Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things | August 17, 2025
The Setup: Uneducated Fishermen, Undeniable Power
Sermon number seven zoomed in on a single, easy to miss verse describing Peter and John after their arrest: when the council saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished, and recognized that they had been with Jesus. Pastor Justin unpacked why that description mattered so much in first century terms, since Galilean fishermen were widely viewed by the Jerusalem religious elite as culturally unsophisticated and socially inferior, essentially the hillbillies of their day.
That gave us the first point of the message: you don't have to be great to do great things. Neither Peter nor John had any formal rabbinic training, yet their bold proclamation and the miraculous healing that had just taken place left the Sanhedrin with nothing to say. Pastor Justin got personal here, sharing that when he first got saved at thirty two years old, with no high school diploma and a rough past, he saw more life changing conversions doing street evangelism than he often sees now as a pastor with a master's degree, a reminder that God's power was never dependent on our credentials.
He widened that point out to the whole congregation, naming specific people who shaped his own faith, like Laura Storm's influence on him as a teenager and his own mother's four decades of quietly faithful service in children's ministry that led hundreds of kids to Christ. The point was not that credentials or education are bad, but that every single person in the room already has a sphere of influence, whether that is family, friends, or coworkers, where God can use them the exact same way He used two uneducated fishermen.
From there the sermon moved into verses 14-16, where the council, seeing the healed man standing right beside Peter and John, has nothing to say in opposition and privately admits that a notable sign has clearly been performed, one they cannot deny. That gave us the second point of the message: the good news of Christ is undeniable. Pastor Justin used Romans 1:19-20 and Psalm 19:1-4 to argue that God has made Himself plain enough, both through creation and through the undeniable evidence of changed lives, that unbelief is ultimately a matter of suppression rather than a genuine lack of evidence.
Romans 2:15 added that even people who have never heard the law still have its work written on their hearts, their own conscience bearing witness and either accusing or excusing them, which is why the healed man standing in plain view left the council with no real rebuttal. Pastor Justin connected this to the countless ordinary conversion stories inside our own congregation, coworkers praying for coworkers, kids leading their own parents to Christ after a Vacation Bible School week, small acts of obedience producing undeniable, visible fruit.
The council's response, in verses 17-22, was simply to charge Peter and John to stop speaking or teaching at all in the name of Jesus, and Peter and John's answer became the third point: we must always do what is right in the sight of God. Peter asks the council directly whether it is right in God's sight to listen to them rather than to God, and states plainly that he and John cannot help but speak of what they have seen and heard, echoing Mark 8:38's warning against being ashamed of Jesus or His words before this generation.
Pastor Justin closed by noting that the council, finding no way to punish them because the people were praising God for what had happened, simply let them go, another small but real evidence that the mission of the early church could be threatened but never actually stopped. Romans 12:20 rounded out the application, reminding us that our response to opposition is never supposed to mirror the world's hostility but to overcome evil with good, the same posture Peter and John modeled in that courtroom.
This Week's Application
So this week, where in your own sphere of influence, family, friends, or coworkers, is God waiting for you to simply speak what you have seen and heard, credentials or not? We would love for you to join us this Sunday as we continue walking through Acts together.