Acts 5:29-32 Peter and the other apostles replied: "We must obey God
rather than men!  The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead-who
you had killed by hanging him on a tree.  God exalted him to his own
right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and
forgiveness of sins to Israel.  We are witness of these things, and so is
the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him."

 Ever had any Jesus trouble?  You know what I mean.  Trouble because you
believe and confess what God's Word says and then those around you don't
what to hear it or want to argue with you about it.  Later on they will
give you the cold shoulder or some other such thing.  As conservative
Lutherans, I am going to guess that we run across this fact of faith on a
regular basis.  Your "Jesus trouble" can be with friends, family,
actually just about anyone.
 Where do we run across the most difficulties?  There are a few places.
For instance the Bible's teaching on fellowship, that we should join in
worship, prayer, Christian education, mission work and communing only
with those who are one with us in faith.  We don't do this because we
think we are better than others.  We do this because we think the truths
of God are worth defending and sticking up for.  Yet people get upset
with us because we don't want to compromise our faith.
 Take the issue of communion.  Visitors often get upset with us because
we don't let them come to our communion table.  But if they don't believe
what the Bible says, if they don't believe that the bread and wine is the
body and blood of Jesus we need to be careful.  God's Word clearly says,
"For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord
eats and drinks judgment on himself."  Wow, there is God telling us that
improperly taking communion can hurt and damage faith.  Another passage
says, "Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an
unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of
the Lord."  In other words, communing can be an act of sin, a direct sin
against Jesus.  No wonder we want to be so careful with it!
 We can talk other things that come up.  If you have a family member that
has begun shacking up with someone, boy the trouble you can find when you
share the fact that God's Word forbids such things.  You will get hit
with "who do you think you are" and all sorts of other accusations.  All
because you want to uphold and stand on God's word.
 I'm sure every one of you has some sort of story about your "Jesus
troubles."  About how you have been slammed, ridiculed, confronted and
for some, assaulted just because you want to follow and uphold the wonder
and marvel of Jesus as the Son of God and the Lord of Lords.
 I want you to see and understand that you are not alone in this problem.
 It has been a problem that has existed even for Jesus.  Remember Jesus
was rejected and scorned, ridiculed and eventually killed because what he
taught and preached was different from what the mainstream religions
believed.  The problem of course, is that Jesus is absolutely right.  And
there is something for you to always consider.  No matter what, Jesus is
always absolutely right.  His Word is always absolutely right.
 The Apostle's of Jesus knew this same truth.  Today as we look at our
text it is clear that they had some Jesus troubles.  That is going to
serve as our theme for today: JESUS TROUBLE!  1st. Trouble for those who
preach him.  2nd. Trouble for those who deny him.
 The history that is before us is so wonderful to hear.  There are a
couple of different reasons for me to say that.  First, it is wonderful
to hear because what happens to set this all off is indeed testimony to
the event of the resurrection and appearances of Jesus.  What?  That's
right, what happens here is testimony to the truth of the resurrection.
Here are the apostles of Jesus, who for the first two weeks after the
resurrection are men who are afraid and who we keep finding behind locked
doors.  That's what our Gospel reading shows us.  The apostles were in a
locked home for fear of the Jews.  Yet something happened.  That
something was that Jesus kept appearing!  Jesus kept proving to them that
he was alive and well.  He spoke with them and ate with them.  They spoke
with him, touched him and fed him.  He was alive.  He had risen.
 It is this fact that causes these "fraidy cat" disciples now to be men
openly teaching and preaching in the Temple.  They are openly preaching
Jesus.  Doing so in Solomon's Colonnade, a public section of the Temple
where people often gathered for religious study and discussion.
Something happened to make these men bold and brave, to make them come
out publicly and teach Jesus.  I don't think it was because they had
psychologically convinced themselves that Jesus lived but rather because
they had seen and touched the real live Jesus.  They knew Jesus lived and
they knew then that Jesus was the Son of God.
 So here they are preaching and publicly teaching Jesus in the Temple.
The High Priest and many of the other ruling officials didn't like it.
Please note that they were jealous.  It's true that the disciples and all
the Christians were highly respected and that many believed what they
were teaching, but I want you to have a right understanding of what the
Bible says.  The religious leaders are actually called "zealous".  They
were upset because the disciples were preaching and teaching contrary to
what they believed.  They were upset and acted because they thought they
were protecting God's Word and God's religion.  Please note that they
were wrong!  But that was their motivation.  They thought this teaching
of Jesus was contrary to their faith.  Well, it was!  They were just
wrong!  In their wrongness they had the disciples arrested and thrown in
jail.
 Of course, that was trouble for the disciples.  Please note that the
disciples just wanted people to have the gift of eternal life and
salvation.  They wanted people, especially the Jewish people to
understand that Jesus was the Messiah that had been promised all along.
Jesus was the one who had now won eternal life and salvation for them.
Jesus had paid for sins and atoned for all of mankind.  Jesus was how God
was going to forget sins and remember iniquity no more.  Here they were,
bringing the truth of God, as God had shown, and here they were thrown in
jail.  Trouble in the name of Jesus.
 The disciples would experience this trouble throughout their lives.  For
that matter all but one of the disciples would be martyred for their
faith, put to death for what they believed.  Hated because of Jesus,
hated just like Jesus was and still is today.  He told us it would be
that way.  Yet that did not scare the disciples or cause them to shut
their mouths.  That's the second thing that makes this history so
wonderful.  The boldness and bravery of the disicples.
 The angel that appeared and released them was of course, factual proof
that these disciples had the blessing of God.  I find it interesting to
explore God's power as shown in this angel.  For instance, how the
disciples from their point of view walked out of opened doors to freedom,
but how the guards and other prisoners seemed to have no knowledge that
the men were even gone!  Pretty cool, this power of God.  Power that
shows that God approves of their message and what they were doing.
 Another way to understand that God approves of their message is found in
what the angel says, we can grasp that it is a command of God.  He says,
"Go, stand in the temple courts and tell the people the full message of
this new life."  They were commanded to go back to the temple and to
continue preaching.  They were to preach everything about Jesus and the
life that he has won for all.
 Pretty impressive that they do just that.  They go right back into the
Temple to teach.  Bold and brave these men are.  No longer afraid of men
or what men might do.  They will obey God.  And that was just their
confession when confronted by their persecutors.  "We gave you strict
orders not to teach in this name."  They disciples reply, "We ought to
obey God rather than men."  And then they boldly say to these men, "The
God of our Fathers raised Jesus from the dead-whom you killed by hanging
him on a tree.  God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and
Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel."
Nope they are not afraid at all, but boldly stick to the truth!
 The key for the disciples is found in what they say.  They believe and
know that Jesus is Prince, not just any prince but the royalty of heaven,
the son of the Eternal God, the heir to all that is of God, yes, as our
Epistle reading says, the one whose name is above every name.  But Jesus
is also Savior to them.  He is the one who saves and gives eternal life.
Part of the reason that they don't waffle, they don't compromise on the
teachings of Jesus is because they are afraid to lose this wonderful gift
of God, this precious gift of eternal life.  You see, these disciples
were aware of what we will call "real Jesus trouble."
 The Jewish people and leadership who rejected Jesus as Prince and Savior
had real trouble with Jesus.  They have rejected his truth, rejected the
true God's Son and thus rejected the very thing that Jesus had come to
give them.  That's Jesus trouble!
 We can look at a few passages to help us grasp this rather important
truth.  As this text goes on Gamaliel, consider a great Bible scholar
gave this advice on what to do, "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."  Or we can simply contemplate what
Jesus himself told us in a few different places.  In Mark he said,
"Whoever does not believe will be condemned."  In John Jesus says, "If
God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and am now
here.  I have not come on my own; but he sent me...He who belongs to God
hears what God says.  The reason you do not hear is that you do not
belong to God." (Jn 8:42, 47)  Or again in John we hear from John the
Baptist, "The Father loves the son and has placed everything in his
hands.  Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects
the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."
 You see, there is what I would call "real Jesus trouble."  To decide
that you can reject, ignore, scoff at, scorn, change or compromise the
teachings of Jesus is a deadly decision.  And please remember that the
Bible is the teaching of Jesus.  If you want to play with your salvation
and decide you're not going to believe this or that found clearly in
God's Word, you can do that, but realize that Jesus says that the Word is
the standard of judgment for all of us.  That would be real Jesus
trouble.
 Dear people, I don't want real Jesus trouble, that is, I don't want the
Father anger upon me because I have rejected and refused to listen to his
Son.  I want, I crave, I desperately need the gift of eternal life that
Jesus has given.  That means that the Holy Spirit leads me into the Word
and leads me to fully and without compromise believe the Word.  In that
regard then, I will accept Jesus trouble from the world.  If the world
wants to make my life hard, if the world wants to persecute me and hate
me because they hate Jesus and his truth, then so be it.  I consider it
to be a privilege to suffer for the name of Jesus.  May God give us the
conviction these disciples had.  The conviction that Jesus lives and is
Prince and Savior.  May God give us the courage these men had, courage
born of their conviction, courage to always stand upon the truth of Jesus
even in the midst of troubles.  Amen.