Standing Strong in Faith

The message given in the Sunday morning services in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Acts 4:1-22.

            These are not the easiest times to be a Christian.  Every poll you can find shows that the number of Christians in this country is declining.  And of those who claim to be Christian, many do not believe in traditional basic Christian beliefs.  A substantial number of people who claim to be Christians do not believe that Jesus was the divine Son of God.  They do not believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead.  They do not believe that belief in Jesus is the only way to heaven.

            In fact, people who do still hold those beliefs are often criticized in our society.  They’re called intolerant.  They’re called self-righteous.  They’re called bigots.  They’re told they need to be more inclusive.  They need to be more understanding and accepting of other viewpoints.  These are not the easiest times to be a Christian.

            And so, those of us who are Christians, who do continue to hold traditional Christian beliefs, are going to see our faith tested.  We may not feel it so much right now, living where we do, but it’s easy to see in other places, and we are not walled off from society.  Those things that happen in other places are on their way here, and sometimes already are here.  Whether we want to or not, we are going to find out just how strong our faith is.  We’re going to find out if we’re willing to stand up for our faith, or whether we’re going to fold, to compromise, to keep our faith to ourselves in order to avoid trouble.

            That’s the choice Peter and John faced in our reading for today.  You know, we talked a few weeks ago about how, immediately after Jesus was crucified, the disciples were not sure what they were supposed to do.  But by this time, they knew exactly what they were supposed to do.  They were supposed to spread the good news.  They were supposed to tell people about Jesus.  They were supposed to go and make disciples, so people could have salvation and eternal life.

            That’s exactly what they were doing here.  Right before our reading for today, in Acts Chapter Three, Peter healed a man who had been lame since birth.  Peter told the people around them that he had been able to do this through the power of Jesus Christ, and told them that Jesus was, in fact, the Messiah.

            And, as you heard in our reading, that got them into trouble with the religious authorities.  Now, they had not done this with the goal of getting into trouble.  They had not gone up to the religious authorities and challenged them or told them they were wrong.  They had not interacted with the religious authorities in any way.  They simply had gone about their business, healing people and telling people about the power of Jesus Christ.  But while they did not have a goal of getting into trouble, that was the result.  The authorities arrested them and through them in jail for what they had done.  The next day, they were hauled up before the high priest.

            This was a scary thing.  The high priest had complete and total authority in matters of religious law.  The only thing he could not do was sentence someone to death.  You may remember, that’s why the chief priests took Jesus to Pontius Pilate.  The chief priests could not sentence Jesus to death, but Pilate, as the Roman governor, could.

            But the high priest could do anything short of sentencing someone to death.  He could, for example, sentence someone to life in prison.  Or, he could just sentence someone for an indefinite period, just say you’ll stay in prison until I decide you can come out, which I may or may not ever do.  Or, he could sentence someone to be beaten and tortured, and then sent to prison.  It was entirely up to the high priest.

And of course, prisons then were not like prisons now.  Not that prison is such a wonderful place now, but it’s heated and air conditioned and you get three meals a day and proper clothing.  None of that happened in Roman prisons at this time.  Without going into detail, I’ll just say that prison was a really miserable place to be.  A “life sentence” might not be for a very long time, because you might not live very long once you were sent there.

So this is what Peter and John were facing when they were brought before the high priest.  They were facing the possibility of being thrown in prison for who knows how long, just for the “crime” of spreading the word about Jesus Christ.

What would you do in that situation?  What would I do?  I don’t know that I can say.  I mean, I know what I’d like to believe.  I’d like to think I would stand up for my faith.  But would I?  Would I really?  Or would I try to find a way to compromise to get myself out of trouble?  I don’t know.  I don’t know if it’s possible to know unless and until we’re actually in that situation.

But compromising would certainly be tempting.  It had to be tempting for Peter and John, too.  In fact, that may be what the high priest was expecting them to do.

But they did not do it.  Peter made what was an incredibly bold statement of faith.  He said:

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.

That took faith.  Because again, Peter and John had no idea what was going to happen to them when they said this.  They knew God would be with them, but they did not know whether God would protect them from the high priest.  After all, God had not protected Jesus from being killed, so why would they be treated better?  But they were able to stand up for their faith in spite of that.  They were able to say, it does not matter what happens to me.  I’m going to proclaim my faith in Jesus Christ, no matter what the consequences on earth may be.

That’s a lot of faith.  Could you do that?  Could I?  I don’t know.

How did Peter do it?  After all, he and John were, as our reading tells us, “unschooled, ordinary men”.  How could they have the courage to do what they did?  Because, as we’re told, Peter was “filled with the Holy Spirit”.

That’s how Peter was able to stand so strong in his faith.  That’s how Peter had the courage to say what he said, and not worry about the consequences.  Because Peter knew the Holy Spirit was with him.  And he knew that if he followed God’s Holy Spirit, God would bless him, if not in this life then in the next one.

But when Peter said this, the authorities were knocked back on their heels.  It sounds like they had not expected that at all.  They did not know what to do.  The authorities, who thought they had all this power, suddenly lacked the courage to use it.  They were desperately looking for a way out of this situation they had created, a way to save face somehow.  So, they decided they would let Peter and John go, but on condition that they not talk about Jesus anymore.

But that did not work, either.  Peter and John’s faith was too strong for that.  They were still filled with the Holy Spirit, and so they gave pretty much the same answer.  It does not matter what happens to me.  I’m going to proclaim my faith in Jesus Christ, no matter what the consequences on earth may be.  And ultimately, the authorities simply let them go.

It’s tempting, when we get to the end of this story, to draw the wrong lesson from it.  It’s tempting to say that the lesson is that, if we stand strong in our Christian faith, our opponents will back down.  But I don’t think that’s the lesson here.  That may happen sometimes, but sometimes it may not.  God does not make us a promise that if we stand strong in our faith, out opponents will back down.  There are any number of Christian martyrs, people who have been killed because of their faith, from the time of Peter and John to the present day, who can attest to that.

I think the lesson here is that we are called to stand strong in our Christian faith, no matter what may happen.  We are to speak up for Jesus no matter what the consequences may be.  And when we’re challenged, when we’re criticized, when we are threatened–and when those threats are quite real–we are still to stand strong in our faith and speak up for Jesus.

And the way we can do that is to be filled with God’s Holy Spirit, the way Peter and John were.  That means spending time with God, and doing so frequently.  That means making God a priority in our lives.  That means, as we said last week, loving God with all our heart and all our soul and all our strength.  Peter and John could not have done this on their own.  We cannot do it on our own, either.  We need to be filled with God’s Holy Spirit.

            And the time to do this is now.  Because, again, these are not easy times to be a Christian.  Society is moving away from Christianity, and it’s moving even farther away from people who take Christianity seriously.  More and more, our Christian faith is going to be challenged and tested.  And we need to be ready to meet that challenge and pass that test.

            Peter and John were ordinary men.  But they were able to do what they did because they were filled with God’s Holy Spirit.  We may feel like we’re an ordinary people, too.  But we, too, can be filled with God’s Holy Spirit.  And we, too, can stand up for our faith in Jesus Christ, no matter what the consequences may be.  Peter and John did not know what would happen to them on earth when they did this, and neither do we.  But with God’s Holy Spirit, we can do what they did.  We can meet the challenge and pass the test.