Review / Introduction:
What is Conviction?
Definition: A strong Personal belief, derived from God's Word, that determines a specific Conduct or Course.
Conviction Clarifications:
- Convictions are not always Instant
- Convictions are not about Personal Preferences
- It's not about Adopting someone else's convictions
- It's not about Disregarding advise
- Convictions are not Enforceable on others
Five "Nots" About Convictions
Examples:
- Schooling
- Ministries
Impact:
- Conviction drives out fear
Living with Conviction is Living Without Fear:
- I will not fear Disapproval? (Acts 21:1-6)
- I will not fear Drama? (Acts 21:7-12)
- I will not fear Death? (Acts 21:13-16)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
-
00:35-00:41
All right, grab your Bibles and open them up with me, please, to the book of Acts, chapter 21.
00:42-00:49
We're getting back to the book of Acts, and we are following Paul in Acts, chapter 21.
00:49-00:52
We are following Paul on his third missionary journey.
00:53-01:02
Who's Paul? He's this former Pharisee, church destroyer, turned Christ-following church planter.
01:04-01:14
I posted on our website, if you go to the blog section, there's basically a recap of everything we've covered in Acts so far, chapters 1 through 20. You could read it all in a couple of minutes.
01:15-01:21
Or, you can go back and listen to every sermon so far in the book of Acts.
01:21-01:23
You know how you binge-watch shows on Netflix?
01:23-01:29
Well, you can spend a weekend and binge-listen to every sermon that we've done so far.
01:29-01:31
We've covered every verse up to this point.
01:32-01:33
Good idea or bad idea?
01:34-01:34
Good idea.
01:35-01:35
I agree.
01:37-01:53
So Acts chapter 21, Paul at this point is on his way to Jerusalem with an offering from some churches to be given to the poor church in Jerusalem.
01:55-01:55
Are you there?
01:55-01:56
Acts chapter 21.
01:57-02:00
Before we look at the text, I gotta tell you this story.
02:01-02:10
Many years ago, this was actually during my college days, I was working at Walmart.
02:12-02:18
And I had the glorious job when people would come in and buy giant heavy things like futons and TVs.
02:18-02:25
And by the way, back then TVs weren't these skinny little things that you can just slide into your glove box.
02:25-02:29
They were the big box TVs that weighed about 800 pounds.
02:30-02:30
Right?
02:31-02:34
So it was my job to load these things into people's cars.
02:36-02:47
And this one particular day, this woman had come in and she bought, I don't remember what it was, but she bought this giant Walmart thing and she needed help getting it into her car.
02:48-02:50
And I'm out there putting this thing into her car.
02:51-02:54
And I guess the woman was probably in her fifties.
02:54-02:59
I don't even know if I'm supposed to guess that, but she was much older than me at the time, 'cause this happened a long time ago.
02:59-03:00
Are you with me?
03:02-03:03
Okay, making sure, I was in college.
03:04-03:33
All right, Walmart, okay, so I'm loading this thing in the car, and as I'm getting it in the car, this woman says to me, "Are you married?" And I stopped and I said, "I wonder where this is going." At the time I wasn't, I said, "No, actually, "I'm not married." And then she asked, "Would you let your wife wear pants?" And I'm gonna be honest with you, I definitely did not see that coming.
03:35-03:37
Would I let my wife wear pants?
03:38-03:40
So my mind's racing, right?
03:40-03:43
And I'm like, as opposed to what?
03:45-03:48
As opposed to not wearing pants.
03:50-03:54
And then I'm thinking, wait, you don't want my hypothetical wife to wear pants?
03:55-04:00
I have never considered the attire of people I have not yet met.
04:02-04:14
And then she looked me dead in the eye and she said, "Women should never wear pants." Like, oh, she meant like women should only wear skirts and dresses.
04:17-04:18
What do you say to something like that?
04:20-04:27
Hindsight's 20/20 usually, but to this day, 20-some years later, I have no idea what I should... what would have been the right response?
04:27-04:28
Anybody? Anybody?
04:29-04:30
What should I have said?
04:31-04:35
Like, "Keep fighting the good fight!" What do you say to something like that?
04:36-04:39
But this lady had something that we should all have.
04:41-04:43
But we should know what to do with.
04:44-04:46
And today we're going to talk about that thing.
04:48-04:53
It drove Paul, because it drove out fear.
04:53-04:57
And the thing we're going to be talking about today is conviction.
04:59-05:01
So what is a conviction? Jot this definition down.
05:03-05:05
What is a conviction?
05:06-05:21
A conviction is a strong personal belief derived from God's Word that determines a specific conduct or course.
05:23-05:26
Okay, it's a belief, yes, but it's a personal belief.
05:28-05:33
But it's a very strong personal belief, and it has to come from God's Word.
05:34-05:36
It's fueled by the Holy Spirit, by the way.
05:36-05:45
So if you're here today and you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, a lot of what we're talking about today is not going to make sense to you, just to be honest.
05:46-05:48
Because this is for born-again believers.
05:49-05:53
But if you're sitting here today and you don't know Christ as your Savior and Lord, today can be the day.
05:54-05:55
Today can be the day that you recognize, "You know what?
05:56-05:57
I am lost.
05:57-06:01
I am lost without God and He sent His Son to die for me.
06:03-06:05
And I receive Him by faith." That can happen today.
06:07-06:17
The conviction is a strong personal belief derived from God's Word that determines a specific conduct, as in, "This is how we live.
06:18-06:24
This is how I choose to live. It's my conviction. Or it determines a specific course.
06:25-06:31
I feel like I need to do this in the name of the Lord. That's a conviction.
06:33-06:40
And followers of Christ, you must, you must have convictions for yourself. You must.
06:40-06:45
This isn't an optional thing. If you are a believer, you must have convictions for yourself.
06:45-06:53
and parents, parents, you must have convictions for your family.
06:54-07:08
You must. Why? Because otherwise, hear me, because otherwise you are showing yourself unable or unwilling to apply God's work.
07:09-07:11
That's why I say you must have convictions.
07:13-07:19
John 13, 17, Jesus said, "If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." Right? James 1, 22.
07:21-07:25
James says to not just be a hearer of the Word and deceive yourself, be a doer of the Word.
07:26-07:40
So if you're a believer prayerfully in the Word of God, strong beliefs about the way you conduct your life, the way you conduct your household, if you have a family, you should have those convictions.
07:41-08:09
If you don't, either you're unable, like that's what the Bible says, but I don't know how to apply it, or you're unwilling, like, "Well, the Bible says I should do this, but I'm gonna kind of do my own thing." But I need to clarify, before we get into the text here, I really feel like we need to clarify some things about convictions. So this is conviction clarification. I'm going to give you five "nots," okay? I'm gonna say these in the negative. Conviction clarification, five You ready? The first one is this.
08:10-08:11
Convictions are not always instant.
08:13-08:18
Most times convictions develop over time and after study of God's Word.
08:19-08:23
Or maybe you hear a sermon on the Word of God and it causes you to want to dig deeper.
08:24-08:25
But convictions aren't instant.
08:26-08:31
It's not like you pray to receive Christ on a Tuesday and that following Wednesday morning.
08:31-08:34
All your convictions are set for the rest of your life.
08:35-08:38
Usually they take time over studying the Word of God.
08:40-08:42
Secondly, they're not about personal preferences.
08:42-08:44
OK, so completely different thing.
08:45-08:52
If you have what you think is a conviction, but it is not based on the Bible, what you have is called a preference.
08:53-08:54
And we all have those, right?
08:55-08:59
Music, color, flavor of ice cream, whatever.
08:59-09:00
Those are preferences.
09:00-09:07
When we're talking about convictions, we're talking specifically about this comes because of what God said.
09:08-09:12
That's a conviction. Does it find its origin in God's word?
09:14-09:18
The third not, it's not about adopting someone else's convictions.
09:19-09:24
Okay. So younger people, you can't say, well, I guess he's in my convictions because they're my parents.
09:25-09:29
You should be growing to understand why do my parents have this conviction?
09:30-09:38
Is it from the Word of God? Is this a conviction that I should have as I'm entering adulthood?" You can't just adopt somebody else's convictions.
09:39-09:40
They won't work.
09:41-09:44
Your convictions won't work if they're not sincerely held by you.
09:47-09:49
It's not about disregarding advice, okay?
09:50-09:52
We're going to talk about that in a couple of minutes.
09:54-09:58
But some people like to play the "The Holy Spirit told me" trump card.
09:59-10:03
I said, "You're having a discussion." And you're like, "Well, the Holy Spirit told me this!" And you drop that card.
10:03-10:08
I was like, "Well, I can't say anything to them because the Holy Spirit told them something." We're gonna talk about that in a second.
10:08-10:13
But some people use that as a way of ignoring advice from godly people.
10:14-10:22
And you should never, ever, ever, everybody say ever, get to the point in your life that you're done taking advice from godly influences.
10:22-10:41
You should always be seeking that out in your small group, in your church, you know, the elders, the pastor, you're you know an older more mature Christian brother or sister whatever you should always be looking for advice because that's one of the ways that God speaks to you and works in your life is through speaking through other people.
10:42-11:48
Okay so having convictions doesn't mean that I'm done listening to what anybody else has to say. Then the last one convictions are not enforceable on others. They're not enforceable on others, meaning don't judge or criticize someone else who has a sincere conviction that might be different from yours. Talk about your convictions, yes. Seek to understand their convictions, yes. Condemn them for their convictions, no. Because when you do, basically you become like Pants Lady at Walmart, but you can't enforce your convictions on other people, right? We're talking today about wisdom, we're talking about personally applying God's Word in specific areas. I'm going to give you a couple examples. We said convictions are about conduct or course. I'm going to give you a couple examples here, just in case your feathers weren't ruffled yet today. Here's an area where people have some very strong but very different convictions.
11:49-11:50
Schooling.
11:51-11:59
Because you have some people that say, "I have a really strong conviction that because of the wickedness of the public school, my children should not be in public school.
12:00-12:05
So my children are homeschooled." Okay, great. That's your conviction.
12:05-12:06
Then you have people that say, "You know what?
12:06-12:14
My kids, they have a strong walk with the Lord, and they're going to school, and they're telling people about Jesus Christ, and they're bringing those kids to youth group.
12:14-12:19
and I have a conviction that my kids have an opportunity to be missionaries there.
12:20-12:22
Fantastic, if that's your conviction.
12:22-12:23
Some people say, you know what?
12:24-12:38
Christian school is the way to go because they're not only around other kids for the socialization, but they get a foundation in the word of God that's gonna lay that foundation for them growing and as future leaders in the church.
12:38-12:40
And I have a conviction kids should be in public school.
12:41-12:41
Right.
12:42-12:43
So which one of those three are right?
12:46-12:47
The answer biblically is they're all right.
12:48-12:54
Right? Because they're basing their convictions on biblical principles.
12:54-13:06
But the problem is when the homeschool people look down on the public school people, you know, you're just sending your kids out into Sodom and Gomorrah, and then the public school people are like, were you homeschooled?
13:06-13:19
Yeah, that's why your kids, you know, they don't know how to interact with other kids because they're not around other, and they build these caricatures that aren't true, but they condemn and tear down, and that's not the point at all.
13:20-13:21
You have to live by your convictions.
13:22-13:27
You have to base them on the word of God, and you have to hold on to them.
13:28-13:30
But we don't condemn other people.
13:32-13:37
Another example, that's more of like a conduct thing, a sort of a home thing.
13:37-13:51
But talking about course, it's about a specific conduct Some people have convictions concerning specific ministries, and I've certainly seen that with our small group, because we've done many different outreaches.
13:51-13:54
And, right, Ryan, some of them not so good.
13:55-14:01
Remember that thing we did down in Aetna that was just like, you know, that lady's like, "Don't touch my tools," or whatever, and like, "Well, you want me to work?
14:01-14:04
How am I going to work without the tools?" "Use your hands!" I don't know.
14:04-14:05
But it wasn't so good.
14:06-14:07
Wasn't so good.
14:08-14:13
But then through Russ's leadership, we've been involved with the ministry, Mars Home for Youth, we've talked about that.
14:13-14:14
We have another event coming up.
14:15-14:21
And what I love about the Mars Home for Youth is just watching Russ lead that outreach with such conviction.
14:22-14:32
You know, when we're there, Russ leads like, "God called me to do this." And I appreciate that conviction, I do.
14:32-14:36
It's obvious that that's something that the Spirit has really laid on his heart.
14:36-15:42
And it's that kind of ministry conviction we're going to see in our passage today. Everybody turn to your neighbor and say "Man, this is a long introduction." So the impact of convictions we're going to see in the text. But here's the impact. Conviction drives out fear. Right? That's our theme this year, right? "I will not fear." So we're going to see that conviction drives out fear. Because when your faith is taking action in your life, when you are living out what you believe God has called you to do, you will have no fear. And that takes us to Acts 21. Okay, Paul delivering the offering to the poor in Jerusalem. He's on his way to Jerusalem. We saw in chapter 20, this is very important. Verse 22, Paul says, "And now behold, I'm going to Jerusalem," look at this, "constrained by the Spirit," not knowing what will happen to me there.
15:44-16:13
Constrained by the Spirit. In other words, he's saying I have this strong conviction that I'm supposed to be heading towards Jerusalem. God told me to do this. I'm under conviction. With all that said, chapter 21, taking some notes, living with conviction is living without fear, because number one, here's what happens when you live with conviction. You will say, "I will not fear disapproval.
16:13-16:22
I will not fear disapproval." Look at verses 1 through 3. By the way, your A lot of Bibles have maps in the back, and you can trace this.
16:22-16:24
I did all this this week, and I thought about doing it in the service.
16:24-16:31
But you can do this on your own. It's pretty easy - Paul's third missionary journey, find a map, you can trace this whole course.
16:32-16:41
It says, "And when we departed from them," those were the Ephesian elders that they met at Miletus, "and set sail, we came by a straight course to Kos.
16:41-16:44
And the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Pterah.
16:46-16:50
found a ship crossing to Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail.
16:51-19:04
When we had come in the sight of Cyprus, leaving it on the left, we sailed to Syria and landed at Tyre. For there the ship was to unload its cargo." Okay, so they end up at Tyre. That's on the east coast of the Mediterranean, and he says basically they're having a layover. The ship had to unload cargo and take care business so they had they had a layover look at verse 4 and having sought out the disciples we stayed there for seven days that's a long layover you thought your two hours you know it's Chicago was a long layover seven days look at this verse 4 says and through the Spirit they the disciples they were telling Paul not to go on to Jerusalem when our days there were ended we departed went on our journey and they all with wives and children accompanying us until we were outside the city and kneeling down on the beach we prayed and said farewell to one another then we went on board the ship and they returned home I will not fear disapproval you know some people a lot of commentators look at this passage and say Paul was being disobedient to the Lord because the Holy Spirit very clearly told him not to go on to Jerusalem and he just completely ignored them and I completely disagree with that. I don't think that's the case at all because we already saw back in chapter 20 Paul said I am constrained by the Holy Spirit. I'm being convicted about this so the question is was Paul being disobedient in this passage of the Holy Spirit? Absolutely not. The Holy Spirit said that trouble was ahead so it was natural for the disciples to want to try to protect Paul from harm you're going to see this we get down to verses 11 and 12 it's crystal clear what you're seeing in this passage is a natural reaction like Holy Spirit told us this is not going to be good when you get there don't go don't go they love them they wanted to protect them but again that phrase the Holy Spirit told me. The Holy Spirit told me to tell you something.
19:06-19:31
That means I'm about to say something jerky and you can't say anything because the Holy Spirit told me to tell you. The Holy Spirit told me to tell you something sometimes. Sometimes the Holy Spirit will tell somebody to tell someone something. But I want to say this. First of all, You need to be extremely careful saying.
19:33-19:39
You shouldn't be able to say that to somebody without tears and trembling and ultimate humility.
19:40-19:47
And you better be so careful saying that to someone and be discerning when you hear it.
19:48-19:49
Be discerning when you hear it.
19:51-19:55
I don't question the authenticity of these disciples here at all.
19:55-19:56
They loved Paul.
19:57-19:59
And they knew that he'd already been through so much.
20:01-20:02
They feared for his life.
20:04-20:04
But I want you to jot these down.
20:05-20:08
Here's two questions to ask yourself when your conviction is met with disapproval.
20:09-20:20
You know, when you feel like God's calling me to do this, and you have a bunch of people saying, "I don't think you should do this! I don't think you should do this! I don't think you should do this!" There's two questions you have to ask yourself that'll really help you with your conviction.
20:20-20:21
The first one is this.
20:22-21:50
line up with the Word of God. That should always be step one. Like, I have this conviction about this and somebody comes along they're like, "I think you need to check yourself," then you need to stop and say, "First question, is this biblical? Do I have a biblical conviction or do I have some conviction like Pants Lady that, you know, I don't, it's not really in the Bible and I'm sort of talking to strangers about this conviction I have that really doesn't find its origin in the Word of God. If the first question is yes, here's your second question. How would I feel if I wasn't doing this thing I'm convicted about? How would I feel if I wasn't doing this thing that I'm convicted about? Meaning this. Let's pretend for a second, we're just pretending, let's pretend they're like, "Paul don't go to Jerusalem," and Paul's like, "You know what? Alright, I'm gonna take your advice." How do you think Paul would have felt entire? Miserable, right? He would have been like, "I really feel like God wanted me to take this offering down and, and, uh, gosh, I just feel like, I just feel like being disobedient to what God's called me to do." And you always have to consider the alternative. Would I feel some sense of not being faithful to my calling if I didn't do this thing I'm convicted about? Because here's the thing, true biblical conviction is more concerned with what one God said over what a billion people said. That's how you know you have a real conviction.
21:51-22:02
It doesn't matter how many people line up and say, "I don't think you should do it," when it's so clear in your mind, "But this is what God said to me!" I will not fear disapproval.
22:03-22:06
Secondly, I will not fear drama.
22:08-22:09
I will not fear drama.
22:10-22:22
Look at verse 7, it says, "When we had finished the voyage from Tyre and arrived at Ptolemaeus, And we greeted the brothers and stayed with them for one day.
22:23-22:25
On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea.
22:26-22:35
We entered the house of Philip the Evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him." One of the seven what?
22:37-22:38
Days of the week, dwarfs?
22:39-22:45
No, Acts chapter 6, remember there were seven set aside for ministry, and Philip was one of the seven.
22:46-22:50
says he had four unmarried daughters who prophesied.
22:52-23:05
I wish the Bible told us more about what this was like. It doesn't say they were pastors, but apparently because they were unmarried they were set aside for ministry perhaps.
23:06-23:12
We do know that they were unmarried and we do know that God spoke through them.
23:12-23:13
They prophesy.
23:15-23:20
It says, "While we were staying for many days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.
23:22-23:48
And coming to us, he took Paul's belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, 'Thus says the Holy Spirit, this is how the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.' We heard this, "We and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem." Pause right there.
23:50-23:56
Agabus gave a specific and a dramatic warning, right?
23:57-24:00
Sort of in the style of one of the Old Testament prophets.
24:00-24:05
Now, we already saw in Acts 20, verse 23, Paul knew that hardships were coming.
24:05-24:06
He knew that.
24:06-24:11
Paul knew that this wasn't going to be, you know, a trip to Kennywood.
24:12-24:16
This was going to be nothing but hardship and trial and suffering and persecution.
24:18-24:20
And Agabus really lays it on thick here.
24:20-24:21
Could you imagine that scene?
24:23-25:01
Like, they're just all hanging out, and Agabus is like, "Paul, give me your belt." "Why do you want my belt?" "Because I'm going to do a little one-man show for you." you and he takes Paul's belt and has Paul standing there like holding his clothes up now he takes Paul's belt and ties his own hands and feet up and says this is what's going to happen to the owner of the belt. Paul could have said you know you could have told me that without taking my belt. Save the drama for your mama Aggie because um in the previous passage disapproval the The disapproval was impersonal. Do you see that?
25:02-25:13
It's like the disciples are like, "Yeah, we kind of think it's not a good idea." But I think in this passage here, kidding aside, it becomes very personal because now you have somebody named.
25:13-25:16
Agabus actually was mentioned back in chapter 11, verse 28.
25:17-26:12
So this wasn't some, you know, Johnny-come-lately pew-sitter that's like, "You know, I'm new around here, but I want to put my two cents..." And this was a respected leader in the church at this point and I think that would have really made this harder on Paul like how so well it's one thing to say like taking it into our context here but imagine you're convicted about something and you're about to make this choice and I come to you and I say you know what people at Harvest Bible Chapel don't think that's a great idea it might be easier for you to shrug that off. You know, I figure people wouldn't like it. But if I came to you and said, "You know, Darren Keller, he's one of our elders, he is such a wise student of the Bible, and I really respect his opinion, and I really listen when he talks." If I came to you and I said, "Hey, Darren Keller doesn't think what you're doing is a great idea." Now all of a sudden it's different, isn't it?
26:13-26:19
It's not this unnamed group of the general consensus, "We took a poll and most of us aren't for this.
26:19-26:22
This is a name of a respected leader.
26:24-26:25
I think that would have cranked it up.
26:27-26:33
We see even a trusted brother's warning meant nothing to someone convicted.
26:35-26:39
And I just like to remind you here because I think sometimes we lose sight of this.
26:40-26:51
When you're convicted about something and somebody comes to you to talk to you about that thing, whether it's your position on schooling or course of ministry or whatever.
26:52-27:02
But when people come to talk to you about those things, I want you to remember that people in general, 99 times out of 100, people have good intentions.
27:04-27:10
And we don't need to get bent out of shape when someone voices a genuine concern, okay?
27:12-27:19
Very rarely is the guy at home like, man, I can't wait to hear what his convictions are I can just run in, you know, wet blanket, rain on his parade.
27:20-27:27
And when people come and talk to you about your convictions and voice their concern, they have good intentions.
27:28-27:33
And I just want to encourage you, when that happens, you need to thank people for their concern.
27:33-27:37
And if it's appropriate, explain why.
27:38-27:40
Hey, this is what I believe God laid on me.
27:41-27:43
And I hear what you're saying and I hear your concern.
27:44-27:54
And I want you to understand that this is why I believe what I do, and this is why our family is doing this, because we really feel that God has called us.
27:55-27:57
I like to remind people this simple statement.
27:59-28:04
Don't ask me to go against my convictions, and I won't ask you to go against yours.
28:06-28:11
So when you're living by conviction, not only, first of all, you're not going to fear disapproval. Secondly, you're not going to fear drama.
28:13-28:18
Thirdly, finally, I will not fear death.
28:19-28:21
I will not fear death. Let's look at these last few verses.
28:22-28:30
Verse 13, okay, so you're back in the scene, like, okay, Agabus has his belt, he ties himself up with it.
28:30-28:32
This is what's going to happen to the owner of the belt.
28:33-28:46
So all the people see this show and they're like begging, like, "Don't go to Jerusalem!" But look at verse 13, "Then Paul answered, What are you doing? Weeping and breaking my heart.
28:47-28:54
For I am ready not only to be in prison, but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.
28:57-29:03
I love verse 14, and since he would not be persuaded, there's Luke with a little bit of an understatement, right?
29:04-29:07
Yeah, we couldn't talk him into it. Yeah, I'm ready to die.
29:07-29:09
Luke's like, okay, we couldn't talk him into it.
29:10-29:20
And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, "Let the will of the Lord be done." What a great statement.
29:21-29:26
This wasn't fatalistic, like, "Oh, whatever." It's like, "You know what? This is what God's calling him to.
29:26-29:33
We're going to trust that God's going to do great things to us." After these days, we got ready and went up to Jerusalem.
29:34-29:46
And some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us, bringing us to the house of Manasseh of Cyprus, an early disciple with whom we should lodge.
29:48-31:16
I will not fear death. Paul's conviction regarding his mission, I think made him hearing these things from Agabus, just made him even more fired up. You know when it's a real conviction by the way, when somebody comes alongside and says, "Hey, this thing you're convicted about is going to be incredibly hard and you're like bring it. I hope it is because I am so ready for this! God has called me to this and he is with me and it's not going to be hard enough because the God of the universe is on my side. That's conviction. But saying all this I don't want to give anybody some lopsided picture because even living under conviction, even living under conviction have to tell you sometimes discouragement comes. I think back to the early days of planning this church, dealing with some of the opposition and some of the naysaying that went on, people telling me literally, quote, "You know the church is going to fail." You know there's enough churches in the North Hills of Pittsburgh At one of our open houses, we had a couple visit, and we presented the mission and the vision of the church, and the one man in the open house said, "How do we know that you're just not going to go back to your old church and abandon this one when it doesn't work?" I'm like, "Wow, thank you for the vote of confidence.
31:17-31:23
Where are your pom-poms, Mr. Cheerleader?" Joking aside, those were incredibly difficult days.
31:25-31:33
the naysaying, the criticism, the, it's not gonna work, it's not gonna work, you don't have people, you don't have money.
31:35-31:37
But during those days, there was one thing that kept me going.
31:39-31:40
One thing.
31:41-31:53
And it was on my face, in prayer, wrestling with God, tears, repeating this back to God.
31:55-31:56
God, you called me to this.
31:59-32:01
God, I hear what people have said.
32:02-32:04
I hear what people are saying to me.
32:04-32:16
I see the circumstances, but the one thing that I can't shake, despite all of that, the one thing I can't shake is God, you called me to this.
32:18-32:20
And that's the place where conviction has to bring you.
32:22-32:41
Conviction has to bring you to the place where you say, "I will obey no matter what is said, no matter who says it, no matter what the price, no matter what this is going to cost me, money, job, so-called friends, this might cost me my very life.
32:42-32:49
I may suffer, but I'm reminded that a servant is not above his master.
32:49-32:55
I'm reminded that to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
32:57-32:58
So I will not fear death.
32:58-33:03
I will not fear anything up to it, including death, but I won't fear death itself.
33:04-33:36
That's why Howard Hendricks said-- this is a great quote-- Howard Hendricks said, "A belief is something you will argue about, but a conviction is something you will die for." So church, a walk with Christ, a genuine, true, living walk with Christ will always bring convictions on how you're going to serve Him and how you're going to conduct yourself along the way.
33:37-33:41
Here's the good news. There is no fear in this walk.
33:43-33:47
because a convicted follower of Christ, like Paul in this passage, says three things.
33:48-33:51
First of all, I will not fear disapproval, no matter how many.
33:52-33:55
I will not fear drama, no matter from who.
33:56-34:01
I will not fear death, because if God called me to it, He's going to lead me through it.
34:02-34:03
Let's pray.
34:04-34:09
Father in heaven, already I pray that you are driving out fear.
34:12-34:16
Your word tells us that it is your perfect love that casts out fear.
34:17-34:39
Father, we live out our convictions, not with a spirit of detached obligation, but with a spirit of love, with a spirit of trust, that God of the universe called me to this, and I want to live these convictions out.
34:41-34:42
So Father, I pray for all of us here.
34:42-34:48
There are some people that have been holding on to convictions for a long time and maybe they need to evaluate.
34:50-34:57
Maybe there are some people that have some convictions that they should continue to be holding on to but have been letting go of.
34:58-35:09
I'm sure there are some young people here right now, Father, who are in the time of their life where convictions are being developed and formed and solidified.
35:10-35:25
Father, I pray that we would be a people like Paul, who are so sold out to Your Word and so sold out to Your mission, that we stay the course, no matter the opposition.
35:26-35:34
So much of Your Word and action we've seen is opposition from the world, opposition from the religious people of the day.
35:35-35:47
We see in this passage, Father, we can even get opposition from the church, not in a spiteful way, but in a, just getting in the way of what you're trying to do in our lives.
35:49-35:56
Father, help us to be able to live them out. Help us to be encouragers.
35:58-36:04
Help us to be a people who glorify you by putting your Word into practice in our lives.
36:05-36:08
And we will give you all the glory and praise and honor.
36:09-36:11
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 21:1-16
What personal convictions have you been criticized for? (While sharing, don’t criticize each other's' convictions.)
Was Paul being disobedient to the Holy Spirit (Acts 21:4, 11)? Why or why not?
How do you KNOW when the Holy Spirit is speaking to you through another person, and it’s not the other person just giving their personal opinion?
How do you know when a conviction is from the Lord, and a conviction is just "from yourself / just in your head"?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another to seek (and keep) godly, biblical convictions.