The Warrior
Notes
Transcript
I want to thank you all for the opportunity to come here and preach. It truly is an honor to preach in this church, a church that has been around for such a long period of time, but not only that . A church that has had the big impact on the community that this church has had. You can feel the Lord when you enter this building and we truly stand on the shoulders of giants when we are here worshipping the Lord.
I prayed over and over about what message to bring you all this evening. We live in dark times right now, I will go into that later but I have spent a lot of time going around to different churches over the past few weeks and I have many more churches to go. The general sentiment as I have gone around is that the Church needs to start standing. We are going to start in the book of Acts Chapter 4. So to give you a quick recap of Chapter 3 Peter and John healed a man outside the temple and then they were preaching about Jesus outside the temple.
Please turn in your Bibles Acts 4:1-4
The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. They seized Peter and John and, because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. But many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand.
While they were preaching about Jesus outside the temple ; the guard and Sadducees had the apostles arrested. They had to spend the night in jail. But many people heard and believed the message. So here we start to understand something very important. The people in charge had the apostles arrested because they were disturbed.
Here is one of the key aspects of the message this evening. The apostles preached and always preached the full Gospel. Many were saved that evening and some were disturbed. The Gospel is convicting , but more importantly than that it is convicting it is the truth of the God. People have been martyred for it, people have been jailed for it. As matter of fact, Peter will be martyred and John will die in exile. Yet in modern Christianity, instead of risking it all for the Lord, we water the Gospel down, so that we simultaneously dishonor our Lord and do not produce disciples of Jesus. We do this because the Gospel is tough and we don’t want to preach the tough parts.
Look what Jesus says while He is praying right before He will be captured and go to the cross.
I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
His prayer is that you would not be taken out of the world but protected from Satan. When you become a disciple of Jesus, you are no longer of this world. You are sanctified by the truth. Sanctified means to be come holy. And here is the problem the world has with the Gospel. It makes you holy. His word is sharper than any double edged sword. By His word you are saved, by His word you are made righteous and holy. The Lord sends you out into the world. Think about this for a minute. By His word, all things are done, creation, the process to be made holy, righteous.
I am a wretched sinner and yet by His word and His saving grace I am saved. I preach the full gospel because the full gospel is the only power in this world that does all of that. Let’s keep looking at Acts
The next day the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family. They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”
The Sanhedrin was the highest court in Jewish custom. The only higher authority in their government was Rome. Everything is spiritual my brothers and sisters, everything.
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being 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. Jesus is
“ ‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the cornerstone.’
When we talk about strong Christians and standing for Jesus , this what we are talking about. Peter stands before his government and when it is time to give his account, He gives them Jesus. Not only that, he tells you of all people should know who we healed that man. The one that you rejected. Lord grant us all the strength to answer this way when we are called to account.
When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
Here is when every single one of us when we read this verse, need to pause and take an accounting of our own lives. I include myself in this as well. The Sanhedrin realize what a change had taken place. They knew who Peter and John were. They knew that these two men were fisherman, they didn’t go to seminary, they didn’t have undergrad degrees. They were ordinary men. But Jesus had transformed these men. It isn’t about who we are , who we were, it is all about Him. Everything in our lives is about Jesus and proclaiming His name, and that might cost you something. It might be a high cost. But the cost of being silent is higher.
We move to the Old Testament and look at Elijah going to mount Carmel. He was going to go against the false prophets. You see Ahab and his wife Jezebel had led an entire country into idolatry. They had worked to kill all the prophets and only Elijah stood for the Lord.
Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”
But the people said nothing.
The people said nothing. Elijah stands before all the people, and this is how much apathy can affect people. Elijah presents them with two different choices the Lord and Baal, they say nothing. Silence. This is how dangerous silence is. Silence from the people had allowed Jezebel to kill the prophets of God. As followers of God we have a duty to stand for the Lord.
I want to share a full quote from CT Stubb, he was a missionary that traveled the world, India, Africa
“HEROISM is the lost chord; the missing note of present-day Christianity!
“Every true soldier is a hero! A SOLDIER WITHOUT HEROISM IS A CHOCOLATE SOLDIER! Who has not been stirred to scorn and mirth at the very thought of a Chocolate Soldier? In peace true soldiers are captive lions, fretting in their cages. War gives them their liberty and sends them, like boys bounding out of school, to obtain their heart’s desire or perish in the attempt. Battle is the soldier’s vital breath! Peace turns him into a stooping asthmatic. War makes him a whole man again, and gives him the heart, strength, and vigour of a hero.
“EVERY TRUE CHRISTIAN IS A SOLDIER—of Christ—a hero ‘par excellence!’ Braver than the bravest—scorning the soft seductions of peace and her oft-repeated warnings against hardship, disease, danger, and death, whom he counts among his bosom friends.
“THE OTHERWISE CHRISTIAN IS A CHOCOLATE CHRISTIAN! Dissolving in water and melting at the smell of fire.
Here is the central problem we have, brothers and sisters , we are in a battle and have been. You see Satan’s ultimate goal is to pull you away from the Lord, but he will settle for silence. Satan will settle for a water down gospel. Satan will settle for a quiet christian that doesn’t make waves. Just this weekend there was a pagan and witch festival. Brother David sent me that flyer.
Abraham Kuyper
“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”
There isn’t a square inch of our lives of this world that does not belong to Jesus so why do we retreat?
We are going to finish strong but first let me tell you something and be vulnerable with you all. Being strong in the Lord does not mean there is an absence of fear. There is fear, I have had to have tough conversations with my wife because she is worried something will happen to me. We live in dangerous times. I text her where I am going to be, how long, when I am speaking. I was at a church 2 weeks ago, and you would thought I was the president, they took us through all kinds of security procedures because they were worried about a counter protest. There is a cost to what I am talking about but I know this, the answer to every problem you face, I face, and our society faces is Jesus.
We go back to the book of Acts. The Sanhedrin conferred and they weren’t sure what they would do.
Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.
This is what the world, your sin, and Satan wants, to stop speaking about Jesus and to certainly stop teaching about Jesus. Here is what Peter and John said
But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
We cannot help speaking about Jesus. This is the fire that we need. I want to close with a couple of thoughts. Every one of us has three enemies , our own sin nature, the world and Satan. Every day we have to go to battle against those three foes. Yet the Lord by His grace defeats all three of those for us.
The second thing, is that we disqualify ourselves from serving the Lord. There is nothing greater in this world than dedicated your life and spending your life serving God. I don’t mean being a pastor but whatever it is that God is calling you to. To many times we look to other people and tell ourselves that we can’t do it. You have gifts and purpose that aren’t mine. You will make an impact for the Kingdom that I can’t make. This is because God is Sovereign over everything.
Finally, Church, we together need to repent. The Bible is the Word and Truth of God. I don’t wake up and wonder how many people I can offend that day. I do wake up and do my very best to give glory to God every day. These two apostles went before a court. Our Lord and Savior was stripped , beaten and forced to march with a cross. He was then nailed to that cross. This was all done in public, this was done with the permission of both the Sanhedrin and the Rome Governor Pilate. He did all of this for you and I. He did all of this standing strong in the Lord.
We are going to end with a verse from the one time we know about Jesus as a kid. His parents had gone to the Temple for Passover and they realized later on the return trip home that He wasn’t there.
“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
Jesus is short with his earthly parents here. But Jesus even at 12 needed them to know what was more important. Jesus was always about His Father’s business. We need to be about our Father’s business,
Let us pray
