00:00: you know, the introverts or whatever.
00:00: In fact, I discovered that movie superstars Harrison Ford, Julia Roberts, and Samuel L.
00:07: Jackson all had fear of public speaking when they were younger.
00:13: And Julia Roberts even had a stutter as a child that was part of her fear of public speaking.
00:20: Lots of folks struggle with this.
00:20: Public speaking can be scary in its own right, just flat out, no matter what the situation.
00:27: But public speaking, when you know that the audience is against you, or maybe against you, is a hundred times more intimidating, isn't it?
00:42: It's no wonder then that so many Christians fear sharing the gospel with the unbelieving world around them.
00:49: We get afraid, like, how are they going to take this?
00:49: Are they going to mock me or ignore me?
00:56: Are they going to be antagonistic?
00:56: Are they just going to blow me off?
00:56: Are they going to, you know, put me off at some distance?
01:01: How are folks going to take it?
01:01: And so we can get so worried about it that we don't want to do it.
01:06: And I think there's three main ways that we can face the issue of fear of being a witness.
01:12: Number one, we can just say, well, I'm not going to do it.
01:12: I'm not going to be a witness for Jesus, which translated means we're going to disobey Jesus.
01:19: Because our fear of people exceeds our desire to please Jesus.
01:26: We say, you know what?
01:26: It's too scary.
01:26: Jesus, I'm not going to obey you on this point.
01:33: That's option one.
01:33: Option two, we can say, I know I have to do it.
01:39: I'm just going to make myself do it.
01:39: And by sheer willpower, we can do this miserable assignment that Jesus has given us and we don't want to, but we'll do it anyway.
01:45: I don't recommend that.
01:45: I don't think that's the right path either.
01:50: Third, we can choose a better way.
01:50: We can choose the path of spending time with Jesus day by day and surrendering ourselves hour by hour to the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
02:05: And when we are transformed by Jesus and filled with the Holy Spirit, we can be bold Christian witnesses, even in the face of opposition.
02:13: You see, Jesus has not simply said, I want you to be my witnesses.
02:21: He has said, I will empower you for this.
02:21: My spirit will live in you so that, among other things, you will have the power and the leading and the guidance to do this.
02:28: Jesus, asks us, commands us to do something that's hard, but he says, I don't leave you on your own to do this.
02:42: I will help you every step of the way.
02:42: We sang this morning about Christ who lives in me from Galatians 2.20.
02:49: And in context, we're talking about the Holy Spirit of God living in us.
02:49: And in that way, Christ is living in us.
02:56: So also, Christ lives in us to enable us to be witnesses.
03:01: And that's what we're going to see in our passage this morning.
03:01: Last week in Acts chapter 3, we saw how Peter and John went to the temple.
03:07: They encountered a man who was lame or crippled from birth and they healed him.
03:15: And because this happened in a public gathering, a very public setting, a crowd gathers.
03:21: And as this crowd gathered, Peter began preaching, began preaching the gospel to them.
03:27: And as we look now into Acts chapter 4, it begins, the beginning of chapter 4 is kind of the epilogue to the story of chapter 3 and also the introduction to what's happening in the rest of the passage.
03:40: The first four verses tell us, as they were speaking to the people, this is Peter and John, as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
03:55: And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.
04:01: But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about 5,000.
04:07: Now, that last line is kind of interesting to me.
04:07: The number of the men who believed came to about 5,000.
04:16: Now, in light of chapter 2, verse 41, where it tells us 3,000 people had come to faith through the Pentecost Day Sermon of Peter, this is probably an additional 2,000 on top of that.
04:29: But it says it was men.
04:29: So this is probably just the head count of the fellas.
04:34: And then when you factor in the ladies and the children who would have been around and been present and believed alongside the men, you probably have a significantly larger number than 5,000 new believers at this point in the very early days of the church.
04:44: There's a massive work of God going on in Jerusalem at this juncture.
04:53: And Peter and John are at the vanguard.
04:53: They're right at the forefront of what's happening.
05:00: And the religious leadership that didn't like Jesus' influence don't like these guys' influence either.
05:05: People are coming to faith.
05:05: And you know what happens when people are turning to Jesus?
05:13: Opposition happens.
05:13: Because the enemy is not okay with that.
05:13: The enemy does not want to see the church thrive.
05:21: And so we see that where the gospel message is bearing fruit, there will be opposition.
05:28: Verse 2 tells us the Sadducees were greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
05:34: Now, the Sadducees are irritated by this Jesus-centered resurrection message that Peter and John have been preaching.
05:40: And so they have them arrested and detained overnight.
05:45: Basically, it's the end of the day.
05:45: Lock them up overnight.
05:45: We'll deal with them in the morning.
05:50: The Sanhedrin will reconvene the next day and deal with them.
05:50: Now, we need to understand this in context so that we can experience what this must have been like for Peter and John.
06:01: We need to get our historical context here.
06:01: First of all, who are the Sadducees?
06:01: They're a Jewish sect, a segment of strict religious Jewish folks.
06:06: These are people who take their Jewish faith very seriously.
06:14: But they also are folks who don't believe in the resurrection from the dead.
06:14: They don't believe, they didn't believe that God raised anybody from the dead.
06:20: And so whatever they may think about Jesus, they certainly don't like the resurrection part of the message.
06:26: And even apart from that, they don't like the Jesus part of the message.
06:30: So it's a double whammy from their perspective.
06:30: And the reality is, that's a big deal.
06:37: That's not some minor doctrinal difference.
06:37: In 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul explains that if we, if our faith in Jesus only gives us hope for this life, for this world, we are to be the most pitied people on earth.
06:49: Like, we can't think of what Jesus offers, what God offers the world through Jesus as being, oh, just a little better life for the time you've got on this earth.
06:56: No, that's a, that's a pitiably small view of what God's grace looks like.
06:59: There's an eternity at stake.
07:05: Resurrection is a reality.
07:05: And the Sadducees didn't understand that.
07:05: The Sadducees also formed the majority party in the Sanhedrin.
07:13: Now the Sanhedrin was kind of like the Jewish Supreme Court and Jewish Congress, kind of all rolled into one legislative and judicial combo body with 71 members, including the high priest.
07:26: And the Sanhedrin is the same group that like two months before approximately had gotten Jesus arrested, done a kangaroo court trial and condemned him as worthy of death and then hauled him before the Romans to get an execution arranged.
07:42: These are people who hated Jesus so much, they literally hated him to death in very recent memory at the time of Peter and John.
07:49: And so Peter and John have now irritated the people in absolute power within the Jewish community who have recently had Jesus killed.
07:57: And they're now ticked off at Peter and John for the same message that got Jesus killed.
08:05: This is about a worst case public speaking scenario as you can get, right?
08:13: Like this is worse than, oh, I might say the wrong thing in public speaking.
08:19: You've now ticked off people who might literally have you killed because they don't like what they're hearing.
08:24: But there's a couple of things we need to keep united as we look at this passage.
08:32: There is severe opposition to the Christian message on the one hand.
08:32: But on the other hand, the church is growing massively.
08:39: Those things tend to go hand in hand.
08:39: Not always, but often the case where God's work is thriving, the enemy attacks.
08:47: But the enemy cannot be victorious because God is sovereign.
08:47: God is able to grow the church even under the most intense times of opposition.
08:55: In fact, it's exactly when the church is persecuted in Christian history that the church has most often thrived in really healthy ways.
09:09: I don't want to experience persecution.
09:09: I'm not crazy.
09:09: I don't want to go through that.
09:09: But you know what?
09:13: To the degree that the American church encounters real, genuine persecution, we might end up being all the healthier for it.
09:20: And we might find that God brings a massive harvest of new believers in that kind of context because people are forced to say, what do I really believe?
09:27: How serious am I about Jesus?
09:32: How important is Jesus to me really?
09:39: Now, as we look at how the story plays out, I got to say this.
09:39: I love the way that Peter and John respond to this.
09:46: I absolutely love it.
09:46: They're arrested.
09:46: They're held overnight.
09:46: And in the morning, the Jewish leadership convenes and they have a hearing.
09:52: And they bring Peter and John in and they asked him straight out of the gate, verse 7.
09:57: And when they had set them in their midst, they inquired, by what power or by what name did you do this?
10:02: They're not wasting any time.
10:02: They're getting right to the heart of the issue, right?
10:10: Oh, man.
10:10: If Peter and John answer this honestly, that's like the worst possible answer they can get.
10:17: Like that's the answer that's going to get them in the most trouble.
10:20: But if you think back to what happened, Acts chapter 3, verse 6, when they healed this guy, they were in public and they were explicit and there were witnesses.
10:27: They said, not only are we healing you, but it's because of Jesus.
10:32: It's in Jesus' name.
10:32: Specifically, Peter said, I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
10:38: Rise up and walk.
10:46: So they're on the public record, right?
10:46: This question they're being asked, they don't have a lot of wiggle room.
10:50: What are they going to do?
10:50: How are they going to wiggle out of this mess?
10:57: Verses 8 through 11.
10:57: Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well.
11:31: This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.
11:38: That might be the gutsiest response to persecution I've ever even heard of.
11:47: No wiggling, no dodging whatsoever.
11:47: They're just flat out, hey, you want to know?
11:53: We'll tell you.
11:53: It was Jesus.
11:53: It was Jesus.
11:53: Now notice, this is a public hearing.
11:53: This is not a closed to the public scene.
12:01: Specifically, we see in verse 14 that the man who had been healed is present, so he's been hauled in as well.
12:08: And in verse 10, he says, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, implying that there's other folks besides the Sanhedrin that are present, saying, it's not just you, the folks examining us.
12:21: We want the whole crowd to know in Jesus we did this.
12:26: So, they're responding to the leadership in part by appealing to the crowd and saying, hey, we want everyone to realize this is a Jesus thing.
12:37: But then, Peter goes even further.
12:37: In verse 10, he explicitly lays the guilt for Jesus' death at their feet.
12:43: Jesus says, whom you crucified.
12:43: He is blaming the religious leaders for a wrongful, sinful execution of an innocent man, and he's doing it in the press, so to speak, before the public eye.
13:01: And he says that the one that they crucified is the one that God vindicated by rising Jesus from the dead.
13:10: So, he's implying, saying, hey, not only did you condemn an innocent man to death, but you were on the opposite side of God.
13:21: God likes Jesus.
13:21: You don't.
13:21: You got it wrong.
13:21: You're in opposition to God.
13:21: He doubles down in verse 11, pointing out how they rejected Jesus, and I love how he does it.
13:28: He does it by quoting from Psalm 118, verse 22.
13:36: He pulls the Old Testament and says, this, this right here that God wrote ahead of time, this is what just happened.
13:44: He doesn't just say, hey, this is my take on the current situation.
13:49: He says, God's word describes this.
13:49: This is what took place.
13:54: By quoting the Bible, in this context, he's essentially quoting the Bible to the Bible experts.
14:05: It would be like getting in front of the seminary professors and the pastors and the bishops and the district superintendents and saying, haven't you read the Bible?
14:10: Look, this is what just took place.
14:15: And implicitly, he's saying, you're the bad guys in this Bible passage.
14:22: You're the villains in God's word right here in this passage, and you just lived it out, and you don't even realize what you did.
14:28: That's got to be among the gutsiest things I've ever heard.
14:34: The Sanhedrin wants to intimidate them.
14:34: They've arrested them.
14:34: They're bringing them before the high core for a trial, demanding the answer for something that might get them killed.
14:44: And Peter and John are beyond intimidation.
14:44: There's not even a whiff of fear in his response, which I find amazing, considering that Peter had two months before this said, I don't even know Jesus.
14:57: And you know, the multiple denials of Jesus on the night he was betrayed and crucified.
15:02: Like, he had just done the fear thing two months before, and now that he's got the Holy Spirit, he's like, you can't shut me up.
15:07: I love this.
15:07: Where does that boldness come from?
15:07: I think there are two answers that I see in our passage this morning.
15:15: Look at verse 8.
15:15: Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them.
15:23: This response, I believe in content and in tone, is led by and empowered by the Holy Spirit of God living in Peter.
15:33: This is continuing to show us what the book of Acts to this point has been all about.
15:40: The Spirit is coming.
15:40: The Spirit has come.
15:40: The Spirit will enable you to witness for Jesus.
15:45: And this whole response is Holy Spirit enabled.
15:45: We are meant to understand from the outset of his speech that Peter is not doing this in Peter's strength.
15:53: Peter is doing this in the strength and power of God's Holy Spirit.
15:57: Peter is filled with the Spirit as he does.
15:57: He's nailing the fearlessness because of God's Spirit.
16:03: Now, we need to pause and say, what does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit?
16:11: First of all, what that means is to be empowered by and surrendered to the Holy Spirit.
16:19: I've taught three of my kids to drive now.
16:19: And if any other parents have taught any of your kids to drive, you know what a workout you get on your right foot in the passenger side, right?
16:33: Like they're driving and all of a sudden you're like, okay, we're coming up to this intersection a little quick.
16:37: And you're trying to press the floorboards to hit that brake that's not on your side.
16:40: It's hard to give up control.
16:40: We want to maintain control.
16:40: But ideally, you get to the place where you're like, no, he's got it.
16:48: He knows what he's doing.
16:48: And you relinquish your attempt to control things.
16:54: When we are filled with the Spirit, we're saying, he's driving.
16:54: I'm the passenger.
16:54: I'm not going to try to direct things.
17:03: I'm not trying to control things.
17:03: And not only is this something that's available, it's something that we are commanded to do, to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
17:14: Ephesians 5.18 says, and do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.
17:20: That's a command.
17:20: That's a straight up from God command.
17:20: Be filled with the Holy Spirit.
17:25: So our job, in part, day by day, is to say, God, lead.
17:25: Spirit, lead me.
17:25: Guide me.
17:25: Call the shots.
17:34: I surrender.
17:34: Do what you want to do with me.
17:34: But whatever you ask me to do, Spirit, give me the strength to do it.
17:43: That's what being filled with the Holy Spirit is about.
17:43: Now, the other answer to where this boldness comes from, I see in verse 13.
17:50: Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished.
17:56: And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.
18:03: Now, it doesn't mean these guys are dummies.
18:03: It just means they didn't go to seminary.
18:10: They were apprenticed under one of the Sanhedrin rabbis.
18:10: Like, they didn't have the post-secondary religious training that the other religious leaders have.
18:15: They're like, you didn't go to Bible school.
18:21: You didn't go to seminary.
18:21: How do you know this?
18:21: Oh, yeah, you were with Jesus.
18:25: That's where this comes from.
18:25: You were with Jesus.
18:30: They recognize where their boldness and bold teaching comes from.
18:30: It's with Jesus.
18:30: Now, remember how I said that Peter quoted Psalm 118, verse 22, and applied it to them, right?
18:41: Where do you think Peter got that?
18:41: Jesus.
18:41: In fact, Matthew 21, Mark 12, and Luke 20 all tell us that Jesus taught from that very passage and explained to his disciples that it was about him.
18:55: He's just repeating what he learned from Jesus.
18:55: I love that.
18:55: Peter's teaching in this moment comes from the overflow of him having spent the last three and a half years with Jesus.
19:07: I guarantee you, you spent three and a half years with Jesus, it's going to affect you.
19:10: It's going to impact you.
19:10: I heard from a brother in Christ this very last week, and he said something like, I had three times this last week where I was able to quote scripture and know exactly where the Bible spoke to that issue.
19:24: That's a great thing.
19:24: It's a beautiful thing when that happens, when we spend time with God and his word.
19:30: Is this available to us today?
19:30: Can we spend time with Jesus?
19:30: Absolutely.
19:37: Not in the exact same way that they did, but by being in the word.
19:37: Because the message of Jesus has been preserved for us through the writings of the apostles, which comprised the New Testament.
19:56: You want to know what Jesus taught, what Jesus wants us to know?
19:56: He wrote it down for us.
19:56: It is crazy to me that we will turn up our noses as spending time in God's word.
20:02: God Almighty has written a message to us, and we're like, eh, after I watch some cat videos on YouTube, maybe.
20:16: Like, this is crazy.
20:16: The Almighty God who sustains everything in existence has said, I've got something to say to you.
20:22: I wrote it down.
20:22: I made sure that the printing press came along, and so everyone's got a copy.
20:27: Check it out.
20:27: And we're like, sometimes it's hard to read.
20:27: I don't care.
20:34: God's speaking.
20:34: Let's dig in.
20:34: Let's dig in and hear what God has to say.
20:34: It makes a huge difference in our Christian lives.
20:42: 2 Timothy 3.16 is so often quoted.
20:42: It says, all scripture is breathed out by God and is useful for teaching, correcting, and reproof, and training in righteousness.
20:57: It gets quoted all the time, right?
20:57: Take the scripture seriously.
20:57: But that's not the end of the sentence.
21:01: The next verse, verse 17, is the end of the sentence.
21:01: It says, that, here's the purpose, the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
21:09: Meaning, if we're not people of the word, if we're not people immersed in God's word in the scripture, we will not be complete, and we will not be equipped for every good work.
21:19: If you are somebody that works with your hands, plumber, electrician, carpenter, any kind of handyman, would you go into your job without your hammer and drill and saw or whatever specialty tools?
21:37: You wouldn't even think about it.
21:37: You're like, well, I need my tools, right?
21:41: What are we doing trying to walk into and through the Christian life without the tools that God means for us to have?
21:46: We've got to be people who meet with Jesus in the word on an ongoing basis.
21:54: This is hugely important.
21:54: One of the first verses I learned, it wasn't the first, but one of the first verses I happened to learn as a young Christian was Psalm 119 verses 9 and 11.
22:00: How can a young man keep his way pure by living according to your word?
22:07: I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
22:15: Say, we need to know God's word in order to live according to it.
22:15: And part of that means memorizing it, hiding it in our hearts, making sure that we know it and remember what God has said.
22:30: That's getting a lot harder as I get older.
22:30: Anybody have a harder time memorizing things as you get older?
22:37: Man, I assume everyone who did not raise your hands is either under 25 or lying because it gets harder.
22:44: I added an app to my phone recently to work on some of my Bible memorizing and it, I mean, I'm making progress, but it's not common like it did in my teens.
22:49: In my teens, it was like, hey, I read that verse.
22:53: It's locked in forever.
22:53: And now I'm like, man, I've read that 15 times today and it still is a little fuzzy in my head here.
22:59: And so it takes more effort.
22:59: My encouragement to you is it's not going to get easier.
23:06: The best time to have started memorizing is 10 years ago or 15 years ago, but the second best time is now.
23:11: Let's hide God's word in our heart.
23:11: If we're fearful about sharing our faith, if we're fearful about possible negative responses to our faith, then we need to be immersed in the scripture and surrender to and filled by God's spirit who lives in us.
23:26: When we are transformed by Jesus and filled with the Holy Spirit, we can be bold Christian witnesses, even in the face of opposition.
23:41: The Holy Spirit loves to empower people for witness about Christ.
23:41: And if we try to hide from the Christ-centered nature of our message and the exclusivity of the Christ-centered message, we rob Christianity of its strength and power.
23:54: Notice how bluntly Peter puts it in verse 12.
24:01: He said, and there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
24:11: Memorize that verse.
24:11: You want to witness for Jesus?
24:11: You want to hide a verse in your heart?
24:18: 412.
24:18: That's a great verse to memorize.
24:18: There's no other name under heaven.
24:18: Not in all creation.
24:26: Is there any other name other than Jesus?
24:26: There's nobody but Jesus who can do this.
24:32: He's the only one by whom we can be saved.
24:32: It's Jesus or nothing.
24:32: To be able to say, that's what God says.
24:38: God says Jesus or nothing for salvation.
24:38: There is salvation in no one else.
24:38: Not in Buddha, not in Muhammad, not in Allah, not in you and your efforts.
24:45: Salvation is in Jesus, period.
24:45: End of story.
24:53: Any other answer, we're calling God a liar.
24:53: Acts 412.
24:53: Memorize that.
25:01: So how did the Sanhedrin respond to this bold witness given about Jesus by Peter?
25:01: And I'm assuming John was part of it.
25:10: Well, they're stymied because the whole thing was provoked by the healing.
25:15: The healed guy's there.
25:15: We find out that he was over 40.
25:15: He's a 40-something-year-old guy who's been crippled from birth.
25:21: And like, nobody can deny it.
25:21: He was there all the time in the public eye.
25:25: They've all seen him.
25:25: He's not some, you know, plant out of nowhere.
25:25: They're like, well, we've seen Jimmy begging for decades.
25:29: Now Jimmy's standing here.
25:29: Jimmy doesn't stand.
25:29: What are we going to do with this?
25:36: Everyone's seen it, right?
25:36: And so they're in a bind because public pressure is not on their side.
25:43: And they're afraid of responding too harshly to Peter and John, lest there be a public backlash.
25:50: We see that implied in verses 15 and 16 and more explicitly in 21.
25:50: When they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them because of the people.
25:56: For all, we're praising God for what happened.
26:02: So we know that they had multiple times in this encounter threaten these guys, but they're limited in what they can do because of the public pressure.
26:13: And so they leave it with threats.
26:20: Now part of me says, yay for Peter and John.
26:20: They don't get hammered.
26:20: I like that.
26:20: I mean, I don't want to get hammered for faithfulness to God.
26:25: But part of me says, I don't like these Sanhedrin guys.
26:32: These are not men who are controlled by a love of God or love for the truth.
26:32: These are men who love power and position more than God and more than truth, which is a hundred times more tragic in their case because these should have been some of the most godly people around.
26:48: They're studied in the scripture.
26:54: They're in religious leadership.
26:54: They've had lots of opportunity to grow in this kind of stuff.
26:59: These should be folks that we could look up to, and yet they're not at all.
27:04: And this hasn't stopped 2,000 years later.
27:04: To this day, this continues to happen.
27:04: There are leaders in churches and denominations who care far more about retaining power and influence and control than they care about doing what's right, acting with integrity, speaking the truth, and doing what's right.
27:23: It was true then, and it happens today.
27:23: But just as Peter and John didn't have any need to give in then, we have no need to give in now.
27:31: We don't need to abide by those in power and suppress the biblical message in any regard.
27:39: In verses 17 and 18, the leadership tries to shut up Peter and John, and then we read, they play it out like this, but in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.
27:52: So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.
27:58: Quit talking about Jesus, period.
28:04: And they warned them, implying there's a threat attached.
28:04: There's some sort of negative stuff coming your way if you don't do what we're telling you to do.
28:10: In verses 19 and 20, but Peter and John answered them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.
28:26: Implicitly they're saying, you guys are not on God's side.
28:26: You guys are contradicting God.
28:45: We can listen to you, we can do what you're telling us, or we can do what God's telling us, but we can't do both.
28:49: They're explicitly publicly rebuking the religious leaders and saying, following you and doing what you're asking us to do would be sin.
28:55: You're commanding us to sin.
29:00: Not going to do it.
29:00: That's their response.
29:00: Not going to do it.
29:00: Can't happen.
29:00: We'd have to disobey God and we've seen too much of Jesus to shut up about him.
29:06: We know who he is well enough that that's just never going to happen.
29:11: And so Peter and John choose obedience to God over human approval.
29:24: They have encountered in Jesus someone so extraordinary that they cannot possibly keep the gospel to themselves.
29:29: Jesus is for them so much.
29:29: He's their everything.
29:29: They know that he can be that for others.
29:37: So whatever people may do to them, they're going to tell folks about Jesus.
29:44: Now let me ask you, is Jesus that much to you?
29:44: Now, if you've been church any of the time, you know the correct answer is, oh, of course he is.
29:52: But honestly, is your experience of Jesus such that you've got to tell the truth about him?
29:59: That there's no way you can keep quiet about Jesus?
30:04: Is your personal encounter with Jesus a day-to-day lived out relationship that makes it impossible for your whole life to be defined by anything other than Jesus?
30:15: I want to encourage you to immerse yourself in enjoying relationship with God every single day.
30:22: We say here at Faith Chapel that we exist to worship God by enjoying relationship with him through Jesus Christ.
30:31: We are meant to enjoy relationship with God.
30:40: If I said to John, how do you like being married to Mary?
30:40: He's like, it's all right, I guess.
30:51: John's going to be looking for somebody to sleep on their couch tonight, right?
30:51: Like Mary's like, yes, he is, right?
30:59: He ought to say, I love being married to Mary.
30:59: I love it.
30:59: I mean, she's Mary.
31:05: We all know Mary, but I wouldn't want anything else.
31:05: And she'd be like, well, yeah, that's honest, right?
31:10: Like he ought to love.
31:10: You love being married to Mary?
31:10: Yes.
31:10: That's a quick nod.
31:10: Good answer, right?
31:16: We ought to so enjoy relationship with Jesus day by day that we're like, no way would I give up on this.
31:23: No way would I turn my back on this.
31:23: No way would I put him in a box and say, eh, when I get to it, like Jesus should be our everything.
31:27: We should wake up saying, what do you got today, Jesus?
31:27: Let's go.
31:32: Whatever you want to do.
31:32: We ought to be pouring out our hearts and cares and concerns.
31:32: We ought to be pleading with him to use us to represent him to others.
31:37: We ought to say, Jesus, this day is your day.
31:43: This is the day that you have made.
31:43: I'm going to rejoice and be glad in it.
31:43: Let's go.
31:43: Whatever you want to do, I'm in.
31:48: We are meant to have that experience every day.
31:48: And then the flip side of this is this question.
31:58: Are you letting fear, fear of failure, fear of people, fear of embarrassment, fear of opposition or persecution, are you letting fear silence your witness or even quiet your witness at home, at school, at work, with your friends?
32:25: We say here at Faith Chapel that our mission is for every believer to become, make, mature, and multiply, fully surrender disciples of Jesus Christ.
32:29: If we're not making disciples of others, we're missing our number one active ministry objective.
32:34: Every one of us is called to be investing in others, helping them to know Jesus, grow in their relationship with Jesus, and then repeat the process.
32:47: We have got to be about that.
32:47: Women's ministry is meeting tomorrow night.
32:53: We'll put Laura under the microscope.
32:53: Laura, promise me that part of what women's ministry is going to be about is making disciples.
33:00: She's nodded.
33:00: You've got her on record, right?
33:06: Brian, men's ministry.
33:06: You're going to be about helping these men follow Jesus and help others follow Jesus.
33:12: Amen?
33:12: Steve, youth ministry.
33:12: You're going to be about helping make followers of Jesus?
33:20: They're quiet, but they're nodding.
33:20: That's what we've got to be about, not just in our programs, but at the individual personal level.
33:27: Every one of us living on mission for Jesus.
33:27: And when we are transformed by Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, we can be bold Christian witnesses, even in the face of opposition.
33:39: The folks back then failed to silence Peter and John, not because they were the most educated or the bravest folks out there.
33:45: They were neither, but because they had been with Jesus and God's spirit was in them, giving them boldness.
33:56: That hasn't expired in the last 2,000 years.
34:03: Let me beg you, plead with you, encourage you, commend to you, spend time with God every single day.
34:11: Prioritize that.
34:11: Make it such an important part of your day that whatever else happens, that's going to be included.
34:16: And keep offering yourself throughout the day.
34:16: God, what do you want to do with me this afternoon?
34:22: How do you want me to respond to my coworkers?
34:22: How do you want me to pray for folks?
34:26: What do you want me to do in representing you right now?
34:26: Do you want me to keep my mouth shut?
34:31: For some of us, that's what we need to do, right?
34:31: Other times we need to refuse to keep our mouth shut and speak up.
34:36: God will guide.
34:36: He will empower.
34:36: Let's pray.
34:36: Help us to be those who surrender to you moment by moment and day by day, ready and yearning to be used by you.
34:56: I pray that you will help us as we go from this place to be enamored with Jesus, enthralled by his goodness to us, to prioritize spending time with him every day and be so built up by being with Jesus that we cannot but share with others.
35:14: I pray these things in Jesus name.
35:14: Amen.