Peter Misselbrook's Blog

Feb 21 2020 - Acts 4:1-37 – Incontrovertible power

Peter’s second recorded sermon in Acts had no sooner drawn to a conclusion than the Temple officials turned up in force – priests, a group of Temple guards with their captain, and some Sadducees. They were greatly annoyed not only because Peter and John had assumed an unauthorised role of teaching the people – in the Temple! – but particularly because they were asserting that in Jesus, God had raised the dead. The upper echelons of the priests who had control of the Temple were mainly of the Sadducees who denied that there was any resurrection of the dead. Their authority was being undermined in their own domain by common fishermen – from Galilee!

We see here a key theme which is going to run on through the Book of Acts. Paul makes use of this disagreement between Sadducees and Pharisees regarding the resurrection of the dead to his own advantage – but that’s still to come.

I can’t resist looking back at Peter’s remarkable sermon that provoked such anger. Peter’s message centres upon the fact that Jesus of Nazareth, crucified in this place just two months earlier, was raised from the dead by God. What irony that many of this very crowd of hearers had called for the release of a murderer and the death of one who is the source of life.

So Peter calls on the crowd to repent so that their sins may be forgiven and to embrace the one they formerly rejected so that they may have life in his name – life from the dead. Peter says that as they turn to faith, God will send seasons of refreshing as foretastes of the time when Jesus himself will return from heaven and transform all things – the whole of creation shall then know his resurrection power.

The Sadducees are greatly troubled that in Jesus these men are preaching the resurrection of the dead. And that it is so difficult to controvert them because the power of the resurrection is evident both in the lame man leaping and the Galilean fishermen preaching – it is evident that they have been with Jesus, or rather, that Jesus is still with them, and in power! So they can do nothing except command them to stop such preaching.

The apostles react by telling their accusers that they will obey God rather than men. Then they go and call a prayer meeting in which they ask to be granted the continuing power to be bold in preaching. They know that Jesus is God’s Messiah, the one spoken of in Psalm 2. Jews and Gentiles may have plotted together to have him done away with, but God laughs at their plans; he has raised Jesus from the dead and made him Lord over the whole world. So they plead that more of his resurrection power may be seen in bold preaching and in evident miracles of life from the dead. This prayer is answered immediately as the building in which they are meeting is shaken. Oh for such prayer meetings that shake the world and anticipate the day of its final shaking when all things will be made new.

Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is not merely a doctrine for academic debate. It is a living reality at the centre point of history. It must shape our lives, our hopes and expectations, our behaviour and our message to others. It is to be made evident and incontrovertible in lives transformed – visible life from the dead. Where and when these things are real, these are indeed seasons of refreshing and anticipations of the world to come.

Lord Jesus, may your risen life be seen in us in generous shared lives, bold preaching and transforming power. Come shake the earth again.

Feb 21 2019 - Exodus 11:1-10 – God's threat to kill the firstborn

The Lord told Moses that the last plague will make Pharaoh, and with him all of the people of Egypt, want to be rid of the Israelites; indeed, they will pay them to leave. The Lord is going to come down in judgment. He will strike dead the firstborn in every home in Egypt but will ensure that his people are kept safe; not one of them will die.

To understand this act of judgment we need to turn back to words the Lord gave Moses to proclaim when he first confronted Pharaoh. In Exodus 4:21-23 we read,

The Lord said to Moses, ‘When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then say to Pharaoh, “This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, ‘Let my son go, so that he may worship me.’ But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.”’

Israel is God's firstborn son, the one in whom he has invested his purpose to bring blessing to all the nations of the earth. Israel had brought blessing to Egypt, saving its people from starvation. But now the Israelites have been enslaved and are being oppressed by the Egyptians who are intent on the destruction of this people whom they perceive as a threat. Pharaoh and the Egyptians have set themselves against the purposes of God. It has become a battle between two powers and in the end there can only be one outcome. If the Egyptians seek to oppress and destroy God's firstborn son, he will strike back and kill their firstborn sons. This is the final showdown through which it will be demonstrated that the living God, the God of Israel, is more powerful than Pharaoh and all the gods of Egypt.

God saves his people by coming down to break the power of those who hold them captive. He broke the power of Egypt that he might free the Israelites. In Jesus, God has come down to save us from captivity to sin and death. Jesus is God's firstborn Son, the one in whom all the purposes of God for blessing have come to rest. He has taken upon himself the calling of Israel to be a light to the nations. But those who opposed Jesus sought to destroy him by nailing him to the cross. There he took upon himself our slavery and oppression and paid the penalty for our sin. But his resurrection demonstrates the supreme power of the living God. He will not let his purposes fail; he will save his people and bring blessing to all the earth and its peoples. By his resurrection he has broken death's stranglehold on our lives and has brought us out of darkness into light.

The wonder of our redemption lies in this: God did not strike down the firstborn of his enemies but gave his own firstborn Son over to oppression and death that we might be set free. Here God displays the depth of his love for our world in all its sin and need.

The risen Lord Jesus is still at work liberating people from the powers that hold them captive and bringing them into the glorious freedom of the children of God. He will not rest until all peoples have come to know his saving power. And one day he will return to transform the very fabric of our damaged, groaning and dying world, that the creation itself may be released from its slavery and rejoice in its long promised freedom.

Father God, thank you that the great battle is over and our freedom has been secured. Thank you that you are pleased to call us your sons and daughters and have given us the Spirit of your Son. Gladly we own you as Abba, Father. Use us we pray to bring the news of your salvation to many others that they too may rejoice in the freedom of the children of God.

Peter Misselbrook