Speaking Boldly

SERMON: 2011-06-19--ac1162--speaking-boldly SOURCE DURATION: 00:35:50.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The main sermon begins with the contextual review of Acts chapter 4 (segment [0]) and concludes with a theological exposition on speaking boldly (segment [31]). The subsequent material is separated by large gaps or dedicated to music/worship. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:29:18.440-00:35:46.600 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- "After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God boldly." As I said a few moments ago, it's been a few weeks or months even since we have been looking together at Acts chapter 4 verse 31, so allow me just a few moments review to put this verse in context. The story that we've been dealing with really begins in Acts chapter 3, where Peter and John on their way to the temple run into this man who is 40 years old and who has been crippled from birth, and Peter and John are used by the Lord Jesus to heal this man, and as you can imagine that causes quite a ruckus, a big crowd gathers together. Peter uses the occasion to preach and to proclaim that it is Jesus who has made this man better, and it is Jesus that everybody ought to be turning to. Well that doesn't go over very well with the religious authorities, and so the religious authorities drag them in before their religious court, and they threaten them to within an inch of their lives, eventually however with threatenings and warnings they let them go, and they go back to the church, and when they go back to the church they tell them what has happened, how they have been threatened for speaking about Jesus and being instruments of his healing, and the church does the only thing that it knows how to do under that kind of atmosphere of fear, and that is what, they pray to God, and here is what they pray, they ask in verse 29, "Now Lord consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness," and then verse 31 is the answer to their prayer after they prayed the place where they were meeting was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God boldly. As I said a few moments ago today is Pentecost Sunday, and one of the reasons the Holy Spirit was given to the church was to enable the church to speak boldly to the powers and to the principalities declaring that Jesus is Lord. Now we've been doing a little mini-series on what speaking boldly looks like, and we're really talking about three elements, the first one of which we have dealt with, the second one we're in the middle of, and we'll deal with some more today, and then the third one that Lord willing will deal with at a future date, to speak boldly means first of all to hold firm to your convictions despite the harm or the loss that may come to you, and that of course is the context here in Acts chapter 3 and Acts chapter 4. Stop preaching Jesus. Stop healing in His name or else, and we know what the else looked like, persecution, imprisonment, maybe death. Stop speaking in the name of Jesus. The apostle said we must obey God rather than men. Secondly then, and this is what we're in the middle of, to speak boldly is to dismantle intellectual arguments that people use to keep them from faith and obedience. It is to bring down intellectual strongholds. In the past we have looked at one of those, you may remember, the fact that the findings of science by many people are used to say you cannot trust the Bible. We spent a lot of time on that, and particularly for those of you that are of university age, if you go to secular universities, you might want to listen to those messages. They're all posted online. A lot of information that we need so that we're not bowled over by the arguments the world uses. And that brings us this morning then to a second stronghold that the enemy uses to keep people from coming to faith in Jesus, and that is this, the allegation that all Christians are hypocrites. The word hypocrite comes from a Greek word which really means to be a stage actor or a pretender. It refers to the ancient practice of wearing masks on stage so as to not show your true self. And the common definition of a hypocrite is a person who pretends to be something that they really are not. And all of us have been in situations and all of us have talked with people who say, "Well, I don't want to go to church because church is full of hypocrites." How many of us have ever heard that line? My response to that is always to say, "Well, there's always room for another one." You know, really. But it carries a lot of weight because as we'll see in a few moments, we get measured by a standard that people often are unwilling to apply to themselves. I spent some time this past week on a website that is called evilbible.com. It's run by some woman who claims to be an atheist but who has managed to get herself ordained as a preacher just to show that she could do it. And here's what she has to say about Christians. You listen to her. She says, "Christians, they love to talk about how loving, dutiful, and compassionate they are, yet I have yet to meet one who does not practice hypocrisy to the highest degree. Their willful ignorance of the Bible combined with their two-faced idealism to preach it has made us sick, hasn't it?" She goes on, "The problem with their approach lies not only in an oft-noted failure to practice what they preach, but an equally pronounced tendency to ignore the Bible itself preaches. Christians practice what can only be described as selective morality. What they like, they cling to and shove down others' throats. What they don't like, they ignore vehemently. Their hypocrisy is so rampant that even the validity of calling oneself Christian is in question." She's got strong views on Christian behavior. And she might be an extreme version, but you and I both know there are lots of people out there who feel this way and who feel this way perhaps about you or me. And it is used, then, as an excuse that I don't have to come to God and I don't have to bend my knee before Him. So here's the question. How do you respond to those kinds of allegations or to those kinds of challenges? Well, three suggestions very quickly this morning in the time that we have. And the first is simply this, admit that sometimes the charge is true. Sometimes we don't practice what we preach. Sometimes we have selective morality. Sometimes we do pretend to be something other than what we are. And sometimes that can be a stumbling block to other people. I love Romans 2 verse 24. "As it is written," this is in the context of the Jewish community, "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." And if you read that whole chapter, then you see that Paul is talking there about the fact that the Jewish people claim to be living by the law, but they are not actually living up to the standards which they profess themselves. And he says you are being a stumbling block to Gentiles because they cannot come to faith because of the inconsistencies in your lives. And as I said earlier, I don't think there would be one here this morning who would say that there aren't times when we are inconsistent, when we are open to the charge of being hypocritical. What's the answer to that? Well, the answer to that is to acknowledge and to admit that sometimes the charge is true. Philippians 2-3 is a significant verse in that regard. "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves." And James in James chapter 3 verse 13 puts it this way, "Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom." God's people, of all the people in the world, ought to be the first to be able to say, "I was wrong, I am sorry, please forgive me." It won't satisfy everybody, and some people will just use that against you, but we're followers of the Lord Jesus, then we do what we can to take responsibility for our stuff. And you will find that there are people in the world out there who like children with their parents. They're not asking us to be perfect, they're not asking us to be like God, but they are asking us to apply the same standard to ourselves that we apply to other people. And so scripture says, "Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders, make the most of every opportunity, let your conversation always be full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." What's our response to the charge that Christians sometimes are hypocritical? We admit that sometimes it's true, and we take responsibility for our inconsistencies and our failure. Second observation I want to make in this regard, then, is to say that the world does not understand the gospel of grace. Let me read you some further quotes from evilbible.com. Here's what she says, "Eating pork is forbidden," according to Deuteronomy 14 verse 8. She goes on to say, "I've never yet met a Christian who didn't enjoy bacon and eggs." She goes on to make the observation from Deuteronomy 23, "Money cannot be lent at interest to your brother, only to foreigners." And she goes on to say, "Aha, I'm recalling all the Christian banking corporations." And then she goes on to make the observation that bastards, or people who are born illegitimately of parents not married, cannot enter the Lord's congregation, which is also in Deuteronomy 23. And she goes on to say, "Hey, I know this is harsh, but God commands it, and hence it must be just." And so she holds these up, and many others on that webpage, to try to demonstrate how selective Christians are in obeying Scripture. And the answer to that, of course, is that she confuses the Old Testament with the New Testament, and she doesn't understand the Gospel of Grace. Because the Gospel of Grace teaches us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The Gospel of Grace teaches us that only the Lord Jesus fully measured up to the Father's will, and that we become perfectly holy and righteous in the sight of God. Not because we have suddenly become so good, but because through faith in Jesus we have acquired His righteousness. And now because we are fully accepted in Christ before God the Father, and are fully righteous, He comes to live in us by the Holy Spirit, and by the Holy Spirit He does what? He changes us from the inside out. And from the inside out our lives become more and more like the life of Jesus until the day when Jesus comes back and we will be fully transformed to be like Him. So our status is not determined by how good we are or how well we live. That's where most unbelievers make the mistake about Christians. They think that if you're a Christian then it's really based on your works. While works are important, but works are the fruit of salvation, they are not the salvation in and of itself. Now the natural man tends not to understand the Gospel of Grace. The natural man thinks primarily in terms of the law, right or wrong. And so what most people do is they try to measure up usually to a law of their own making. I've often said when it comes to living under the law, nobody can live with a standard of behavior up here and a lifestyle down here. So what do you do? You either try to boost your lifestyle until it meets your law or more commonly you bring the law down to where you do your living. And so the net result is that apart from the grace of Jesus, everybody lives selectively. You develop your own code of ethics about what is important and what is not important and you measure everybody else by your own standard except not the complete standard of God because all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. And I've often told you the story, I think, of a good friend of mine whose story in his encounter with me was a perfect illustration of this whole principle. His name was Bob, he is long gone now, one of the elders in the churches that I pastored in the past and came to see me one day because he was just so angry because somebody had been cutting their lawn on Sunday and he thought that cutting your lawn on Sunday was about as unpardonable a sin as you could get. And so he was dumping this all on me and I'm sitting there saying to myself, how do I handle this? And I said to him, you know, Bob, let's talk about real issues here. You're furious because that brother over there is violating what you believe is the commandment to keep the Sabbath. And here you are full of anger, spewing it out, and I said, now look at the two of you from God's perspective. What do you think would bother God more, that that dude is cutting his grass on Sunday or the fact that you have anger and bitterness in your heart? Do you see what I'm trying to say there? The natural man and the religious man who lives under the law is always very selective in his application of what is right versus what is wrong. It makes us feel good about ourselves because the values that we hold high, we live up to. Never mind that in so doing we violate a thousand other commandments and from God's perspective are falling far short of the glory of God. That was the issue Jesus had with the Pharisees, you will recall. He says you strain out the knack, but you do what? You swallow the camel. But you see, unless you understand grace and unless you understand the gospel of grace, that's all you can live by. And so in the world you will find a lot of people who will measure you then by their own standards. And if you don't measure up to those standards, then you get accused of being a hypocrite. So how do you answer that? Well, two ways. I think the first is to try to explain the gospel of grace, point out who Jesus is and what he has come to do. Many may not understand it, but it's worth a try. And secondly, of course, you try to live the gospel of grace. I love the way Paul puts it in Galatians 5-11, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Paul in Galatians talks about the difference between a slave and a son. In Christ we are sons and daughters of God. It means our position is secure, we belong, and because we belong, as a child belongs to its parents, we want to grow up to be like our parents and we want to please him. But our status is not determined by whether I'm a good child or a bad child. I am a child by virtue of having been born into the family. But a slave is on a different footing altogether, because a slave's value is determined by what he or she produces. And if he or she ceases to produce, is no longer valuable to the master, out on the auction block you go, and so slaves always live in fear. And one of the testimonies that you and I can give to the world is to demonstrate that we do not live in the fear of slavery, we live in the freedom of the sons of God. God loves us whether we screw up, yes or no. God forgives us as we come to him in repentance and faith, whether we've been good or whether we've been bad. And it's out of that security of our relationship with God the Father that our lives begin to change because we know that we are beloved and we know that from the inside out God changes us and the result of that is that we don't just live up to certain laws here, there, and everywhere. No, no, we live by the grace of God and the inside and we learn to understand the spirit behind the law, what it is to love God above all and what it is to love your neighbor. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? The difference is black and white. It's the difference between being a slave and being a son of God. And there is something incredibly winsome about a man and a woman, a boy and a girl who know that they know that they know that they are the children of God and who live out of that confidence, not arrogantly and not using it as an excuse or a license for sitting, but as a person who knows his or her place and who then is so infused by the spirit of Jesus that Jesus living in him or her makes him or her love God that much the more and makes him or her love his neighbor that much the more. You see, we teach the gospel of grace and we try to demonstrate what it looks like because there are people out there who are hungry for the freedom that comes from knowing that we live a life without condemnation. Don't you think it's neat that we can live without condemnation? Don't you think it's neat that we can make a mess of things sometimes as we all do? And we can know that we know that God forgives and God restores and God empowers so that we can live in the freedom of God's promises. So how do we handle the charge of hypocrisy? Sometimes it's true. We own it. But secondly, the world doesn't always understand the gospel of grace. We need to live it. We need to explain it. And then quickly on my last point here, it's helpful to know that the world almost always applies a double standard. Here's a very simple reality that I find very helpful, people in the world, especially in the world of entertainment, can pretty much live the way they please. They can drink, they can do drugs, they can cheat on their spouses, and unless they happen to hit a place of political incorrectness, the world hardly ever bats an eye. In fact, in the world of entertainment, it is often said there is no such thing as bad publicity because even when you get bad publicity, then you get attention paid to you and in the world all attention is good. That's one standard. But what happens when a Christian falls? Or what happens when a Christian makes a mistake? Or when high profile political leaders make a mistake? Well, there's a whole other standard of measurement that applies, and the world is too small to contain the rejection and the judgment that is then sent in that direction. And I'm not arguing that a higher standard should not be applied to those of us who name the name of Jesus and who call ourselves by his name. But here's the thing that's very important to understand, God is not a respecter of persons. And come the end of history, he is not going to measure us by one standard and the rest of the world by another standard, because we're all going to be measured by the standard of Jesus. Listen to these words, Romans 2, verses 9 to 11. "There will be trouble," says Paul, "and distress for every human being who does evil, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile, but glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good. First for the Jew, then for the Gentile, for God does not show favoritism." And later on in 2 Corinthians 5, 10, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive what is due to him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. You see, Christians avoid the judgment because Christ has already borne the judgment. But if you're not in Christ, then the same judgment that God put on Jesus on the cross, he's going to put on an unbelieving world. That's what people need to understand. And so you and I, empowered by the Holy Spirit, filled with God's love for an unbelieving world, need to know in wisdom and truth how to speak the truth into situations and say to people, "Listen, you may think you can get away with what you want to get away with. You may think that God measures me by this standard and he's going to measure you by no standard at all." That's not true at all. God will make a distinction in terms of what you have known and what you have not known. The more you have known, the more responsible you are according to Scripture. That is true, but God will judge all the world. And you and I, as speakers of truth, have an obligation then to say to our family and to our friends and to people that we know, "Listen, we'll all stand before the judgment seat one day and Christ will judge you by the same standard that he judges me by." And that's an important distinction that needs to be made because one day all the nations are going to be gathered before Christ and they will all give account of what they have done with the Gospel and how it has come to them. And of course, from a biblical point of view, the challenge is always for you and me to begin with ourselves. These words of Jesus we know, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye? Pay no attention to the plank in your own eye. How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?" You hypocrite. Here's that word again. Just take the plank out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. And that's why this morning we go to communion. It's been a tumultuous week or a couple of weeks for a lot of us, deep feelings, many questions and I can well imagine there are some of us sitting here this morning saying to ourselves, "How in the world can we celebrate communion when there is this much unrest, the tension between Classes Quinti and this congregation, some of the struggles between members in the congregation and some of the concerned members that you've heard about? How could we celebrate communion?" And I'll tell you the answer to that because communion is a means of grace and grace is for sinners. Are you a sinner? Am I a sinner? But that's why we have Jesus. And as we prepare this morning for the celebration of communion, the invitation is to come to Him just as we are. Some of us, our heads are spinning because we don't know what to believe. Some of us, our emotions are over the top and we range from anger to sadness to confusion. Some of us are just deeply in pain because close relationships are impacted and some of us just live in fear, "How in the world are we ever going to get out of all of this?" And the answer is Jesus. He's bigger. He's promised to make a way where sometimes there seems to be no way and He's promised to be with us not only in the good times but also in the bad times. And so as we turn to Him in a few moments in communion, let's just lay our hearts before Him. Let's say, "Lord, I just really hurt. I'm in pain. I don't know who to believe. I don't know what to believe. I worry. I worry about my family. I worry about my kids and it's okay for some of you even to worry about the preacher. Just add that to your list." It's bigger than I am, Lord. And so Lord, just minister Your grace because there is enough grace there. God has promised that He will see us through, that He's got the whole world in His hand, let alone you and me, and He's not going to let us down. So are you game? Can we just reach out to Him in faith? Don't point fingers at other people. Don't just get mad at other people and say, "Why don't they whatever?" No, no. This is about you and me. This is about our hearts. What an opportunity to demonstrate what life in Christ really looks like. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:29:18.440; remove through 00:35:50.000] Here I am, humbled by Your majesty, covered by Your grace so free. Here I am, knowing I'm a sinful man, covered by the blood of the Lamb. Now I have found the greatest lovable is mine, since You laid down Your life, the greatest sacrifice. Your grace has found me just as I am, an empty-handed bird of love in Your hand, and I've got the love in Your hand. Here I am, humbled by the love that You give, forgiven so that I can forgive. Here I stand, knowing that I'm Your desire, sanctified by glory and fire. Now I have found the greatest lovable is mine, since You laid down Your life, the greatest sacrifice. Your grace has found me just as I am, an empty-handed bird alive in Your hand, and I've got the love in Your hand. We're singing, "Majesty, majesty, for ever I am changed by Your love in the presence of Your majesty." Let's sing verse one again. Here I am, humbled by Your majesty, covered by Your grace so I'm free. Here I am, knowing I'm a sinful man, covered by the blood of the lamb. Now I have found the greatest lovable is mine, since You laid down Your life, the greatest sacrifice. Your grace has found me just as I am, an empty-handed bird alive in Your hand. We're singing, "Majesty, majesty, for ever I am changed by Your love in the presence of Your majesty." Your grace has found me just as I am, empty-handed bird alive in Your hand. We're singing, "Majesty, majesty, for ever I am changed by Your love in the presence of Your majesty." [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:35:50.000; resume after this marked segment]