The Urban Church of Jerusalem
Tom Shrader walks through Acts 5, covering the apostles' arrest, miraculous release, and defiant return to preaching, with the memorable declaration that believers must obey God rather than men. He draws on James Montgomery Boyce's observation that Luke alternates between portraits of the church gathered and the church sent into the world, applying that rhythm directly to New City Church's mission in urban Phoenix. The teaching closes with a call for every believer to function as an informal missionary by living a visibly transformed life and speaking openly about Jesus wherever they live, work, study, and play.
“Your mission is to make the invisible God visible and speak the truth boldly — that has been God's plan from the beginning for the church and for believers.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: New City Church
Recorded: Mar 13, 2016
Duration: 37 min
Themes: obedience, missions, boldness, persecution, evangelism, transformation, witness, courage, new believer, feeling fearful about sharing faith, young adult, urban dweller, church member, struggling with peer pressure, everyday missionary, new to the church
Scripture: Acts 1:8, Acts 5:5, Acts 5:10, Acts 5:12, Acts 5:14, Acts 5:16, Acts 5:17, Acts 5:26, Acts 5:28, Acts 5:29, Acts 5:33, Acts 5:40, Acts 5:41, 2 Timothy 3:12, 1 Peter 4:12
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, church mission, missiology, apostolic witness, sanctification, biblical authority, pneumatology, incarnational ministry
Full Transcript
The Book of Acts and the Mission of the Early Church
The book of Acts is the story of the early church. If I were to put a long title on this passage, it would be: the study of a community in the urban core of Jerusalem, taking the message of Jesus to where they live, work, study, and play. You are engaged in the very work that God would have the church do. If you read the Gospels, you see and hear the life of Jesus — He dies, rises again. You go to the book of Romans and the letters that follow, and you hear the expansion and teaching of the church. But in the book of Acts, you get what Jesus said was going to happen.
Acts chapter one, verse eight is probably the theme verse for the entire book: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses in both Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, even the remotest parts of the earth." That is our mission.
New City's Mission and the Simplicity of Purpose
I get to a lot of churches and they have mission statements longer than *The Old Man and the Sea* — they go on forever. New City's is so simple: a community in the urban core of Phoenix committed to taking the message of Jesus to the places we live, work, study, and play. When you can get it like that, you can begin to live it. Whoever came up with that is a genius, because you can bring everything back to it.
Luke's Pattern in the Book of Acts
I want to recommend a book to you. It is by a gentleman named James Montgomery Boice — B-O-I-C-E. He wrote a commentary on the book of Acts, and it is part of a larger reference work of about a thousand pages called *Fundamentals of the Christian Faith*. You are not going to sit down and read it in a day, but you want it on the shelf so that when you want to study a topic, you can go to it. One of the things Boice does that I appreciate is that he works in lists — five of these, seven of these — which suits the way I think.
When we get to his comments on this passage, Boice writes this: "We've advanced far enough in our study of the book of Acts to see Luke's pattern in these chapters. His plan is simple. Luke alternates between a picture of the church by itself — a portrait of believers alone in their fellowship in which they talk about life and witness and joy — and a portrait of the church that exists in its relationship to the world."
So Luke looks at the church from two perspectives. The first is what we are doing right now — gathering together. I pick two hours on a Sunday morning. Some of you will be here slightly less than that, some of you more. But that time we come together is absolutely essential. It is a time to recharge, a time to connect, a time to find one another, a time to be enthused. When I come into a place like New City, it lifts me up. And I am sure that when you are in it, you do not fully realize how special it is.
Welcome and Introduction
Unique. You just come in and look around, and I feel very hopeful. My world, if I don't push it, if I don't resist it, I do what you do — I hang around with like-minded, same-stage-of-life people. So I spend all day with older people, and all we talk about is PSA levels and colonoscopies. All they do is watch Fox News, listen to Sean Hannity, and buy gold. That's all they do, the whole day. Well, you're pretty screwed up after you listen to that for a while. I'm naturally a melancholy guy, so I have to pull myself out of that.
Looking around and seeing you — seeing that you're serious enough to be here at 10:34 on a Sunday morning, serious enough to staff children's ministry, serious enough to pay for this — it's a big deal. It's a cool deal. But what Boyce is saying is that it can be so cool in here that we never get out there. If we're in here two hours today, we have another 166 hours this week where we have to be out there. Now, that pull can be equally seductive in the other direction — I can become so focused on the community outside that I neglect this gathering.
What Boyce is saying is that Luke — the author of the Book of Acts, which is volume two of his work; he also wrote the Gospel of Luke — is showing us here's what's going on. As you read through this book, you see the church come together, you see something powerful happen, and then you see the church go out. And that's who we are.
Ananias and Sapphira
God has been working, the church is growing and multiplying, and great things are happening. In the most recent passage we studied, we met a couple by the name of Ananias and Sapphira. They came in — if you were here last week, you heard the story — and Ananias lied. He tried to deceive the Holy Spirit. Here's what happened, Acts chapter five, verse five: "As he heard these words, Ananias fell down, breathed his last, a great fear came over all who heard, and the young men got up, covered him up, carried him out, and buried him."
Sapphira then came in and told the same story — she confirmed the lie. Verse ten: "Immediately she fell at his feet, breathed her last, the young men came in and found her, and buried her." Now, if you're an underliner or a circler, look at the phrase in verse six — "the young men got up" — and again in verse ten — "the young men." Some scholars believe that in the early church, this was an actual office. Just as there were ushers and greeters, there were young men whose role was hauling out people who had lied and died. That would solve the parking problem at Easter — if we announced that all the liars were going to die, there'd hardly be anyone here.
What is God doing? He is purifying the church. He is not a hard, capricious God sitting in heaven looking for people who are having fun and striking them down. He is looking for His people to be holy and pure. He is saying, "I hate sin and I will judge it, and if you are truly Mine, there are consequences."
Signs, Wonders, and Growing Opposition
As all of this is happening, you can imagine that fear is spreading through the church — perhaps even the thought, "Have I lost God's blessing?" But the apostles are continuing in signs and wonders. Verse twelve of chapter five tells us people are being healed. Verse fourteen says they are constantly adding to their numbers — the church is growing. And verse sixteen, where we left off: "Also the people from the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together, bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all being healed."
Now there is a group watching all of this. We meet them in verse seventeen. The high priest rose up along with his associates — the Sadducees — and they are filled with jealousy. The text doesn't say exactly what they are jealous of, but I can assume it is one of two things, and my assumption is that it is both: they are jealous of Jesus — now dead and risen — and jealous of the attention coming to the apostles. It was the Pharisees who really opposed Jesus, but it is the Sadducees who bring the primary opposition to the early church. So they rise up, lay hands on the apostles, and put them in a public jail. They persecute them.
The Promise of Persecution
That is what is going to happen as God begins to move — there will be opposition. It is promised to you. Second Timothy chapter three, verse twelve: "All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted."
God saved me thirty-six years ago, in March of 1980, and right away I became a reader. I had never been a reader — I read my first book in my junior year of college, and it was a book on Muhammad Ali, so I wasn't exactly cracking the classics. But when I got saved, I had this mind that just wanted to read. There was a Christian bookstore on 7th Avenue and Osborne — there used to be a Bashas' there, and across the street was a Christian bookstore — and since I worked downtown, I would go in there a couple of days a week.
One day I'm checking out, and there by the point of purchase is a rack with a book called *The Promises of God* — gold leaf, leather bound. I thought, well, I had to get that. If there are coupons here, I need to be cashing them in. What are these promises? I want them. So I got it and I studied it, and here's what I discovered: there were promises in the Bible that didn't make it into that book. And one of those promises was this — "All who desire
Persecution in the Center of God's Will
To live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 1 Peter 4:12 says, "Don't be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you." This is part of what begins to happen. It happened to that early church not because they were out of the will of God, but because they were smack dab in the center of it, doing what God would have them do, being used by Him in a marvelous way.
So they lay hands on the apostles and put them in jail. During the night, an angel of the Lord opened the gates of the prison, and taking them out, he said, "Go stand and speak to the people in the temple, the whole message of life." What is that? Go preach the gospel. And where? Go right back to the temple. On hearing this, they entered the temple about daybreak and began to teach.
When the high priest and his associates came, they called the council together, even the Senate of the Sons of Israel, and sent orders to the prison house for the apostles to be brought. But the officers who came did not find them in the prison and reported back: "We found the prison locked securely and guards standing at the door, but when we opened it up, there wasn't anybody in there." When the captain and the temple guards and the chief priests heard these words, they were perplexed about what was about to happen.
Then someone came and said, "The men who you put in the prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people." We have bad news — they're gone — but the good news is we know where they are. They're right back down there doing what you told them not to do. The captain went along with the officers and proceeded to bring them back without violence, for they were afraid, verse 26, that the people might stone them.
It is worth hitting the pause button here. Words change meaning over generations. When it says he was afraid they might be stoned, this is not a casual scene — they were afraid of capital punishment. The high priest and the Sadducees were afraid the people would stone them.
We Must Obey God Rather Than Men
When they brought the apostles back, they stood them before the council, and the chief priest questioned them in verse 28: "We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man Jesus' blood on us." You have been in the community, in the urban core of Jerusalem, and you took the message of Jesus to where you live and work and study and play.
Peter and the apostles answered in verse 29, and I would encourage you to circle this one: "We must obey God rather than men." In my Bible I wrote that down and highlighted it in yellow, because this is a good rule of thumb. As I am trying to figure out life and strategy, if there is a conflict, I want to know what God says.
I have been teaching a midweek Bible study for 28 years now, and I teach three of them. A couple of years ago a man came who I had not seen before. He came a few times, then came up after a few weeks and said, "You are really hung up on the Bible." I said I did not know what he meant. He said, "It all goes back — again and again and again. Why?" I said, "Because God wrote it, and it is His Word, and it tells me how to live."
The rule of thumb is right there in verse 29. If God says to do it, do it. If He says to avoid it, avoid it. That may produce some tension. I do what is right because it is right, until it feels right — it might not always feel right. But this is what drives me in a world that has lost its compass.
We are all confused. What twenty years ago we thought was an outlier — crazy, nuts — is mainstream now, morally and ethically. Things are changing. But this has not changed.
The Message They Carried
Here is the message from verse 30 onward: "The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you put to death." That phrase, "you put to death," is in a tense that means you actively did it. Before, there had been a sense of guilt by association or by standing by in affirmation — but here it is direct: you did it. You put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross. He is the one who was exalted at the right hand as Prince and Savior to grant repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses of these things.
There is their message. There is the story. They said, we cannot stop. We have to take this message. Why? This is all we have.
Now I want to make a point that could be misunderstood, so give me the benefit of the doubt. As you read through Acts chapter 1 and the early messages these men are preaching, they are all about the crucifixion and the resurrection. They are not talking about marriage, or children, or ethics, or all of that other material.
I am not saying those things are not important. The woman who handles my administrative work told me recently that I have now distributed 820,000 CDs — all free — on topics like money and many others. All of that is important. But when I am coming in with the core message, the message I carry is to take the message of Jesus to where I live, work, study, and play. The crucifixion and the resurrection.
When I opened the Connect card this morning and that invitation to Good Friday and Easter fell out, that is the message.
Opening: The Easter Opportunity
You ought to grab a dozen of those and have them with you for the next two weeks. It is a target-rich environment. It is Easter, and people are naturally curious. Tell them: if you want to understand New City, you need to be here at Good Friday. Do the two services back to back. Feel the gloom, the hardship, the sorrow, and the suffering of Good Friday, and then the joy of Easter morning.
Gamaliel's Counsel and the Apostles' Response
I made an editorial decision to summarize verses 33 through 40 rather than work through them in depth. When the men hear verse 33, they have the reaction that is always the response to the gospel — they are cut to the quick. They may push away, they may ask for more, they may say "get out of here," or they may say "this is exactly what I want to hear." Here, they are confused. Their livelihood and their position are being threatened.
A man named Gamaliel stands up and gives them a history lesson. He pulls out two examples of men who had come forward as Messiahs — and it is worth understanding that there were many who claimed to be the Messiah in Jesus' day. He cites two: one had four hundred followers and eventually the movement dissolved, and another had a group that eventually went away as well. Gamaliel's conclusion is this: if this movement is not of God, it will be destroyed; but if it is of God, you do not want to be found in opposition to it.
Now, that sounds wise — but a truly wise man would have said, "We had better investigate this thing. This is a big deal." For twenty-two years I taught Easter morning in my church, probably six messages each Easter, and every one came down to the same point: Jesus rose from the dead, and that is a big deal. If He really rose from the dead — and He did — then I had better listen to what He has to say. I had better want to know what He says about Himself and what He says about me.
They took Gamaliel's advice. Verse 40 tells us they flogged the apostles and let them go. And verse 41 says the apostles went on their way from the presence of the council rejoicing. Is that not remarkable? They had just been beaten, yet they rejoiced — because they considered themselves worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus. And look at what followed: every day, this community in the urban core of Jerusalem was taking the message of Jesus from house to house, wherever they lived, worked, and played.
You Are the Vehicle
I want to connect that directly to you. That is your calling. You are the vehicle that God is using to reach this world. You have the answer.
Let me tell you something personal. I had no significant physical problems in my life until the last four years. In that time I have had open-heart surgery, I have been diagnosed with lupus, I was diagnosed eight weeks ago with prostate cancer, and two weeks ago with vertigo — which is interesting in its own way, because everything starts spinning and I find myself thinking of Jimi Hendrix. But it is a serious and devastating condition. Every time I share this, people line up to help me. Have you taken this supplement? Here is a juicer. Here is a pill. Here is an exercise program. And my personal favorite: "Do you have a good doctor?" Of course I have a good doctor. People I do not even know want to give me juicers, mixers, and every remedy imaginable.
But here is the truth: my biggest problem is not my lupus. My biggest problem is sin. And that is true of the world around you as well. In those 166 hours this week — when you go out to live in the community where you live, work, study, and play — you have the answer. You have the answer to the deepest problem in your community and in your world. And it is Jesus.
Two Inseparable Callings
So let me give you two things, and they are inseparable: your mission is to make the invisible God visible, and to speak the truth boldly. That has been God's plan from the beginning for the church and for every believer.
In his work *The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire*, Edward Gibbon wrote: "It became the most sacred duty of a new convert to diffuse, to integrate, to move among his friends and neighbors the blessing he had received." In other words, to go and tell the gospel where he lived and worked and studied and played. One historian, reflecting on the expansion of the faith, asked: how did it go from twelve frightened men to the religion it became? His answer was this — the feat of Christianity was accomplished by means of informal missionaries. That is you, going where you live and work and study and play.
James Boyce writes: "I suppose the greatest mistake a person can make as he reads about the witness" — he was speaking of John the Baptist — "is to think that somehow he is a particular person, or that this calling is unique to him. But that is an error, a serious one. Witnessing is every Christian's job. If we are to witness for Jesus, we must first forget ourselves. We must first think about others and their need for Christ."
Why is it that when someone says they have lupus, you immediately want to put them on a diet, an exercise plan, and a juicer — but when someone says they are really hurting, you cannot bring yourself to offer them Jesus? I have to make the invisible God visible. All that means is this: go and live in a way that looks transformed. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, "Let them see your good works." People should be able to look at you and tell that you are a Christian.
Living a Distinctively Different Life
When people look at you, they should see something different — not odd, but different. They should see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. This world is intense. You have fights breaking out at McDonald's because someone got a cheeseburger when all they wanted was a hamburger. The world has become so confrontational, relationships so strained, and in the middle of all of that, you parachute in as a kind, gentle person.
Kindness is not weakness. It is really nothing more than love in action — the kind that says, "You can go first. I don't have to be." We are not talking about grand gestures here, but the world is so dark that when you start to live that way, people are going to look at you and say, "There is something different about you."
You make the invisible God visible, but then you also have to speak the truth boldly. When someone says there is something different about you, you have to say it is Jesus. Not "I'm just a good person." Not "I'm just wired that way." It is Jesus.
Your Mission and Where God Has Placed You
When I study this section of the book of Acts against the overall backdrop of the book and come to your mission statement — to be a community in the urban core of Phoenix, committed to taking the message of Jesus to where we live, work, study, and play — you are right on where God wants you to be. You do that by living a distinctively different life.
I am not trying to create any guilt here, but there should be a steady stream of people in your life asking questions. They may say, "How come your marriage works when mine doesn't? How come your dating works when mine doesn't? How come your life works when mine doesn't?" What they are really saying is, "Tell me about Jesus." That is the story of the book of Acts. The feat of Christianity was accomplished by means of informal missionaries.
You are in a wonderful place, with a great call, a great charge, and a great opportunity. And if you are right in the middle of it, sometimes you do not even realize it. You are right where God has placed you.
Go Where You Already Are
You do not need a passport, a visa, or shots to do this. All you have to do is go where you live, work, study, and play. God has you strategically placed — out of GCU, downtown at one of the banks, in a clothing store, at a television station, wherever He has put you.
All of this happens for one reason: the death and resurrection of Christ. That is so central to the mission of New City that when you come together every week, that gathering is a key and important part of what we do — remembering what Jesus accomplished on the cross.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for the truth and reality of this. Use us. It seems so simple, but it is impossible without Your Spirit. God, fill Your people with Your Spirit. For those who are here today saying this is new and they are not sure, give them the courage to come and talk to the folks at the front of the room this morning. God, let this be a day where we glorify You.