all of us would have the opportunity to be raised with him at the end of times to live with him. So they’re upset that not only are they preaching the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but they’re preaching a future for us being resurrected. So the Sadducees are upset that they’re preaching the resurrection.

The priests, the captain of the temple, they’re upset in general that they’re preaching about Jesus, but the resurrection of Jesus was a sticking point for all of them because none of them believed that Jesus was the Messiah. And yet these men could not shut up. They couldn’t shut up about what they had seen.

They had seen Jesus Christ buried. They had seen him hung on the cross. They had seen him dead.

They had seen him buried. And yet they saw him alive again. And they saw the I would, you know what, just hearing about it and knowing it’s true gets me excited.

I wish it got me more excited where I couldn’t stop talking about it. But I would think to see that with your own eyes, yeah, that’s a pretty good story. I mean, that’s a pretty important story to tell.

And they could not stop talking about it. They’re going to be threatened throughout the book of Acts over and over. Stop talking about this, and they won’t.

And so they’ve started talking, preaching about the resurrection through Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ for us. The resurrection of Christ and the resurrection through Christ. They’ve started preaching about this again to this crowd that’s gathered because of the healing of the crippled man. And the leaders in the temple got very upset.

And they came out and they found him. They laid hands on them, not in the sense, you know, I’m going to lay hands on you, brother. No, they grabbed hold of them.

And they took them off to jail. And they held them over until the next day because it was late. And it says in verse 4, Now, that could go either way.

I don’t know if that means 5,000 believed or there were 5,000 in the crowd and some of them believed. But either way, they were trying to quiet this message of the resurrection, but they just couldn’t. Because every time they opened their mouths, whether they got to finish their message or not, whether they got shut down or not, people were responding to the message of the resurrection of Christ, and people were coming to trust Christ as their Savior.

And so they couldn’t stop the message of the resurrection. And you know what, we may talk about this more at some point, but I will tell you, if we’re trying to get people interested in religion, we want to talk to them about religion and coming to church, and we want to talk to them about doing Christian things and doing the things that we do, I mean, that’s fine. We’re not going to get, I don’t think we’re going to pique a lot of interest with that.

We start talking about the resurrection of Christ. I’m sorry, folks, that’s a hard story to ignore. They’re either going to reject it, or they’re going to believe it, or they’re going to look into it more for themselves. But the resurrection of Christ is the central message of the church, should be our central message, and it’s a message that can’t be ignored.

It’s a message that you can’t say, well, that religion stuff, I’ll think about it later. The resurrection, you’re pretty much presented with, you’ve got a choice to make. And so they’re talking to him about the resurrection, as we all should.

And people were believing no matter how much they tried to shut him down. And it came to pass on the morrow that there were rulers and elders and scribes and Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest were gathered together in Jerusalem. Why does it matter who was there and listing all their names?

Why all these boring details in the Bible? Folks, again, evidence that it’s not me. somebody who’s fabricating a lie is going to start out once upon a time in a land far, far away.

They’re not going to go through and say, this guy was there, and this guy was there, and his brother was there, and their dog was there, and this other guy also was there and showed up a few minutes later. They’re not going to go into all that detail. So we’ve got all these high priests, all these other priests.

They’re gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in the midst, all these priests gather together. They bring Peter and John and they put them down in front of this panel of priests.

And they asked, by what power or by what name have you done this? The preaching and the healing. Who told you that you could do that?

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people and elders of Israel, if we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole, be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand before you whole. Okay? Who told you that you could heal this man?

Seems like such a ridiculous question. Why wouldn’t you just be excited that the man was healed? Unless you were just coming into it with an agenda that you want to shut down the Christians.

And so Peter said, okay, if you want to look, let’s talk about who told us we could do this. If you want to look at this good deed that was done here. If you want to look at this nice thing that was done, that this man who could not walk now can walk, and you want to talk about who said we could do it, let’s talk about who said we could do it.

It was Jesus. You remember him? Remember him?

He’s the one you hung on the cross. You know, the son of God, the Messiah that you’ve been looking for for thousands of years, and he came to earth, and you killed him. Remember him?

Yeah, that’s who told us that we could heal him is sort of what I read Peter’s answer to be. It’s by his power, by his authority and by his power, this man now stands before you whole. You’re worried.

You’re worried about who gave us the authority to heal him, and it doesn’t even matter to you that this man stands before you whole and complete. He stands before you healed. I read that, and over and over again, I think, what is wrong with these people?

And he says in verse 11, this is the stone which was set at naught of you builder. Guys, you’re supposed to be the ones trying to build up the nation of Israel. You’re supposed to be the ones trying to build up the people and strengthen the people.

You’re the builders. And you took this stone and threw it away like it was nothing. Referring to Jesus Christ. He’s using symbolism.

You took this stone and you threw it away in the trash heap. He said, and yet God has made it the head of the corner. God has made this the very corner of the nation of Israel.

Neither, I’ve got this, I’ve got verse 12 underlined in red in my Bible. neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must..

. What name? What name do we do this according to?

By what name do we heal? By what name do we preach? The very name that is given for our salvation.

The name that there is no other name but this by which man must be. . .

Tell you what, I wish I was. . .

I would say I wish that I was as quick on my feet as Peter was. That’s an excellent response, and yet it’s the Holy Spirit. It said Peter was filled with the Holy Ghost. And so verse 13 says, Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled.

And we could look at that as an insult against Peter and John. Hey, aren’t those dumb fishermen? And yet look at how eloquently and how boldly he speaks.

Something’s going on here. This is not normal. We could look at that as an insult, but I’m sure Peter and John would look at it and say, how great God is. Look at what he did.

They knew something was up because they saw Peter and John. They knew them and said, these are unlearned and ignorant men. These aren’t teachers of the law.

These aren’t wise men. These aren’t great orators. You know what?

These are the men who ran and hid after Jesus had been crucified. Change has taken place. Marvel.

They were amazed at the change that had taken place. And they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. They looked at this change.

They looked at everything that they were doing. They looked at everything that was being done in their lives and said, This doesn’t square up with what we know about these men. The only explanation here, all the evidence points to they’ve been with Jesus.

It’s the presence of Jesus in their lives that has changed them. It’s the presence of Jesus in their lives that has made them into something they weren’t before. It’s the presence of Jesus that’s given them this boldness to speak about the resurrection, this boldness to challenge the authorities to do the right thing.

It’s completely transformed them. And even these unbelieving men, these unbelieving men who hated Jesus Christ, who hated everything he stood for, looked at these miraculous things going on and saw Jesus’ fingerprints all over. All the evidence pointed to presence in their life.

Now, I’ll grant you that things are a little bit different in our day. The gospel hasn’t changed. The message of the resurrection hasn’t changed.

Circumstances have changed a little bit. You know, they were given all these miraculous signs and wonders that God enabled them to do. And part of that, Scripture tells us, is because they didn’t have the Word of God completed yet.

God was still speaking through, He was still inspiring the writers of the New Testament. They didn’t have all those things that we have today to be able to test and say, what is God’s Word? Is this true?

And to test things that were being taught. And so God gave them signs and things to validate who really spoke on His behalf. God also said some of those things, a lot of those things would pass away.

The words of wisdom would pass away. Prophecy would vanish. Tongues would cease.

He says all those things in 1 Corinthians. And so this idea that, well, we could do the same thing except we can’t go out and. .

. I don’t know about you. I can’t go out and heal anymore.

I would love to be able to. I’d love to be able to put my hands on somebody and see them healed. God hasn’t given me that ability that I know.

God still has that ability. And I think if God told us today, go put your hands on them and they’ll be healed. And he really did say that.

I have no doubt that they would be healed. I don’t believe in faith healers, but I do believe in faith healing, if that distinction makes sense. God can heal anybody.

But we don’t see this kind of ministry going on where they have these miraculous healings and people being raised from the dead and the speaking in tongues, the speaking in tongues the way it’s described in Acts chapter 2. Those circumstances have changed a little bit. People aren’t going to necessarily look at us and see, oh my goodness, did you see the way he healed that man?

Or did you see the way he just suddenly started speaking Chinese? Or did you see the way that he cast out that devil? They’re not going to look at necessarily these miraculous signs and say, right there, there’s proof that Jesus is at work in their life.

And yet in spite of that change, folks, not that much has changed. Because it’s still possible. It’s still possible for us to live lives that have Jesus’ fingerprints all over.

It’s still possible for us to live in such a way that there’s evidence enough to convict us that we’ve been with Jesus too. Do people see evidence of the presence of Jesus Christ? Let me give you three things just from this passage.

Again, these are not the only things that will happen if Jesus’ presence is in your life. And by that, I mean that you have a relationship with him. You’ve trusted him as your savior.

You walk with him. You pray. You study to get to know him more.

You just generally follow him and you know him. Three of the things that I see in their lives that I think are a good place to start with evidence. First of all, they’d been with Jesus, and so they couldn’t help but declare the truth about Jesus.

They couldn’t help but declare the truth about Jesus. They could not stop talking. It was the most amazing thing that they had ever seen.

I don’t know about y’all, but I like to tell stories. I think I’ve told y’all that before. I love having a story to tell, and sometimes I can’t wait to call Charlie.

I can’t wait to call my mother. I can’t wait to tell. We went on Wednesday to the state capitol, and I went up there for Rose Day to hand out roses to legislators and talked to them about protecting unborn life.

Took the kids up there, and my friend Kathy met us up there from Norman and made a very good point. Always take little kids with you wherever you go. You get treated like rocks.

It’s true. It’s like the red carpet because we had these two little kids with us. We went into the governor’s office, and we didn’t see her, but all her staff come over and talk about how adorable the kids were and can they take their pictures?

They want to take their pictures for the governor, and could they get our address and their names, and I don’t know what’s happening, but apparently either that or I’m on some kind of watch list in the governor’s office and they’re updating their file. I don’t know. I don’t know.

And I’m just looking at Charlie because I was the last one to walk in there saying, what’s happening here? And then we went to the lieutenant governor’s office, and he was actually out there meeting people and taking pictures with people, and my kids walked in to give him the roses. And he says, well, let me take a picture with you.

And he starts to crouch down with him. And he says, ah, forget it. And he gets in the floor with my kids.

And we have a picture of the kids with Todd Lamb sitting on the floor in his good suit. I just thought, this is amazing. One of my kids are being put in some kind of watch list file for the governor.

The lieutenant governor’s crawling around on the floor playing with them. This doesn’t happen. And so we left the Capitol.

And I’m on the phone calling my mom saying, you’re never going to guess what just happened with your grandkids. It was an exciting story. It’s the best story I had to tell all day.

I couldn’t stop talking about it. You know what? When I’ve got an exciting story, when something exciting happens to me, I want to tell people.

They’d been with Jesus. I can’t imagine anything more exciting than that. Not only had they been with Jesus, they had seen him risen from the dead.

That doesn’t, talk about it doesn’t happen crawling around on the floor with the lieutenant governor. It doesn’t happen that somebody comes back from the dead. I’m going to talk about something being really rare.

They were excited. The presence of Christ in their life, They knew him and the power of his resurrection. Folks, if we know him, if we’ve been saved by him, if we’ve been bought by his blood, we know that he died on the cross for us and rose again from the dead.

And we know that he lives to make intercession for us. And we know that we walk with him. And we know that for some reason that we still can’t explain the God of the universe loves us enough to have this relationship with us.

And we can talk to God the Son anytime we want to. If that presence is in our lives, if we know that truth, Why would we ever stop talking about it? If you’ve got a growing relationship with Christ, if His presence is known in your life, one of the evidences is going to be you’re going to talk to people about it.

You’re going to declare the truth about Jesus Christ and who He is. I’m not saying you’re going to stand on the corner with a megaphone. I got so tired of that at OU when I was there.

They’d have these preachers come. The school wouldn’t, but preachers would come in. Every once in a while, they’d stand out there with big signs and megaphones, and they’d yell at people.

And I mean, hey, guys, I’m glad the gospel’s being presented, but those of us who are trying every day to win people over are not being helped by you screaming angrily about the gospel. I’m not talking about you spreading the gospel by standing on the street corner and screaming at people in a megaphone. But I’m saying as you go through your daily life, you’re going to talk about Jesus.

You’re going to talk about what He’s done for you to your family over the breakfast table. You’re going to talk about how good He’s been to you when people ask how you are. You’re going to talk to your brothers and sisters at church about, let me show you what God taught me this week.

If that presence is felt in our lives, why would we? One of the evidences is going to be that we’re going to keep talking. We’re going to tell the world about Jesus Christ. They did that.

They’d just gone from Acts chapter 2 where Peter preaches this amazing sermon, and they could have easily sat around and said, you know, we’ve done our part already. They got up and started talking about it again. They’re going to be beaten, and they’re going to be threatened to stop talking about it, and they’re not going to stop as you go through the book of Acts.

They’re going to keep talking about it. They’re going to keep talking about it until everybody hears or God takes them home. Folks, part of the evidence that we’ve been with Jesus is that we’re going to talk about it.

Another part of the evidence is that we’re going to bother other people. How many of you like that? I kind of like that sometimes.

You know what? There are some people who need to be bothered. And I’m not saying because, oh, look at how they live.

We need to bother them. I just mean there are some people who need to be bothered. There are some people who need to be shaken up a little bit.

I’m probably one of them sometimes. You’re going to bother other people. I think we live so much in fear as Christians of bothering.

I don’t want to bother anybody. I do kind of like you. We’re so worried that somebody’s going to hear us talk about Jesus and be offended.

We’re so bothered by the idea of bothering people. And I get it. I hate to impose myself on anybody else.

But you know what? The world bothers me. The world that is opposed to Jesus Christ bothers me.

Whenever I hear somebody on TV or read somebody on the internet, Do not ever read the comments section of any website ever. It’s just bad news. But whenever I read or hear somebody attacking Jesus Christ, it bothers me.

I’m not saying we need to go out and bother people on purpose, but just living your life as a Christian is going to be unsettling. Folks, I’m not talking about getting in people’s faces. I’m just talking about what’s wrong with people being a little uncomfortable because to tell the truth about Jesus Christ, we choose to love him.

We choose to live a certain way. You know what, as we’ve been talking to Benjamin about honesty, about you’ve got to tell the truth. I’ve really taken a look at my truth-telling.

I will tell you, I’m not in the habit of lying, but I’m not always necessarily forthcoming about what I really think. And there was a conversation, and I won’t go into details, so I don’t get in trouble later, but there was a conversation yesterday where I told Charlie, I said, can I just tell you what I really think? Men, be very careful.

Be very careful saying that to your wives. Can I just tell you what I really think? You know what?

I told her what I really thought. She told me what she really thought. And we’re okay.

Completely honest. and it was uncomfortable for a second, then it was better. And I noticed I’ve started doing that, as I’ve been talking to Benjamin about honesty and openness, I’ve been doing that a little more often. Not that I’m going to be deliberately harsh with anybody, but you know what, I’m going to say what I mean and mean what I say.

I’m going to try to. And I’ve been doing that not just with my family, but elsewhere. You know, this is really what I think about this.

And we can do that in a loving way. We can do that in a gentle way. But you know what, this really is what I think about Jesus Christ. This really is how I choose to live my life, and Jesus Christ is the reason.

And it’s probably going to bother somebody. That’s okay. We know they bothered people because it says these men were grieved that they talked about the resurrection.

It didn’t just irritate them. You know, I see stuff on the Internet I disagree with. I’m grown up.

I move on. I don’t feel the need to cause a big scene about it. These men were grieved.

It wasn’t just, oh, that’s not true, and they moved on. It bothered them, and they had to shut somebody down. That word grieved, when it’s used in Scripture, sometimes it’s talking about somebody, you know, they’re just, they’re pulling their hair out, they’re ripping their garment, they’re grieved.

It really upset that they were talking about the resurrection. Now, I forget sometimes they didn’t have the First Amendment back in the book of Acts. You don’t like what somebody says, just shut them down.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in that kind of country yet. I worry sometimes that things may go that direction. But you know what?

I mean, don’t go to be deliberately offensive to people. But stand up for the truth. Live your life the way God has called you to do it, and don’t make any apologies about it.

Love Jesus Christ, and don’t apologize for it. Don’t hide it. Let’s not go into the shadows.

Let’s be honest about who we are and what we believe in a loving and gentle way. And by the way, not just loving and gentle words, but loving and gentle actions toward people. And what we believe is going to bot

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