Bible Passage: Acts 4:23-31
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: January 26, 2025

Bulletin – January 26, 2025

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

Back on January 15 of this new year, something happened in the African nation of Congo that did not really make the headlines over here.  On January 15, Christians in the village of Lubero were targeted for attack.  On that day 53 Christians were slaughtered simply because they profess faith in Jesus Christ.  Since Christmas Day, at least 128 Christians have been martyred in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I don’t know how you feel when you hear that, but that is unsettling.  Persecution of Christians is real.  Persecution of Christians is scary.  And just because such persecution doesn’t happen here, who’s to say it never will?  The world is a rapidly changing place.  It might do us well to ask before we get there, “What will we do if persecution comes to our country?  To our state?  To our community?  To our neighborhood?”

Our text this morning gives us the example of the early Christians and what they did when persecution came to their neighborhood.  What did those first Christians in Jerusalem do when they felt the first pressures of persecution?  They prayed!  And what they prayed may surprise us!  They didn’t pray that God would take the persecution or the persecutors away.  They prayed that God would give them BOLDNESS.  There is a model for the persecuted Church.  When persecution comes, pray, “Lord, Make Us Bold!”

Our text begins, After Peter and John were released. (v. 23)  Peter and John had spent a night in jail.  They had been in jail because they healed a man at the Temple in the name of Jesus!  When they were brought in front of the Sanhedrin the next morning, the same Sanhedrin that had sentenced Jesus to death, they were ordered to stop using the name of Jesus with anyone.  Then, we are told, After they had threatened them further, they let them go. (Acts 4:21)

So Peter and John go find their brothers and sisters in Jesus.   What to do?  What to do?  The powers-that-be are threatening Christians!  This seems like a good time to pray!  With one mind they raised their voices to God (v. 24).  They did not turn inward.  “What shall WE do?”  They turned upward.  They would turn to God.  Even the way they address God gives us courage!  They – we – do not call on a “puny” God.  The God of the threatened, persecuted Church is the God who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything in them. (v. 24)  The words of the hymn come to mind:  “They are weak, but he is strong!”

Their prayer then turns to another reason they can be bold.  They think about Psalm 2 where it talks about the nations raging and the peoples plotting against the Lord and against the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One.  They connect the dots and realize this is the very thing that happened to Jesus when Pontius Pilate and Herod and the angry mob all planned and carried out the execution of Jesus!

But Psalm 2 tells us that all this raging and plotting was in vain. (v. 25)  “In vain” means it was good-for-nothing!  Worthless!  It accomplished none of what they hoped it would.  They thought their plot to kill Jesus would solve the “Jesus problem.”  They thought their little plan would make the whole “Jesus issue” disappear and go away.  But, as those praying in our text confessed, They did whatever your hand and your plan had decided beforehand should happen. (v. 28)  They carried out God’s plan exactly as he scripted it!  God’s Son would go just as it is written about him. (Matthew 26:24)  He would be betrayed, he would be pierced, none of his bones would be broken, he would cry out in thirst, he would die, he would be assigned a grave with the rich in his death, he would rise on the third day.  Every single thing Jesus’ enemies did to him in their mad plot against him was exactly as God said it was going to be!  And through all their plotting and raging this the world was reconciled, redeemed, justified!

And so the huddled, threatened Christians prayed, Now Lord, look at their threats and give to your servants the ability to keep on speaking your word with all boldness. (v. 29)  “Make us bold” they cried!  And then they asked God to “double-down” on the thing that got Peter and John thrown in prison.  Stretch out your hand to heal and as signs and wonders take place through the name of your holy servant Jesus. (v. 30)

“Lord, make us bold!”  In vain this world hates you!  How does their hatred hurt you?  Does it stop God from loving you?  Paul wrote to the Romans that nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:39)  In vain the world rages and plots against Christ’s people!  What do their plots accomplish?  Again, writing to the Romans, Paul said,  We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)  You say, “But what about those poor souls who were hacked to death in the Congo?”  In vain did their murderers gloat over their bodies!  For we know, To live is Christ, to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)  To this very day the Church can pray about our enemies:  [They can only do] what your hand and your plan had decided beforehand should happen. (v. 28)  At this moment, we are rushing on towards an end not determined by chaos and anarchy and the enemies of Christ, but by the risen Christ who sits on the throne in heaven!  And every atom in the cosmos must serve only him and his purposes!

“Lord, make us bold!”  That must be our prayer!  For what Peter and John boldly said when they stood before the Sanderin is still true:  Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)  The name of which they boldly spoke was Jesus’ name.  The name which must be boldly spoken today is Jesus’ name.  And so we pray:  “Lord, make us bold!”

Amen.