The Surety of God’s Work | Acts 5:33–42
Introduction
We’ll be in Acts 5:33-42 today, so please join me there in your Bibles.
How many of you have had some period of time in your life where everything seems to be going well – things are just easy, good things are pouring in, and things are just good. Those are nice times, right?
But aren’t there also times when things seem really difficult? Nothing goes as we expect, and no matter what we do, we can’t seem to get any real results.
Now, think about the times when you worked for God, even though you thought He was calling you to do something, things seemed really hard. You shared the Gospel over and over, and no one responded. Or you made invite after invite to church, but no one came. You did things the way Christ calls us to do them, and still, the outcome seemed…harder.
Those are the moments and times I want us to respond to today. Tying all of this up into a question, here’s what I want us to answer: What do you do when obedience to Christ brings resistance instead of results?
Most of us assume – often without realizing it – that faithfulness should eventually be affirmed. If we obey God, speak the truth, and follow Christ, we expect at least some sense that things are moving in the right direction. Maybe not ease, but encouragement. Maybe not comfort, but confirmation.
But today’s verses directly confront that assumption.
The apostles have obeyed Christ. They have preached openly. They have refused to be silent. God Himself has freed them from prison. And now they stand before the council again – but instead of being affirmed in their work, they face anger, threats, and beatings.
So what does it mean when obedience to Christ leads not to ease, but to suffering? Is this failure – or is something else happening?
Luke answers that question by walking us through what happens next. Let’s read these verses, I’ll pray, and then we’ll walk through it together.
Read ACTS 5:33-42.
Prayer.
Point 1: The Council’s Calculated Resistance to God’s Work (vv. 33–40)
As a reminder of where we are right now, the apostles were teaching and praying in the temple and had been arrested and put in jail. For Peter and John, this was the second arrest. In the middle of the night, an angel leads them out of prison, and the apostles, as commanded, return to the temple to continue teaching and proclaiming the name of Christ.
The Jewish council sends for the prisoners, only to find the cell empty. They hear that the disciples have gone back to teaching, so the council sends guards to get them, and that is where we are now --- the disciples are standing in front of a very angry council. How do we know they are angry? Listen to verse 33:
33 When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them.
They were enraged – so enraged that they wanted the apostles dead. I mean, it does sound like an easy fix. If the apostles won’t listen, if they keep doing the thing they’ve been told very clearly not to do, then having them executed solves that problem and serves as a warning to others.
Now, I think, had it not been for what we see come in the next few verses, they likely would have had them killed right then. But – we see this in verses 34 through 39:
34 But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. 35 And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. 36 For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. 37 After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. 38 So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; 39 but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” So they took his advice,
This is our first appearance of Gamaliel, so let’s talk about who he is. We see that he is a “teacher of the law held in honor by all people” --- this was a guy the people respected. We learn a bit more about him in chapter 22 of Acts, where we learn he was the teacher of Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. This is how Paul described himself there:
3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day.
Gamliel, this respected figure, urged far more restraint than the council likely planned to show, successfully encouraging them to let the disciples leave.
But – that doesn’t mean they get to leave without repercussions. Verse 40:
40 and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
Before we move on, I want to be sure we notice something in Gamaliel’s intervention: He is measured. He is respected. He sounds wise. He appeals to history. Other movements have risen and fallen, he says. Time exposes what is merely human. If this work is of man, it will collapse on its own. And if it is of God, opposing it is dangerous.
Everything Gamaliel says is theologically correct.
But Luke is careful to show us what this wisdom actually produces.
The apostles are still beaten.
They are still commanded not to speak in the name of Jesus.
The council does not repent – it merely recalculates.
Here is the unsettling reality Luke places before us:
You can acknowledge God’s sovereignty and still resist God’s Christ.
You can speak wisely and still oppose the work of God.
From a human perspective, the council appears to have regained control. They have avoided bloodshed. They have preserved order. And the apostles – these faithful, obedient apostles – leave humiliated and bruised.
At this point in the story, obedience looks costly and confusing. Faithfulness has not produced visible success. And Luke lets us feel that tension without resolving it. And the truth is, sometimes we have to live in that tension. John Stott, in his commentary on Acts, points at a flaw in Gamliel’s response when he says this:
…in the short run, evil plans will sometimes succeed, while good ones devised in accordance with the will of God sometimes fail. (Stott, 2020)
Just because it seems like the will of God is failing in the short run doesn’t mean He is losing or He has given up. It does mean He is doing something.
We see it here – the council resisted God’s work, and they were very calculated in how they did that. And even though – in that scene for that moment in time – it looked like they were winning, God was still in control.
Point 2: The Apostles’ Joyful Obedience in the Face of Suffering (vv. 41)
While letting that tension linger, Luke now shifts our attention. He moves us away from the authority of the council and toward the response of the apostles themselves. And what he tells us next defies every natural expectation. Verse 41 says:
Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.
They leave the council rejoicing.
We should pause long enough to feel the weight of that sentence. These men have just been beaten, likely receiving the traditional forty lashes minus one. Why forty lashes minus one? Deuteronomy 25:3 says this:
Forty stripes may be given him, but not more, lest, if one should go on to beat him with more stripes than these, your brother be degraded in your sight.
40 was the limit. But, as was often the case, the Israelites built laws around the laws to “protect” themselves from breaking the law. Jewish tradition held punishment to 40 minus 1 lashes to make sure they avoided the risk of breaking that law by doing more than 40.
So, these apostles. Their backs are torn. The pain is immediate. The humiliation is public. And yet Luke tells us that they do not leave discouraged, embittered, or fearful; no, they leave rejoicing.
This is not the response we expect. Public shame, physical suffering, and official condemnation are not the ingredients we usually associate with joy. And Luke knows that. He does not explain it yet. He simply places it in front of us and lets it confront us.
So we need to be careful to understand what the apostles are – and are not – rejoicing in.
They are not rejoicing because pain itself is good. Scripture never treats suffering as virtuous in and of itself. This is not a call to seek hardship in order to prove sincerity or spiritual maturity. The apostles are not delighting in the lashes.
Luke tells us precisely where their joy lies: they are rejoicing because they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the Name.
That phrase reframes everything.
Their suffering is not interpreted as rejection by God, but as identification with Christ. It is not meaningless loss, but meaningful participation. What the council intends as shame, the apostles receive as confirmation that they belong to Jesus.
Public humiliation has become a cause for joy – not because humiliation is pleasant, but because it signals fellowship with Christ. Shame has been redefined as honor, not by cultural approval but by gospel logic. Loss has been received as privilege, not because suffering is sought, but because Christ is treasured.
And if that sounds like the shape of the gospel, it should.
The gospel itself tells us that Christ’s humiliation became His glory, that His shame was the pathway to honor, and that His apparent loss was the means of victory. The apostles are not inventing a new way to interpret suffering; they are living inside the logic of the cross.
Luke shows us what joyful obedience looks like when suffering has been reinterpreted through belonging to Christ. Joy does not require the absence of pain; it requires the presence of meaning. It requires knowing that obedience has not placed you outside God’s favor, but nearer to Christ Himself.
And Luke stops here deliberately. We can see what the apostles feel. We can see how they understand their suffering. But we are not yet told why this response is possible at all.
That explanation is coming – but Luke will not rush it.
Point 3: God’s Purposes Advancing Through Faithful Proclamation (v. 42)
Now Luke presses the point further.
The joy of verse 41 does not remain internal or momentary. It does not soften into caution or collapse into silence. Instead, it produces sustained, visible obedience.
Verse 42 tells us what happens next:
And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.
The apostles have been beaten. They leave rejoicing. And they return immediately to proclamation.
Luke is careful to show us the breadth of their faithfulness. Public spaces and private homes. Formal gatherings and ordinary conversations. Wherever they find themselves, they continue speaking – not defiantly, not recklessly, but faithfully.
God’s work has not been slowed by suffering. It has advanced through it.
At this point, Luke sharpens the question that has been building all along. How is this possible? How do men who have just been beaten continue with joy? How does opposition strengthen obedience rather than silence it? What explains this response?
Luke is unambiguous: the explanation does not lie within the apostles themselves.
This is not personality, or temperament, or emotional resilience. It is not a rare heroic resolve that ordinary believers lack. Luke refuses to let us admire the apostles as exceptional people rather than explained people.
Instead, he points us again to the content of their proclamation: they do not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.
That is the explanation.
Not a principle they follow. Not a strategy they adopt. Not a strength they summon.
Christ.
The apostles belong to a Savior who has already walked this road. Jesus Himself was rejected by religious authorities. He was beaten, silenced, and condemned. He was treated as a threat to stability and a danger to power. And God did not vindicate Him by sparing Him suffering.
God vindicated Him by raising Him from the dead.
Because Jesus was rejected, suffered, and vindicated through resurrection, His people now share both His sufferings and His joy as they bear witness to Him in the world. Resurrection has changed how they understand loss, honor, obedience, and fear. What appears to the council as defeat has become confirmation to the apostles. What looks like shame to the world has become fellowship with their risen Lord.
This is why proclamation continues. This is why silence is impossible. This is why fear does not have the final word.
The apostles are not pressing on because they are unbreakable; they are pressing on because Christ is alive. And this is how God’s purposes advance – not through intimidation or suppression, but through faithful proclamation rooted in the life of the risen Christ.
The council cannot stop this work, not because the apostles are strong, but because Christ is unstoppable.
Application
And that brings this passage to bear on us.
Some of us interpret resistance as failure. We assume opposition means we have done something wrong. We equate faithfulness with comfort and obedience with ease.
But these verses gently but firmly correct us. Opposition is not necessarily a sign of God’s absence. It may be evidence of fellowship with Christ. Silence may feel safe, but resurrection changes what safety means. Joy is not something we manufacture; it is something we receive when we know we belong to the risen Lord.
For some of us, faithfulness this week will not look dramatic. It may look like speaking Christ’s name once when it would be easier not to. It may look like obedience that costs something and goes unnoticed. It may look like quiet perseverance rather than visible success.
And that is enough – because Christ lives.
Conclusion
The apostles leave the council bruised and rejoicing, not because suffering is good, but because Jesus is alive. They are not fearless men; they are men who belong to a risen Savior.
And that same Christ now sends His people into the world – not promising ease, but promising His presence.
So if obedience costs you, do not assume God is absent.
If faithfulness brings resistance, do not conclude the work has failed.
It may be that you are standing exactly where Christ stood.
And because He was rejected, suffered, and vindicated through resurrection, His people can endure opposition with joy and continue bearing witness without fear.
Christ lives.
And that is enough.
Let’s pray.
Prayer.