"Salvation is found in no one else"

Today's reading is taken from Acts chapter 4 verses 1 to 22. Acts chapter 4. The priests and apton of the temple guard and the Sajisis came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, proclaiming in Jesus, the resurrection of the day, They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. But many who heard the message believed, so the number of men who believed grew to about 5000 The next day, the rulers, the elders, and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem.

And as the high priest was there, and so we'll kind of Kaya, Kyophus, John Alexander and others of the High Priest family. They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them. By what power or what name did you do this. 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 laying 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 u b view builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone. Salvation is found in no 1 else, but there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. When we 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.

But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. So they ordered them to withdraw from the San Hedem and then confer together. 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.

They 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 with 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. After further threats, they let them go, they could not decide how to punish them because all the people were praising god for what had happened.

Though the man who was miraculously healed was over 40 years old. Well, good morning. Thank you, Jane, for reading our passage to us. Please keep your vitals open. We're on page 1095.

IVax chapter 4. You can't say that? This isn't a dark age. This is a 20 first century mate. I mean, we even allow women to play football today.

We've got it sorted. We're enlightened. We've got modern knowledge. We're a tolerant society. Have you never heard of tolerance?

Well, we value everyone and all opinions, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, I wonder if you can relate to those sort of comments or have you heard them made? Well, our Bible passage today challenges us to think about these sort of views. So before we get into that, I'm going to pray for us. Ebony father, there are huge claims and enormous bravery in this passage. Please help us to understand what this means for us today, and Lord's strengthen our faith in Jesus, amen.

So our first slide tells us that salvation is found in no 1 else. There is no other name We're gonna see 3 main things today. First of all, the offense of the gospel, the cornerstone of the gospel, and the power of the gospel. So we go to the next slide. The first example of persecution we see here is probably when the the early church first, suffered persecution.

Jesus have made it clear to his disciples in his teachings that they would face persecution. And here it was. Well, we heard a couple of weeks ago from Aubrey about the healing of the paralyzed man. And then Steven last week took us through the passage where Peter, after that healing preached to the people in the temple there. So we're in the magnificent building Solomon's colonnade, preacher Peter is preaching a sermon.

We see that in verse 1. And while he is speaking, he and John are a rest it by the sadducees and the temple guard. Now that's a reminder for us, isn't it? That whenever the the gospel is preached in power, whenever the church is growing and making inroads, the enemy stirs up opposition. Now the sadducees, these are the people who didn't believe in resurrection.

Just imagine them in this situation. There they were listening to Peter talking right there in the temple, the resurrection of the dead. No wonder these sadducees were very disturbed. I don't know. I'm quite quite afraid that very disturbed.

I think some of them were spitting feathers at this point Peter and John were totally discrediting 1 of the key teachings of the sadducees, 1 of their fundamental beliefs. This threatened their authority as religious leaders, not only that it threatened their power, Now when the sadducees together with the Temple Guard went to arrest, Peter and John, I think they probably work very welcome at all because the crowd was with Peter and John. We read at the end there that there are at least 5000 people there who came to believe. So when they went ahead with the arrest, we think that the the words tell us it was probably semi violent. And I expect there was what diplomats they called full and frank exchange of views between some of the crowd and the sadducees, but they went ahead with it anyway.

These sadducees, they weren't they didn't want anyone rocking their boat. And this boat was really being rocked here. So they said to each other, well, it's too late to get the council together now. Let's just sling them in jail for the night, and we'll be taking them before the council tomorrow. So the next day the council meets.

The whole gang is there. There have been about 70 members in the council plus the high priest. You can imagine the scene there they all are sitting in concentric circles And here come Peter and John, they've been in prison all night, and they had to stand in front of these disapproving scowling faces. Here comes the first question in verse 7. By what power or name did you do this?

By who's authority? Who do you think you are? There was no higher authority then according to them, than that of the high priest. And he was there This was the same group of people that Jesus stood before at his trial. And this was the same question that Jesus was asked after he cleanse the temple.

By what authority are you doing this? It was a deadly question because it if they had claimed by the it was by the power of anyone by Jehovah, they could under Jewish law be put to death. But Peter claimed a higher authority than the high priest. Peter claimed to know god's will better than the high priest himself. And he was there.

This was a big deal. Now the actions of words, and Peter and John threatened these religious leaders Most of them, while they weren't particularly interested in the glory of god, they were much more interested in their reputations and their positions. But for Peter and John, they weren't particularly, they were they weren't preoccupied with their own defense. They were preoccupied with the honor and glory of their lord, the lord Jesus christ. And we see in verse 8 that Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he had plenty to say, but the council was speechless.

They didn't know what to do. It was the same when Jesus spoke to a lot of the religious leaders during his ministry. They were left speechless as well. But Peter here, wow. He really gave it to him, didn't he?

I would like to there and seeing the expressions on some of the faces sitting down those tables up there glaring at Peter. If you could imagine that, yeah, adjusting of the rows and and maybe looking at the full oil, looking at each other because they were completely taken back by the confidence of Peter and John. The council tried to silence them with vague warnings, but these warnings had teeth, if you like, because under Jewish law, if they contravened these warnings, they could have been beaten with rods. But Peter and John, what did they say? Nope.

But 19, 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've seen and heard. No compromise. Absolute integrity.

We read in verse in chapter 1 of the acts that Jesus had commanded its disciples to be his witnesses. And they're saying to the council, Peter and John are saying, we can't stop telling about the wonderful things we've seen and heard. If we do what you tell us, we'd be disobeying god. So why was there so much opposition to what Peter and John were preaching. Well, this brings us to the offense of the gospel.

There's so much we could say about this, but it takes us right to the center to the of our passage today, the reverse 12. Salvation is found in no 1 else for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. That was exclusive. You can't say that. But this exclusive claim is a expensive for all sorts of reasons.

1 reason is pride. Pride says, I can work out my own salvation rather than accepting that we can't do it on our own. We have to admit that we need forgiveness. We have to accept that Jesus has done it all for us if we're prepared to accept and trust him. Now the gospel is the most inclusive exclusivity in the world.

I managed to say that without tripping over, so I'll say it again. The gospel is the most inclusive exclusivity in the world because it invites anyone and everyone to put their faith in Jesus. The most inclusive possible way of salvation is to say, as we sung just now, come to Jesus. He's done it all for you. Jesus, the man who died for people who didn't believe him.

But we're a tolerant society. Well, just just a moment. Let's just think about tolerance because there's more than 1 kind of tolerance. First of all, there's legal tolerance, about making sure that everyone, especially minorities, has the rights protected by law, the right to follow their religion, speak up about their beliefs and share them with others, and that's fair. And it's something we should all support.

In this, a second sort, there's social tolerance about how we treat other people day to day, showing respect to others no matter what they believe, and trying to understand their situation. That's something that that all Christians are called to do after all we believe that every person is made in god's image, and we're meant to live peacefully alongside 1 another. But there is a third kind of tolerance, intellectual tolerance. If we accept every opinion as equally valid, never challenging anything, never calling it wrong, Well, that might sound open minded or broad minded, but really it's been feeble minded. It will become a sort of laziness where we stop thinking critically and can't tell the difference between what's true and false or the difference between good and evil.

With Christians, we believe that truth and goodness are real and that they've been revealed in Jesus. So as Christians, we can't just go along with every idea and so they're all the same. We can't possibly come to terms with that. So I would say in my mind, I cannot tolerate that view, that opinion. This brings just the the question of why some people believe, why there is unbelief.

The unbelief is often described as an intellectual issue, but let's look for a moment at those who were opposing Peter and John here. First of all, we've got the the sadducees, they've been described as religious liberals, the pharisees, well, they're the fundamentalists, really, and the temple guard, they are the military. What did they have in common? Well, all they had in common was they hated each other, and they opposed Christianity. So unbelief is not intellectual issue.

Somebody might say, well, ah, we know now. We've got modern knowledge. We're educating people. We we now know and understand that there are things in the Bible that we can't accept now. But several years ago, the Christian writer, CS Lewis, Lewis described this as chronological superiority looking back and thinking, well, we've got it sorted now.

We've got the answers, what they believed in, good heavens. They believe that? I wonder, in 50 years from now, what people will be saying? They believe that in 20 25, put brief. Somebody says, well, I'm educated.

I understand stand, you know, that this is just not acceptable now. Paul, the Apostle Paul was educated, Peter wasn't. They both became Christians. So unbelief, and it's good, it's helpful to understand this, is, is not an absence of something, it's the presence of something else. So in talking to someone who doesn't believe, it's good to gently explore with them what it is that keeps them from believing.

And if you are somebody who's it may be difficult to believe, help us to explore that with you. Let me come now to the cornerstone of the gospel. I'm gonna read the verse gain. Salvation first 12. Salvation is found in no 1 else for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.

Now this claim, this bit, no other name, It wasn't an arrogant claim. It was the only possible reason, the only possible conclusion about Jesus. If you're not a Christian and you're just exploring more about the Christian faith. Our invitation to you is to consider the evidence behind this claim. This claim that salvation is only found in the name of Jesus.

Somebody might say Well, it's okay for you to believe in Jesus. So long as you don't think he's superior to all the other religious leaders, religious founders. So long as you don't think he's the best or the only way or the superior way, to god. But we need to see what Jesus actually said. Jesus said on 1 occasion, before Abraham was, I am.

Lanes sounding expression maybe to some. But what Jesus was saying was Jesus was claiming to be god, the god who had no beginning, and the god who created the universe. Later, Moses, abraham, Mohammed, confucius, Buddha, did any of them claim anything like that? We never claimed anything remotely like that. So the only possible conclusion about Jesus is that he is at the very least far superior to other religious leaders.

The first reason why people began to believe that Jesus was the only way, was he any scalable conclusion that everything about everything he said about himself. So here we have Peter, the disciple, the rough ex fisherman quoting in verse 11, an old testament passage quoting from Psalm 118. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Jesus himself quoted the same passage, and nothing is very that Peter would have heard him say that. Cornerstone.

Good name for a church saturn. I wonder if anyone thought of that. Of course, I have. In buildings, the corner stone was crucially important for the foundation and the alignment of a building. Was the first stone that was laid, and it had to be in exactly the right place.

It was there to make sure that the weight of the building was evenly distributed, and it's to stop any subsidence or crack acting. But Peter made it clear that Jesus is the cornerstone. And he's saying to the council, you lot. You're the builders who rejected him. Just like builders, looking for an appropriate cornerstone, the builders, the Jewish Council had tossed Jesus aside because he didn't have the right qualifications.

They wanted a political king, and not a spiritual 1. And in this talk in this what Peter said to the council, it's the third time he uses a powerful formula speaking of Jesus. You killed him? God raised him. He had raised him, and Jesus had already begun a spiritual kingdom as the cornerstone of a brand new building, the Christian church.

And Jesus's life, his teachings, his death, and resurrection would be the Church's Foundation. To quote the Old Him, the Church's 1 Foundation is Jesus Christ Her Lord. We all have a corner tone, what's your cornerstone? Something you build your life around, career, family, money, but it's all important, but they're shaky. It can go wrong They can depend on circumstances.

They can depend on your performance. Only Christians you have Jesus as their cornerstone have a rock solid Cornerstone. In the book of Hebrews later in the new testament, the writer says these words. Jesus Christ the same yesterday today and forever So let's look at the evidence of the cornerstone. The council didn't know what to do.

The problem was for them that there evidence, staring him in the face, a healed man, 40 years old, lame from birth, fully healed. Well, they they acknowledge the miracle. Yeah. Yeah. You're right, but but totally rejected the reality behind it.

But did you notice that they made no attempt to discredit what Peter said about having seen Jesus's resurrection? Although they knew it was the center of the message. Look back reverse too. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, proclaiming Jesus, the resurrection of the dead. But Peter, he had firsthand knowledge of the resurrection The resurrection is fundamental to the whole of the Christian faith.

If you haven't already done so, can I invite you to examine the evidence for it? Well, speaking of evidence, I like you to meet Max. But the last time Max featured in a sermon at Hope church, Max was a dog. Anyone remember that, Becky May, when Pete Wookock was preaching here, Max was a dog. Well, Max is gonna appear today as himself.

This is a a just a very short extract from a video we made several years ago when Bart was talking to our own Max padney, and Max had been explaining that he went to university, having done his a levels, having decided that there was no god. He went to university as an atheist. So let's just see a short extract from that video now. I think it was when I got to kind of a level, I reached my own personal conclusion that that goal didn't exist. And from that point of view, that I would consider myself an atheist.

Yeah. So you went off to university to study physics. And big change happened at university. You became a Christian 1 while you were at university. How did that change come about?

The first major shock that hit me was the number of Christians. Studying physics. I thought most of the people here wouldn't be, and how can they reconcile that with with, like, pursuing sort of scientific endeavors from that point of view? That was that was the first major surprise. So 1 point of view was understanding where these these questions had sort of come.

Mhmm. And and my, my wife was was 1 of them that I met at university. And it was special through discussions with them that I recognized, that firstly, Christianity had a lot of evidence behind it that I had no concept of or knowledge of whatsoever. So there was 1 strand where was able to appreciate Christianity had a lot more, backing from that point of view and a lot more substance to it. Realizing that Christianity was underpinned by a whole body of evidence that Mac said he was completely unaware of Although if you want to see more of that video search for Doctor.

Max Partner in YouTube, and he will pop up before you. So what do we take from this? Well, the people, including educated people, can be completely unaware of the whole body of evidence that underpins the Christian faith. So that could be a great encouragement to us as Christians when we invite people to examine the evidence. Now, the council didn't know what to do.

So they went into closed session. See, lately, have you have you ever wondered how we know what was said in this closed session? How did Luke who wrote the book of acts know what was said? Well, a few commentators have had a bit of fun with this, at least I think they had. 1 of them said, and I should read this out in a voice that goes, the author reports for close deliberations as if he had been present.

So I move along. Nothing to see here. Faith news, casting doubts on the authority of scripture. Well, hasn't he heard of leaks? Not the worst kind, but Maybe there was a sympathizer on the council who passed out this information.

Maybe saw, who later became the apostle Paul, was there. He told Luke. Gamaliel was there, and he was Paul's tutor. Maybe he told Luke who was able may he told saw who wrote later told Luke, and he was able to write it down. Why don't why am I mentioning this?

Well, the important thing is, yes, there are some gaps in the Bible. We're not given every single detail about everything that happened, but there are explanations. It's good for us to learn about these explanations and to dig deep into scripture into god's word. So you might say, yes, well, that's such an interesting question, but it could well be that someone will leave information or maybe gamalia and so on. Remember at school, reading school magazine, and there was an article there written by, an older boy.

And he said, talking to an occasion when Jesus was talking to his disciples in in saying that, well, clear, Jesus was clearly mistaken by that. And I thought as a young teenager, yeah, got to the point there. Does seem to say, Jesus might have got that bit wrong. What's the answer to that? Well, later on, I called to realize that this older boy completely must've misunderstood what Jesus was actually referring to.

So we might say to someone saying that, do you know what it was that Jesus was actually referring to when he said that? Whether I'd have had the courage as a young teenager to say that to a boy much older and myself is another matter. But that is something that we can bear in mind. Just probe, do you really understand exactly what Jesus was saying? This brings us to the power of the gospel.

The gospel, the good news about Jesus. First of all, this exclusive claim led to transformed lives. Look at verse 13. The council noted that Peter and John had been with Jesus. Yes, they had.

And he completely transformed their lives. They lived with him. They see his resurrection. They've been filled with the Holy Spirit. Here is Peter, who, not all that long before, had denied Jesus.

He denied that he ever knew had anything to do with him. What a transformation? Peter went from being a coward to a hero. And these transformations, I'm on the 1 of the key evidences for the resurrection of Jesus. And there's the power of personal experience, and that personal experience at that time was the healed man.

There he was healed in front of them. And if you are a Chris you have the power of your own personal experience of sins forgiven because of what Jesus has done for you. You have a personal testimony, and no 1 can argue against your own personal testimony. You might say, well, I've been a Christian for how many years it is. I know I have Jesus in my life.

I've examined the evidence and it makes sense to me. So we take away from that what we read in verse 12. Salvation is found in no 1 else. For there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. Received.

No other name, but the name of Jesus. The only conclusion about Jesus is that Jesus is the only way. We've reclaimed Christ Jesus as lord. We have a gospel to proclaim, and it's such good news. Let's pray.

Heavenly father. We thank you that we don't have to work for our salvation. Thank you that because of the life, death, and resurrection of the lord Jesus Christ, there is no other name by which we can be saved. Take away any pride we have. May we be humble?

May we know we need forgiveness? May this exclusive claim make us the most inclusive people on earth. We ask this in Jesus's name, amen.