I grew up in Alabama, but I don’t exactly sound like it. We always lived in the city, and if you live in the city you don’t quite pick up the dialect of the folks who live a little further out. So I got the y’all... but I never got the drawl.
Just this week, Missy and I met with a young lady attending Highlands College. She’s Irish Puerto Rican: born in Ireland, raised in Puerto Rico, now living in Alabama. Talking with us, she sounded like the South, like us. Then she started telling a story about Ireland, and y’all, she went straight Irish. Then she mentioned Puerto Rico and transplanted herself there in two seconds. She was weaving in and out of these dialects, and it blew my mind. I wanted her to start over just so I could watch.
Somehow we absorb the speech of the people we’re around. And that points at one of the greatest temptations we face as Christians: the temptation not to be one on the outside. We move through places and people who don’t follow Jesus, and if we’re not careful, we absorb more of them than they ever see of Him. Keep your faith private. Don’t bother people with it. Somebody might get offended. But God designed us to make a difference, and sharing our faith is a huge part of how that happens.
I want to show you a scene from Acts 4. Peter and John are standing in front of the Sadducees, who are trying to pin charges on them, to throw them in prison or worse. Spoiler alert: their boldness to defend their faith and declare their allegiance to Jesus ends up frustrating the council, and the council doesn’t win its case.
When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. Acts 4:13 (NIV)
They took note, not of degrees and diplomas. They took note that these men had been with Jesus.
Here’s some background, because this is an important moment in the formation of the early church, and specifically in Peter’s life. A few months earlier, Jesus was arrested, and Peter stood by a fire and denied Him three times. So what happened between that fire and this courtroom? Jesus was crucified and raised to life three days later. He spent forty days with His disciples, then ascended into heaven with a promise: I’m sending you a Helper, the Holy Spirit. Ten days later, on Pentecost, the room where the disciples were praying was filled with the sound of a mighty rushing wind, and the power of God came from heaven to earth. The man who wouldn’t identify with Jesus on the night of His arrest stood up and preached the first message of the New Testament church, and three thousand people were saved that day.
The church kept growing, and then a remarkable miracle happened. A man who was born lame had spent his whole life as a beggar. Every day people carried him to the temple gate to beg. He was over forty years old. Peter and John walked by, the man asked them for money, and Peter dropped an absolutely savage line:
Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." Acts 3:6 (NIV)
The man was healed. A crowd gathered. Peter started preaching Jesus, and in the middle of his message, he and John were arrested. That night in jail cost the enemy dearly: the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand.
Hiding in Plain Sight
Where I come from, we declare our allegiances early. In Alabama it’s Auburn or Alabama, pick one, and from that day you wear the jersey, you wear the colors, you shout the battle cry. War Eagle. Roll Tide. Go Vols. Nobody worries about offending anybody with a college football allegiance.
Yet with our faith in Jesus, there’s this pressure to keep it to ourselves. Wear the team jersey all you want, but don’t mention Jesus. Somebody might get offended. There’s a cultural pressure to be silent about our faith.
Let’s be honest about what we’re actually risking. Nobody in this country is being threatened with prison for talking about Jesus. The pressure is real, but it’s nowhere near what Peter and John were facing. What’s the worst that could happen? You share Jesus with a coworker and there’s an awkward pause. Somebody looks at you a little sideways: oh, you’re one of those. Your group text gets real quiet, and now maybe there’s a side thread about you. Somebody hits you with a gotcha question you can’t answer. Or, worst of all... word gets around that you follow Jesus.
That’s the whole point. People are supposed to know we follow Jesus. People should be able to recognize that we’ve been with Him. We’re supposed to be known as people passionately in love with the One who set us free. It’s not something to fear. It’s our assignment.
Now, we do have brothers and sisters around the world facing real persecution, and we pray for them. In some nations it is genuinely violent. Nigeria is a crisis point for Christianity right now: by the most recent count, about seventy-two percent of all the believers killed for their faith worldwide last year died in that one country, more than every other nation combined. More people died in Nigeria last year for proclaiming the name of Jesus than died on September 11th. Peter and John had a level of boldness we should all be prepared to have. It’s easy to be bold in this country right now. If it ever gets harder, would we still be bold?
Here’s why it matters: it’s life or death. It’s heaven or hell for people in our lives. People who don’t follow Jesus don’t yet understand what being raised to life even means. Some don’t even know they need saving.
You probably know this joke, but it’s funny, so here it is anyway. A man got trapped on the roof of his house during a huge flood. His neighbor came by in a jon boat: hop on! The man said, "No thanks, God will save me." A rescue team came by in a big safety boat. "No thanks, my God will save me." A helicopter lowered a rope as the water reached the roofline. "No thanks, my God will save me." The man drowned, got to heaven, and asked, "God, why didn’t you save me?" And God said, "Man, I sent you two boats and a helicopter."
Your life is a message. The people around us are like that man on the roof: they don’t know they need rescue, and they don’t realize God keeps sending people their way. So are you willing to be the rescue team for somebody else? Is there someone in your life who knows what you believe but has never heard why? Do they know you were trapped once too?
I think for a lot of people, the issue isn’t Christ. It’s Christians. There are people who claim to know Jesus but don’t represent Him well. None of us are perfect; this is a church full of imperfect people who repent. But we should be aiming to reflect Jesus as accurately as possible, and that means spending time with Him. In the 1920s, a missionary named E. Stanley Jones asked Gandhi how Christianity could take root in India. Gandhi told him: Christians must begin to live more like Jesus Christ, and practice your religion without adulterating it or toning it down. Even a man who never followed Jesus could see it.
Back to the courtroom. The next day Peter and John were brought before the rulers, the elders, and the high priest’s family, and the question came: "By what power or what name did you do this?" (Acts 4:7).
I don’t know why we get surprised when people scrutinize our faith. I’ve learned to love questions like this. Yes, there are gotcha questions out there. But here’s the deal: I don’t know everything there is to know about God, and neither do you. Even as a pastor, I don’t have every single answer. But I know enough to believe. If you’re a Christ follower, there was a tipping point in your life where you didn’t have all your questions answered, but you knew enough. Share that with people. And if anybody ever asks me by what power or what name, there’s only one answer: Jesus.
Take what God did on the inside of you and shout it loud, because the same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead is alive in you.
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "Rulers and elders of the people! 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, 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. Jesus is ’the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.' Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." Acts 4:8-12 (NIV)
So how can we live from the inside out?
Remember God’s power inside you
A few years ago I was doing some work around the house, mounting a TV and running power up the wall. Now, I’m not an electrician, but I am on YouTube. Partway through the job you turn the breaker on to test something, then turn it back off. Right between those two steps, Missy asked me to help with something in the kitchen. Ten minutes later I came back, picked up my screwdriver, and did not do what a YouTube electrician is supposed to do. I felt the power. Missy was standing right there, too, because I’d invited her to come inspect my work. It’s something I do to flirt. Sometimes it works. Not that day.
I forgot the power was on. And some of us live that way with God. When the council asked "by what power?", notice the very next thing Scripture records isn’t Peter’s words, it’s Peter’s state: filled with the Holy Spirit. He was filled with power for that exact moment. The filling Peter received at Pentecost wasn’t a one-time event, and the power you received when you said yes to Jesus isn’t either.
The best way to remember is to spend time with the One who gave you the power. There will be seasons of your life when you need it. Jesus knew that, and that’s why He sent the Holy Spirit. It’s why we invest in prayer as a church, together, in set-aside seasons. Let’s be people who know exactly whose power is driving our lives, and then let His power out of us.
Reveal God’s story to others
That word "ordinary" in Acts 4:13 is a Greek word: idiotes. There’s an English word derived from that one, and you can probably guess it. So if you ever call somebody idiotes in Greek, they’ll likely figure out what you said. Unless they really are one. Then you’re safe.
Peter and John may have been unschooled and ordinary, but hear this: unschooled and uneducated are two totally different things. They were educated by experience. Their education just looked different. It wasn’t a degree from a seminary; it was time with Jesus Himself. It wasn’t a diploma on a wall; it was the law of Christ written on their hearts.
People can’t deny the power of God when it’s on display. They may not be able to explain it. They may not understand it. But they can’t deny it.
But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. Acts 4:14 (NIV)
The man who sat at that gate for forty years, the man everybody knew, was standing in the courtroom, and there was nothing anybody could say.
You are that healed man in your own story with Jesus. And it’s time for some of you to stand up and show what God has done in your life. You don’t win people with a crafty argument anyway; even if you win the argument, somebody else will come along and argue that person right back out of their faith. It’s a heart thing. The people arguing with you about your faith are mostly arguing in hopes you’ll sit back down where they are. Don’t sit down. Share the testimony of what God did for you. They may not choose to believe it, but they won’t be able to dispute it.
Rejoice in what God has done for you
"What are we going to do with these men?" they asked. "Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name." Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, "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." Acts 4:16-20 (NIV)
They weren’t trying to kill them. They were just trying to silence them. And that’s where we live right now: nobody’s trying to kill us over our faith, but plenty of people would love for us to be a little quieter, to keep it inside the four walls of the church. Our response should be their response: you can’t silence us, because we’ve seen too much. God has been too good for us to keep our mouths closed about Him.
Then comes the prayer.
"Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus." After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. Acts 4:29-31 (NIV)
My prayer would have been totally different. Lord, afflict them with one million mosquitoes for the rest of their lives. Smite them with the stink of a thousand camels. That’s the King James Version. I guess that’s why God didn’t put me in Peter’s place. Because their prayer isn’t against their persecutors at all. They don’t even ask for the threats to stop. Their prayer assumes the confrontation will continue; they practically invite it. All they ask for is boldness. And God answered: the place was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit again.
So why do we so often hide the work of God in our lives from the very people who would benefit from it most? Your doctor wouldn’t run blood work, find an issue, and hand you a clean bill of health. Your therapist wouldn’t finally discover the root of every emotional issue in your life and just ring the bell: time’s up, see you next week. It would be like going to the grocery store, and let’s say your name is Missy, and buying a family-sized bag of M&Ms, bringing them home, and hiding them from the other person in this story, who we’ll call David, just for the sake of the story. Something that would benefit him so greatly... just covered up.
We have something incredible. The gift of salvation. Someone who changed our lives from the inside. We cannot sit on this when it’s life or death, when what we’re holding would benefit people for eternity.
That’s why baptism matters so much. Water baptism is an essential part of every believer’s life. No, it’s not required to get into heaven; salvation comes by confessing Jesus as Lord and believing in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. But baptism marks the moment you go public. You go from a private decision to full submersion in front of witnesses, a picture of what Jesus did for you: death to life. It’s the best way to take what happened on the inside and let it out, so everyone knows where you stand with God.
He Took the Shame
It takes something to be bold. So I have to close with this, because there’s one Person who experienced more persecution than any of us ever will, and His name is Jesus. Many of the disciples were eventually martyred for their faith, and even their deaths didn’t come close to His. Because Jesus was carrying something to His death: your sin, and mine. He experienced public shame so that you and I could experience public freedom, freedom from shame. He took it all on His shoulders so we wouldn’t have to pay the price.
If you don’t know Jesus, you can pay that price yourself. You’re welcome to choose your own path and trust yourself for salvation. It just won’t work. Jesus is here to save you. He took the punishment. He took the ultimate persecution, and He stood up under something not a single one of us could have stood under.
He died, and He was raised to life three days later. Because He took the punishment for your sins on His shoulders, you are free, and you never have to carry shame again. If something is stirring in you right now, that’s God being kind to you. Say yes to Him. Then go public with it, and let what He put inside you come out.
