Today, I'm Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Have you ever felt paralyzed by fear. I mean, there's something you know you want to do. You know God wants you to do it. But you're just afraid.
I mean, you're just afraid. And because you're afraid, You don't do it. How do you overcome that fear? That's today on Living on the Edge. Stay with me.
I'm Dave Druy, and today on Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram opens Acts chapter 4, where Peter and John are standing before the most powerful religious court in the land, being ordered to stop talking about Jesus. Their answer is one of the most remarkable things in the entire book of Acts, and it's the launching point for today's message. And stay with us because later in today's program, Chip will be sharing about our mid-year match, a special giving opportunity happening right now that we don't want you to miss.
Well, now here's Chippinggrim with his lesson, Learning to Walk in the Power of God. There's this amazing mission, this unstoppable grace, tsunami grace, when Jesus died upon the cross and he rose from the dead and his passionate love for every human being forcefully moving forward for the last 2,000 years. And he started with about 120 people and their mission. You talk about mission impossible? reach the world.
And for 40 days, he talks to them and he teaches them, and then they watch him, chapter one, ascend into heaven. Chapter two, he sends the Holy Spirit. And then, chapter three, remember? Kind of like the movie, What About Bob? Right?
Just take, you know what, guys, you're just normal ordinary people. Just take baby steps. And the baby step was: Peter and John just did, you know, what you normally do, they draw near to God. And so they're walking on their way to the temple. And they see a guy that, since they were children, have been crippled, but they saw him through new eyes.
They saw him through the eyes of his need and the resources of God, and he acted on that good impulse and he speaks and he takes this big step of faith and he reaches down. And as he reached and pulled the man, bang, a miracle happens. And pretty soon, there's thousands of people seeing this man that everyone has seen crippled from birth. What would happen if 100% of us just acted on that Holy Spirit-inspired impulse to love someone, to communicate to someone? 120 people transformed the world in the last 2,000 years, not because some big thing came down from heaven and there was a scroll with a game plan that said what to do every moment of every day.
It was ordinary people just like you, just like me, and pretty soon they just draw near to God and they begin to look at people differently the way Jesus looks at them. And then they acted on those good impulses. And when they did, then God began to do some amazing things, and they gave him credit. And then they boldly explained: We have to tell you, this isn't us, Jesus who was killed. rose from the dead and he loves people and he wants to help you.
And he preaches this amazing sermon. It doesn't end there. Last part I want you to remember. When you take these baby steps for God, is to expect a polarizing response. Expect a polarizing response.
If you'll pick it up with me in Acts chapter 4.
So Peter has just preached this sermon. I mean, the fearful fisherman, the uneducated guy that doesn't bring much to the table, the blue-collar worker preaches a sermon, and we're going to see what happens.
Some really good stuff and some really hard stuff. Beginning in chapter 4, the priests... And the captain of the guard And the Sadducees came to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. And they were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming. Jesus The resurrection of the dead.
And they seized Peter and John because it was evening, and they put him in jail until the next day. But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about 5,000. You know, sometimes It's just, I guess, human nature. When you do exactly what God wants you to do, And you begin to draw near to God and you say, you know, I'm just going to, I may not be very good at this, but you start reading the Bible on a regular basis and you start talking to him. And, you know, even while you're driving, you start communicating throughout the day.
And in the middle of a meeting, something comes up and you start saying, Lord, what do you want me to do? And then pretty soon you start looking at people instead of by the outside and judging them through Jesus' eyes. And then he'll give you these little impulses. And you think only it could be someone else. And you act on one and then he confirms it and you act on another.
And pretty soon you find yourself explaining to people. Explaining to people that there's hope and there's life and there's forgiveness. The assumption is that everything's going to go great. Since you're doing the right thing at the right time and honoring God, it's going to be great. What I want to tell you is that it usually produces a polarizing response.
They end up in jail negative. People come to Christ and a movement has begun, positive. You need to grasp the reality that a student isn't greater than his teacher. And Jesus lived the perfect life, loved people perfectly, and when he told people the truth out of love, from a tender heart, some people responded, it changed the course of their eternity, and other people rejected him. And that's how it goes with us.
Because that's true, and because down in your psyche you know that's true, I want to move from taking baby steps to walking in the power of God. As you go through this tsunami movement that you see in Acts chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4, In five and the rest of this book, this little fearful group of people, they change the world. They take on the establishment. They start with baby steps, but they begin to walk in the power of God. They begin to expect God to do supernatural things, and He does.
The scripture says Jesus is the same yesterday, today. and forever. Chapter 3 told us that there's power available, but it starts with babysips. Chapter 4. Is going to address the biggest issue why most followers of Christ don't walk in the power of God.
And you know what that reason is? Fear. Fear. Well, I would step out and say something, but I don't know what I would say. What if someone asked me a question?
Fear. Well, what if I take a couple steps and then God has some like bigger plan and wants me to go someplace I don't want to? Fear. Well, what what if I What if I want to do something, but I just don't have what it takes? Fear.
What if people reject me? Fear. The average follower of Christ is paralyzed by the fear of what might happen or what you don't possess in order to be the person that God wants to use. And it's so interesting in Acts chapter 4, there's four clear lessons about how the Spirit of God living inside of you as His follower will help you overcome your fear. Lesson number one.
Fear not, the Holy Spirit will speak through you. I mean, let's face it, all of us are pretty concerned that someone's going to ask you something, you don't know how to respond. Pick up the story with me in chapter 4, verse 5. The next day, the rulers, the elders, and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. Annas, the high priest, was there, and so was Caiaphas, and John and Alexander and the other men of the high priestly family.
They had Peter. And John brought before them, and he began to question them. And here's the question. By what power or what name did you do this? That this man who was crippled and healed.
He's standing in front of them. It's a semi-circle of about 70. It was the council made up of the Sanhedrin, which are the Sadducees. And they don't believe in the resurrection. And then you have the high priestly family.
We get four or five different names during that time. And then you have some teachers of the law, so you have sort of the court of Israel of that day, and they made all the recommendations in terms of what would happen to the Roman government. They had authority except for issues of like capital offenses. And so they bring these two guys, and you've got this testimony of this guy that was. Crippled and he's healed.
And they're saying now By what power or what name, how did you guys pull this off? Peter then, verse 8, Filled with the Holy Spirit. rulers and elders of the people. If we're being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel, it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified. but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.
He is the stone which you builders rejected, which has become the capstone. He's quoting Psalm 118. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.
Now, again, we've put these apostles in stained glass way too quickly. This is a guy that it was less than a month ago or so, maybe six or eight weeks, a little servant girl says, Do you know him? And he starts swearing, I've never seen him before in my life. And then he's filled with the Holy Spirit, and he meets the resurrected Christ. And he is no superstar.
All he's doing is going about doing what he knows, the next logical thing. And so he's on his way to a prayer meeting, and God gives him this prompting, and he responds to that prompting, a miracle occurs, and now he's in jail. And now he's in jail, and now he's brought before the intellects of his day. This is like going, you know, before the. equivalent of Harvard or Stanford.
All the PhDs. And you haven't even been to college, and they're going to ask you the questions. And I'm thinking Peter in his heart of hearts is thinking, Oh Lord. I got to trust your promise. I got to trust that you'll teach me what to say.
And I believe because Jesus promised, He said, the Holy Spirit will bring to mind everything that you need. Did you notice I put the promise in there? Look what God promised the disciples, and He promises us. Jesus promised in Luke 21. Verses 12 to 15, he says, But before all of this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you.
They will deliver you to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors on account of my name. This will result in your being witnesses to them. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words. And wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.
Notice, make up your mind in advance. That's a pre-decision. In other words, you don't have to be afraid about what you're going to say in a situation at work or with a relative or with a friend or someone that you meet. And you don't have to be afraid because in that moment, make up your mind. God so cares about them and is so prepared, He will put words in your mouth to help them.
Because once you know, you don't have to be afraid. He wants to release us as his followers to love and care for people. Yeah. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and we'll continue in a minute. Right now, Living on the Edge is in the middle of a mid-year match, and every dollar you give this month will be matched dollar for dollar by a group of generous ministry partners.
It costs you nothing extra. Your gift simply does twice the work. To find out more, just go online to livingonthege.org, and Chip will share more details in a little bit.
Now back to our message. Look how bold Peter was. I mean, notice that's pretty good psychology, right? Oh, if we're on trial for this act of kindness, that was a good line, wasn't it? Right?
I mean uh oh we did you're you're you're down on us for doing something really wonderful and kind and good to someone? And then he just goes strong and tells them he quotes scripture so there's truth behind it. And then, after he quotes scripture, he looks him dead in the eye and says, There is salvation in no other name. He's bold. He's bold because these aren't Peter's words.
These are the Spirit of God speaking through Peter. And that promise is as true for you And me? as it was for them. Sadly, About eight. to nine out of every ten Christians.
who are legitimate followers of Christ. have never verbally shared the gospel with another person. Have never explained to another person, even though we are the possessors and stewards of eternal life, have never shared with another person at work or in our family or in our neighborhood. Or who we hang out with very specifically, how Christ died for them, that their sin separates them from God, that He died and rose from the dead, He's paid for that and makes an offer. by grace of eternal life.
Now, I told you we're in this series. It's powerful. I'm not going to do the. We need to really start caring about people that don't know about Christ, and you know, the guilt trip never works. Lord, would you create in my heart a love for people?
the way you love 'em. Especially those that are outside of a relationship with you. Lord, would you give me a boldness that I don't have? Would you help me to see people, not through how they appear or how they might intimidate me? Would you just give me your eyes?
And so I've been praying that. And God answered my prayer this week. Just little, I'm just taking gradual baby steps. And so I was working out. As I was working out, a guy came in.
We played a little two-on-two, and I could tell he's from another country. And I said, Where are you from? He said, I'm from Egypt. And I said, Hey, I've been there a couple times, and we're from. And we talked a little bit.
And I said, What's your name? He said, Amen. I said, No, no, no, I appreciate that. But what's your name? He says, That is my name.
And so we got talking a little bit and it wasn't like I had some big plan or anything. I'm just working out and he's sweaty and I'm sweaty. And I didn't know. I just heard come out of my mouth. I said, you know, I use your name a lot.
And he says, What do you mean? I said, Well, you know, I pray like during the day, and at the end, I say amen.
So I use your name a lot. He said, That's very interesting. He said, You know, I had a friend invite me.
Now, think of how God's working. I went to a Christian church this last weekend, and he told me a little bit about it. And I said, where are you coming from? Long story short. This guy came from a wealthy family in Egypt, has been in the country for over a decade, very articulate, 28 years old.
has studied Islam And went to actually school and graduate school, understands it. And we begin to have a dialogue about Jesus and Abraham and Islam and Christianity. And I said, do you ever wonder, you know, we had a really good conversation, and I probably spent, it's hard to believe, about 70% of the time listening. and asking him questions. And really just realizing, I just want to know what's in this guy's heart, and I want to learn.
And finally, he says, You know, there's not that much difference between us and everything else. I said, Well, you know, I kind of think there really is. And he said, Well, what do you mean? I said, Well, I can, let me give you the difference in just six letters. Just six letters is all the difference between Islam and what Jesus taught in the Bible, and actually the difference between Jesus and every other religion in the world.
And, you know, we're dripping in the basketball court. He goes, Well, what is it?
Well, the first two letters are what Islam demands in every other religion, and the letters are D-O. You gotta do. You gotta do, do, do, do, right? I said, you pray five times a day? Yeah, you got to pray five times a day.
You need to go and pray what you do, do, do, do, do, do, right? To earn God's favor, he says, right. I said, how do you know for sure if you've ever done enough? And you know, it was that moment of He gave me that look. I don't know.
But we were friends. It's coming. And I said, here's what Jesus taught. Everything he taught can be summed up in four letters, D-O-N-E. Done.
See, it's not about.
Now, because he said, look, you know, you want to tell the truth, I want to tell the truth. You want to be a good husband, I want to be a good husband. You know, see, there's not much different. I said, no, no, no, no, you didn't understand. You're doing that to try and earn.
Someone's favor that you're really afraid of down deep, and I'm doing it because I'm so loved that it's done. He died for me, I'm already forgiven, I have a relationship, and that flows his life out of me. And you know, we got done, and I said, I have learned so much today. Would you be open to kind of hanging out and teaching me about Islam? I said, because let's face it on both, aren't there like idiots and radical extremists, you know, in the name of Christianity or Islam that do wacko stuff?
He goes, yeah. I said, I'd really like to understand it. He said, well, I'm here every day. I said, okay.
So we exchanged a little information.
Now I've got to tell you, where did those six letters come from? They came from the Holy Spirit. I've never shared the gospel like that in my life. I didn't, I mean, he was bringing stuff to my mind that I studied about Islam, you know, who knows where. And what gave me, you know, Mr.
Malfie, the person who's always going to say, da, da, da, da, da, da, and make these reasoned arguments, who in the world could have me shut up? And listen, and actually just care about someone and realize all I want to do is understand where you're coming from and care and allow the love of Christ to come through me to you. I just acted on a good impulse. I saw him through different eyes. God will give you everything you need, and he'll speak through you.
This promise is for you. People in your office, He's preparing them. People on the job side, He's preparing them. When you walk your dog in the park, He's preparing them. Let it come out of your mouth.
The second lesson from Acts 4 is: fear not, the Holy Spirit will protect you. Because, see, once you say, well, if it starts coming out of my mouth, well, you know, I'm going to get a bad reputation or it might limit my job or, you know, he might protest, oh gosh, what if it works? That could get really scary. I might have to go on a missions trip.
So, pretty soon we have this fear of what might happen. Notice what happens as we Pick up the story in verse 13. When they saw the courage of Peter and John, they realized they were unschooled ordinary men. That's good, because that's who most of us are. They were astonished and they took note of these men that they'd been with Jesus.
But since they could see the man who'd been healed standing there with them, There was nothing they could say.
So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin, and then they conferred together. What are we going to do with these men? They asked. Everybody living in Jerusalem knows that they've done an outstanding miracle, and we can't deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer anymore in his name.
Then they called them back again. and commanded them to speak or teach. No longer in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John reply, Judge for yourselves whether it's right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.
And they had further threatened them, then they let them go, and they couldn't decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for all that had happened. For the man who was miraculously healed was over 40 years old. Will you underline this one verse? We could not stop or help ourselves from thinking. It's unstoppable.
But notice what? He says, he doesn't say we couldn't. Stop. speaking about. these intellectual arguments.
We couldn't stop thinking about this obligation and duty. He says, we couldn't stop speaking about what we personally have seen and what we personally have heard. You know, when I hear Some of us, as pastors, tell people about what they need to do in terms of being more active and caring and sharing for their faith. I think we push the wrong end of the stick. I think that's a mixed metaphor, but you get the idea, right?
See, I think we're always telling people what they ought to do, ought to do, ought to do, ought to do. Here's the deal. When you are experiencing the love of Jesus and you're experiencing His power, when you see Him working in you, when you hear His voice, you won't be able to stop telling people. about what's going on. Because what's going to happen over time is you're going to start caring way less about what people think of you and way more about how much God thinks of them.
And that's freeing. Notice the promise that Jesus gave. He says, the Holy Spirit will protect you. Fear not. And then notice the very last night, I mean, he knew these were people that lived with Jesus for three years.
Night and day, they knew him. And on the very last night, he said, I've told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you'll have trouble, but take heart. I've overcome the world. He protected Peter and John.
It doesn't mean you're not going to have a hard time. They had a night in jail. We'll see later, they go through some difficult times. But God will protect you. He can protect your heart, he can protect your children, protect your fears.
But you need to understand when you boldly step out and allow him, not just through your life, but through your words, to speak. He'll take care of you. He'll protect you. I mean, he's God. He spoke and the world came into existence.
And he loves you. And he loves those people that you care about. That so many times, right, you get right there and the words are stuck right here and you just can't get them out. There is no other name given unto man under heaven. by which we must be saved.
You are the conduits. You are the greatest Christian some people know.
Some people may never hear unless they hear through you and me. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and part one of Learning to Walk in the Power of God from his series, The Jesus Revolution. Chip will have a word about the mid-year match for us in just a moment. You can hear today's complete message or any program from the Jesus Revolution series on the Living on the Edge podcast. Subscribe wherever you listen and take the series with you all week long.
Or find Chip's full-length sermons by searching for the Chip Ingram Sermon Podcast. Peter and John were unschooled, ordinary men. The record says the authorities were astonished, and then it says they took note that these men had been with Jesus. That's the whole explanation. Not training, not talent, not temperament.
They had been with Jesus. And Chip's challenge today lands quietly but squarely. The people around you at work, in your neighborhood, in your family, you may be the only Jesus they ever encounter up close. That's a calling. The disciples had been with Jesus, and being with Jesus is still what changes everything.
Well, here's Chip with a word about what it looks like when a whole movement of people decide to live that way. In Acts chapter 4, the religious authorities hauled Peter and John in. And gave them a direct order: stop talking about Jesus. Stop teaching in his name. Stop.
And Peter looked at them in the eye and said, we cannot help speaking. about what we have seen and heard. Friends, that's courage. And it is exactly what the church needs today. Right now I'm presenting a teaching called The Jesus Revolution from Acts chapter 1 through Acts chapter 5.
And one of the most urgent themes is the call for Christians to stop apologizing for the gospel and start living boldly, even when the culture pushes back. Peter refused to be silenced, and your gift to this mid-year match this June is how you can say along with Peter, we cannot stop. Every dollar is matched. Can I encourage you, give boldly. Because right at this moment, There are members of our team who are being bowled in India as churches are burned.
They were in Dubai when a hotel nearby blew up and they were training pastors. There's people in Africa that are refusing to step back even despite the challenges they face. You are part of the movement, and at Living on the Edge together we can make a difference. Let's do it. Peter said, We cannot stop.
And here's your chance to say the same thing. Join the mid-year match today. Every dollar you give this month is matched and the message keeps going. Go online to livingonthege.org or call us at eight eight-eight three three-six zero zero three. Bold giving for a bold movement.
Go online, make the call, send the check, however God leads you, do it to-day. If you're giving through the mail, write to us at LivingOn the Edge, P.O. Box 30007, Atlanta, Georgia, three zero zero two four.
Well, I'm Dave Drewy.
Next time, Chip continues answering, how do you walk in God's power when fear is real and the opposition is organized? That'll be right here on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge. Uh
