No Other Name
Download MP3Tonight's scripture reading comes from Acts 4 verses 1 through 21, which you can also find in your worship guide. And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, Greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. But many of those who had heard the word believed and the number of the men came to about 5,000. On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem with Annas or the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and all who were of the high priestly family.
Speaker 1:And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, by what power or by what name did you do this? Then Peter filled with the Holy Spirit said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed? Let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation and no one else for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
Speaker 1:Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another saying, what shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them as evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and we cannot deny it.
Speaker 1:But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak to speak no more to anyone in this name. So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge. For we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard. And when they had further threatened them, they let them go.
Speaker 1:Finding no way to punish them because of the people. For all were praising God for what had happened.
Jeffrey Heine:This is
Speaker 1:the word of the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Thanks be to God. If you would pray with me. Our father, we ask that you would send your holy spirit, that he would come, that he would invade the deep recesses of our heart. Lord, that he would heal us where we need healing. He would convict us where we need convicting.
Jeffrey Heine:Lord, I pray that tonight we would hear from you. I pray that we don't hear a doctrine, but we hear from a person, the living Jesus. So, Lord, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. I pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:Amen. We've been working our way through the book of acts, and we've already dealt a couple of weeks with the miracle of the lame man that was healed at the gate called Beautiful. If you weren't here last week or didn't get to listen to the message last week, I'd encourage you to. We talked about the vision of our church. How that went along with Acts chapter 3, wanting to declare the sovereignty and the supremacy of Christ in all things, and how all of the Bible speaks of this.
Jeffrey Heine:All of the Bible speaks of Jesus and the redemption we have of him. And I realized as I was as I was preaching last week, about halfway through it, I I was like, wow, I am yelling. You know, you you kind of have those thoughts. I could hear my voice echoing off there, so I hope I didn't scare you. This is 1996.
Jeffrey Heine:It was my 1st Beeson class. 1st semester there, I took preaching, and I had no idea what kind of preacher I was going to be. I didn't know. I'm studying this text. I'm supposed to preach, and I actually never went over it before hand.
Jeffrey Heine:And so, you have no clue what kind of preacher you you are. And I get up there, and, at one point, I smack the podium and I yelled, and all I could think of at that moment was, I guess I'm the yelling preacher. I never knew I had it in me, you know, that that that's that's how it naturally comes out and that's how it naturally came out last week. I'll try to be a little more calm tonight, but just I'm gonna dial it in just a little bit. The reason we've been looking at the book of Acts now for 10 weeks or so, and taking our time through it is because we want to look at what the earliest Christians looked like.
Jeffrey Heine:It's here that we see what they looked like. It's where we find out what the earliest Christians believed, how they lived and how Christianity spread. Now, any historian is going to tell you that Christianity spread unlike any other religion has ever done before it or since. It exploded in growth, quickly growing from just a few poor Jewish men to overtaking the Roman Empire in just a few centuries. It's astonishing.
Jeffrey Heine:And apart from the resurrection of Jesus, and God sending his Holy Spirit to work in these men, there's really no plausible explanation for this, for seeing this huge growth in these transformed lives. One cannot say that the reason Christianity exploded so fast, so quickly was because it was just ripe for it. The time was just perfect. I've heard that argument a number of times before that the reason Christianity grew so fast in the 1st century is because 1st century people, of course, were primitive, superstitious people, ready to believe anything you threw their way. So, of course, it took root there.
Jeffrey Heine:The the problem with this argument is that there is absolutely no evidence to to support that. Actually, the opposite is true. The the environment that Christianity grew up in was actually more hostile to it than than the environment is now for people who make truth claims like Christianity did. It was actually more inhospitable. People then were bothered by the by the claims of Christianity in a way that, that that had a huge reaction, often a volatile reaction to Christians who made those absolute claims.
Jeffrey Heine:The Roman Empire then then was very pluralistic. They believed in many gods, hundreds of gods, if not thousands, over thunder, a God of love, a God, over the harvest. They didn't believe in this one supreme being that ruled over all. And those who did believe in that one all. And those who did believe in that one supreme being, which were the Jewish people, there is no way they would have ever believed that that one supreme being could have become flesh.
Jeffrey Heine:There was not a category in their brain for thinking that because because God Almighty was holy, he was transcendent, he was completely other. And so there wasn't a category in their brain to process that that God might take on human form and walk in our midst. Now the Romans and the Greeks, of course, they believe that gods could come and walk in their midst, but once again those gods were not supreme. They were all too human. As for the claim of the resurrection of Jesus, don't think of the 1st century people as stupid.
Jeffrey Heine:We we tend to do that. They would have a problem with somebody rising from the dead, just like you would have a problem with somebody rising from the dead. They know if somebody died, they stayed dead. So all of this, is just to say that the environment that Christianity grew up in, that Christianity was born into was very inhospitable towards it. Yet, it not only survived, Christianity thrived.
Jeffrey Heine:It absolutely exploded in growth. And the only explanation is it is that these people then encountered the risen living Jesus, and he knocked down every physical, every mental, every spiritual argument and objection that they had was obliterated when they came face to face with the living Jesus. And so world views that they had held onto for a long time, deeply rooted in them, just completely were wiped away. And it's important for us to understand that when we come to the passage that we read tonight, because we are possibly finding here the largest obstacle that people have towards the Christian faith. And that's Christianity's exclaim or, Christianity's claim to exclusivity.
Jeffrey Heine:Look at verse 12. And there is salvation and no one else. For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Just like today, the world is is fine if Christians go around doing good. If the church goes around giving to the poor, starting schools, feeding the hungry, If we if we do a lot of good things, the world is fine.
Jeffrey Heine:But the moment you make an exclusive claim, the moment you say, Hey, the reason I'm doing this is because of Jesus, and Jesus is the only way to heaven. The moment you make that exclusive claim, there is going to be a reaction against you. It doesn't matter how good your deeds are. You can, like here, heal a lame person. And yet, they're thrown in prison because they, they, they proclaim that Jesus is the only way.
Jeffrey Heine:Several days ago, I was at the Jewish Community Center, which is where I work out. And, I'm, I'm ellipticizing. I don't I mean, you know, I'm not even sure if that's an adjective. If not, I just coined it. Feel free to use it.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm ellip I don't have to do the motions, but just to get the picture right, I'm ellipitizing. Usually, I go there around 2 or 3 in the afternoon when I'm getting a little sleepy, so I can, elliphasize and read, so I don't fall asleep. And so I took with me a commentary on acts, and I I'm reading as I'm using the elliptical machine. And, an old man came up to me, had to be 80 something years old, and he goes, so what are you doing? Now I hate talking to people when I'm exercising there, but, you know, what are you gonna do?
Jeffrey Heine:It's an old guy comes up. He's like, so so so what are you what are you reading is what he asked. I said, I'm reading a commentary on acts. He goes, the Acts of the Apostles. I said, yes.
Jeffrey Heine:Yes. The Acts of the Apostles. He goes, well, I know all about the Acts of the Apostles because, I was raised Catholic and he said, let me tell you something. Yeah, I felt like he was going to like rub my little head and say, Laddie, you know, let me tell you something little youngin. You probably thought I was 13.
Jeffrey Heine:But, he said, when I was in college, I took a class. I decided to take several classes on other religions because I wanted to just see what they believed. And you know what I found out? I was like, what? Said, I found that that they believe everything that I believe.
Jeffrey Heine:That I believed everything that they said. And and you know what? I bet I believe everything that you believe, just maybe more. Like, do I really have to get into this? You know, and he says it really all boils down to this, isn't it?
Jeffrey Heine:We're all trying to love God and love others. And then he walked away, before I got to, say, well, actually, you know, I'm studying acts chapter 4 verse 12. Let me unpack that for you. But I think that person is probably representative of many, many people that believe all religions are pretty much the same. All religions ultimately lead to God.
Jeffrey Heine:And when you hear a claim like that on the surface, it has such appeal that seems so, so humble, but it simply cannot hold water. A claim like that cannot hold any water. For starters, anyone who has read the words of Jesus realizes he did not give us that option. There there's no way you can read the words of Jesus and say, oh, we can we can believe any other religion that all the religions are essentially the same. For instance, Jesus said things like before Abraham was, I am.
Jeffrey Heine:Now there is not any religion on the planet outside of Christianity that can agree with that statement. Before Abraham was, I am. Even even the the the Jewish people, they would react completely against that. They're like, for one, he's claiming the name of God, Yahweh, I am. Jesus is saying, that's who I am, and I've existed for all of eternity.
Jeffrey Heine:And it says they wanted to pick up stones and throw it at them. Nobody, no other religion can make a claim like that. No other founder of a religion can say that. There's no other founder of any other religion who said things like, come to me all of you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. No other religious founder accepted worship, but Jesus not only accepted it, he encouraged worship of him.
Jeffrey Heine:And so you cannot simply just try to stand up Jesus in line with all the other religious founders and say they're all the same. Jesus himself will not allow you to do that. Another argument against the exclusivity of Christianity is, it's not so much that all religions are the same. It's that every religion holds, you know, a piece of the truth, but not the whole truth. We're all many different roads, leading up the same mountain to God.
Jeffrey Heine:Or perhaps you've heard this illustration. It's a it's a famous and old illustration of the 3 blind men who kind of bump into an elephant. And, so you have 3 blind men. Why they're walking this way? Why they run into the elephant?
Jeffrey Heine:I don't know. It's not part of the story. But they they bump into an elephant, and and one of them But the other blind man had bumped into one of the legs and says, no, the this animal is strong and like a tree trunk. And the other one is at the side of the elephant, says, no, no, no. It's this this animal is really huge and wide.
Jeffrey Heine:And so the illustration goes, well, they're all partially right. See, none of them can see the whole elephant. They're all just describing part of it. And so they're all partly true. Thus, every religion is partly true.
Jeffrey Heine:There is no one religion that can envision the entire truth and to claim otherwise is total arrogance. That's the argument. And like I said before, this has the appearance of of humility, of being a very gentle argument, But it's fundamentally flawed. Because the only way for these blind men to know that they, the only way for us to know that these blind men are only seeing part of the truth, is if we somehow claim to know all the truth. As if we somehow are claiming we can actually see the whole elephant.
Jeffrey Heine:Therefore, we know you've only got a trunk. You've only got a foot. You've only got the side. Leslie Newbigin was a missionary in India, lived around the mid 20th century. He had an illustration.
Jeffrey Heine:He he he that illustration of the blind man was thrown to him so many time. So finally, he wrote a book, called the gospel in a pluralistic society that you can still get. And he addresses that issue early on in it around page, you know, 10, 12 around there. And this is what he says in response to that argument. Says there is an appearance of humility in the protestation that the truth is much greater than anyone can grasp.
Jeffrey Heine:But if this is used to invalidate all claims to discern truth, it is in fact an arrogant claim So a kind of knowledge which is superior to all others. We have to ask, what is this absolute vantage ground from which you claim to be able to relativize all the absolute claims these different scriptures make? A more modern contemporary pastor and theologian Tim Keller says this, How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth, unless you yourself have the superior comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality, you just claimed that none of the religions have. And so the only way you can make a statement by saying all religions are essentially the same. They're, they're all kind of pointing to God.
Jeffrey Heine:They all have a part of the truth. The only way you can even make that claim is if you believe above all others, you see the whole picture clearly. And that is such arrogance. The question should be not whether there is truth, not not whether there is an absolute truth out there. The question should be this, is what I perceive as truth really true?
Jeffrey Heine:Is what I believe really true? That's the question we all need to be grappling with is, is my view of salvation, is my view of the way to God, is that the correct one? Peter and John here were so convinced by the truth of Jesus, by the truth of the resurrection, that they stood up in front of the very council that had condemned him to death 2 months earlier. They stood up to that same council, and they would not be moved. They so let me declare you this, there is salvation under no one else, for there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved.
Jeffrey Heine:And no uncertain terms that they declared, this is the absolute truth, Jesus Christ. And when they did this, people got so angry. So angry. When they began preaching the gospel, they were immediately thrown into prison. And there was just this deep hatred there that goes when you proclaim Jesus is the only way.
Jeffrey Heine:Actually, they don't even care whether or not Peter and John are telling the truth. Look at verse 16 and verse 17. They're talking among themselves and they say, but in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name. Oh, sorry. 16 it says, what shall we do with these men for that a notable sign has been performed through them as evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and we cannot deny it, but in order that it may not spread any further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.
Jeffrey Heine:Do you recognize or see how absurd this is? They're going, gosh, These guys just went to somebody and said, in the name of Jesus, walk. And the guy got up and walked. How can we get them to shut up about Jesus? That's their logic.
Jeffrey Heine:That's what they're thinking. They have this lame man who's who was lame for 40 years and he gets up in front of everyone and is walking around and not one person says, hey guys, you know, the these two guys just went up to that guy at the lame he's lame for 40 years. We knew him. Said in the name of Jesus, get to walk. We all see the guy walking around.
Jeffrey Heine:Do you think, per perhaps, I don't know, just throwing it out there. We might want to listen to what they have to say. It's not even entertained. There's a deep hatred there, when someone claims to know the way. Why?
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, if they had claimed anything else, if they Peter and John said, hey, you know, the reason we did this, we're just trying to earn points so we could get to heaven. Do you think they would have been thrown into jail for that? If they had said, well the reason we're doing this is, you know, I was zapped by lightning, got some kind of new power, and it's just kind of coming out of me, that people wouldn't have believed them, but they would have been thrown in prison. Peter could have said anything. He could have said, you know, it's because I'm a chicken and I do things like this, and he would have been thrown in prison.
Jeffrey Heine:But he claims because it's of Jesus and he's the only way, and people hate him for it. What is it about that claim? Let me give you two reasons I think we have such hatred here. 1, and I do not want to downplay this, I'm not gonna talk long about it, but I do not want to downplay it. There are spiritual forces at work.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus said that if the world hated him, they would hate his followers. And this has proven true over the last 2000 years. You, you see this even with families. I mean, I I've seen parents who can have their, their children lie to them, steal from them, go off waste and inheritance, do all this and they never stop loving them. But when a child comes up to him sometimes and says, I'm now converted.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus is the only way. You have to trust Jesus. They hate the child. Like quit talking to me about that. Why is that?
Jeffrey Heine:There is a spiritual force at work there. How else can you explain such an intense hatred to a religion that is centered around a man dying on a cross, praying for God to forgive those killing him. So what we have at the heart of our faith, he's saying, forgive them. They don't know what to do. And people hear that and they hate it.
Jeffrey Heine:Why? There's a spiritual force at work. 2nd reason for this hatred is that if you believe salvation is through Jesus Christ alone, then you have to acknowledge that you are no different than anyone else. No different. So in regards to your salvation, in regards to salvation in general, there's no difference between the drug dealer selling crack to to kids outside the playground than to, you know, the hardworking, good, moral school teacher.
Jeffrey Heine:There's zero difference there in regards to salvation. There's there's no difference between that, you know, enlightened liberal and that, you know, cold hearted conservative. You know, there's no difference. They both need Jesus. No difference between that person who's tried their entire life to be a good, honest, decent, hardworking person, versus that person who could care less about the rules, who will steal, kill, and do whatever to get what he wants.
Jeffrey Heine:No difference. So when you hear the gospel that Jesus saves, what that means is you can no longer look down on anyone else. You can never look down on. There's no longer a us and them. You can't watch the news, and when you hear about a politician falling down, or falling to some sex scandal, you can't say, oh, and and look down on that person as like, they're so different from me.
Jeffrey Heine:I would never do something like that. You can't laugh at other people's demise and and and think it's it's me and it's them. Me the righteous, them the sinner. No, the gospel levels the playing field. We are all saved not by what we do, but by Jesus and what he has done.
Jeffrey Heine:And let me tell you what, and I have seen this over and over in people. The grace of God can evoke a deep hatred among people. I know we love to sing it. Amazing grace. How sweet the sound saved a wretch like me, and and it produces such joy in us, but it can also provoke a deep hatred.
Jeffrey Heine:That's when you'd understand that the somebody understands the gospel, they will either hate it, or they will embrace it. If they're in limbo, they didn't understand the gospel. Because you will have only one of those two reactions. You will either hate it, or you will embrace it. But the grace of God can can just produce this hatred.
Jeffrey Heine:And we see that here in this text. Look at verse 11. I think Peter's partially getting to the reason of this in verse 11. And when he basically is saying, you know, the gospel comes in, it attacks the very foundation of our lives. And that is why we have such hatred towards it.
Jeffrey Heine:In verse 11, he says, this Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you. So Jesus is the foundation. He he was supposed to be the the foundation and it was rejected by you, the builders, which has become now the cornerstone. And I think one of the things that Peter is getting at here is that everyone has a foundation on which they build their entire life and they base their whole identity on. For some people, it's their looks.
Jeffrey Heine:I base my life, you know, on my looks. For other people, it is what they do. It's their profession. For others, it is their work ethic. For some, it's their wealth.
Jeffrey Heine:For some, it's just simply that I'm a good person and people like me. And that's what I'm gonna build my life upon. But everybody builds their life on some foundation in order to find meaning and purpose in their life. We all do it. And then here comes Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:And he says, you're building on sinking sand. Your foundation is worthless. Everything you've built your life on, worthless. You need to build on me. Build on me the solid rock.
Jeffrey Heine:Because if you build on any of those other things, they will fail you. Your looks will fail you. Money will fail you. If you base your identity on being a good parent, your children will fail you. Like, only Christ will not.
Jeffrey Heine:He's the rock in which your life should be built. And so when we hear that truth claim coming to us, that Jesus is the only way we begin realizing what you mean. Everything I've been building my life on is wrong. Everything of who I think I am is wrong? No way.
Jeffrey Heine:We rebel against it. We want to fight against that. It rocks us to our core. And we kind of see this here with the religious leaders. When the religious leaders heard Peter and John give their defense, it rocked them.
Jeffrey Heine:Look at verse 13. Says, Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated common men, they were astonished. Now for these religious leaders here, their foundation was their education, their wealth, their prestige, and now all of a sudden, 2 men come before them that have none of that. No wealth, no education, no prestige within the community, and yet these men are absolutely unshakable. Like, well but that's not what you build your life on.
Jeffrey Heine:That because that's not what we built our life on. Yet these men had such a solid foundation. It astounded them. They could not move these men. Like how can just simple minded Galileans talk like this?
Jeffrey Heine:And what you see here is if Christ is the foundation of your life, you become unshakable. And you're going to see this all throughout the book of acts. You'll especially see this when you get to Paul. I can't wait till we get there. Paul had to possibly be the most unshakable man on earth.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, if he had plenty, he's a lot of money. He's like, great. Take away all of his money, he's like, fine. I got plenty of food, wonderful. Gotta go hungry, fantastic.
Jeffrey Heine:If, yeah, you know, if you went up to Paul and he said, hey, Paul, I'm gonna kill you. He'd be like, praise the Lord, get to be with Jesus. Like, okay, I'm not gonna kill you. I'm just gonna beat you. And he's like, fantastic.
Jeffrey Heine:I have been found worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus. Like, alright, I'm just gonna throw you in prison. Great. I will convert your entire guard over me. Okay?
Jeffrey Heine:Throw me in prison. I'll see him through the night. No, I mean, people are like, how do we touch him? There there's not an area in our life that we can like affect him. No matter where we poke, he's like, solid rock of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:My identity is in Jesus, and it's not in anything else. Let me ask you, what what has to touch you to knock you off balance? What is it? Is it when works not going well, and you know, you just kind of feel knocked off balance? So it's because the gospel is not your foundation.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not what you're building your identity on. When your children misbehave, do you think your whole life stinks? I have no worth. Does that push you off? It's because the gospel is not your foundation.
Jeffrey Heine:Your identity is in how good your children are, not in what Christ has done for you. The gospel changes everything. Peter, John, Paul were untouchable. You know, one of the ways that I found to figure out kind of what I'm building my life on, what are my, I guess, faulty foundations is when I ask myself myself, what annoys me? What really frustrates me.
Jeffrey Heine:You could see this in verse 4, I think. I didn't write it down. Verse 2, says the Sadducees were greatly annoyed. I love that. The words actually, they were wore out, they were exasperated because these guys were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
Jeffrey Heine:They were so annoyed, worn out that these people were proclaiming the gospel. And because it that revealed their own faulty foundation was We don't have to believe in the gospel. That that's not where our authority is. Our authority is in our wealth. Our authority is is in our prestige.
Jeffrey Heine:Our authority is in our education, not in that. And it revealed their faulty foundation. So I asked myself what things annoy me. And I'll tell you a few. Let me just confess.
Jeffrey Heine:I've confessed these before. If I'm in line at Walmart and there's always a line in Walmart and I look and there is like 45,000, it seems like empty cash registers, or maybe 40. And I'm in this long line and it's so slow. And the person is so lazy behind the counter. I my my blood boils.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm infuriated. I am deeply annoyed. And the reason I am deeply annoyed because one of the foundations I build my life on is hard work. And that person has violated what I see as the foundation of my life. And it just annoys me.
Jeffrey Heine:Deeply annoys me. You know, are you irritated when people say stupid things, like just really irritated? Why in the world do you say that? It's because you're thinking, you know what, I'm building my foundation on the fact that I'm so smart and wise. So you little, you know, imbeciles just annoy me.
Jeffrey Heine:And and we all do this. We all pride ourselves on different things and, and other things just annoy the daylights out of us. Those things that annoy us really are like a mirror shining up and saying, you know what? This is what you're building your foundation on. Don't you see there is no us them.
Jeffrey Heine:There is no Joel hard worker, stands righteous before the Lord, Walmart lazy cashier condemned to hell forever. You know, there's there's none of that. There's none of this me, righteous, them, sinner. It's we're all sinners, because it doesn't matter how hard you work. It's not my work, it's the work of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:And when that gospel gets in me, it absolutely transforms me, and I become untouchable. Nothing can rock my life when I'm on the solid rock of Jesus. By grace, we are saved. Pray with me. Jesus, I ask now, in this moment, you would show yourself as a living and active God.
Jeffrey Heine:That you would speak to our hearts. You would convict us of sin. You would show us our idols in the faulty foundations that we have built our life. I pray there would be no other foundation than Jesus. You would be our solid rock.
Jeffrey Heine:What wonderful news That even though when we were sinners, you didn't leave us alone, you didn't run away, but you came and you saved us. I pray we would rejoice in that and we would proclaim that with all boldness. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
