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Feb 19, 2017

This Jesus

Passage: Acts 4:1-20

Speaker: Brian Land

Series: Acts: The Perpetual Power of the Gospel

Jesus is simultaneously frustratingly exclusive and shockingly inclusive. He clearly claims that he is the only way to hope, life and salvation, while also offering himself freely to everybody without exception. This “exclusivity” leads some to reject the Gospel for it’s supposed arrogance while leading others to follow Jesus while developing great levels of sinful arrogance because they are “in” while others are “out”. The truth of the Gospel is that extremely diverse followers of Jesus ought to realize how unimaginably “powerfully weak” we all are: we are utterly without our own righteousness while also being utterly adopted and empowered by the righteousness of God. These two qualities produce in us the motivation and ability to Love God as our all in all while also loving all people, without exception, as “better than ourselves.”

Worship Order

Call To Worship: 1 Peter 2:4-6 ESV

Reading: Nicene Creed

Sermon Title: This Jesus

Central Text: Acts 4:1-13;18-20 ESV

Illustration: John Sax - The Elephant

Communion: John 14:6 ESV

Benediction: Philippians 3:10-12 ESV

Scripture Readings

Call To Worship: 1 Peter 2:4-6 ESV
LEADER: 4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

 

ALL: 6 For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

 

Reading: Nicene Creed
ALL: We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

 

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,

 

true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.

 

For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.

 

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;

 

he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

 

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.

 

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.
Amen.

 

Central Text: Acts 4:1-22 (excerpts) ESV
1 And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, 2 greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 3 And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. 4 But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand. 5 On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, 6 with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. 7 And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” 8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, 9 if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, 10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. 11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” 13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

 

... 18 So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, 20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”

 

Communion: John 14:6 ESV
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

 

Benediction: Philippians 3:10-12 ESV
LEADER: 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

 

ALL: 12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

 

Post-Service Text: Acts 4:11-12 ESV
11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”  

 

Related Scriptures & Readings:

John 11:25-26
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

 

Psalm 118:22
The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

 

Luke 14:11
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

 

John 6:66-69
66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

 

Discussion Questions 
  1. Jesus is the stumbling stone AND the capstone; he simultaneously gets in your way, contradicts you and frustrates you, while also bringing you life and hope.
    1. What about Jesus do you not like?
    2. How do you deal with Jesus contradicting you?
    3. Do you see him as more just or more loving?
    4. Do you see him as more “up there” or more “in here”?
  2. Discuss the “exclusivity” of the Gospel; that it isn’t just one way but the only way.
  3. Also discuss the “inclusivity” of the Gospel; that everybody is invited into this Hope.
  4. Why do all followers of Jesus (to some level at some time) struggle with “spiritual arrogance” - that we are somehow “better” than those who aren’t “in”?
    1. How is it that this an utter contradiction to the Gospel?
  5. How are believers simultaneously “common and unschooled” (v 13) yet extremely powerful (note the end of that verse “they had been with Jesus”).
  6. Describe someone in your life where it was obvious that “they had been with Jesus.”
    1. How do you get to where you might resonate this Jesus-presence?
    2. What does that look like? How could others tell?
Related Books

Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis

 

The Reason for God - Timothy Keller

 

Finding God in the Waves by Mike McHargue

Quotes

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” - CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

Related Sermons

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Timothy Keller

Acts 4:1-13

 

I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life by John Piper

John 14:6

 

Don’t We All Have to Find Truth for Ourselves by Timothy Keller

Galatians 2:4-16

 

The Unexpected Power by Jeff Vanderstelt

Mark 4:35-5:20

Related Media

 2.19.17 Album