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I don't know if you ever heard anyone use the phrase, I must be living, right? You ever heard somebody use that phrase? You ever? You ever used that phrase yourself? Right? You're, you're walking into school one day, you're walking into work one day, you're, you're retired, and you're walking up to the golf course one day, and you're walking through the parking lot, and all of a sudden you see a $20 bill just laying right there on the ground. And so you pick it up, and you say,Boy, I must beliving right? Maybe you're at school, maybe you're at work. And you You forgot that you had a test that day. You forgot that that project was due, and all of a sudden you start guessing on all of the answers for the test. Or you throw something together for the project at work, and somehow miraculously, you get an A on the test. Or your boss absolutely loves the project that you just kind of winged and put together, and you go, boy, I must be living right, right. You take out your eight iron on the golf course and you you shank it, but it happens to hit a tree and bounce off the tree and back up onto the green right next to the cup for an easy tap in birdie. And you're going, boy, I must really be living right? I got an amen out of that one.There is this tendencyfor many of us to think when things are going right in our lives, when we're being blessed in these kinds of ways, that we must be living right, that we must be behaving, that we must be doing good things. For some people, it's just the way that the universe works. We think it's, it's karma. You do good things, good things happen to you. You do bad things, bad things happen to you. For others, it's, it's God, right. There are, there are certain things that God wants us to do, and there are certain things that God does not want us to do, and when you're doing the things that God wants you to do, and you're avoiding the things that God does not want you to do, then you're rewarded. And things are experience. Blessings are experienced. Things will go well in your life. But if you're not doing the things you're supposed to be doing, and you are doing the things that you're not supposed to be doing, then you're not going to be blessed. Not only are you not going to be blessed, but you may even be punishedfor doing what it is that you're doing. Aquestion I have for thismorning, is that true?Is it true that when you live your life the right way, good things will happen to you, and if you're not living your life the right way, will bad things happen to you? As we continue in our message series life, in the spirit where we've been going verse by verse, through the book of Acts together, we're going to see the answer to those questions today. As I mentioned, I asked you to turn to Acts chapter five and and we've been following the events of Peter and John, two of the apostles, and really all of the apostles in the early church, in some ways, up to this point. And listen, if there was ever anyone who was living right. I mean, if there was anyone who was living right, it would have been the apostles and the disciples. They they had left everything to follow Jesus for three years of His earthly ministry, and now they were the leaders of the church. They were giving their lives to lead the church, to help serve people, to help meet people's needs. If there's anyone who would deserve to be blessed for doing the right things,it has to be them.Well, let's see what happens. Acts chapter five, beginning in verse 17, says Then the high priest and all his associates who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They were they were filled with jealousy because of what we talked about last week. If you were here, you know, we looked at Acts chapter five, and we finished up. The last section was 12 through 16, verses 12 through 16, and it talked about how the apostles continued to to help people. They were continuing to teach the people about Jesus and the church continued to grow. More and more numbers were added to them daily. And these were the same religious leaders, the Sadducees and the Sanhedrin that we're going to talk about in just a moment, who had killed Jesus, who had put him on trial and killed him, and they were trying to put a stop to this whole new movement. And again, make no mistake about it, these were the people in power. So look what they did with their power. Because they were jealous, they arrested the apostles and put them in public jail. Gee, so much for the theory of this. You're living right. Good things are going to happen to you, right, man, these religious leaders arrested, not just Peter and John, but all of the apostles. If you were here for the rest of the series, you know that Peter and John have already been arrested at one point. But here we're led to believe that it wasn't just them but but all 12 of the apostles here, and they're trying to to make a public spectacle of them. They put them in public jail. They didn't just take them away and put them there where they weren't seen. They put them out for public display to send a message. The message was this, we want you to know that if you follow Jesus, if you are living right according to what you think God says is right, then this is what could happen to you. You too will be thrown in jail, just like we've thrown them in jail. But look what happens. Verse 19, but, but during the night, an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. Well, hold hard a minute. Maybe if you are living right, then God really will bless you. I mean, something bad happened to them, and they're they're doing the right things here and and now the the angel opened the doors of the jail for them to escape now. Now they can get out of there. Now they can get away from these religious leaders and those with the power and go on living a life of prosperity that God's going to bless them with because of their obedience. Well, let's see what happens. What the angel tells them to do, verse 20, go stand in the temple courts, the angel said, and tell the people all about this new life. Oh no. Well, that doesn't sound very safe, does it? I mean, these are the religious leaders. That's where they were going to be, in the temple, in the temple courts. They could find them easily. There. They could make their lives miserable, especially now that they've escaped from jail. They're continuing to tell Jesus people about Jesus, which is exactly what he told them to do. Now the thing I really want you to notice here is what the angel told them to go tell the people about. Says, Go stand in temple courts and tell the people all aboutthis new life.Now, actually, the word new isn't there in the original Greek. It's just the word life. But it's appropriate the way that the NIV added the word new life in there, because this is the Greek word Zoe. See, there are three Greek words that are used for life. The first one is bios. And you can tell what that is just by kind of looking at it. It's where we get our English word biology. And so this is about the physical aspects of life and describing those things. There was Suke, which you can see there, maybe we get our word psychology from, and this is about the mental and emotional aspects of life. But then there was Zoe, and Zoe life is the spiritual life. It's the UN created, eternal life of God, the self existing life of God. God is spirit. We're told that's who he is. God is spirit, but it also. Zoe life refers to quality of life. It's about the absolute fullness of life that first of all, belongs to God, but also comes from God. Zoe life is abundant. Life, active, life, vigorous. Life, good, everything that's right and moral. Jesus even uses this word to describe himself. We see in the gospels, in John 1125, he says, I'm the resurrection and the ZOE life. In John 14, six, he says, I am the Way, the Truth and the ZOE life. And so the angel tells the apostles to go tell everyone about this Zoe life, this, this new life, this abundant, active, vigorous, good, right, moral, eternal, spiritual life that can only be found in Jesus. And listen, they could tell everyone about this life because they had received that Zoe life. They were experiencing that Zoe life in Christ through the Holy Spirit. Their lives had been transformed and changed, and now they could tell everyone about how Jesus this new Zoe life. They. Have before they put their faith and trust in Jesus and received the Holy Spirit, but that they had now at Pentecost, which we saw in Acts chapter two,maybe that's where some of you are today.Maybe you've never received this Zoe life. We just had the privilege of celebrating this new life right here through baptism. That's why the T shirts that they wear say new life on them, because that's what it is. When you put your faith and trust in Jesus, you receive new Zoe life. You don't have it one moment and then the next moment, you do have it because it's something you receive, not earn by putting your faith and trust in Jesus, and if you've never put your faith and trust in Jesus, then you may have BIOS life. You may experience mental and emotional life, but you're missing at the very core of your being the ZOE life that you were always meant and created to experience, because the one who is life, when we put our faith and trust in Him, comes into union with you, and you're transformed and changed, born again, have new life. It's the way we were created to live. It's the life that Adam and Eve were created to have, and we're experiencing, and why God was able to be in the garden with them all throughout that time, but it's sin caused the separation of that from a holy and a perfect God, but through the finished work of Jesus on the cross and what he secured for us there the forgiveness of our sins when we receive it, the spirit, the one who is Zoe life itself joins himself in union with your spirit, And at the core of your being, you have new life when you don't have it, and that's how you were created to live. You're going to feel that. You're going to feel the emptiness and in the lack of that life, and you're going to be trying to fill it up with all kinds of activity throughout your life, and you'll experience some highs in your bio life and in your Suke life. But it never lasts. And it never lasts because it's not ultimately fulfilling. It's not the ZOE life of God, that's the absolute fullness of life that you were created to experience. And so if that's you, this morning, I'd ask that you continue to make it your prayer that Jesus would reveal Himself to you and how you can receive this new life and be transformed and changed even today. So the angel, the angel tells them, breaks them out of jail, go stand in the temple courts, tell everyone about this new life. And that is exactly what they do. Verse 21 at daybreak, they entered the temple courts, and they had been told and began to teach the people. When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin, the full assembly of the elders of Israel, and sent to the jail for the apostles. But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported, we found the jail securely locked, with the guard standing at the doors, but when we opened them, we found no one inside. Hmm, isn't that interesting? On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priest were at a loss, wondering what this might lead to. Then someone came and said, look, the men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts, teaching the people at that the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force because they feared that the people would stone them. Now here's what I want. We want you to just see out of out of all of that right there, this very last thing that we're told is that these leaders, the ones who are in power, did not use force. If they did not use force, then did the disciples? Did the apostles have to go with them? Nope. Angel broke them out of jail. They could escape. They could be free. They could have they could escape whatever it is that's coming their way, but they willingly go with the captain and his officers into a place where they had to know that they were probably not going to be treated very well. Let's see what happens. Verse 27 the apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, he said. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood, Peter and the other apostles replied, we must obey God rather than human beings. That's true of all of us when we're talking about life in the Spirit. If God is the authority and the one who sits above all things, the Creator of all things. He's the ultimate authority on all things. And so the Holy Spirit, and when we're living life in the Spirit, will certainly lead us to respect those in authority, except for when that authority, authority tells us to do something that goes directly against something that God told us to do or to not do. And so this is what they say to them. And then they go on and say, The God of our universe, the God of our ancestors, excuse me, raised Jesus from the dead, whom you killed by hanging Him on a cross. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince, source and the Savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him. So we need to stop here and clarify something, because it sounds like he's saying that the Holy Spirit is given to those who obey like those who are living right? You do the things that God tells you to do, you avoid the things that God tells you to avoid, then he will give the Holy Spirit to you. But that's not what he's saying here. We've already talked about this as we've gone along throughout the series, that that's not the way the Holy Spirit is given. As a matter of fact, Jesus Himself. We read about in John chapter six, we're told about some people who approached Jesus and they had a question for him. Their question was this, in verse 28 what must we doto do the worksGod requires? God? How would we live right? What do you require of us to live rightly? The very next verse, Jesus answered them and says, the work of God is this to believe in the onehe has sent, toput your faith and trust in Jesus. Obedience here means to believe in Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. And that's possible because of what Peter describes here. He gives us the gospel right, that Jesus was killed, that he was crucified on the cross that he had no sins to pay for himself, and so he took all the sins of the world and paid the penalty. He substituted himself for all of us to pay the penalty for our sins. But God raised Him, raised Jesus from the dead. Not only did he raise him, but he exalted him to a place of authority. He ascended back to heaven, and now he offers forgiveness of sins through repentance, through turning to Jesus as the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE, to change your mind about what you believe about Jesus, and to believe rightly about who Jesus is, and to receive what it is that he's offering you. And when you do that, the Holy Spirit is given to you, you receive it, and you receive that Zoe life, the abundant life that you didn't have the moment before verse 33 when they heard this, when the leaders heard this, they were furious, absolutely in rage, splitting mad and wanted to put them to death. But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. Then he addressed the Sanhedrin Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. Some time ago, theodus appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about 100 men rallied to him, but he was killed, and all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. Now after him, Judas, the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt, but he too was killed, and all of his followers were scattered. Therefore, in the present case, I advise you leave these men alone, let them go. For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men. You will only find yourselves fighting against God, and look verse 40, his speech persuaded them it's good news they're going to let the apostles go. Now we've kind of gone back and forth through this whole living right thing. Or. All throughout the message, it seemed like something bad happened. And then they were rescued, though, and that they were saved, and that they were going to have this here. So the speech now, it's good, right? Gosh, they're obedient. They're they're living, right? And so God's rescuing them again. He's, he's blessing them. And if, if you stopped here, then you could make the argument that that's true, that we asked the question earlier, is it true that if you're living right, you're going to be blessed, you're going to be able to find prosperity in and through life in the Spirit? That that's what that means, if you'll just follow God and you'll just do what it is that you are supposed to do, you could stop here and make that argument. And there are some preachers and pastors who will preach that message, that yes, life in the Spirit should be a life of prosperity. You should be living rightly. And through the Spirit you will be blessed, and all good things will come your way. You'll achieve your dreams and the things that you are here to do, and you'll have money. You won't have to worry about things, all of that stuff. But those who preach that message must not read the rest of the verse because after Peter or they say that Peter's speech persuaded them. We're told in the rest of verse 40 that they called the Apostles inand had them flogged,and then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go.As many of you know,this flogging was no small deal.I mean, you could just be reading quickly and go, yeah, they called the Apostles in and they had them flogged and go right on and just skip right over that. But we really can't, because flogging was no small thing. They would have been bare chested. They would have been forced into a kneeling position. They would have been beaten 39 times across their back and their chest with a triple strap of calf hide with lead bones and sharp objects embedded near the end of it, so that every time that whip hit them, it would pull flesh and dig into them. It was brutal and it was excruciatingly painful.I mean, talk about suffering,and these guys were living right?They were obeying God,and they were beaten within an inch of their lives, and God let it happen.I bet they were livid. I bet theywere absolutely livid at God, we left everything to follow you. We're being the leaders. We're doing everything that you asked us to do, and you allow us to be flogged and almost killed. Verse 41 the apostles left the Sanhedrin. Wait a minute, that's that's got to be a misprint, right? Rejoicing, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name, the name of Jesus, day after day in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. How? How in the world could they do that? How could they rejoice in suffering, and the way that they suffered. Let me tell you how they understood that there was a bigger purpose for their suffering. They watched. They watched Jesus, the one who is Zoe, life itself, the self existent God who's always been here and took on a human form, be flogged. They watched him be flogged, beaten within an inch of his life. They saw Him nailed to the cross and hanged there while people hurled insults at him, and he slowly, I mean slowly, over a six hour period, died a painful, humiliating death, and it probably didn't seem to make much sense to them in the beginning, but then they saw that God used that suffering to accomplish something so much bigger. They saw God raised Jesus from the dead, and then after seeing Jesus ascend back to heaven, they they witnessed the Holy Spirit coming into their own lives. And they, they were born again. They received that Zoe life that we've been talking about. And they, in that moment, experience complete forgiveness, complete peace, freedom from the bondage of sin. You. They were born again, new life they didn't have. And on top of that, they were experiencing Jesus working in them and through them to bring healing to people, to transform and change their lives, to bring other people, peace and forgiveness to 1000s of people up to this point. So they had seen God used the suffering of Jesus to accomplish so much good for them and everyone in the world. And now, as they were suffering too, they were able to count it, first of all, as an honor to be able to suffer in the same way thattheir Lord and Savior had suffered.And then secondly, they were able to also understand that God would use this suffering the same way that he used the suffering of Jesus to accomplish good in their lives, something for his glory and for the good of others. And so when we look at this section of Scripture, chapter five, verses 17, all the way through 42 what is what does that mean? We've been asking the whole point of this series is, what does life in the Spirit look like for us? The apostles received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Their lives were transformed and changed. We wonder, okay, well, we receive the Holy Spirit when we put our faith and trust in Jesus for salvation. And so if we receive the same Holy Spirit that they did, if they became part of the church, and it makes us part of the church, then what does life in the Spirit look like as the church? What does it look like for us as sons and daughters of God? Well, the very first thing that we see is that life in the Spirit means new life. It means Zoe life. We talked about it, but again, just to talk about practical application, if you never put your faith and trust in Jesus for salvation, then again, you may have BIOS life. You do obviously. You have Suke life. You have emotional and mental life, but you're missing Zoe life, and the only way you can find that is in and through a relationship with Jesus. It's not something you earn if you want to receive real, abundant, experiential life forevermore, this means that you have to receive it. And we're told that we receive it by faith. It's like playing poker, if you will, and you've got chips, and you go all in, you're not you're not holding one chip back. You're pushing all. You're betting it all on Jesus. He He's the way, he's the truth, he's the life. There's no one that comes to the Father except through him. I'm not holding one back going, I'm gonna put some stuff over here in this religion, that God, this my own effort, or whatever. Just in case that's not true, we're going all in on Jesus, and in that moment you receive new life, I'll give you a moment to receive that and put your faith and trust in Jesus in just a little bit. But this also means for those of us who have taken that step, who have put our faith and trust in Jesus, that we that we have it, that we have Zoe life, and some of us don't know that. We've never been taught that even if we've been in church for a while, or some of us have, but we let our thoughts and our feelings, we let the enemy deceive us and make us feel like it's not really true.I don't feel like I have abundant lifeall the things I'm thinking in my head. I don't think that that's true. And so we need to know the truth. We need to believe the truth, expose the lies of the enemy. So then we can live in that truth. We can live in the new life that we have, and not just have it, but then begin to experience it. It's possible to have something, something to be true of you already, and you not really step in and experience either because you didn't know it or you don't really believeit. But when you believe it,you know it's true. Can live out who you really are. And because of that, because of having that Zoe life, then that's why we can say this practical application of the next part, that life in the Spirit means he will lead and empower us to rejoice in our sufferings. How? Because we have Zoe life, we have abundant life. It's not determined by our situations and our circumstances. We don't have to be living in prosperity to experience abundant life, because abundant life doesn't come through prosperity and through those things. It comes through the one who is abundant life himself. And you have it in Jesus, and so you can enter into suffering with a different mindset and still experience the abundant life that you have in Christ, even when things aren't going well. And that certainly can be in a very direct way, in the same way that they suffered and were persecuted. For our faith in some way and suffer in that way. But I think the principle is the same for just suffering in general, for anything we can rejoice in that, does it rejoice? Doesn't mean you got to be happy about it. Yay. I have cancer. No, there's grief in that. There's sin in the world, and it's going to hurt. There's going to be pain in that, but within the depths of your soul, you're going to be able to rejoice in the abundant life that you have in Christ, that cancer cannot rob you of, or that anything that you're suffering in that moment can rob you of. And then finally, the thing that we need to see, collectively, well and individually as a church, is that life in the Spirit means that the Church will never stop teaching and proclaiming the good news of Jesus. Why don't we say that? Because that's what we saw in the very last verse that we looked at says, day after day in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. Life in the spirit meant they never stopped declaring and proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ. And that is the same for us today. And that goes from this stage when I am teaching, or someone as a part of our church is teaching and preaching. The moment that it becomes true that we are not proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, then you need to give me, or anyone else, the boot and keep going with someone else, because that's the day we cease to really be a church. But it's not just me. It's not just what we do up here on the stage. Because notice what they said, from what house to house, when you leave here, where are you going today?Going back to a house?No, I live in an apartment. Okay,this is for us, all of us, as a church. He gathers us together as a church. He scattered us from house to house. You want the church to grow. You want the church not to die off with us one day, and we better be trusting the Holy Spirit who lives in us, who will lead us to never stop teaching and proclaiming from house to house the good news of Jesus Christ. So what's the practical application you need to put your faith and trust in Jesus and receive Zoe life today, you're walking through some kind of suffering that you've allowed Satan to twist and distort and been robbing you of the abundant life that you have in Jesus. You need to step into it, allow the Spirit to cause you to rejoice in that suffering. Or is he saying that he wants to use you to go from house to house, proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. This is what life in the Spirit looks like. And so we pray and ask him to lead us to respond in this moment,to do just that you.

Acts 5:17-42 (Week 11 – Life in the Spirit)