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Dalton SDA Church

Chester Clark

By Whose Power

This morning we're talking about by whose power or by whose authority some translations might render this text.

You know, I've had the opportunity to spend a fair bit of time traveling in parts of the world that are more like the Bible times than our times, you know?

Sometimes we don't really understand what the Bible is talking about because we live in such a different society.

We live in different worlds, especially here in America, in the Western world, where we have very well established systems of governance and freedoms and policies and equality among people and so forth.

It's hard for us to understand a question like this, by whose power?

In other parts of the world, it's much more meaningful and relevant.

In some parts of the world, who you know makes all the difference.

If you're related to the mayor, if you're related to the governor, if you're related to the 1 of the parliamentarians or 1 of the Congress people or something like that, you have a name behind you.

All the more so if you are 1 of those people, right?

It's almost as if in some parts of the world, people live almost above the law because of the name they have behind them.

I remember entering a country in the continent, the great continent of Africa.

And by the way, if you've never been to Africa, it's not where people go often to just do tourism, you know?

But it's probably 1 of the best places to go to just understand a different culture in the world.

The continent of Africa is an amazing place.

No matter where you go, you will find it fascinating and rich in culture and history and all.

And I was visiting, I was with the vice president of the general conference and we were going to do a training program in this particular country and we had a lot of equipment with us.

Some of it was going to be given to lay members.

We had things like DVD players and DVDs and books with scripts and different things so that lay people could be involved in evangelism.

And it's always a little bit of a challenge.

You're always worried about it when you go to a new country because you don't know what it's going to be like to get these things past the customs.

And I could tell you stories all morning here about clearing customs, literally.

I can tell you crazy stories about customs.

In many parts of the world it's difficult to bring anything into the country that's of any value because as soon as they see something of value they think we have a way, a leverage to be able to get some import duty or otherwise under the table or whatever it is they want in order to let you bring that in.

And in this country, we landed and we had all this equipment.

And I'm thinking, How are we going to get that?

And my friend who was the vice president of the country, of the general conference, he was from that country.

So we roll up to customs and he comes and, you know, there's long lines and all that.

All of a sudden, a customs agent comes up to me and begins speaking to me.

And they open a door on the side of the airport and all of us walk through with all of our luggage and we never even go through customs at all.

Oh, he said, you see, my brother is the government minister that's in charge of all of customs for this country.

And I enjoyed traveling with that gentleman because his last name obviously was very well known.

He was very, I decided he was the favored son of the nation.

We stopped for gas, people wanted to talk to him.

And he used every opportunity to also share Jesus.

It was a beautiful thing to see his faith and his sharing in that country, traveling with Him.

But who you know matters, by whose name, by whose power, what authority do you have to be here?

Let's bow our heads as we have an additional word of prayer.

Father, we ask that as we open Your Word, as we seek to learn from its pages, that You would send Your Spirit to be our guide.

For Lord, we are mortals, You are immortal.

Our minds are finite, Your truth is infinite.

We are carnal and Your truth is spiritual, so we need Your Spirit to teach us.

Speak to each 1 of us, Lord, today individually, I pray in Jesus' name.

We looked together some time ago at the beginning of this story.

The story is of the healing of the lame man by the gate called Beautiful.

You remember that he had been there for 40 years.

Everyone who came to the temple knew him.

And as Peter and John came to the temple on this day to pray, He held out his hand as he always did, and he asked for an alms, and Peter says, look at us, right?

I don't know if he was saying that because he thought we don't have any money, look at us, Who are we, right?

I don't know exactly why, but the man fixed his gaze on Peter, and he said, Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee.

In the name of Jesus Christ, arise and walk.

And the Bible records, we studied this together, that he was walking and leaping and praising God.

And everybody in the temple said, wasn't that the 1 that was there by the gate, beautiful all this time?

And the story continues as they went into the temple and began preaching.

We'll pick it up here in chapter 3 and verse 11.

Now, as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch which is called Solomon's, greatly amazed.

So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people, men of Israel, why do you marvel at this or why look so intently at us as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.

But you denied the Holy 1 and the just and asked for a murderer to be granted to you and killed the Prince of Life whom God raised from the dead of whom we are witnesses.

And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know.

Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given Him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all." What a sermon Peter is preaching!

It's the 1 that you delivered up and that you asked for a murderer in His place.

It's the same 1 who Jesus raised from the dead.

And it's through faith in His name that this powerful miracle has taken place, this man has been healed.

Verse 17, yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

But those things which God foretold by the mouth of His prophets that Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.

Repent therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken of by the mouth of His holy prophets since the world began." What a sermon Peter begins to preach.

Now, as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead." Now, what you see happening here is a coalition forming.

You know, it's very true that the Sadducees and the Pharisees did not like each other.

The Sadducees were sort of like, if we could be loose with labels, and I'm not a big fan of labels, okay?

But if we could be loose with labels, we would say this morning the Sadducees were the liberals in the church, and the Pharisees were the ultra-conservatives, or the conservatives in the church.

They were all about the lists of rules and the regulations and they heaped rules upon regulations.

You remember, Jesus got crosswise with the Pharisees quite a few times because He didn't recognize their man-made rules.

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By Whose Power

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