Acts 4:1 And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them
I don’t know about you, but I hate to be wrong and that’s why I never do it. Ha! I’m joking of course. I’m wrong all the time, but I don’t like to be wrong. I like even less to be told that I’m wrong. But if there is anything worse than being wrong, it is staying wrong. I cannot change being wrong unless I admit that I am. In other words, I have to know when I’m wrong, have the humility to admit that, and then change. You are either going to change your mind or you are going to try to change the truth.
In Acts 4, a group of people, priests, captains, Sadducees, all very influential and powerful, had a choice. They could change their minds about Jesus or they could try to change the truth, but they couldn’t do both. In fact, they couldn’t really change the truth, but that is exactly what they wanted to do. Acts 4:1 starts, “And as they [Peter and John] spake unto the people….” God had just given a great miracle and healed a man who was lame from birth. There was quite a crowd that was curious about the apostles because of this. So, the priests, captain of the temple, and Sadducees came to them “being grieved that they [Peter and John] taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead.”
We know that the Sadducees were religious, but they were skeptics. They didn’t believe in the resurrection. These same people had resented that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, and they wanted to kill Lazarus because people were coming to Christ because of him. The Sadducees had fussed with Jesus about His teaching on the resurrection, yet Jesus died on the cross and rose again. Everyone knew it and had seen this. They were grieved that Peter and John were teaching through Jesus the resurrection from the dead, arguing from incident to the greater principle. They were not just preaching that Christ rose from the dead, but that there is a resurrection and Jesus is proof.
Every one of us has a choice every day. We can change our minds or we can change the truth. The Sadducees could have said, “Hey, we’ve been wrong. Look at Jesus. Look at Lazarus. What they are saying is true.” Or they could resent it and be grieved. Power comes from adjusting your life to the truth. Pilate rather coyly said, “What is truth?” Well, if I am the one who defines truth, then I’m in trouble. If we say, “Well, that’s your truth or that’s my truth,” we are not talking about something that is true, we are talking about our own feelings. There needs to be someone who can say what truth is. That would not be you or me.
The other day a friend and I were talking about how you can sail a boat into the wind. That is an amazing thing. You adjust your sails to the wind. Now, you may be sailing into the wind, but you adjust your sails to take account of what is happening with the wind. You don’t want to be carried about wherever the wind is blowing. You have to adjust your sails to keep traveling to where you are headed. Likewise, in life I need to adjust my sails, my life, to the truth, not to the winds that are blowing back and forth.
This is in contrast to a couple of things. First, power does not come from my own reason. Just because I can debate something more effectively, more loudly, or more violently than someone else does not mean that I “win.” The religious leaders who denied Jesus said, “Hey, it’s obvious this man has been healed, but we have nothing we can say about it.” In contrast, the disciples basically said in verse 20, “We cannot not speak the truth.” So, power comes from adjusting life to the truth, not from my own reason. My own reason can be limited, narrow, and mistaken.
Power doesn’t come from the majority opinion. These leaders came to Peter and John and said, “By what power, or by what name, have ye done this?” They couldn’t deny that the man was healed. They just resented that it wasn’t by their own power. Peter replied, “If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole.” He is saying, “You are fussing with us, so I guess you are fussing about the good deed we have done. Do you have a problem with a good deed?” The apostles’ power was not in the majority opinion. They were not of the majority, but they were right because they followed the truth.
Finally, power doesn’t come from my own name or reputation. Sometimes I can miss the truth because I don’t want people to think, “Well, Wil, was wrong,” and it hurts my reputation. That is kind of missing the point. In I Corinthians 15 it says, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” Sometimes people think, “Well, even if the resurrection were not true or there is no God, I would still be happier by living the Christian life.” That is a nice sentiment, but it is not true. The truth is if there is no living Jesus or resurrection, we are of all men most miserable and our message is empty. But now is Christ risen. The apostles were arguing from the resurrection of Christ to the principle of a resurrection. What was in question was not their own name or reputation.
The Sadducees had invested themselves in a falsehood; they were wrong. There are times when I am wrong and I need to be able to change my sails, my life, to follow the truth. You can change your mind or you can change the truth. Power is available today. Power beyond yourself and beyond this world. But it comes from adjusting your life to the truth.