What does the Christians finest hour look like? Acts 12:1-5 Sermon | Prescott Anglican Church
What does it mean to have genuine confidence when everything seems to be falling apart? In Apollo 13, flight director Gene Kranz famously declares, “I believe this is going to be our finest hour.” It is a striking picture of confidence in the face of disaster. But Christians are promised something even greater: a confidence that does not depend on our abilities, circumstances, or even the outcome of our suffering.
In Acts 12:1-15, we see the early church flourishing through the power of the Holy Spirit, only to encounter violent persecution. Yet even as James is killed and Peter is imprisoned, the church responds with earnest prayer. This sermon explores how the gospel creates genuine confidence, how persecution becomes an occasion for blessing, and why our deepest assurance rests not in the strength of our faith or prayers, but in Jesus Christ, who ever lives to intercede for us.
One of my favorite movies, and this may be the case for you as well, is Apollo 13. I mean, how could it not be, right?
One of the reasons it is one of my favorite movies is because it contains one of the best lines in all of dramatic film. And I am a sucker for any line in film that has to do with leadership.
But it's this line that maybe many of you already know. It is prime sermon introduction material.
As one of the members is going over the potential threat that comes from the explosion of the oxygen tank—you can almost picture it, you know the scene—he remarks, "This could be one of the worst disasters that NASA has ever experienced."
To which the lead flight director, Gene Kranz, who is played by Ed Harris with hair, quickly and firmly retorts, "With all due respect, sir, I believe this is going to be our finest hour."
There is something powerful in the way he says it.
This is not, on the one hand, a kind of anxious, "Pipe down! None of that negative talk!" Nor is it, on the other, a kind of lackadaisical, "What is with all these negative vibes?" that you might hear, say, in Flagstaff or Tucson.
Instead, there is a confident trust. There is an awareness of the potential peril, but there is also a confidence in a good outcome.
Nonetheless, it is this kind of perspective we long for as we face the tribulations of life: sin, sickness, suffering. A confident trust that is independent of the outcome because it is assured of the ultimate end.
We long for this. It is what we particularly long for when we experience that suffering that is uniquely ours as Christians. It is what we long for in the midst of persecution.
Can we be confident in the face of hatred, threats, imprisonment, death itself?
If I can channel my inner Ed Harris, same hairline and all, let me say it like this: Not only can we be so confident, we will be confident. And we will be confident when everything in all the world is against us.
And indeed, this is our central truth: By the Holy Spirit, and in being hated, the gospel makes us truly confident.
Such deep-seated confidence is not something we create in ourselves by resolution, willpower, or by positive thinking. It is not human or earthly in its source.
And let me note here that there is a place for human confidence. Say, when you are in the middle of an exam and you are well prepared. When the loan officer says, "The credit check will take a few moments," and you've kept clean books. When you step up to the plate and you can hit both a fastball and a curveball.
In all these worldly instances, human confidence is not only good, but it's necessary.
But when it comes to spiritual matters—the battle of the flesh and the spirit, the kingdom of the devil versus the kingdom of God, the reign of sin, death, and evil versus the reign of righteousness, life, and peace—it is in those moments we find that our human confidence is nothing more than what we can call, and get ready for this, Cool Whip confidence.
Now, you're probably wondering, what is Cool Whip confidence?
Well, it is this: We find that under pressure, under examination, when things get really difficult, it is at best simply fluff. Something that does not actually help us in the moment.
Or at worst, it is fake. That is, it's something that we try and muster up. We put on, say, a stiff upper lip, and we pretend and fake our way through it.
No, what we need is a different kind of confidence. A confidence that is not human; it's not earthly. We need, again, what we heard in the introduction: a finest-hour response, a finest-hour confidence.
Such confidence only comes through the Holy Spirit, by grace, and in suffering.
We see this in our passage, and to appreciate it, we see the process by which the Holy Spirit works such a confidence in us.
1. The Church Grows by the Spirit
Chapters 10 and 11 have been chronicling, in the book of Acts, the spread of the gospel to the Gentiles.
There is much reason for celebrating in what Paul still refers to as the mystery of Christ: that the Gentiles are fellow heirs through the gospel.
It is clear that this result is not from the apostles' missional expertise or because of their own personal piety, but is demonstrated powerfully, in particular, in Acts 10:44–48. We see it is a work of the Holy Spirit.
We can picture the amazement of the Jewish believers when we read in verse 45:
"And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles."
To which Peter responds with joy:
"Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?"
This is the great mystery: that the Holy Spirit is working among the Gentiles. It is such a mystery that the first 18 verses of chapter 11 are Peter defending himself, and strangely enough, even defending God, because it is God himself who has the audacity to proclaim and accomplish salvation among the Gentiles.
And so the Holy Spirit is working. This is the foundation of our Spirit-confidence in God. The gospel is going forth through God's people, and the church is being built.
This not only gives us confidence in God's working, but how he works as well.
We saw in chapter 10 of Acts the connection between baptism and the Holy Spirit. And in Acts 11:20, we see that this is the central event that brings about otherworldly confidence. It is through, as it says, the preaching of the Lord Jesus.
And what was the result of this preaching?
It says:
"And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord."
The first part of our confidence is to recognize how God gives us confidence in his gospel.
Confidence is another name for saving faith itself.
Faith is not an "I sure hope so" to God's promise in the gospel, and certainly not our promise to do anything for God.
No, faith can also be called confidence because it is the assured trust in God's gospel promise to us.
In the gospel, we hear, "Your sins are forgiven for Jesus' sake," and we simply say, "Amen," with Abraham. Or as Mary says, "Let it be done to me according to your word."
And this confidence is created and strengthened in us by having these promises spoken to us over and over again by a preacher.
So faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
And it's in Antioch, in the second half of Acts 11, that these gospel promises are spreading. They are creating and deepening this confidence in the grace of God.
Confidence, when it is in the grace of God, is not Cool Whip confidence, but it is finest-hour confidence.
This is why Martin Luther declared:
"Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times."
This is the confidence we long for. It's confidence we can rejoice in because it is freely ours.
And yet, even with this full and joyful confidence, it must be noted that it is not welcomed by all.
But as we see in our second point, the confident growth of the church is met by persecution.
2. The Confident Growth of the Church Is Met by Persecution
The end of chapter 11 of Acts shows the church firing on all cylinders, if you will.
The pure, gracious gospel is creating faith, deepening confident trust in Gentiles, of all people. And now these disciples are engaged in the necessary work of bearing each other's burdens in the face of a particular famine.
This part would have been staggering.
You see, it is the Gentile believers in Antioch that are now taking a collection to relieve the suffering of Jewish believers in Judea.
As Ephesians 2 tells us, it really has become the case that the Jewish and Gentile divide has been broken through one body, through the cross. The hostility between those two groups has been killed.
And in response to this, we see that these Christians are not regarded as exemplary citizens. They are not praised for their selflessness. And they certainly are not applauded for their enthusiastic embrace of diversity.
Instead, we read this:
"About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also."
It is here that I want us to reflect and ask: Is it the church's flourishing, abounding in gospel proclamation, burden-bearing, and supernatural growth that can only come from the confidence of the gospel—is it these things that lead to Herod's violent persecution?
Is it possible that this message and these acts of charity are what got the church sideways with the king?
Not because they endorsed his opponent in the recent election, or because the church had been teaching about the need for revolution or calling for a regime change, if you will.
Such things are not what the apostles called the church to do.
On the contrary, we see just a couple of examples of how the early Christians were called to live in light of the authorities.
Romans 13:1:
"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God."
1 Thessalonians 4:11–12:
"Live quietly, mind your own affairs, work with your hands, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one."
1 Peter 2:17:
"Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor."
With all these passages in mind, is it possible that this combination of good news and good behavior led to persecution?
And frankly, I believe that it is.
You see, what I think is happening here is that the spreading of the glorious good news of God's kindness to sinners, the fact that it would be not just for the religious and the moral, but for those Gentiles, the fact that it is those Gentile believers who then, in turn, take care of Jewish Christians in their time of need—well, I think all of that finest-hour activity broke the status quo.
And therefore, it is so free, so transformative, that it is literally changing the known world.
And it is at this point that Herod will be damned if he doesn't put a stop to it.
Herod is keen on keeping the status quo, the way things are. This is happening during the days of Unleavened Bread. He's not going to let this movement that is called Christianity upend the sense of normalcy. He insists.
And so it is Peter—"On this rock I will build my church" Peter—who is imprisoned in maximum security.
Now we know how things will end, but we need to allow ourselves to be in that moment.
One of the apostles has just been killed, and here the head apostle is imprisoned, likely to face the same fate.
It is at this moment that if the church is not feeling confident, if they are in doubt, we would not blame them.
They look about the situation. It's very easy to see that this thing is easily going to be snuffed out.
But however they felt, we must also remember that they were promised that this day would come.
They were promised this by Jesus himself.
And here is the most surprising part of it all: They were not just promised that this day would come, but that when it did, they would be blessed.
"Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets."
This is the blessing that is theirs and ours. It is the blessing that is experienced only when the world declares you as cursed.
The blessing takes the gospel confidence that we have into the stratosphere.
And we see what happens when we are there in our third point: that the prayers of the hated and blessed cannot be stopped.
3. The Prayers of the Hated and Blessed Cannot Be Stopped
"So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church."
To the watching world, it looked like the certain end of this movement called Christianity.
Unless one takes to heart gospel confidence and the paradox of being blessed in being hated, they cannot understand that there is a reason to hope in Peter's arrest.
And yet, because these believers not only knew about such blessing in theory, but had experienced it, their finest-hour confidence does not waver, but is the antidote to the peril of the moment.
You see, rather than waver, they do the one thing that those with finest-hour gospel confidence do.
And what is that?
Do they come up with a plan? Do they petition Herod? Do they call for a recount? Do they think about how they are, in themselves, going to do something about this?
No. They pray.
They pray earnestly.
And while we don't see it much in the English here, there's this strong contrast that comes through in the Greek. There is this construction here that shows us a contrast to bring out what is really happening.
We can actually translate it this way, and listen for the contrast:
"Thus, on the one hand, Peter was being kept in prison, but on the other hand, earnest prayer was being made by the church to God for him."
Do you see the contrast here?
On the one hand, James has already been killed. Peter has been arrested. The whole thing is toast. There is no reason for hope.
We need to let the weight of this moment hit us with full force.
There is every reason to believe that the Christian church is in peril and will not survive.
But on the other hand—that is, but wait—there is an ace in the hole.
The church is praying earnestly.
Not planning, not preparing for a revolution.
No, this is the biggest surprise in the whole world: that the secret weapon in the peril of the church is this.
Not that they are doing anything special or of their own strength. No, on the contrary, they are simply, but earnestly, going to God and saying, "You must do something, and we have no Plan B but you. Our only hope is in you."
Psalm 20:7 says it well, and we heard it as well in our psalm this morning, Psalm 33. It says:
"Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God."
This is the confidence that the Apostle Paul knew, and that made him so ready to pray.
We see this in 2 Corinthians 1 when he speaks about his own suffering. He says this:
"Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You must also help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many."
You see, such a confidence leads us to earnest and effective prayer because our hope is solely on God and not ourselves.
This is why, before we pray the Lord's Prayer, we always say we are bold to pray.
That is the reason that we can now pray for those who are being persecuted in our liturgy.
This is why we don't just run through it like an order of a grocery list of things to pray for.
But we earnestly pray for those brothers and sisters around the world. We bear their burden, that when one part of the body hurts, the whole body is in pain.
We pray for ourselves that we would have boldness for whatever persecutions, whatever they are, that in them we can face them with some confidence.
The Deepest Source of Our Confidence
And the last thing I want to say about this reality is this.
There is a lack of confidence that we face day to day.
If I'm honest, I long for this kind of finest-hour confidence. But most days I do not feel it.
Most days I feel the sense of "what if," catastrophizing, fear, and doubt.
My guess is that I'm not alone in this.
It seems that our ace in the hole, gospel confidence that leads us to earnestly pray, needs itself to have an ace in the hole, if you will.
And so we can ask, what is that?
What is the thing that gives us confidence even when we are not confident?
And I think it is simply this: Jesus himself prays earnestly for us.
Because Christ is alive and seated at the right hand of the Father, he now intercedes for us.
In Hebrews 7, we hear the significance of what it means that Jesus is forever our high priest by the power of an indestructible life, in the order of Melchizedek.
And the implications are laid out beautifully for us in verse 25 of Hebrews 7 when it says:
"Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him, because he ever lives to make intercession for them."
We see this in Peter's own life before his denial. Jesus told him so:
"Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded to have you, that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers."
So, in conclusion, this really is the deepest source of our confidence.
That in the end, it is not even our confidence that keeps us. It is not our confidence that protects us.
But our confidence is simply the result of knowing that not only does the church pray to Jesus, but Jesus prays for his church.
And therefore, he is always praying for you.
You can be confident in that.
Amen.
Comments