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"Here as in Heaven."
For more information visit : garden.church
You're listening to the Garden Church podcast. We're in a series called church on fire, a journey through the book of acts. This is a story of ordinary people filled with the spirit carrying the presence of Jesus into every corner of the world. The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is alive and in us today. Join us as we step into the call to be people set on fire for his mission.
Bill Dogterom:Well, good morning. Good morning. It's good to be with you today and to continue this aggravating, painful conversation in the book of Acts because we're not looking at this as Darren has regularly made the point, simply so we know what happened historically. We're looking at this for cues, clues for how to steward our life in Christ and to attend to what God might be doing and might be inviting us into as a community and those are always challenging conversations because and I gotta be honest, this has been a particularly challenging text for me to look at because it centers around people who really honestly believed they were doing the right thing, having been kind of the recipient of revelation from God and then God, it feels like kind of pulls the rug out from under them and they react in fairly predictable ways because the power, the position, the place that they had by virtue of their knowing what God wanted them to do was now all of a sudden brought into question and they're angry, they're frustrated and they're reactive. And so, as you can imagine for somebody like me who's been on journey for a long time, there are things that I know and cling to and that I'm right about just in case anybody wonders.
Bill Dogterom:Yeah? Who that are now getting in the way of the new thing that God might want to do. And so, can I ask you as we begin to just pray for me and for yourselves as as we hear this, in in the in the text this morning? Amen. Amen.
Bill Dogterom:Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord. So, in the text leading up to this, we have experienced a God who is playing for keeps. In chapter five, John led us through this reflection on generosity and of course this is embodied in the in the outrageous generosity of Barnabas at the end of fourth chapter where he is liquidating ancestral He is cashing out his $4.00 1 k. He is liquidating his ancestral property to because there are people in the community that don't have enough to eat.
Bill Dogterom:And so, is just being ridiculously generous in this moment. And and and it's it because it flows from who he is, it's not how he seeks to gain position and power, it's because he is who he is. Right? So so the church rightly recognizes and celebrates him. Ananias and Sapphira decide they wanna get in on that action but at the same time preserve, just in case it doesn't work out quite the way they had hoped that it would, A kind of a little bit of a fallback position.
Bill Dogterom:The problem is they lie about that. Not just to the church but to the Holy Spirit. And so there are a couple of strategic funerals in church on a Sunday morning and this has the effect that you would think it ought to have. People are in awe in the appropriate use of the word awesome, fear, but still intrigued because clearly something is at work here that is not containable in our previous understandings of how God operates. So that there is tension, they're drawing so much faith is bubbling up that just the shadow of Peter later on, just the touching of the hem of the garments of the disciples.
Bill Dogterom:It's not Peter and the guys who are doing this, it's people who are who are by that symbolism stepping into a reality and healing is occurring and wonderful things are are are happening and the problem is, it is happening under the with with within sight of the headquarters of the old way. The ways God has been known, the managing of the temple sacrifices, the position, the power, the prestige and God as it seems to me taking the battle right to the front yard of the folks who who have known him but who are unwilling to know him. That is to say, the God that they follow and worship is being supplanted by the because anybody know your God needs to be growing. And of course, it's not God who grows, it's you who grow in your awareness of who God is. And and your certainty about who God is will blind you, will deafen you to the God who wishes to emerge.
Bill Dogterom:Yeah. And and so much so that that even miracles are not enough to push you off your your power base. Right? And I wish I could say this only happens to old people. It does happen to old people.
Bill Dogterom:Yeah. Because we're old and we know things and but it also happen with within the the framework of the book of Acts, it will happen to the church. They will get stuck and have to push through a new and fresh understanding that will push them outside their comfort zone. So the the the powers that be, the power brokers, the the Sanhedrin does what what predictably, all they can do as this is kind of the battle is brought to their front doorstep and here's how they react. We're looking in acts chapter five verse 17.
Bill Dogterom:It's a long reading so bear with me but I think it's worth hearing the word of the Lord as opposed to what I say. Then the high priest and all his associates who were members of the party of the Sadducees were filled with jealousy. So they arrested the apostles, put them in the public jail but during the night, an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out saying, go stand in the temple courts. Tell the people all about this new life. So at daybreak, they entered the temple courts as they had been told and began to teach the people.
Bill Dogterom:So when the high priest and his associates arrived, called together the Sanhedrin, the full assembly of the elders of Israel, they sent to the jail for the apostles. But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported, we found the jail securely locked, the guards standing at the doors but when we opened the doors we found nobody inside. On hearing this, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priest were at a loss wondering what this was all about, what it might lead to. And then someone said, look, the men that you put in jail, they're standing on the temple in the temple courts teaching the people.
Bill Dogterom:At that, the captain went to with his officers, brought his apostles, brought the apostles. They didn't use force because they were afraid that the people would stone them. The apostles were brought in, made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, he said. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are now determined to make us guilty of this man's blood.
Bill Dogterom:Peter and the other apostles replied, we must obey God rather than human beings. The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead and you killed him by hanging him on a tree, hanging him on a cross. But God exalted him to his own right hand as prince and savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins and we are witnesses of these things so is the holy spirit whom God has given to those who obey him. When they heard this, they were furious and they wanted to put them to death. But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law was honored by the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while.
Bill Dogterom:Then in closed session, he addressed the Sanhedrin. Men of Israel, think about what you intend to do to these men. Remember, some time ago Thaddeus appeared. He claimed to be somebody, about 400 people were rallied to him but he was killed, his followers were dispersed, it came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census led a band of people in revolt.
Bill Dogterom:He too was killed. His followers scattered. Therefore, in this present case, I advise you, leave these men alone. Let them go. If their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail.
Bill Dogterom:But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men. You will find yourselves fighting against God. His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in, had them flogged and then ordered them again not to speak in the name of Jesus and then they let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name.
Bill Dogterom:Day after day in the temple courts from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. What a story, I mean, come on. If this is part of our kinda origin stories, this is I mean, it doesn't get much better than this. Yeah? A playful God.
Bill Dogterom:A playful God who is is is is is so loving of his enemies that he wants to tease them out of their stuckness. He wants to prize them away from the grip that they have on the truth that they possess. Remember the Sadducees were not evil people. They were just wrong. And they're wrong, they came by it honestly.
Bill Dogterom:They came by it study, they came by it by revelation, they came by it by history and they honestly believed having heard from God that they were preserving, that they were protecting, that they were guarding the Jewish tradition and religion. They again are not evil people. They're just wrong because they were unable to pivot when it became clear that, oh, that's not the only reason there was a problem. Luke tells us they were were they were jealous. Oh, because being right, being in a position of being right provides you a certain status, certain standing, certain power base that enables you to kind of ride the wave of your being right.
Bill Dogterom:Anybody know what I'm talking about? Yeah. So when your wave begins to crash against the beach, you don't know how to get off it and you watch somebody else hanging 10 just off shore and you are thinking, wait a minute, this is my beach. We are after all in HB. Sorry.
Bill Dogterom:So so so sorry. So here they are, jealous. Jealous and it is their jealousy that causes them to put the apostles in prison. And here's where it gets fun. Because God again loves these folks.
Bill Dogterom:He's not wanting them to be crushed by this but he needs to tease them out of their deadly certainty. He needs to unwrap the grip of their hands on on what they know to be true because what they know to be true is blinding them to the new true that is emerging in Jesus. And so here they are in prison and an angel of the Lord comes and and just sets them free. Now, image is fascinating here. Please notice, when the guys show up the next morning, the Sanhedrin is gathered, right, go get the prisoners, they go to the and the guards are still standing there.
Bill Dogterom:They are guarding an empty cell. Do you catch the irony that Luke is drawing our attention to? Here the Sanhedrin is the guardian of what has now become an empty belief system symbolized in the soldiers guarding a cell that is empty. Do you see what's happening? Right?
Bill Dogterom:And of course, this is challenging, this is embarrassing, this is like, I mean the poor soldiers, can you imagine those guys on guardians like, we aren't drunk, we didn't fall asleep, we've been paying attention, we've been doing the shift changes, just nobody thought to look inside, nobody thought to look inside, you know. And so the captain of the guard scratching his head, what's all this gonna come to? And just as they are sorting it out, they discover where their prisoners are. They're in the temple courtyard proclaiming the name of the one in whose name they have been put in prison in the first place. It's an astonishing story.
Bill Dogterom:Right? That is unpacked for us here. So the seriously playful God is kind of launching a preemptive strike over the bow of their boat. You might wanna consider changing direction. You might wanna consider reconsider this because this isn't gonna turn out well for you if you keep on moving forward in your dead level certainty.
Bill Dogterom:But jealousy will blind you to the possibility of repentance. The loss of your positional power will blind you to the possibility of repentance. And so they double down on dumb. It's like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we told you, we told you not by the way, did you catch this? That the soldiers when they went to to collect the prisoners, they didn't arrest them.
Bill Dogterom:They just Would you guys mind coming with us? Now here's something fascinating. The disciples have been able to read the room. They know that the crowd is on their side. In a heartbeat, they could have played the same game as the pharisees and leverage their personal power to it, personal gain.
Bill Dogterom:The people were ready to stone the religious authorities but instead Peter, James, John, all the guys, no. Yeah. We're good with you. Calm down everybody. Just calm down.
Bill Dogterom:See, when you've been formed in the way of Jesus, you're never gonna lose utilize your power for your personal gain. Never. If you're protesting, you're you're being being arrested or being whatever, you're you're you're probably following the wrong Messiah. Yeah. Yeah.
Bill Dogterom:So here here here they are, they go with them and and the chart, we told you not to proclaim the name anymore and and and by the way, you're trying to make us guilty for this man's death and Peter by this time, can we No. You are guilty. Guys, I mean, repentance has to build on a foundation of reality. If you in denial are proclaiming we are not responsible, you're trying to make us responsible, there's no hope for you because you're not standing in a place where repentance is possible. You have to own your stuff in order to turn away from it.
Bill Dogterom:Yeah? And so Peter, he is not being mean, he is just saying, guys, if you keep on saying this, there is no hope. There is no way home for you. You gotta own your complicity like the rest of us have. It's not just you who are guilty of his death, we hang them there too and we've stood in the reality of our complicity in his death and have turned the corner.
Bill Dogterom:Turned the corner. Remember what makes the pharisees, excuse me, the sadducees, sorry, I gotta do this, sad you see, is that they don't believe in the resurrection and so are suspect of of the miraculous. Now, this is inconvenient when you have before you somebody who has been energized by a resurrected savior and who proclaims that resurrection. This is more than just inconvenient. This is a a slap in the face to your dead level certainty that that you have the power because you can put people to death.
Bill Dogterom:What do you what do you what do you do you do with the followers of one who has demonstrated that death is no longer a compelling factor for complying, for forcing compliance. What do you do with that? When when you put them in prison and their god can get them out of prison without so much as filing a report with your guards? What are you going to do? All of your weapons have been neutralized.
Bill Dogterom:All of your power base is now null and void. When the best you can do is kill somebody and they die for somebody who can raise the dead, where do you go from there? This is what Peter is saying. You are guilty. Own it.
Bill Dogterom:It's not too late. Come on in. The water's fine. Right? He's in fact has done this that all Israel might repent.
Bill Dogterom:Guys, you're the leaders of Israel. It's not too late to turn the corner and be the leaders of your people in humility and repentance. It's not too late. And instead, their anger, their jealousy, their fear of the loss of their positional power perhaps, meant them again double down on dumb. And here's the best they can do.
Bill Dogterom:They are furious and they want to kill them. Haven't we just been down this road? When again, you're followers of the Messiah who was raised from the dead. Killing people doesn't seem like it should be on your first strategy list. These people are not afraid to die.
Bill Dogterom:Your threats of them, they're being executed, they're not particularly looking forward to getting dead but they don't have any problem being dead because what comes next? Resurrection. Oh, y'all, you do make the connections, yeah? You want resurrection life? Anybody?
Bill Dogterom:Anybody? Yeah, sign up for your time on the cross because that's the only way to get there. Do you see? This is hard, this is hard. You can see why this has been bugging me this week?
Bill Dogterom:It's like, oh man, I've I've gotta lay aside dead level certainties that have brought me to this place, things that I have believed and known about God and I've discovered he's kinder and more gracious and more forgiving and more merciful than I had imagined him to be. That is really annoying because there are some people I don't want forgiven. And here he is, come on in. Join me in mercy, join me in grace, join me in repentance and along the way, get measured for your cross because if you're gonna follow a crucified Messiah on the way through to resurrection, there's only one way to get there. You have to die to yourself and sometimes physically.
Bill Dogterom:But this has really, as we'll learn in the next couple of chapters, it just doesn't catalyze people the way it used to when it was viewed that death beat was permanent. Now, this this this body of believers is is is confident and calm in the face of death threats. We must obey God rather than you. What are we to do guys? I mean, if you're in our position, this seems to be the implication of Peter's Peter's argument.
Bill Dogterom:So they wanna they wanna kill them and fortunately, the Sanhedrin has some senior members among whom is Gamaliel. By the way, you may will recognize his name later. He is the rabbi of the one who will become the apostle Paul. So I have to wonder if Paul may not have been there with his rabbi that day and heard this wisdom speech and that planted a seed that flourished down the road a little while. Don't know, don't know.
Bill Dogterom:But it would not be out of the question. Yeah? And Gamaliel is the soul of discretion and wisdom. He's an elder. He's been around the block a few times, he's lived long enough to see things come and go and he just says, look guys, come on.
Bill Dogterom:You remember so and so who led this rebellion, this no, you don't, do you? Yeah, it's it's gone away. Or this Galilean who led the revolt and and you remember him? No, you don't remember him either. It's gone away.
Bill Dogterom:And then he lands the punch line. If this is from If this is for a human endeavor, if this is a human endeavor, it will die. It will fade out. It will You can't keep this momentum going on self generated energy. But if it's from God, there's not a thing you can do about it.
Bill Dogterom:It will roll over you and you do not wanna find yourself on the wrong side of his story. You don't wanna find yourself fighting against what God is seeking to accomplish. And fortunately, they were able to hear that and please notice, Gamaliel has given them a way out of their jealous dilemma. Because once the once the temperature starts to build, right, once the pressure starts to build as to the solution we're gonna kill them. It doesn't occur to you.
Bill Dogterom:The irony doesn't occur to you that it's pointless to do that kind of thing. Remember the crowd is already for these people. This is not going to turn out well and the perhaps the wiser members of the Sanhedrin are already saying, man, how can we turn the temperature down on this boiling pot? And Gamaliel gives them a way out. Okay, we can dodge that bullet.
Bill Dogterom:Right? And so they sternly warned them this time, sternly warned them, don't keep preaching in the name of Jesus. And then they flogged them, which is a public humiliation. Painful, physically painful, but the point of the flogging was less about the physical pain, which was not inconsiderable and more about the public embarrassment. They they were they were they were being labeled as of that kind.
Bill Dogterom:Right? They were they were And and so so the hope is that they will be shamed into silence, that they will be kind of turned down the volume because we after all this time sternly warned them not to preach, not to speak. Here's the problem. The Sadducees just like the Pharisees, just like the rest of Israel had been praying, sometimes daily for Messiah. But when they got the answer to their prayer, they couldn't accept it because it was not the messiah they wanted.
Bill Dogterom:Even if it was the Messiah they needed. And their unwillingness to receive the Messiah who was the answer to their prayer blinded them, deafened them to the work that God wanted to do in and through and with them. Does this happen boys and girls? Yes. It doesn't just happen to Sadducees two thousand years ago, it happens in my heart.
Bill Dogterom:I'm guessing maybe one or two of you have found yourself receiving an answer to prayer that was other than what you wanted and that answer has now blinded you and deafened you to the new that God wants to do in and through and with you. It's not too late to humble yourself, to laugh along with the God who is gently but kindly teasing you out of your death grip on your stupid. It's not too late, you can repent, right? But some of us are so married to our stupid, so married to our positional power that our dumb has enabled, to let go of it is to fall into the abyss and God knows what'll happen then. God knows what will happen then.
Bill Dogterom:So the disciples who do know what will happen then because they've been there, they've done that, they got the t shirt, right? They are coming out of that prison cell rejoicing. That they were not delivered, not set free, not charges dropped. They were rejoicing that they were counted worthy to be shamed publicly for the name of Jesus. Please notice, Peter's gonna talk about this in his letter.
Bill Dogterom:They're not shamed because of their dumb. They're shamed because their affiliation with the name of Jesus. This is really important, right? And so they are rejoicing that they have been counted worthy of suffering for the name. And you hear by the way, the echo of that third world.
Bill Dogterom:Remember the 10 the 10 words? The first three are how to love God. Right? And the third one of those three is don't take and carry the name in an empty or meaningless fashion. I'm giving you my name.
Bill Dogterom:Carry it well. And here they are rejoicing for having carried the name well. Not just in their response to their imprisonment but even in public. Notice they could have dragged the name of Jesus and utilize it for their political power and gain and catalyze that crowd against the temple guards. No.
Bill Dogterom:No. No. No. That's not honoring the name. That's not what the name would do because here's the here's the problem.
Bill Dogterom:When you have become a disciple of somebody who has chosen death over life for the sake of his community, he's not looking back to see if you're keeping keeping up. He's expecting you to follow in his way. Even though it is oppositional to my way, the way of Jesus will always be the way of the lamb more than the lion. Right? And so here they are, they're rejoicing and and and you catch that by the way.
Bill Dogterom:Joy in this particular case is not simply reactive That they were Joy is the capacity to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus and not be thrown off, not miss the point. Joy rejoicing, you hear the same word. Joy is pretty high octane stuff. It is what enabled Jesus to endure the cross. It is what enabled these are not This joy So for them is not reaction to what has happened.
Bill Dogterom:It's foundational preparation and it enables them in prison or out of prison, in preaching or in trial, right, to be able to stand solidly in who they are and to speak out of the center of that. It's astonishing that we are in those moments and please notice with me, they were able to carry the name wisely and well through the season of their suffering. And I think you hear the final point that I wanna land on this morning. How are you handling your suffering in a way that elevates the name that is fueled by rejoicing even in the middle of your pain. Don't waste your pain.
Bill Dogterom:Don't waste your suffering. The suffering of betrayal, the suffering of people who promised and didn't deliver, the suffering of your own dumb. Anybody suffering because you were an idiot? Just just me? All of those things.
Bill Dogterom:He will redeem all of those things and invite us even in the embrace of that suffering rejoicing, not happy all the time, but rejoicing that I can carry the name wisely and well in such a way that testifies to the power of Jesus. That's the invitation that Peter invites us to. And of course throughout the book of acts, other outcomes are gonna happen. Peter is eventually gonna die. So this is not a permanent fix but it is an opportunity.
Bill Dogterom:Let's pray. Oh Lord, we don't wanna miss this opportunity ourselves. We don't wanna miss what love looks like. We don't wanna miss what what what not just being inconvenience but suffering might open up to us as we rejoice as our strategy in it and through it. And I pray, oh Lord, that we who are your people will follow closely in your footsteps that we would be marked by the way of Jesus in how we respond to things that are happening in and around us.
Bill Dogterom:Give us courage, oh Lord, where we feel like tapping out, where we feel like giving in to resentment or bitterness or protesting our our rights, our our our position or even more Lord, where we can't receive the miracle you have provided because it's not what we wanted. I pray that you would give us courage to step in to what you are doing and leave behind what you have done. We ask this in Jesus name.
Intro/Outro:For more information, visit us at garden.church.