Brave Moments | Brave Church | September 12, 2021

hey welcome to brave i'm roger valsey and i'm one of the pastors around here and i am so glad you're here with us brave church is all about helping people find and follow jesus well last weekend pastor samuel kicked off our series rise of the resistance with a talk that showed us that before the battle even began the early church had a winning perspective today we're going to pick up once again in acts chapter 4 ask that you open up your bibles or mobile devices go there and we're going to encounter the resistance if nobody's told you this yet let me tell you now to say yes to jesus which many of you have bravely done in recent weeks to say yes to him is to invite oppositional forces so open up your bibles to acts chapter four and as you're doing that i want to open up with a personal story last weekend i had the opportunity to go to a cow game with my daughter taylor she's a student there at uc berkeley and cal was playing nevada and it was the first game on campus with fans in the stadium in over 400 days i mean we were playing nevada and you know it was just a lot of excitement to be back in a place with lots of people watching a college football game and the seats that we got were right in front of the nevada fans and whenever their team scored they would have this chant that would just be real loud throughout the whole stadium recall newson recall newson every time they scored either a field goal or touchdown you hear this recall news and all of a sudden this cow couple that's sitting in front turns around to my daughter and i and says just started wanting to talk about the recall and and she's talking about how she feels about it and all her opinions on it my daughter taylor's stepping in and they're having this and i'm kind of watching the game and i'm thinking there is no way i'm going to talk about this recall at berkeley at a cow game right in front of all these folk i don't even want to talk about this i came here to the game to enjoy my daughter and own college and they're asking me my opinion and i'm all like hey look at we got the ball back or hey it's our time to score something i did not go to uc berkeley at memorial stadium on a saturday night to talk about the recall obviously i was deflecting and i think there are times in our life where you know what you ever been in one of those situations where you're in a conversation and a topic comes up and you really don't want to get involved so you have a choice do you deflect it do you run from it do you engage from it obviously that night i just wanted to deflect from it i find i'm more than willing to talk about preferences i mean if the couple in front of us want to talk about hey which football team do i like in the bay area the niners or the raiders or which drink do i like is it starbucks pete or phil's i'm all cool with that but you know i started thinking about that but there's sometimes where i'm hesitant to talk about convictions i mean for some people i'll be honest talking about vaccines and max masks and all that it just polarizes or some of these political conversations i i don't even want to get involved in or can i say this too and it's been part of my life sometimes just talking about our faith i found you know what do i really want to get involved do i want to talk about jesus am i going to be quiet and i started thinking about why why do i talk about some things and not talk about other things well part of it is this when we never make a statement about some area where we like um others will challenge us and in our culture today there's this cancel culture mentality where if you say one topic all of a sudden somebody's gonna come back with passion and they're going to come and when we are challenged on something we believe we tend to respond in one of four ways three of them are negative and one of them are positive the negative ones are this we can just deny it we can just hey i didn't really mean that i don't you know what i'm backing down i don't want to get into that or we can deflect it kind of like i did the cow game hey i'm not going to talk about this recall hey let's look at the football game over there or we can attack the other person and demonize them or there is a positive things there are there's a time where we have to defend our position and i've i've learned we never attack a person but we're articulating where we stand on a topic i find there's always a person an issue and it's never right attacking a person but as i was thinking about this i think it's important we just need to be aware we differentiate between our opinions and our preferences and our convictions our opinions or preferences really don't matter our convictions matter a lot our opinions are preferentials our our convictions are are grounded on some fundamental truth our opinions say who we are convictions say whose we are you know i believe there's a problem in today's world today and in my opinion that problem is this we tend to fight over opinions which really do not matter and we tend to be silent over convictions it really do matter i mean my friends there comes a time in life where we have to open our mouth and share where we stand i mean in such times if we say nothing we violate our conscience it may be a sign of lack of integrity perhaps it's even a quenching of god's spirit in us and i i've come to realize this one quote from winston churchill i think he's right when he says this one person with conviction will overwhelm a hundred with opinion today's message is going to show us a better way how to respond when our faith is challenged i i love the title of today's talk it's called brave moments and we're going to go through acts 2 4 acts chapter 4 and find all these brave moments we're gonna answer questions like how do we handle faith conflicts how to decide when to speak up and when not to and how do you know when it's a brave moment a moment to stand up and face whatever you fear have you ever asked that of yourself is there ever come a time when there's been a big showdown where your back was against the wall and and would you and i have enough courage to be brave in that moment because no matter who you are no matter what you believe at some point that belief will require you and i to be brave you know the one idea i want you to take away today is this that real faith requires bravery or say another way it may not be faith if it doesn't have courage added to it and so i i want you to look with me in the text as we go into acts chapter four let me show you some brave moments in the passage i mean there's so many here and there's a list of them i just want to show with you so as we look at our text today acts chapter 3 and 4 is really one narrative and the one way to outline it it's just four locations so the first one we see in acts chapter 3 1 through 26 what we see here is at the temple and here's where a brave moment peter and john are going to church they see a man who can't walk begging asking for money and then they have the courage to say in the name of jesus christ wise rise up and walk i mean that is unbelievable that they would go to that faith place and a miracle happened and then all of a sudden peter stands up and explains hey you know what crowd let me tell you what happened here you killed the giver of life but god raised him from the dead acts 3 13 to 15 and all of a sudden he just explains what happened to this man and his healing scene number two we see in a jail act chapter four verses one through four peter and john are now in jail because they healed this man and and i i find it takes a lot of courage to allow oneself to be imprisoned for what they believe and once again we have another brave moment in our text scene number three and this is the rise of the resistance moment it's acts 4 5 through 21 there before the sanhedrin i mean the next day peter and john are before this congr conglomeration of leaders 71 leaders that include the high priest these are all the same people who just a few weeks later crucified jesus they're the ones that brought him to pilate and said you must condemn him and put him on a cross i mean it's a gladiator-style standoff in a great arena before the sanhedrin court let me get let me just highlight some of the conversations that happened in this court moment i mean acts 4 7 the the religious leaders look at peter and john say by what power do you do this healing now think about that question it's like do peter and john have to ask their permission to do an act of kindness i mean peter and john respond in acts 4 10 it's by the name of jesus christ of nazareth whom you crucified but god raised from the dead jesus is the one you have rejected that he's telling them and then he says in verse 12 salvation is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved acts 4 12. and then i love this verse it's kind of a theme verse of this whole talk acts 14 4 13. it says when they saw the courage of peter and john and realized they were unschooled ordinary men they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with jesus and because they could see the man who had been healed standing right there right in front of him there was nothing they could say any further so they offered up further threats and they said in verse 20 you know what um stop talking about this resurrection and peter and john say in verse 20. hey we can't help stop speaking about what we have seen and heard i mean peter and john are on trial for healing a man who was disabled from birth they could have at that moment deflected they could have denied the accusations they could have remained silent they could have demonized their accusers instead they decided to speak up and steer the conversation to an unusual space they defended their belief and they showed us the connection at that moment that real faith takes courage that's why it says in acts 14 4 13 when they saw their courage they saw their bravery and then we have this last final scene scene four it's back home with the believers when all the other believers hear what happened to peter john about not only the healing but the time in jail and then the their moment before the sanhedrin they hear the story and i love this prayer this is a highlight moment in your bible acts 4 29-30 they pray this prayer now lord consider the threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness or bravery basically they're saying jesus give us the same bravery that peter and john have and let us act and walk in the same manner that they did i mean these are bold moments and they inspire us to press in further in life my friends you and i will be presented with opportunities to be brave i mean brave moments cough often come and when we're confronted by someone else and this these moments real faith is required and what is real faith it's bravery i mean there are three things in this story that i want you to see and if you hang with me for the next few moments i want to show you from the text number one this is so important what is a conviction we're standing for forget all the opinions and preferences what what is a real conviction we're standing for it takes real faith and courage to stand up for a core belief and i want to show you what they're standing up for and what we need to stand up for secondly i want to give you some insights on how to handle those moments when our faith is challenged and then finally and this is so encouraging what does jesus do for us when we stand up for him so let's go for the first point i mean what is a conviction we're standing up for what's a belief that is essential to real faith once again the answer we're going to go look in the text and the let me give you the answer then i'll explain it the resurrection is a conviction we're standing for notice what how peter and john steer the conversation it starts off in chapter three i mean the conversation could have gone so many different places after this healing i mean you think about it in a moment imagine yourself in the setting it could have gone to the point where after peter john healed this man they could have said look how great we are and they could have put the focus on them it could have gone to look how bad this church is and this religious system is and they could have went that way it could have gone political and said hey let's use this healing moment to overthrow rome and our oppressors they could have gone that way or they could have gone this way and said you know what look at this healing why don't you come follow us and we'll give you five steps on how to be a great healer they didn't go to any of that in fact in acts chapter 3 12-26 there are several core truths that i'm just gonna that these are essential to the christian faith you know i find so many times and today what is important this is the second speech we see in acts right after the resurrection and it contains core truths on what it means to be a christ follower let me just give you these real briefly chapter 3 verse 13 it talks about that hey this faith called christianity this jesus faith it's tied to jewish roots it's connected to abraham secondly and this is a big one it says that the death of jesus is something that they were part of and we were a part of that when jesus died it wasn't just the soldiers it wasn't just the religious leaders it was the crowds and then the author of hebrews in hebrews 6 6 says this that you and i had a hand in the death and crucifixion of jesus because of our own human sin thirdly that god raised him from the dead this is an essential part of christianity fourthly there is human witnesses to the resurrection that people had literally saw jesus after he had rose from the dead then then verse 3 verse 16 there's this idea that faith is essential to christianity and then later on this idea that healing somehow healing and wholeness and restoration is part of what jesus does to those of us that follow him and then next we see in verse 3 17 and 18 and 3 22 26 peter goes to and he just explains the importance of the word of god there's so much here where peter says the word of god really matters and let me show you how it connects to that part and it's the same for them the same for us the word of god matters and he uses it to justify the situation then in chapter 3 verse 19 there's a call to repentance and that repentance will bring three things peter says your sins will be wiped out there'll be times of refreshing and then christ will come to you and then he talks about his ascension and glory that jesus will go to heaven and that's in verse 21 and then finally it brings into this idea that we all have a fallen nature that somehow all of us have ways in us that are far short of what god wants we are not victims we are really rebels and we need a savior that's chapter 3 verse 26. now i i summarize all that because in some sense it's good that you know certain beliefs of what it means to follow jesus but there's one belief that got them in trouble and that's the resurrection if you go to chapter four verses one and two you realize they were arrested primarily for the resurrection it's the basis of our faith chapter 4 1 says it's the priests and the captain and temple the guards the sadducees came up to peter and john while they were speaking they were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in jesus the resurrection of the dead we see a similar strategy paul does before the sanhedrin later on in acts in chapter 23 verse 6 where he says i'm in trial because the resurrection my friends the resurrection is the basis of our faith it is a historical reality nothing in christianity matters if jesus is still in the grave all the promises we hold dearly rely on an empty tube are hope in heaven rests on the fact that jesus is able to take us there and the resurrection for peter john was not an opinion it was a conviction and it was worth defending this healing that's happened with this man it's not about him it's not about them it's not about the religious leaders it's not about political expediency it's not about a church establishment it's about one thing and one thing only the resurrection i mean there are a lot of beliefs that are being challenged right now in our world their beliefs about mass beliefs about covet beliefs about the government beliefs about the church but let me tell you what do you believe about the resurrection i love what tim keller says this about the resurrection he said if jesus rose from the dead then you have to accept all that he said but if he didn't rise from the dead then why worry about any of what he said the issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead it takes faith my friends to believe but it take to believe in the resurrection but it takes courage to defend the resurrection which brings us to the second point how do we handle those moments when our faith is challenged to explain that point i i want you to understand at least two truths here truth number one is this what you and i believe those convictions will be challenged peter and john believed in the resurrection of jesus and it's challenged by the entire religious establishment in fact this text has a long list of people in acts 4 7 says they all these folks had brought before peter and john before them and began to question them by what power name do you do this well who's do they well chapter 4 says it's the priest of the temple chapter 4 1 the captain of the guard the sadducees the rulers the elders the teachers of the law annis the high priest caiaphas this man named john alexander other high priest family all of these folks are part of this they in acts 4 7. and i would call this a full court press i mean anyone that was everyone came against these two i mean the entire sanhedrin 71 leaders are all eyeballing these two people and they're saying this this is the same group that condemned and brought jesus to pilate they're looking at peter and john and coming against them right now my friends the resurrection of jesus matters it challenges our worldview it challenges our identity it challenges our priority it challenges our definition of love it challenges one relationships it challenges one's good works and acts of righteousness it challenges one direction and vision you know let me just tell you this the religious leaders all they had to do was come up with the body and they could have debunked the entire christian movement but they could not do it they knew they could not do it because the resurrection they knew in some part was real and they couldn't disprove it we should not be surprised when our faith is challenged especially when it comes to a core truth like the resurrection but truth number two when your faith is challenged when my faith is challenged we have a decision to make once again let me just show you in the text with such an onslaught coming against peter and john they had a choice to make it's the same choice you and i have to make whenever we're challenged with a conviction do we deny the resurrection maybe they can say hey folks we just made it up do we deflect let's just talk about something totally different than what i'm being accused so hopefully i can get out of this or do we demonize saying you're coming against me i'm going to attack you they don't do any of that what peter and john do is they defend their position and may i add with restraint and respect they didn't spin anything they got right to the heart of the issue they said some bold things but i don't think they were disrespectful they said you know what everyone in this audience you crucified jesus he rose from the grave and we believe he's the savior of the world bottom line that's what they did which brings us to our third and final point this one excites me the most because i want you to know this that when you stand for jesus he will stand for you once again i i like this point because i want you to know this that both in their story in our story god is active he's not out fishing somewhere or watching football or doing something important i want you to see and i want you to read the bible with me it's important that you and i see that god is doing something in response to what you and i are doing that he's he's looking for inroads to step into the story he's not disinterested or he's not affected by other things are going on the universe no he is intimately involved in both their struggle and your struggle in mind and i want you to see that from the text today so let's look at key moments of where god moves into the text today the first one we find is in acts 4 8 it says this that peter was filled with the holy spirit now i want you to pause and think with me about that for a moment he was already filled in acts chapter 2 at pentecost so why is there another feeling here because peter is standing up for the resurrection and god's looking at peter saying oh give him more holy spirit let's let this moment be good and then we see in acts 4 13 this theme verse that i think all should speak to all of us it says when they the sanhedrin these 71 accusers the same ones that sent jesus to pilate to be crucified when they saw their courage i think there was some enablement from heaven where god put something on peter and john that they could visibly see there's something different about these men and what grace that would be if that would happen to you and i also in this incident i i think the very fact that god makes a way for them to be released without harm we see that in acts chapter 4 41. he provides a way out that doesn't always happen we'll see later on acts chapter 5 that sometimes he doesn't intervene and we have to go through something but i believe he provided a way out and then finally i think there's this really amazing moment at the end of acts chapter 4 where they're released they go back to the believers they tell everything what happened and when they believers see their courageous faith they're so inspired they cry to heaven for more courageous faith in acts chapter 4 verse 29 and how does god respond to that prayer does he say that's crazy they don't you know they don't know what they're doing no it doesn't say that in acts 4 31 two things happen number one an earthquake happens in that room and somehow another filling of the spirit god steps into this story because he's excited about what they're doing my friend i want you to know this that whenever we aspire or desire to have courageous moment there's an enemy out there that is giving us a hundred reasons telling us that you know what you can't you can't be courageous for jesus he's going to tell you and i we're too weak he's going to say we're going to lose our job he's going to say that you're going to lose your friendship or you're going to look foolish or you don't speak well enough or you don't know enough verses or it's somebody else's problem but what is clear in this story is that when you and i stand for jesus he will stand for us this doesn't mean that we won't go through trials once again if you look at that believer's prayer in acts 4 29 they don't pray that god would take them out of trials they pray this that god as we go through trials enable your servants to continue to speak with great boldness i mean i love that fact i love that they're not trying to skirt away from the pain and challenges of this world they're praying god would you give me the encourage to endure the threats now i hope i say this correctly but our faith moments give god doorways to step into our story i mean that's what we see in acts 4 31 after they prayed this place of the meaning was shaken and they were filled with the holy spirit and they spoke the word of god boldly these were brave moments and brave moments will come to you and i we rarely need to go look for them when you go about living your life in a way that honors god and loves others you will find resistance just like i will and it will come to us there is a certain story in our own church that i just want to share with you a brave moment that came from dr ben marciano a member of brave church he was commissioned naval officer and a doctor stationed at treasure island from 1980 to 1985. he was at a branch clinic under the naval hospital in oakland he served the fleet in all the active military personnel there he shared his faith he made many many people it was his custom that after seeing his patients he would ask them can i pray for you that you would be healed and many of them were his reputation grew and he eventually saw was sought out and people called him the praying doctor one 1984 he was called into his lieutenant's office whom he met with frequency but on this particular day he was more withdrawn and they sat down his lieutenant shared with him hey there's word out that you're praying for the patience do you do that and dr ben answered yes i do do that then the lieutenant said well word has gotten all the way to the top to the captain and the commanding officer of the hospital and he says this that activity praying for patients does not represent the us navy per se so he is asking you to stop it or face the penalty of court martial dr ben said well in that moment to be threatened with a course marshall is a very serious thing it's something to be feared but he said this but because i know the lord had called me to do this and that i was a confirmed in my ministry in my whole life that god was blessing these prayers i really didn't sense any fear i actually felt that the spirit lord in a powerful way at that moment and so he shared with him he goes i really appreciate the honor of being an officer in the navy and i really appreciate this commission and i've enjoyed serving my country but as a follower jesus i believe i have a higher commission i have a divine commission to love the lord to god with all my heart and to serve him as he calls me to so i'm actually going to continue praying for people dr ben said my lieutenant looked at me and there was silence and then all of a sudden there was almost like this divine shift he said well you know i have a mother who's a follower of jesus and i think i understand where you're coming from if there's anything we can do to make your years here in service easier and make a transition for you until retirement we appreciate your service and from that moment on there was never another word about it no word of cour marshall and years later dr ben heard that his lieutenant eventually accepted jesus as a savior that was a brave moment when dr ben stood up for jesus jesus stood up for him and that's the story we see in acts chapter four peter and john's brave group is gathered praying for them and on their return safely home god responds to their prayer with more boldness to do what god called them to do and god responds their prayers in such an unmistakable way i mean the room is shaken they're filled with the holy spirit i mean peter and john are standing up to the authorities they're against all odds and their brave group prayed for them i mean that is courage that is bravery do you know why we are called brave church it's not to offend people it's not to tell everybody what we believe it's not to show uh off or act macho in our faith we are called brave church because we believe especially in this day this culture in this region it is brave to follow the person and teachings of jesus all of his teachings are hard but i i think the most hardest of all the things jesus tells us to do is to love can we not all agree it takes bravery to love especially when we have to love people that are against us or try to harm us or in a canceled culture it's brave to love them it's the hardest of all jesus sayings and we are called to love our neighbors as ourselves it's an amazing love because most of us want to love people that are like us or talk like us or believe like us but to love someone that is different i mean that is extraordinary i just want to close our time today with just two verses that i want you to see one of them is kind of a warning the other one is a promise in revelation chapter 21 it's one of the final words we have in our bibles and what we have is john receiving insight from heaven about jesus and jesus says these powerful words to him he says this i'm the alpha and omega this is revelation 21 6. to the thirsty i will give water without cost from springs of water of life those who are victorious will inherit all this and i will be their god and they will be my children but then look at this warning in verse 8 but the cowardly the unbelieving the vile the murderers the sexually immoral those who practice magic arts the idolatrous and the liars they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur this is the second death what shocks me about this verse is this list of offenses that keep people away from the presence of god in the next life and the first one listed there is cowardly behavior my friends when it comes to faith i i want to propose to you real faith requires courage otherwise it's some other form of faith but it may not be real faith and i think it's interesting to me that of a list of offenses that keep people away from god in the next life the first one is cowardliness which brings me to one last verse psalm 138 says this it's a promise that i want to leave with you it's something that i think will encourage us and help us realize that all of us need in this life the psalmist said these words when i called you answered me you made me bold and stout-hearted my friends i understand that when we tackle these issues of fear and cowardices it brings up things in us that make us feel weak and in that weak moments we don't know where to go what to do and often we want to defend or deflect or deny or demonize but can i invite you to a better space i think right now as we close i would ask that we would admit we all need courage we need courage to find jesus and we need courage to follow jesus i would encourage you today to humble yourself and pray that god will help you by giving you the courage so that we can truly find and follow jesus in today's world [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Brave Church

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Length: 32min 28sec (1948 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021