The Heroic Heart that Propelled the Movement, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. So if you're a generous person, you're generous with your life, your possessions, you're generous with your time, you're generous with your forgiveness, you're generous with your witness, right?

You see, that's what they were. They were just generous people and they're like, hey, if you take our lives from us, we'd still think it's more important for you to know the gospel than for us to be safe. Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, author and theologian J.D. Greer. I'm Molly Vidovitch.

And you're joining us today in the middle of a teaching series called Scent. We're getting a fresh perspective on faith from the book of Acts. Now, how many of you like a good superhero movie?

I know I do. And if you're like most people, you have a picture in your mind of what a hero actually looks like. But today, Pastor J.D. offers us a real look at heroism. Pastor J.D.

's teaching today is from Acts chapter four, verses twenty three through thirty seven. And it's in a message that he's titled the heroic heart that propelled the movement. In this passage, you're going to see what real heroes look like.

Let me give you a warning. They're not flashy. In fact, what you're going to see is quiet and behind the scenes. We'd have no way of knowing about it if the Holy Spirit hadn't recorded it for us. But you're going to see how they responded to threat. You're going to see how they responded to danger. And you're going to see what made them heroes.

All right? Acts chapter four. We're going to begin in verse twenty three.

But let me give you the context first in case you either weren't here last week or you got a bad memory. Notice that in the first sign of danger, their instinctive reflex is what? Is prayer. Now, I'm not saying to you I'm a perfect model of what a man of prayer ought to be. But I can tell you that that starts me out on a day where I begin to pray much more reflexively. And instinctively because I begin to crave the Spirit of God's power in everything that I'm doing. Prayerlessness is a sign.

Not that you're not disciplined enough. It's a sign that you're disconnected from the Spirit of God. What do you pray for in persecution? What do you pray for in pain? Typically, we pray for protection.

Or we pray for deliverance from the pain. And I'm sure they wanted those things. And by the way, I'm sure they eventually got around to asking for them because there's nothing wrong with asking for those things. But before they prayed for those things, they prayed for God to make them bold within the circumstances.

In fact, if you're taking notes, write this down. Before they asked for a positive outcome around them, they prayed for a faithful spirit within them. They prayed for faith to be able to respond in a faithful way to whatever the situation would be. Our salvation.

So here is my question for you. Where does boldness and courage like that, where does that come from? Because I dare say, just in my knowledge of you and people like us, we want more courage. We love to be bold. Where does courage come from?

Where does boldness come from? You just kind of wheel it up inside you and just, you know, I'm just gonna do it. Is that what you do? Or how about this? I heard this strategy before. Visualize a positive outcome. And then that will help you be bold. You ever heard this strategy?

No. Let me be honest. There's an element of that strategy that works. It's called positive thinking.

I know people who use that frequently to kind of work for it. But there's a problem. And the problem is, even if you visualize good things happening, bad things can still happen. There's got to be a better way.

Right? Well, there is. And you'll see five elements in their prayer that made them bold that can be true of you. God's sovereignty in their trials. See verse 24, sovereign Lord told you the word sovereign means in control of everything.

Truly in this city we're gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, all these people, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. What if you believed that kind of sovereignty was over your pain? What if your first response, in whatever painful situation you find yourself in, was this, what is God's purpose in this pain? You see, listen, faith during the problem is more important than fixing the problem.

And I'm not saying you don't get around to fixing it. I'm just saying that maybe you stopped in whatever situation and you just said, God, I know that you're sovereign. Sovereign Lord, all these things happen because you were directing them, and I'm gonna be still, and I'm gonna know that you're God, that you're gonna be exalted among the nations. You see, on the flip side, you'll start doing that with your blessings. You'll start saying, God, you gave me this blessing, you gave me this new job, you gave me this raise, you gave me this thing. What was your purpose in giving me that?

Maybe it was for his purposes and not mine. See, that's what I want you to start thinking about as you get into these things. I want you to be still and know that he is God. Number two, they knew the scriptures. They knew the scriptures. Did you see how the first thing out of their mouths in prayer was an Old Testament psalm, where they claimed the promises of God? You know what that shows you? Shows you they knew them. They knew what to pray in the various situations because they were so bathed in the word of God that when life shook them, it just came out.

I love what Eugene Peterson says about this. True prayer is not just talking to God. True prayer is answering God. God's already spoken in his word. Prayer is just a response to what he has said.

I want you to see the world through the lens of gospel promises because when the word of God is in your heart and the word of God is on your lips, then the spirit of God will be working through you to bring the power of God into your situation. See, number three, they were in awe of the greatest hero. Number three, they were in awe of the greatest hero.

Now, you know what's significant about that? Jesus is totally different than Hercules. He's very different than every other superhero we've ever come up with.

You wanna know why? Superheroes become superheroes through their massive strength, but Peter just said that Jesus was a superhero because he died in weakness. In fact, he leveraged his power not to crush his enemies.

He leveraged his power to die in weakness for his enemies so that he could reconcile his enemies back to himself. And see, that fundamentally changed how the apostles saw themselves. And so they start saying things like, hey, if God's for us, who can be against us? He that did not spare his own son, how will he not also freely give us all things? Nothing can separate us from the love of God that's in Christ. Jesus is not height or depth or your power or Rome's power or anybody's power, right? If God is for us, who can be against us? All things are gonna work together for good to those who love God or are called according to his purpose.

We're more than conquerors, and we're not gonna pick up a sword. It's the power of resurrection that's inside of us. So death works in us, but life works in you because that's just how God works. You see, if you believe the gospel and if you're in awe of the greatest hero, you become bold.

How could you not? Right, in the cross, you've been given the greatest grace so you become gracious to others. In the resurrection, you've been given the greatest promise so you have confidence.

In the Holy Spirit, you've been given the greatest possession so you got nothing to lose. And if you got the greatest grace and the greatest promise and the greatest possession, then you'll become bold as a matter of instinct, not as a matter of discipline. See, number four, they possessed a generous spirit. They possessed a generous spirit.

Let me show you where you can see this. Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and one soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own. They had everything in common, shared everything. With great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God's grace was so powerfully at work among them all. It was not a single needy person among them, not one, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold, and they laid it at the apostles' feet, and from there it was distributed to each as any had need.

Here's what I want you to see from that. Their boldness and witness was an extension of the generosity of lifestyle. You see, their boldness got them in situations where to be bold and to be faithful to the gospel meant that they were gonna lose their lives, but because they were so naturally accustomed to just sharing their lives, when they had to choose between personal safety and faithful witness, they always went with faithful witness because they learned not to hold on to the things that God had given them too tightly. You see, they weren't selectively generous because if you are a truly generous person, you're never just generous in one area of your life. And again, I don't wanna smack you, because I'm like this too, but if you're generous in only a few areas but not others, it shows that you're not really a generous person, you've just got a guilt trip about a handful of things. So if you're a generous person, you're generous with your life, your possessions, you're generous with your time, you're generous with your forgiveness, you're generous with your witness, right, you see? That's what they were, they were just generous people, and they're like, hey, if you take our lives from us, we'd still think it's more important for you to know the gospel than for us to be safe.

When I served as a missionary in Southeast Asia, I've told you before about a situation where my teen got in a lot of trouble, four of my friends were put into prison, I was put under house arrest. I would remember how spiritually low I was during that time because I was afraid, and I wanted to be home so badly. And one of the things that the Holy Spirit used to pick me up out of that pit was he gave me a vision, small v, gave me a vision of a friend of mine who I'd gotten to know who was very lost over there, and basically the Holy Spirit asked me this question in my heart, is that guy's soul worth it? Is his soul worth you being over here away from friends and family? Is it worth you being over here risking your life, because I'm not promising you you're gonna get out of here alive. Is it worth your life to save his soul? Now, I'd love to tell you, I just sprung up, was like, yes, Lord.

No, I mean, it was, anything was more of a meager response. But see, that was the beginning of God sowing real boldness as opposed to bravado in my life, because there's a big difference in those two. And bravado is what you get by personality, boldness is what you get by the Holy Spirit. And see, what God did is he then put me down to a place where basically he said, when I came, I didn't deliver my son, but my son died so you could be saved, so I'm not promising I'm gonna deliver you either. You might go to the same place that Jesus did, but because I used his generosity and his sacrifice as your salvation, maybe you're gonna have the chance to do that for somebody else. Someone, can I just be real with us for a minute? Many of us wither at the first sign that somebody's gonna not like us, somebody's gonna think we're weird, or somebody's gonna talk about us to friends if we come across as too bold of a witness. And I got no word for you except you need to repent. And I'm not coming down on you because I'm there half the time, too. But I'm saying we serve a Savior who not only risked his life, but actually gave his life so that you could be saved, and you wither at the first sign that somebody's gonna think that you're a little too excited or you're a little too much of a Jesus freak, really?

Really? What did he do to save your soul? And you're not gonna deal with a little opposition, you're not gonna deal with a little gossip? They scorned him so badly they stripped him naked and made him die alone in the sun, and you don't want people talking about you around the water cooler. You need to repent.

I need to repent because half the time I'm motivated, like, well, what are they gonna think about me if I do this? Number five. They were filled repeatedly by the Holy Spirit. They're filled repeatedly by the Holy Spirit. You see that in answer to their prayer, God filled them with the Holy Spirit. He came in so powerfully, he shook the place where they were meeting.

Now, let me first help you see what's going on with that, because I want you to get the significance of that. All right, so every time in the Old Testament when God came down to earth, the place shook. Right, Isaiah six, when God comes into the temple, it shakes. When God comes down on Mount Sinai, the place shook. And usually that's a terrifying experience, and people cower in fear. Now, the Holy Spirit's coming, and they're not cowering in fear, they're rising up in boldness.

Why? What's the significance of that? Well, because when Jesus died, Matthew 27, there was an earthquake. When Jesus was resurrected, it says there was a kind of small earthquake. What's happening is Jesus received the earthquake of God's judgment and the earthquake of God's terror so that I could receive the earthquake of his power. So when the Spirit of God comes upon us, we now shake not with fear like they did in the Old Testament, we shake with boldness like they do in Acts four. We shake with worship because we are amazed that the God who saved us, the God who is so holy that not one sin could enter into his presence, that God now lives inside of us, and if that God is for us, who could be against us, how could I not shake with boldness and power?

You see where it says that the place is shaken? The next phrase is, and they continued to speak the word of God with boldness. The more the place was shaken, the less the Christians were. The more they were shaken by the Holy Spirit, the less they were shaken by the threats of their enemies. And they needed this kind of experience often. They needed this kind of experience often.

You see, let me, again, just get real with you for a minute. They thought they needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit repeatedly. When's the last time you asked for the fullness of the Holy Spirit? So Peter and John feel like they need it all the time, but you, superhero, oh no, you don't need it. You're like, oh, I'm saved, I'm good.

Really? Here's Peter and John, they are dependent, they're desperate on fullness of the Holy Spirit, you don't need it, here's a little theology lesson. You got the Holy Spirit when you got saved, you got baptized, one baptism, 1 Corinthians 12, 13, by one spirit, we're all baptized in one body, you got all the Holy Spirit at that point, but there are frequent repeated fillings throughout the book of Acts, and you gotta seek those because they are the air you breathe, they are food for your soul, and without those things, you will never be bold.

That's how they were bolded, they were filled all the, you're like, well, what's the fullness of the Holy Spirit, what's that like? The analogy I've used with you for years, and I think it's just so clear and helpful, for me at least, it comes from a Puritan named Thomas Goodwin, and Thomas Goodwin says, here's what it's like, he says, he uses the example of a father walking along with a young son. My son is three years old, so that would be a good one for me, so I've got my three-year-old son, Adam, and he's walking beside me, and then I look down at him, and I just get overwhelmed with this feeling of how cute he is, and so I pick him up, and I spin him around, and I throw him up in the air safely, and catch him, and I blow raspberries in his neck, and I'm just like, who's your daddy, with this little thing we go through, and he's like, you're my daddy, and it's just this awesome moment, and then the moment passes, and I put him down, and I hold his hand, and we keep walking. Now question, was he any more my son when I picked him up than he was when I was just holding his hand?

No, legally, not one bit more. He was every bit as much legally my son then as he was when I picked him up, but he felt his sonship more in that moment than he did when he was walking on the ground. The fullness of the Holy Spirit does not change your status as a son or daughter. It does not make you closer to God.

That is fully settled legally in Christ, but what it does is it increases your awareness of your sonship. So listen to what Paul says. Paul says, I pray that you might have your mind open to how wide, how high, how deep, and how long is the love of God, because then you will be filled with all the fullness of God. So in other words, the fullness of the Holy Spirit is when your mind has been open to how glorious God is, how great of a father he is, how great his grace is, how much of a sinner you were, how close he is to you, and when that feeling floods your heart and you are spun around in his arms, then you come down from that experience bold, and you are ready to preach the gospel because you know the intimacy with your father.

Does that make sense? They needed that often. They needed it often. And I would say that I look at many of you, and if we just had an honest moment, I said, when's the last time you asked for the fullness of the Holy Spirit? The question would not be when was the last time. The question would be when ever have I asked for the fullness of the Holy Spirit? You see, I just feel like you need to be asking for it all the time.

I try to, you need to, because without him, you can do nothing. So five things that gave them boldness, that are gonna give you boldness, they believed in God's sovereign purpose in their trials. Number two, they knew the scriptures. Number three, they were in awe of their greatest hero. Number four, they had a generous spirit.

Number five, they were frequently filled by the Holy Spirit. So let me use my last little bit of time here to ask you this question. How do you apply this? Good, I was thinking about that as I got to the end of the message, because I don't like that I'm the kind of person who always gives to-do lists, but I am the kind of person who always gives to-do lists, so I just have to deal with that. How do you, what do you do this week as a result of this?

How do you apply it? I was first tempted to tell you some glorious stories of people who've gone overseas, and given their lives boldly, because the gospel was worth it. I was tempted to do that. And by the way, there are a bunch of you at all of our campuses, that that is exactly how you need to apply this message. God's gonna lead you overseas, and you're gonna be bold, and you're gonna give up your life so other people can know the gospel.

But that's not the main way that I thought we should end it, because while that applies to some of you, it does not apply to all of you. Let's be honest, when it comes to boldness, we're, we need baby steps, don't we? So I'm gonna give you boldness for beginners.

Can you not be insulted by that? Let's just do boldness for beginners. I'm gonna give you some stuff that every single one of you could do this week that would be your first step toward boldness.

Here we go, I'll give you a handful of them here. A, saying something when saying nothing would be easier. Saying something when saying, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You have that moment. You probably didn't know it was the Spirit of God, but when the Spirit of God put something in your heart that you really oughta say to somebody, and it's just a whole lot easier to not warn them, because you don't wanna put the relationship at risk, and you say nothing, and the way that you can be bold this week is by saying something when saying nothing would be easier.

Letter B, taking advantage of opportunities when they present themselves. Offering to pray for somebody. You're having that conversation at work, and it comes up, and you just say, hey, I don't wanna make this weird, but can I pray for you right now? Can I tell you one of the best witnesses you can have is letting somebody hear you talk to your father about their problem, because they hear tenderness, they hear your faith as you do that. And by the way, that's an easy way to preach the gospel to them.

I do that all the time. I pray for waiters and waitresses all the time, people that I've never met, and I just pray the gospel to them. Lord, this person has told me this, and I wanna pray about that. God also wants you to know that you, that I want them to know that you died for their sins, and you did that so that they could be saved. I pray that they would come to know that one day. You just pray for them.

Or how about this? Asking them if you can share your story with them. I mean, that's a very non-threatening way to begin the conversation, right?

You're like, hey, I'm your friend. Could I just tell you a few things that God has done in my life and the difference that he's made? I was talking to a restaurant owner at our church this week who said that God has been getting ahold of her life, and she said, you know, I train a new set of employees, and she said, I've never done this before, but in the middle of training them, I just felt like I needed to give God glory for what he has done here at our restaurant. And so I just stopped, and I said, hey, I just want you guys to know that we treat other people around here the way that we think God's treated us, and the key to our love of excellence is the fact that God treated us actually.

And she says, I gave God glory. That's all I said. That's a beginning step toward boldness right there. Letter C, creating opportunities. That means sitting with a different group of people at lunch. I mean, you don't have to hide your Bible behind your back when you go, you know, waiting for them to say the wrong thing, and then pow, smack them in the face with it. That's not, I just mean taking them out and then looking for a chance for you to pray for them, looking for a chance for you to tell your story, maybe inviting them to read the Bible or to come to church with you. Or how about this as a way of applying that, creating opportunities? How about when you go home, not just driving your car in the garage, shutting the door, and going in for the rest of the evening? Right, I mean, I know what it's like. You come home, you see some of your neighbors that are out, you know, in their yards or whatever, and you're like, in the garage, boom, shut down.

That's it, right? Your first baby step toward boldness could be maybe parking your car, walking back out, and just having a conversation, because you're never gonna be able to speak the word of God in people's lives if you don't know them, right? So you just get to know people, take it, create opportunities. Letter D, getting involved in the mission. Get involved, we'll train you if you get involved here. We will.

By the way, you want a little dirty secret? You know why we try to get you on mission trips? We do love the mission field, and we want you to go overseas. But we know there's no better way to train you to share your faith than to send you overseas, so we got an ulterior motive.

So we'll let you pay $2,500 or $1,500, however much it costs to go all the way overseas to learn what you really should be doing here, but for some reason, it just works. You go as a missionary, you come back as an actual disciple. That's our game plan. Just get it, go on one, all right? Letter E, how about just asking God for boldness? That could be your first baby steps or boldness, is just asking God to make you bold, right? That's a bold step to say, God, make me bold. Small step, believing the word of God, looking to the Holy Spirit, and letting him do the work. We have a God in the Holy Spirit who loves to help. Just put yourself out there.

Take that first step and watch what he knows. Boldness and sharing our faith does not come easily. So leaning into the power of the Holy Spirit is essential in taking that baby step to either create an opportunity or to seize one that's already in front of you. It's time to be intentional as you get involved in the mission of God around you. You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer in a message titled, The Heroic Heart That Propelled the Movement.

If you joined us late or if you've missed any of the previous messages in this series, you can listen by visiting us at jdgreer.com. At the Summit Church, we've set a goal to plant 1,000 new churches in our generation. But J.D., we're not doing that just to get more Summit churches, right?

Yeah, Molly, we embraced a while ago the understanding that for us to fulfill the Great Commission, it wasn't gonna happen through the Summit Church getting larger and larger. It's to be a part of a church planting movement, a disciple making movement. And so our heart, our desire is to lift up other churches, to bless other churches, to spawn other movements, to raise up leaders from our own church and send them out to plant new independent churches. We would love for you to be a part of that mission because there's a reason we think that you're listening to this program.

There's a reason that you are edified and built up through what you are taught here. We want to invite you to go from just being a listener to being part of the mission. And we've actually got new churches beginning in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in Miami, Florida, Nashville, Tennessee. If you're in one of those areas, and many of you right now are listening in one of those areas, or you've got family or friends in those cities who need a local church community, I want you to listen up and write these churches' names down, okay? In Miami, check out Reality Church. In Pittsburgh, Steel City Church. And Proclamation Church in Nashville, who was started by one of our most beloved Summit staff members, Derek Delane. If you go to jdgrier.com, there's a link in the bottom footer of every page that has a list of all the churches that we've planted in the United States.

And you can see whether there's one in a city where you are or in a city where you know somebody, you could encourage them to be a part of what God is doing through that church and that city there. While you're on the website, make sure that you take a second to look at our latest resource. It's a study guide called Scent, The Book of Acts, Volume One.

And it was created especially for you, our Summit Life listeners. Ask for your copy today when you donate the suggested $25 or more. Give us a call at 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220. Or ask for the Acts study guide when you give online at jdgrier.com. And don't forget to check out that link to all of our Summit collaborative churches.

They're around the country and there's even one in the UK. I'm Molly Bidevich, and I am so glad that you joined us this week. Be sure to come back Monday when Pastor J.D.

continues our study in the Book of Acts. Have a great weekend and we'll see you Monday right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.