Jeff Miller

March 6, 2016

Incomparable God.

Incomparably Awesome.

Jeff Miller

March 6, 2016

Incomparable God.

Isaiah 46:5 - To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike?

God is Incomparably Awesome... (Is 40:9-26)

He is:

Awesome in Compassion . (Is 40:9-11)

Awesome in Wisdom. (Is 40:12-17)

Awesome over Idols. (Is 40:18-20)

Awesome over Rulers. (Is 40:21-26)

...so He can take Care of me. (Is 40:27-31)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:01-00:04
Open up your Bibles with me please to Isaiah chapter 40.
00:06-00:07
Isaiah chapter 40.
00:07-00:23
Did you notice - I don't know when this started - did you notice how hyperbolic, how exaggerated we've gotten in our language?
00:23-00:24
Have you noticed that?
00:24-00:35
I was thinking about this week, and the more I thought about it, I realized, you know, the way we speak now, we don't start our communication at one.
00:35-00:38
Our communication starts at a ten every time.
00:38-00:39
You know what I'm talking about?
00:39-00:40
Let me give you some examples.
00:41-00:42
I was watching the hockey game yesterday.
00:43-00:49
Carl Hagelin from the Penguins took a really nasty hit, and Erin didn't see it, and I was telling her about it.
00:49-00:53
And I saw Hagelin got annihilated.
00:54-00:55
And I thought about that.
00:55-00:57
He didn't literally get annihilated.
00:57-01:00
It wasn't like he got checked and then he turned into dust.
01:01-01:02
Like vanished from existence.
01:03-01:05
Why didn't I just say he took a really hard hit?
01:06-01:09
It's almost like she wouldn't believe me.
01:10-01:11
Like yeah, Hagelin got hit, he got hit really hard.
01:12-01:12
Like oh, okay.
01:13-01:14
What's the big deal there?
01:15-01:20
Why do we ratchet it up as high as it goes immediately?
01:21-01:22
I'm more guilty of this than anyone.
01:23-01:41
If somebody tells me a story and I'm relating it to somebody else and I wish to communicate the humor that I found in the story, I don't say, "Paul was telling me this story and I found it to be quite a humorous tale that he wove." What do I say?
01:41-01:46
I say, "Paul told me this story and I was dying." No, I wasn't literally dying.
01:46-01:53
They weren't literally calling the EMTs because Paul told a story and they had to defibrillate Pastor Jeff.
01:53-01:54
I wasn't literally dying.
01:55-01:56
But do you see what I mean?
01:56-01:59
We just automatically go as high as we can.
01:59-02:12
Here's a word that a lot of people use that we never use properly, and it's the word "unbelievable." I went to the store to buy Pop-Tarts, and they didn't have the kind that I like.
02:12-02:13
Isn't that unbelievable?
02:14-02:17
Like, yeah, I just-- wow, wow.
02:18-02:22
Tell me more about this, because I can't believe this story.
02:22-02:23
I can't believe it.
02:24-02:26
In fact, you're going to have to take me and show me.
02:26-02:29
I can't believe, I just cannot believe what you're trying to tell me.
02:29-02:31
We say that all the time.
02:31-02:34
It's unbelievable. It's snowing again. That's unbelievable.
02:36-02:37
You know, it's winter in Pennsylvania.
02:38-02:39
It's pretty believable.
02:42-02:43
All right, I'll stop there.
02:43-02:48
But we're using a word in this series to describe God.
02:49-02:58
And when I was putting this series together, There's really only one word I could think of to describe God, because it's a word that God Himself uses.
03:00-03:01
And the word is incomparable.
03:02-03:04
Meaning nothing is like the Lord.
03:04-03:07
We've seen that God said that He is holy.
03:08-03:14
We've seen in Isaiah 6, "He is holy, holy, holy." Which means nothing and no one is like the Lord.
03:14-03:16
Last week we saw that God is just.
03:16-03:20
He is incomparably just, righteous in all His judgments.
03:20-03:28
we're going to look at a word that is misused and overused, and a word that really only applies to God.
03:29-03:41
And the word is "awesome." Every single time we use that word, much like "unbelievable," every time we use that word, it's hyperbolic.
03:43-03:47
That cheeseburger you had the other day was good, but it wasn't awesome.
03:48-03:56
I don't believe for a second a bite of that burger and fell to your knees and just basked in the glory of that burger.
03:56-03:57
I don't believe that.
03:58-04:00
It was good, but it wasn't awesome.
04:01-04:06
That movie that you saw was entertaining, but it wasn't awesome.
04:09-04:19
The worship today was not awesome, but it brought my heart and mind before the presence of the Lord.
04:19-04:20
He is awesome.
04:22-04:25
This sermon I'm about to give you will not be awesome.
04:27-04:29
It will be describing the God Who Is.
04:30-04:35
If you're taking notes on your outline, number one, God is incomparably awesome.
04:37-04:38
Incomparably awesome.
04:40-04:41
We're in Isaiah 40.
04:43-04:47
We're going to be picking up in verse 9 today, but first of all, jot this down.
04:47-04:48
is awesome in compassion.
04:50-04:51
Awesome in compassion.
04:51-04:58
Verse 9 says, "Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news.
04:58-05:02
Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news.
05:02-05:04
Lift it up and fear not.
05:05-05:15
Say to the cities of Judah, 'Behold your God!' Behold, the Lord comes with might and His arm rules for Him.
05:15-05:18
Behold, His reward is with Him and recompense before Him.
05:20-05:22
He will tend His flock like a shepherd.
05:23-05:25
He will gather His lambs in His arms.
05:25-05:31
He will carry them in His bosom and gently lead those that are with young.
05:32-05:34
God is awesome in compassion.
05:34-05:52
You know, when I look at the universe - we're going to be talking about some of these things here in a minute - when I look at how majestic and vast and intricate and complicated this universe is, I have no problem believing that this universe was created by an awesome God.
05:52-05:54
I have no problem believing that.
05:55-06:03
It is much harder for me to believe that that God who created all of this cares at all about me.
06:04-06:06
I have a much harder time believing that.
06:07-06:09
That's something truly awesome.
06:11-06:42
This God who spoke the world into existence Would have any regard for me at all let alone The depths of the love that he does have You know, it's like It's like ants. I was reading this week the largest ant super colony They found was in Japan and And they said there were 306 million worker ants and 1 million queen ants.
06:42-06:45
How many of you were thinking about ants at all this morning?
06:46-06:47
None of us, right?
06:48-06:52
But in this supercolony, they found... how many was it?
06:53-06:56
307 million ants total.
06:57-07:04
Now imagine if you had 24 of these supercolonies all together.
07:04-07:09
What you would have is 7.3 billion ants.
07:11-07:14
And you wouldn't give a thought to all of them.
07:15-07:17
You wouldn't give a thought to any of them.
07:18-07:24
There's not a chance in the world you would give a regard for just one of those ants.
07:26-07:33
Yet the greatness between God and us, between us and an ant is infinite.
07:35-07:40
And He cares, personally, about every single one of us.
07:42-07:45
He cares not just in word, not just in sentiment, but in action.
07:46-07:47
Did you see that in the text?
07:48-07:49
He cares in action.
07:50-07:51
He tends His flock.
07:51-07:52
He gathers His lambs.
07:52-07:55
He carries. He gently leads.
07:56-08:01
God is a God of loving in action, And that was ultimately demonstrated at the cross of Jesus Christ.
08:01-08:04
He's described as a gentle shepherd.
08:05-08:08
God is awesome because He's awesome in compassion.
08:09-08:10
Letter B, He's awesome in wisdom.
08:12-08:13
He's awesome in wisdom.
08:14-08:21
Look at verse 12. It says, "Who has measured the waters and the hollow of His hand?" You know what the hollow of your hand is?
08:22-08:22
You know what that is?
08:24-08:27
That's like if somebody offers you M&Ms.
08:28-08:30
You don't reach in and take them like this, right?
08:30-08:32
You get a cup, right?
08:32-08:35
Because you want to get as many M&Ms as you can, right?
08:36-08:36
Is it just me?
08:37-08:38
Okay, thank you.
08:38-08:38
All right.
08:39-08:40
You cup your hand.
08:41-08:44
Okay, well, that little bowl that you make is called the hollow of your hand.
08:45-08:49
How much water can you fit in the hollow of your hand?
08:49-08:50
How much do you think?
08:51-08:58
This is how much water, Barely a mouthful that I can fit in the hollow of my hand.
09:00-09:07
Here it says in your Bible that God has measured the waters, meaning the waters of the world, in the hollow of His hand.
09:07-09:09
Do you know how much water there is in the world?
09:09-09:10
Do you have any idea?
09:11-09:22
There are 326 million trillion gallons of water in the world.
09:24-09:26
326 million trillion gallons!
09:27-09:37
And God's like, "Yeah, I got it all right here." When He created the world, He was just like, "There it is." 326 million trillion gallons.
09:37-09:43
Look at the next phrase, it says, verse 12, and He marked off the heavens with a span.
09:43-09:45
You know what a span is, right?
09:45-09:47
That's the distance from your thumb to your pinky.
09:48-09:49
That's a span.
09:50-09:57
God has marked off the heavens with a distance from your thumb to your pinky.
09:57-09:59
How far is that? I'm going to tell you here in a second.
10:00-10:09
He goes on, He says, "enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills and a balance.
10:11-10:13
God's taking all the dust of the world.
10:14-10:17
It's a picture like somebody in the kitchen with measuring cups.
10:18-10:19
That's the kind of language that's being used here.
10:19-10:20
God's in His kitchen.
10:20-10:21
I'm going to create the world.
10:22-10:24
Okay, I've got my measuring cup here.
10:24-10:27
Here's all the dirt that goes on planet Earth.
10:27-10:29
And make sure we add the water from the hollow of My hand.
10:31-10:31
Awesome.
10:34-10:37
Verse 13 says, "Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord.
10:39-10:41
Or what man shows Him His counsel?
10:43-10:49
So with God doing all of this measuring - showing His awesomeness - the question is can you measure God?
10:50-10:51
Can you measure God?
10:51-10:53
How much do you think God weighs?
10:53-10:55
How tall do you think God is?
10:56-10:58
How much room do you think God takes up?
11:00-11:01
We can't measure God.
11:03-11:10
Verse 14 says, "Whom did he consult, and who made him understand?" Okay, these are questions here.
11:11-11:12
So let's answer them.
11:13-11:17
So, "Whom did God consult?" Answer me. Who does God consult?
11:18-11:20
When God has a problem, who does He talk to?
11:20-11:21
Shout it out.
11:22-11:23
No one. Okay.
11:25-11:26
Who made Him understand?
11:27-11:30
Who sat God down and taught Him about the ways of life?
11:30-11:30
Shout it out.
11:32-11:32
No one.
11:33-11:35
Who taught him the path of justice?
11:35-11:36
We talked about this last week.
11:36-11:39
Who sat down and said, God, this is right.
11:39-11:40
God, this is wrong.
11:41-11:43
Who taught God the path of justice?
11:43-11:43
Shout it out.
11:45-11:46
And taught Him knowledge.
11:46-11:47
Who taught God knowledge?
11:48-11:49
No one.
11:50-11:50
No one.
11:51-11:56
It says, "And showed Him the way of understanding." Who showed God the way of understanding?
11:56-11:59
It's like a parent teaching their child the ways of life.
11:59-11:59
Who taught God?
12:00-12:01
Who raised God?
12:01-12:01
No one has doubted out.
12:02-12:03
No one!
12:06-12:08
God has never been informed about anything.
12:08-12:09
Do you know that?
12:10-12:12
God has never thought, "Hmm, that's interesting.
12:12-12:14
I never heard that before.
12:14-12:17
Please tell me more about this." God has never said any of those things.
12:20-12:29
Verse 15 says, "Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are counted as dust on the scales.
12:36-12:39
"Nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
12:39-12:42
All the nations are as nothing before Him.
12:42-12:58
They are accounted by Him as less than nothing and emptiness." Especially those last phrases, talking about, what's he saying, all the beasts in the world wouldn't be enough for a burnt offering for God.
12:58-12:59
All the nations are nothing before Him.
13:00-13:00
What's his point?
13:00-13:03
The point is the same thing, we don't influence God.
13:04-13:05
He's awesome in wisdom.
13:05-13:06
We don't influence God.
13:06-13:10
We don't do anything that gets God's attention.
13:11-13:12
God is never impressed by us.
13:15-13:24
The truth is God loves us and He gives us His wisdom simply for one reason, and the reason is this, He chooses to.
13:26-13:30
God simply chooses to love us and to be good to us.
13:32-13:33
He's awesome in wisdom.
13:35-13:37
Let her see He's awesome over idols.
13:38-13:39
Awesome over idols.
13:39-13:40
Look at verse 18.
13:41-13:48
"To whom then will you liken God or what likeness compare with Him?" There's that incomparable thing again.
13:49-13:49
An idol.
13:51-14:00
A craftsman casts it and a goldsmith overlays it with gold Doesn't that sound luxurious?
14:01-14:03
This is like the Cadillac of Idols here.
14:04-14:09
He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot.
14:10-14:14
Okay, so I can't quite afford the Cadillac of Idols, but I'm going to...
14:14-14:17
My idol, he's made out of wood that doesn't rot.
14:18-14:21
I got that good wood, that yellow lumber wood.
14:22-14:24
My idol ain't going to rot.
14:24-14:30
He seeks out a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not move.
14:31-14:33
Yeah, I'm going to put this in the living room.
14:34-14:35
Can you build me one that ain't going to fall down?
14:38-14:40
It seems so silly, doesn't it?
14:41-14:44
It seems so silly, but, church, it's real.
14:46-14:51
When I was in Thailand back in November, I saw everywhere Buddha statues.
14:52-14:58
You can see Buddha statues literally for miles and miles away up on a mountain.
14:58-15:00
You can see a gold Buddha statue.
15:01-15:07
Just looking at that, realizing it would take me hours and hours and hours to get there and I can see it from everywhere.
15:08-15:11
They're worshiping that hunk of gold.
15:11-15:18
And then when you get into the villages in Thailand where they're not Buddhists, what they have is spirit altars.
15:18-15:31
They have these shelves on their living room walls, and they have these little things, these little trinkets that they burn to appease the gods that live in the trees and the rocks and the water.
15:33-15:34
It's idolatry.
15:35-15:38
And when we look at it the way it's described in God's Word, it seems so silly.
15:41-15:47
And as sophisticated Americans, we say, well, yeah, we don't do things like that, do we?
15:49-15:53
Actually, America, we make our own gods too.
15:55-16:00
Money, stuff, success, our plans - those things become gods to us.
16:01-16:10
Or, another way that we make our own god is we try to make the real god out to what we want Him to be.
16:10-16:12
He's the God of health and wealth.
16:12-16:17
He's the God who's sort of detached and not involved in human affairs.
16:17-16:25
He's the God who really doesn't care and we try to craft God into what we want Him to be.
16:27-16:34
Isaiah's point here is God is bigger and more awesome than anything that we try to use to fill that God-shaped void in our lives.
16:36-16:38
And I think we can always acknowledge that.
16:40-16:44
God is so much greater than these things that we try to substitute for Him.
16:44-16:45
Why do we try?
16:46-16:56
Has anyone in the course of human history, Has anyone discovered something that made them say, "This is better than God!
16:56-17:04
This thing will satisfy the deepest longing of my soul." God is awesome over idols.
17:06-17:07
Letter D, write this down.
17:07-17:08
He's awesome over rulers.
17:09-17:10
He's awesome over rulers.
17:13-17:13
Do you not know?
17:15-17:15
Do you not hear?
17:16-17:17
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
17:18-17:21
You're not understood from the foundations of the earth.
17:21-17:26
It is He who sits above the circle of the earth.
17:26-17:29
You need the word "circle" in your Bible.
17:29-17:36
2,200 years before Christopher Columbus discovered that the world was round.
17:37-17:38
Much controversy in that day.
17:38-17:40
Well, the world is flat. You'll sell right off the edge.
17:41-18:03
2,200 years before Columbus as he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.
18:05-18:06
The known universe.
18:07-18:08
You know how big the known universe is?
18:09-18:09
I had to look this up.
18:10-18:11
I'm going to give you some numbers here.
18:13-18:25
It is estimated that the diameter of the universe of the observable universe is about 28.5 gigaparsecs.
18:27-18:29
How many people know what a gigaparsec is?
18:30-18:30
Anyone?
18:32-18:33
93 billion light years.
18:36-18:41
Or 5.5 times 10 to the 23rd power miles.
18:44-18:46
That's how big our universe is.
18:47-18:51
I was studying this stuff, and I'm just going to be honest with you, I don't understand it. I'll just shoot straight with you.
18:51-18:54
I do not understand it. I don't.
18:57-19:03
I can barely fathom how big the earth is, let alone the known universe. I don't understand it.
19:04-19:06
Do you know what I understand even less than that?
19:07-19:13
Even less than that, I don't understand the awesomeness of a God who stretched this out like a curtain.
19:14-19:24
We just moved this past week, and one of the things Aaron was doing in our new house, she was hanging the shower curtain in the bathroom, and she was just like, put the hooks on, and there you go.
19:25-19:27
That was a five-second job.
19:27-19:29
That's what God did with the universe.
19:29-19:33
He's just like, ok, going to create - boom! - stretched it out.
19:35-19:35
It's awesome.
19:37-19:48
Verse 23 says, "Who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness?
19:50-20:03
Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth when he blows on them and they wither." The tempest carries them off like stubble.
20:05-20:10
every godless ruler that exalts himself, God brings to nothing.
20:11-20:26
You can just run down the list, whether it's Alexander the Great or Napoleon or Hitler or Saddam Hussein or whatever, just make your list of all of the rulers that thought they were something in their day, and every single one of them has come and gone.
20:28-20:34
God - His rule and His influence has never gone away.
20:35-20:35
Do you realize that?
20:36-20:38
You know what they were doing thousands of years ago?
20:39-20:44
They were getting together and they were singing praises to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
20:44-20:47
And do you know what we were doing just like a half hour ago?
20:47-20:53
We were still standing here today singing praises to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
20:54-20:55
God is still ruling.
20:55-20:56
God is still in control.
20:56-20:58
And God still has passionate followers.
21:00-21:07
While these people, these so-called mighty world leaders, God is awesome.
21:09-21:11
He's awesome in compassion and wisdom.
21:12-21:13
He's awesome over idols.
21:13-21:15
He's awesome over rulers.
21:15-21:17
God is incomparably awesome.
21:18-21:19
And here's the point.
21:20-21:26
We didn't gather today to just get some factoids about how much water is in the world or whatever.
21:27-21:28
Here's the point of all of that.
21:29-21:30
God is incomparably awesome.
21:33-21:34
So He can take care of me.
21:36-21:37
He can take care of me.
21:39-21:41
You know, I was really meditating on this this week.
21:42-21:46
All through Isaiah there's all this comparing language, right?
21:46-21:48
That's our theme, incomparable God.
21:49-21:51
And I was thinking, why does God keep going back to that?
21:51-22:07
You know, our theme verse is Isaiah 46.5, "What will you liken me to? What will you compare me?" Twice in this passage, Isaiah 40.18, "To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with Him?" Look at verse 25.
22:08-22:13
"To whom then will you compare Me, that I should be like Him?" Says the Holy One.
22:13-22:31
"Lift up your eyes and see who created these, who bring out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of His might, because He is strong in power, not one is missing." Twice in this passage we see God saying, What are you going to compare me to?
22:31-22:33
What are you going to liken me to?
22:35-22:40
Why does he keep going back to this comparing question?
22:42-22:43
Well, the answer is right here in the text.
22:45-22:46
Because, church, we face trials.
22:48-22:49
We face trials.
22:50-22:53
We face financial trials that just overwhelm us.
22:53-22:55
There's just too much month at the end of the money.
22:56-23:03
And I know there's some people in this room I can't get ahead.
23:03-23:04
I can't get ahead.
23:04-23:07
And the problem seems so huge.
23:08-23:09
It just seems like such a huge problem.
23:10-23:12
We face relational trials.
23:13-23:15
Maybe there's a fallout with a family member.
23:17-23:19
That thing just weighs on you.
23:19-23:25
And that's all you can think about is just the hurt and the anger and the unforgiveness.
23:25-23:28
And it's a huge thing in your life.
23:28-23:29
For some people it's a health issue.
23:31-24:00
you know dealing with sicknesses and cancers and and it's a huge thing some it's job security or it's work-related it's it looks like the company's downsizing and I'm gonna I'm gonna lose my job and then how how are we gonna make things go in the family what are we gonna have to do are we gonna have to move or am I gonna be able to find another job and it's this it's this huge There's a huge thing looming ahead of you.
24:03-24:06
And in our hearts, we echo verse 27.
24:08-24:09
Look at verse 27.
24:09-24:13
It says, "Why do you say, 'O Jacob,' and speak, 'O Israel'?" God's people.
24:13-24:15
"Why do you say these things?" We echo this.
24:16-24:17
Look at this statement.
24:18-24:20
"My way is hidden from the Lord.
24:22-24:28
My right is disregarded by my God.
24:31-24:33
We feel the sting of that sometimes, don't we?
24:35-24:37
My way is hidden from the Lord.
24:38-24:41
In other words, God doesn't know.
24:42-24:44
Haven't you ever felt like that was the conclusion?
24:44-24:46
God must not know what's going on in my life.
24:47-25:04
You know, I've been struggling for so hard so long and God must not know. My way is hidden from the Lord. He must not be aware. You know, I thought I had this idea that God was aware, but He must not be really aware of what I'm going through. My way must be hidden from the Lord.
25:06-25:13
I look at this next statement, "My right is disregarded by my God." That's even worse.
25:15-25:51
means God doesn't care. Maybe God does know, but you know what? Maybe He just doesn't care. You know I've been dealing with this thing for 11 years now. I know He knows. Maybe He doesn't care. Church, we felt that. You see here the Lord, With the backdrop of this picture of His splendor and His majesty, He turns and He says, "So why do you say this?
25:53-26:12
Why do you say, 'My way is hidden from the Lord and my right is disregarded by my God?' Why would you say, 'God doesn't know and God doesn't care?'" You see, this is a tough passage to sell on a Sunday morning, because everybody sitting here, I'm sure, agrees with these concepts.
26:12-26:17
Yes, God is awesome. Yes, God is big. Yes, God is huge. Yes, God has all power.
26:17-26:23
We agree with these concepts, but we have a really hard time personally appropriating them.
26:24-26:26
Meaning, we nod on Sunday morning.
26:27-26:40
"Yes, that's what the Bible says. Yes, that's what I agree with. Yes." we don't act like we really believe it.
26:42-26:53
I'll just be honest with you, you guys know the struggles we've had in our own home, praying for our son with some very severe developmental issues.
26:56-27:00
Do I believe that God can heal my son?
27:01-27:02
I believe that.
27:02-27:04
I believe that God has the power.
27:05-27:10
I'll be honest with you, eleven years into it, sometimes it gets hard to keep praying that.
27:12-27:17
Sometimes I say, you know, I just don't know how I'm going to go another day.
27:19-27:19
How do we do it?
27:20-27:25
How do we get from this objective truth, "I know that you can, God," and how do we make it subjective?
27:26-27:29
How do we go from intellectual agreement to active faith?
27:31-27:32
Well, yeah, this stuff is true.
27:33-27:44
Why do we have a hard time believing that God's power, God's presence, God's majesty is true, and it's active, and it's real in my life?
27:45-27:47
That is God's whole point here.
27:48-27:52
Why do you say that I don't know and I don't care?
27:53-28:01
God's saying if all of this is true about me, what makes you think that I can't handle the mess that you are in?
28:03-28:06
Or verse 28, "Have you not known?
28:08-28:09
Have you not heard?
28:10-28:16
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
28:17-28:29
He does not faint or grow weary." Pastor Jeff, I hear what you're saying, and I do believe, but I'm just going to be honest with you, I'm worn out right now.
28:29-28:40
I've been struggling with this financial thing this relational thing, this health thing, this job thing, whatever this thing is, I've been struggling so long, and I do believe, but I'm just going to be honest with you, I'm just a little worn out.
28:42-28:50
And the Lord's reply is, "I'm not worn out." God says, "I'm not tired. I don't get tired." God doesn't get tired answering prayer.
28:50-28:52
God doesn't get tired meeting needs.
28:52-28:54
God doesn't get tired comforting you.
28:56-29:01
God is managing 7.3 billion people in the world right now, He doesn't even break a sweat.
29:03-29:05
You're like, "Okay, I understand what you're saying, Pastor Jeff.
29:05-29:11
Yeah, the power's available, but why hasn't God done something yet about my situation?
29:12-29:13
Why would God wait?
29:14-29:20
If He's going to resolve this, if He's going to fix it, if He's going to do something, why would He wait?" Look at the next phrase.
29:20-29:25
"His understanding is unsearchable." We don't know what God's doing.
29:25-29:30
And listen, we don't know what God's doing, and we don't need to.
29:31-29:33
We don't know what God's doing.
29:34-29:35
And we don't need to.
29:35-29:41
You know, the Bible never says that we are to explain God.
29:41-29:42
Did you know that?
29:44-29:46
The Bible doesn't say go out and explain God.
29:47-29:50
The Bible doesn't say go out and understand how God works.
29:52-29:57
Over and over and over and over, the Bible says, trust God.
29:58-29:59
Trust God.
30:02-30:02
Not just for the outcome.
30:04-30:06
Not just for the finish line.
30:06-30:07
Not just for the...
30:08-30:14
We're not just trusting God for the resolution of this thing that is burdening me.
30:16-30:20
But it's trusting Him for the power to get to the finish line.
30:22-30:24
So church, for everyone who's ever said, "I just can't.
30:24-30:25
I can't take anymore.
30:26-30:27
I can't keep doing this.
30:27-30:29
I can't handle one more day.
30:29-30:31
I can't take one more step.
30:31-30:36
Good news, yes you can, because you can't.
30:38-30:38
What?
30:39-30:41
Wait a minute, we're paying you to preach this?
30:43-30:47
Yes, you can because you can't, because you see, it's not in your own strength.
30:48-30:57
The glorious promise is this awesome God who manages the universe from a seated position, supplies the strength that you need.
30:57-30:58
Look at verse 29.
30:59-30:59
Here it is.
31:00-31:00
Don't miss this.
31:02-31:04
He gives power to the faint.
31:06-31:10
And to him who has no might, he increases strength.
31:13-31:20
Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted.
31:22-31:23
Pause there.
31:23-31:46
through today, this is something I need to be reminded of often, whatever you're going through today, God may not take away your trial and it is never promised that He will. There's not one promise in the Bible that God is going to remove your trial. He might. He might choose to let you go through it.
31:48-31:57
You see the promise, the sure promise is that He's going to give you the power to get through it.
31:58-32:00
Sign me up for that, how do I get that power?
32:01-32:14
Look at verse 31, "But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength." That's how you get the power.
32:14-32:21
You see, it's not about striving harder, it's not about, "Hey, man up!" It's not about trying to do it your own way.
32:23-32:25
It's about trusting the Lord through it.
32:27-32:30
It's about waiting on Him and on His power.
32:32-32:48
To fall down before God and say, "God, I can't take another step, but You promised to supply The last phrase is pretty familiar, isn't it?
32:49-33:04
"They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." So when God supplies the power, you're either going to fly, or you're going to run, or you're going to walk.
33:05-33:15
In other words, whatever it takes, whatever it takes to get you from where you are or where God has taken you, He's going to get you there.
33:16-33:18
Let me ask you, who needs the power today?
33:19-33:30
Is there somebody that's here today that needs God to show up and supply the strength that you don't have?
33:31-33:33
The strength that only He can provide?
33:34-33:37
Will you let the Lord renew your strength as only He can?
33:39-33:44
Father in Heaven, we thank You for the promises of Your Word.
33:44-33:50
And Father, let us never presume on promises that You never made.
33:52-34:02
Somehow we think that we are sometimes entitled to a trial-free, pain-free, obstacle-free life, and You have never promised that.
34:02-34:14
But You have very clearly and often made this glorious promise that we've studied today that you are going to supply the power to get us through whatever trial we are going through today.
34:15-34:18
And we can wonder, how does that happen?
34:20-34:21
How in the world can that happen?
34:22-34:26
And the answer is, you are the God who stretched out the universe like a curtain.
34:26-34:29
You are the God who measured the dirt and the water.
34:30-34:33
You are the God that puts the mountains and the hills in a balance.
34:33-34:39
You are the God is high and exalted above all things.
34:42-34:45
Your bank account never gets low.
34:46-34:50
Your strength never wears out.
34:50-34:52
Your mind never gets tired.
34:54-34:55
You are infinite.
34:56-34:57
You are awesome.
34:59-35:05
Father, I pray for the people in this room right now I need a fresh experience of Your awesomeness.
35:07-35:18
A fresh encounter with You are the God who loves them, and You are the God who's going to supply the strength that they need to get through this trial.
35:19-35:23
I pray that this would be a time of seeking You.
35:25-35:27
A time of strength being renewed.
35:30-35:31
of Your name being glorified.
35:32-35:35
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Isaiah 40:9-31

Why does God use this "comparison” language in Isaiah? (Is 46:5, Is 40:18, 25). What’s His point in repeatedly asking “to what will you liken me”?
In what areas do you feel weak right now (Is 40:29-31)? For what do you need God’s strength?
If people believe God is awesome, why do we so often settle for empty religion instead of trusting His power? (Is 40:18-20, 27)

Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

February 28, 2016

Incomparable God.

Incomparably Just.

Jeff Miller

February 28, 2016

Incomparable God.

Better Days Are Ahead, Because a Better Ruler is Coming.

Better days are ahead. (Is 9:1-5)

Misery will be over. (Is 9:1-3)

War will be over. (Is 9:4-5)

Because a better ruler is coming. (Is 9:6-7)

He's perfect in His Character. (Is 9:6)

He's perfect in His Leadership. (Is 9:7)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:03
Open up your Bibles with me please to Isaiah 9.
00:04-00:08
And we're in the middle of a series we actually started last week.
00:10-00:14
But the series is called "Incomparable God." And the series revolves around one verse.
00:14-00:21
And it's Isaiah 46:5 where the Lord says, "To whom will you liken Me and make Me equal?
00:22-00:29
And compare Me that we may be alike." God is incomparable.
00:30-00:34
And we kicked off last week talking about God's incomparable holiness.
00:35-00:40
There is nothing and no one like the Lord.
00:41-00:45
Today in Isaiah 9, we're going to see that He is incomparably just.
00:46-00:50
And this is a message that Israel in these days needed to hear.
00:50-00:56
And this is a message that the church in 2016 in America needs to hear.
00:58-01:02
Just to set the context and the kind of culture in which Isaiah was living.
01:03-01:07
In Isaiah's day, the people were content with empty religion.
01:07-01:21
And it was a day of immorality and self-centeredness and threats from enemy nations and huge questions concerning the political landscape of the nation there was a change in leadership.
01:23-01:23
That sound familiar?
01:25-01:26
Let's just run down the checklist.
01:26-01:28
Does this sound like America today?
01:29-01:32
People by and large are content with empty religion.
01:33-01:33
Check.
01:35-01:35
Immorality.
01:37-01:37
Check.
01:38-01:39
Self-centeredness.
01:40-01:41
Check.
01:41-01:42
Check.
01:43-01:45
Threats from enemy nations.
01:45-01:45
Check.
01:48-01:53
What about huge questions concerning the political landscape of our nation as there's a change in leadership?
01:55-01:55
Check.
01:56-01:57
Check.
01:58-01:59
Check.
02:01-02:03
Look at Isaiah 9.1.
02:03-02:06
It says, "But there will be no gloom for her
02:07-02:07
(speaking of Israel)
02:07-02:09
who is in anguish.
02:09-02:17
In the former time, He brought into contempt the land of Zebulun in the land of Naphtali.
02:19-02:19
I want to stop there.
02:20-02:24
There's changes ahead, obviously, you can tell by the tense of the passage.
02:24-02:28
But look at the words that describe where Israel was at that point as a nation.
02:29-02:32
Gloom and anguish and contempt.
02:32-02:33
And what's that all about?
02:33-02:38
If you go back to chapter 8, you see that this came about from the Assyrians.
02:39-02:46
The Assyrians was this enemy nation that was coming to conquer and it was fulfilled in 734 B.C.
02:46-02:49
You can read about it in 2 Kings 15.
02:50-03:02
When the Assyrians came in, they conquered several regions and the first regions to suffer was Zebulun and Naphtali like it says in verse 1 here.
03:04-03:14
It was a time of suffering in Israel from violence and oppression towards God's people.
03:15-03:18
It was a time of wicked leadership.
03:19-03:21
And I would ask you again, does that sound familiar?
03:23-03:25
Can you take a giant step back?
03:28-03:44
You know, when we watch the news and we tune in CNN or we get online and read what's happening in our country and in our world, and there's really one word that can be a banner over everything that's happening globally, The word is injustice.
03:46-03:46
Injustice.
03:47-03:49
Violence and oppression.
03:51-03:53
Wicked, oppressive leadership.
03:55-04:01
Sometimes, church, we can fall into this mindset where we like the world.
04:02-04:04
And sort of throw our arms up and say does God even care?
04:06-04:07
Has God abandoned us?
04:08-04:10
Does God notice what's going on?
04:11-04:12
Do you think God even cares?
04:13-04:16
I mean, how much more of this are we going to watch?
04:17-04:22
And it makes us cry out as a church when we see all this injustice and all this suffering.
04:22-04:26
It makes us cry out, God, aren't You going to do something about it?
04:28-04:30
You're like, well, what kind of things are You talking about?
04:32-04:33
I'm going to share some things with you.
04:35-04:37
These things are going to be hard to hear.
04:38-04:40
But I assure you they're extremely hard to say.
04:42-04:47
These things that I'm going to share with you are things that I've read just in the past week.
04:48-04:56
This wasn't going back into the archives of things that I've studied over the last 20 years.
04:56-04:58
These are things that I've read just in the last week.
05:00-05:02
Let's talk about violence and oppression towards God's people.
05:03-05:11
You know, right now in Iran, the authorities infiltrate house churches to arrest and imprison Christians.
05:13-05:19
Iran's Ministry of Intelligence monitors the activities of Christians and arrests house church leaders.
05:20-05:25
And when these house church leaders are arrested, they're tortured for weeks.
05:26-05:32
And then they're placed with violent criminals and denied any medical care.
05:33-05:40
I read a few days ago some of the things that are happening in Syria, some of the outbreaks of violence.
05:42-05:47
I read of an extremist mob that beheaded a man.
05:48-05:50
And then they played soccer with his head.
05:52-05:57
In Syria, they're throwing children into ovens.
05:58-06:02
They're assaulting women and leaving them lay in public.
06:04-06:09
My witness reports say sometimes they see ten men assaulting one woman.
06:10-06:14
I read this past week of an elderly Christian couple.
06:14-06:22
The husband was 94 years old and his wife - wheelchair bound - 85 years old.
06:24-06:29
The Islamic extremists broke into their home and assaulted the woman in front of the husband.
06:31-06:35
I read this and I'm like, Aren't you going to do something about this?
06:36-06:53
I read in India, the sixth Indian state has debated passing anti-conversion laws which not only discourages evangelism in India, but Christians can be arrested simply if somebody complains about them.
06:54-07:02
In Nigeria, the Islamic extremists are kidnapping high school-age girls and they're selling them to militants as brides.
07:04-07:09
A quote from the one man perpetrating this horrific act.
07:10-07:12
He said he was doing this in the name of Allah.
07:13-07:15
This is what we do in the name of our God.
07:17-07:18
We kidnap little girls and we sell them.
07:20-07:24
North Korea tops the list of persecuting Christians.
07:26-07:32
It's estimated there are somewhere and 70,000 Christians in prison camps.
07:33-07:37
But North Korea is such an isolated country, we don't really know the extent.
07:37-07:38
That's just a guess.
07:40-07:55
We could go on and on about the horrific acts from Al Qaeda and ISIS, more violence in the name of politics and religion, and sadly, we live in a day that you can watch it online.
07:57-08:16
We see these horrific acts being done to God's people in this world of injustice, and we say, "God, aren't You going to do something?" Like well, at least that kind of wickedness and injustice isn't happening in America, right?
08:18-08:19
Wrong.
08:21-08:24
We are wicked at the highest levels of leadership.
08:26-08:34
way I can describe the state of America right now is we are experiencing a plague of insanity.
08:35-08:53
Just this last week I read in Charlotte, North Carolina, they're working on passing laws to protect the LGBT community from discrimination. Part of this ruling is they want to allow allow people to use any restroom that they want to use.
08:54-09:07
Those of you that have young daughters, how comfortable would you be letting your daughter go into a public restroom knowing anybody who wants to use that restroom can use that restroom?
09:09-09:10
Wicked. It's insane.
09:12-09:16
And I read that this week, and I said, God, aren't You going to do something about this?
09:18-09:19
in New York, did you hear about this?
09:19-09:23
I think in New York they're pushing for heroin injection sites.
09:23-09:25
How many people saw that?
09:25-09:32
They want to have a safe place for people to shoot up heroin free from consequences.
09:32-09:36
They're actually going to have a nurse on staff to administer the injections.
09:37-09:43
If you smoke marijuana, or you're drunk in public, that's still illegal, and that should be.
09:44-09:49
But if you want to do heroin, He will help you do heroine.
09:51-10:02
You look at the leadership transitioning out and the potential leadership transitioning in, and my question is what leader is going to look at this insanity and right this ship?
10:03-10:07
Any of the leaders looking like they're going to turn this around?
10:08-10:11
Any of the leaders look like they're going to stand for justice and righteousness?
10:12-10:12
Anyone?
10:14-10:15
God, aren't you going to do something?
10:18-10:24
If you've felt that twinge of despair, I have some very good news for you.
10:26-10:28
I want you to jot some things down in your outline.
10:29-10:30
Better days are ahead.
10:31-10:37
Better days are ahead because a better ruler is coming.
10:39-10:41
First rule number one, better days are ahead.
10:42-10:47
Well, the prophet here is going to speak of future events as if they've already happened.
10:47-10:49
You see that a lot in the Bible.
10:49-10:52
And that's just the surety of God's Word.
10:53-11:08
He says God says this is going to happen, and even though it hasn't yet happened on the calendar, He talks about it in the past tense to say, "You can take this to the bank." Let's pick up where we left off in chapter 9, verse 1.
11:08-11:23
but in the latter times, we talked about the gloom, the anguish, the contempt, but in the latter times, He has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
11:25-11:27
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
11:28-11:33
Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.
11:34-11:35
You have multiplied the nation.
11:35-11:37
You have increased its joy.
11:38-11:53
"I rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, and they are glad when they divide the spoil." First of all, Isaiah points out that the day is coming, that misery is going to be over.
11:53-11:58
The darkness, the gloom, the anguish.
11:59-12:03
You see the words he used to describe how things are going to change.
12:03-12:05
He talks about the light that is coming.
12:05-12:08
He talks about the joy that we're going to experience.
12:08-12:09
I love this last phrase in verse 3.
12:09-12:14
It says, "They are glad when they divide the spoil." What's that all about?
12:15-12:21
Well, when you're dividing the spoil after a war, that means two things.
12:23-12:24
That means the war is over.
12:25-12:25
And that means you won.
12:27-12:36
See, he's giving a picture here that someday the misery is all going to be a memory as God's people live in eternal victory.
12:37-12:40
not only will misery be over, look at verses 4 and 5.
12:40-12:45
He says the day is coming that war is going to be over.
12:46-12:55
He says for the yoke of His burden, the staff for His shoulder, the rod of His oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
12:56-12:57
I love verse 5.
12:57-13:08
Every boot of the trampling warrior can battle tumult, and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.
13:10-13:13
The day is coming that war is going to be over.
13:14-13:22
Your Bible tells you that one final war is coming when Jesus comes to vanquish everyone who's rejected Him.
13:24-13:30
And after that, verse 5 tells us that war equipment is going to be irrelevant.
13:31-13:38
What He's saying is you might as well take the fatigues and take the combat boots and make a big campfire out of them because we're not going to need them anymore.
13:39-13:45
We're not going to be fighting anymore because war is always going to be spoken of in the past tense.
13:47-13:57
We can look at language like this and say how in the world can we get from where we are to what the Bible is describing?
13:59-14:02
We better get a better leader in place.
14:04-14:05
is the glorious reality.
14:05-14:06
Better days are ahead.
14:06-14:08
Number two, write this down.
14:08-14:10
Better days are ahead because a better ruler is coming.
14:12-14:25
God's answer - when we look at all of the injustices and violence and wickedness in leadership, when we look at all this injustice in the world, God's answer is not a political strategy.
14:27-14:30
God's answer is not capitalism or socialism or communism.
14:31-14:35
Or, let's get this new political strategy in place.
14:36-14:43
His answer is in a perfect ruler who's going to rule righteously over all.
14:44-14:46
His answer is in a ruler that is incomparably just.
14:47-14:47
Look at v. 6.
14:48-14:52
I'm sure everybody in this room has heard this verse many times.
14:54-14:56
But understand the context in which this verse is given.
14:56-14:59
Because unto us a child is born.
15:01-15:02
To us a son is given.
15:03-15:06
And the government shall be upon his shoulder.
15:07-15:17
And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
15:18-15:22
God's answer to the injustice is found in the person of Jesus Christ.
15:24-15:29
First of all, this ruler, King Jesus Christ, He's perfect in His character.
15:31-15:37
Verse 6 is often preached at Christmas time, but really, this verse sees its ultimate fulfillment at His Second Coming.
15:38-15:42
It says the government is going to be upon His shoulder right now.
15:42-15:44
Is Jesus Christ ruling right now?
15:45-15:46
The answer is yeah.
15:46-15:52
He's ruling through the hearts and the lives of everyone who is a born-again follower of Him.
15:52-15:58
So He is ruling now through His people, but the day is coming that the entire government is going to be on his shoulder.
15:58-16:00
He's going to rule over all.
16:01-16:02
That's what this is talking about.
16:03-16:04
Like, well, what kind of a ruler is he?
16:06-16:07
He says he's a wonderful counselor.
16:09-16:11
He's a ruler that rules with wisdom.
16:13-16:14
He says he's mighty God.
16:14-16:20
He's not just some guy - some lesser of two evil guys that we put up for nomination and vote in.
16:21-16:22
No, no, no, there's no vote here.
16:22-16:25
Actually, there's only one vote in His selection and it's God's vote.
16:26-16:29
And this ruler is God Himself.
16:30-16:31
He is mighty God.
16:31-16:34
The fullness of God dwells in Jesus Christ.
16:36-16:37
He says He's the everlasting Father.
16:38-16:40
Certainly that speaks to His divinity.
16:42-16:45
But that also speaks to the type of love that He shows.
16:45-16:51
He is a Father who disciplines and cares for and nurtures His people.
16:53-16:53
He's a father.
16:55-17:00
He's not some cold, detached ruler.
17:01-17:05
He's one that rules over all His people like a loving dad in a house.
17:05-17:08
That's the kind of ruler that's coming again.
17:10-17:15
And it says, "Prince of Peace." He establishes peace.
17:16-17:23
The first time Jesus came, He established peace between sinner and God who received Him.
17:24-17:28
The second time that Jesus comes, He's going to establish world peace.
17:31-17:31
He's going to be global.
17:33-17:34
He's perfect in His character.
17:35-17:36
He's also perfect in His leadership.
17:37-17:38
Look at verse 7.
17:39-17:42
It says, "Of the increase of His government and of peace, there will be no end.
17:44-17:54
On the throne of David and over His kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.
17:56-17:59
He's going to establish His kingdom.
18:01-18:02
This needs to be underlined in your Bible.
18:03-18:04
With justice and righteousness.
18:06-18:09
Someday, injustice is going to be behind us.
18:10-18:17
The Bible tells you that Jesus is going to come back and establish a thousand year kingdom on the earth.
18:20-18:23
Isaiah tells us here, it'll be from this time forth and forevermore.
18:23-18:24
It's never going to end.
18:24-18:32
It's not as if Jesus gives us this utopia with Him as the leader for a thousand years, and says, well, that's what it was meant to be like, and then exits.
18:33-18:36
That's going to usher us into the eternal states.
18:38-18:49
So Christians, when you see the injustices in the world globally, the persecution of Christians, the wickedness in leadership, when you're fired up and you say, Where's the justice?
18:50-18:52
I have just one word for you today.
18:54-18:57
That word is "wait." Wait.
18:59-19:01
God, aren't You going to do something about this?
19:02-19:05
The answer is wait.
19:06-19:09
You see, it would be like going to the movies.
19:11-19:23
And you watch half of the movie, and you don't like the way the main character being abused and beaten and knocked down, and halfway through the movie, you just get up and you walk out and say, "Well, that movie stunk.
19:24-19:29
That was terrible." The church is the same for us.
19:31-19:32
This movie ain't over.
19:33-19:35
It is not over yet.
19:36-19:44
We can read this and say, "Is God really going to do this?" I see what it says, Pastor Jeff, but is God really going to do this?
19:45-19:46
I like the very last phrase in v. 7.
19:47-19:50
This is probably my favorite part of this whole passage.
19:50-19:58
It says, "The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this." Zeal.
19:59-20:01
God's not just going to do it.
20:02-20:05
He is fired up to do it.
20:06-20:19
You see, this day of ultimate justice is like - pardon the expression - He's not only going to do it, he's going to do it with zeal.
20:20-20:24
You know, there's a lot of things that I do and a lot of things that I have to do that I don't do with zeal.
20:25-20:32
You know, for example, when it's time to do the dishes, I do the dishes, but it's never with zeal.
20:34-20:34
Ever.
20:36-20:41
When I have to go to Walmart, it is never with zeal.
20:43-20:52
It is with much crying, and feet dragging, and whining, and I'm not even talking about my kids, I'm just talking about me.
20:54-20:55
I don't do it with zeal.
20:57-20:59
I'll tell you, there are some things I do with zeal.
21:00-21:01
You want an example?
21:03-21:08
I'd say, I don't know, a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago now, I was outside playing with the kids.
21:10-21:17
And just all outside, we're playing on the trampoline and squirting each other with the hose or whatever, just, you know, messing around.
21:17-21:24
And all of a sudden, on our back porch right by our back door was this enormous pit bull.
21:25-21:28
This thing was like -- this thing was like the size of a dinosaur.
21:29-21:32
Okay. And I'm not -- I'm not the dog whisperer, okay.
21:32-21:33
I'm not like the dog expert.
21:33-21:34
My wife is.
21:34-21:35
She's the expert.
21:35-21:36
But I do know this much.
21:37-21:44
This dog was walking around with its head down, its ears back, and all of the hair was standing up on its shoulders and back.
21:44-21:45
You know what that means, right?
21:46-21:47
Nothing good.
21:48-21:56
This dog was slinking around my back door about 15 feet away from where my children were playing.
21:58-22:02
I grabbed the shovel, and I never ran so fast in my life.
22:02-22:04
But that dog ran just a little bit faster than me.
22:04-22:08
I'm telling you, if I would have caught up to that dog, it would not have been pretty.
22:08-22:10
And I mean for the dog.
22:12-22:14
But you see, that was something that I went after with zeal.
22:15-22:18
That was something that in the moment, I'm like, I'm fired up for this!
22:21-22:22
Imagine that sentiment.
22:23-22:25
And multiply it by infinity.
22:25-22:29
And when you say, Lord, don't You see the injustice that's going on in the world?
22:29-22:31
Aren't You going to do something about this?
22:31-22:35
And your Bible says, The zeal of the Lord of hosts is going to do this.
22:36-22:38
The Lord is chomping at the bit.
22:40-22:41
Bring justice.
22:42-22:43
It hasn't happened yet.
22:45-22:46
And it's going to happen.
22:47-22:51
Bring ultimate justice into a broken world, God's not just going to do it, he's going to do it.
22:52-22:53
With zeal.
22:55-23:08
As we close, you know, if you're here today and you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I need to remind you that God's incomparable justice demands that He punishes sin.
23:10-23:15
God is incomparably holy as we saw last week, but He's also incomparably just.
23:17-23:23
So if you've ever sinned against God, even if you've only ever sinned one time in your life, then you're a sinner.
23:25-23:28
And you deserve God's wrath.
23:29-23:33
I deserve - by nature - I deserve God's wrath.
23:34-23:39
The Bible tells us that if we broke in God's law at one point, we're guilty of the whole law.
23:39-23:41
I want you to think about that.
23:42-23:47
Imagine that you committed some crime and had to go to court here.
23:48-23:59
And when you showed up in court, the judge pulled out your file and he says, "Oh, I see here that you are guilty of breaking every single law in the United States of America.
24:00-24:05
what you think would be your chances of the judge saying, "but you're free to go." You're guilty.
24:07-24:17
You see, we stand before a holy God clearly guilty of sin, and we have the audacity to think, well, he's just going to overlook that.
24:18-24:26
That wouldn't make God incomparably just if He was willing to overlook our rebellion in the face of a holy God.
24:28-24:29
You see, this is the good news.
24:30-24:34
This is what brings us to celebrate and to worship God and His love made away.
24:35-24:42
That this Jesus Christ who will rule on the earth eventually - He already came once, and it was to pay the penalty for your sin.
24:44-24:46
So God demands payment to be made.
24:48-24:54
And if you're sitting here today and you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I need to tell you that you have two options.
24:56-25:01
You can either pay the penalty yourself, is eternal separation from God.
25:03-25:07
Or you can accept the payment that was made on your behalf.
25:08-25:21
When Jesus Christ on the cross bore God's wrath for you and for me in an act of mercy and grace, Jesus Christ completely satisfied God's justice.
25:23-25:24
Church, the day is coming.
25:25-25:28
The day is coming when war is over.
25:29-25:32
The incomparable King rules with perfect justice.
25:33-25:35
And God will make all things right.
25:36-25:37
Are you ready for that?
25:41-25:44
Father in Heaven, that's Ralph God.
25:46-26:02
When we just hear story after story after story of injustice and oppression and violence, it's easy for us in the flesh when we take our eyes off of You and take our eyes off of Your Word and start to look purely at the circumstances.
26:04-26:09
When we're more concerned about what CNN says than what Your Word says, it's easy for us to get discouraged.
26:10-26:13
I pray today, Father, is a day of encouragement.
26:14-26:21
That Your Word very clearly tells us that You are so fired up to bring justice to the world.
26:23-26:24
Why hasn't it happened yet?
26:25-26:26
It's really not my business.
26:27-26:30
Because your timing is perfect and there's a reason.
26:31-26:33
There's a reason that you're waiting.
26:34-26:37
And we know, Father, in the meantime, it doesn't affect our mission.
26:37-26:41
We are still called to be passionate worshipers of Jesus Christ.
26:41-26:59
We are still called to be witnesses in the power of Your Holy Spirit, to love this lost and dying world with the love that You pour into us and flow out of us - While we wait, let us not just wait idly by.
27:01-27:06
Let us wait, completing the mission that You put before us.
27:09-27:09
We thank You, Father.
27:11-27:17
We thank You, Father, for the day ahead, when You make all things new.
27:20-27:26
And we live under a King who is incomparably just.
27:27-27:30
Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
27:31-27:31
Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Isaiah 9:1-7

If justice is coming eventually, what should we do in the meantime? Read 1 Peter 2:21-23. What does this passage say about how we should deal with injustice (especially the end of 1 Pet 2:23)?
Read 1 Timothy 2:1-2. How can we pray for blatantly wicked leaders?
How can you encourage someone dealing with the misery of injustice?

Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

February 21, 2016

Incomparable God.

Incomparably Holy.

Jeff Miller

February 21, 2016

Incomparable God.

God's Holiness Defines Him and Changes Me.

God's holiness Defines Him. (Is 6:1-4)

God's holiness Changes me. (Is 6:5-8)

Encountering His holiness Breaks me. (Is 6:5)

When I am broken, I am ready to be Cleansed. (Is 6:6-7)

When I am cleansed, I am ready to Serve Him. (Is 6:8)

5 Signs That Indicate That You're Not Broken:

"I'm not that bad."

"I'm not as bad as..."

"I intend to stop this sin...sometime."

"God understands why I have to do this."

"I'll clean up my act, then I'll come to Jesus."

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:07
We're going to be kicking off a new series starting today, and this will take us actually through Easter.
00:09-00:13
Our series is going to be six messages through the book of Isaiah.
00:15-00:24
And while you're turning there, many of you know last November I had the opportunity to go to Thailand and do some work over there.
00:25-00:27
We held a Bible conference with a missionary friend of mine.
00:29-00:41
The first day that we were there, we were actually heading up to the mountain villages and we had stopped for breakfast at this little roadside diner.
00:43-00:48
And not speaking the language and not knowing what was what, I went safe.
00:48-00:57
I had, it was rice and there was like some shredded chicken on top of that and then there was a fried egg on top of that.
00:58-01:00
sort of like a circle of life type meal.
01:00-01:03
You've got the egg and the chicken on the same plate.
01:03-01:12
And so we're sitting there eating, and my missionary friend has an adult daughter who I knew from when she was over here in the States.
01:12-01:15
She went to school over here, and she speaks very good English.
01:16-01:26
But on her plate, she had this pinkish purple stuff that was-- it looked like it was opaque.
01:27-01:31
and a big cylinder of purple-pink stuff.
01:33-01:36
And I said, what do you have there?
01:38-01:39
She said, oh, this is my favorite breakfast.
01:40-01:41
I said, well, what is it?
01:42-01:45
And she leaned over to her mom and said something in Thai.
01:45-01:47
And her mom said something back.
01:47-01:51
And she said, how do you say it?
01:53-01:55
It's coagulated chicken blood.
01:57-02:01
She said, it was actually supposed to come with your meal.
02:01-02:06
I'm like, well, obviously, because we're one beak away from reassembling the chicken here.
02:08-02:13
She said, it was actually supposed to come with your meal, but my mom told them not to give you the chicken blood.
02:13-02:15
She said, would you like to try it?
02:16-02:21
And I said, well, I didn't sit 21 hours on an airplane to not try coagulated chicken blood.
02:23-02:25
But before I tried it, you know the question that I asked her.
02:25-02:26
What did I ask her?
02:27-02:30
I said, what's it taste like?
02:31-02:35
And I came back and people asked me, did you eat anything weird over there?
02:35-02:36
And I told them about the coagulated chicken blood.
02:37-02:40
And the number one question I always get asked is, what was it like?
02:41-02:42
Do you want to know what it was like?
02:44-02:44
You want to try some?
02:45-02:47
It actually tasted a bit like liver.
02:48-02:54
If you can imagine liver in pudding jello form, It tasted like that, only way nastier.
02:55-02:56
But what was it like?
02:56-02:57
I get asked that a lot.
02:57-02:57
What was it like?
02:57-02:58
What was it like?
02:59-03:03
And Aaron and I went to Orlando a few years ago for a pastor's conference.
03:04-03:06
And we ate alligator.
03:07-03:09
And people say, well, what was it like?
03:09-03:10
What was it like?
03:10-03:13
And alligator is actually like greasy chicken.
03:14-03:16
Anybody else ever eat alligator?
03:16-03:17
OK, some of you have.
03:18-03:18
Not bad.
03:20-03:25
But we constantly are asking the question, a lot of it circling around food, "What's it like?
03:26-03:28
What's it like?" And I was thinking about that this week.
03:28-03:33
You know, when we eat chicken, if somebody never had chicken before and they asked you what it tasted like, what would you tell them?
03:34-03:36
But we're constantly making these comparisons.
03:36-03:36
What's it like?
03:38-03:40
Somebody recommends to me a TV show.
03:40-04:11
"Hey, you need to watch this TV show," I ask, "Well, what's it like?" Or, "Hey, you need to check out this new music." "Well, what's it like?" Or, "Hey, did you see this movie? I really enjoyed it." "Well, was it like the first one that came out?" And always asking, "What's it like? What's it like?" Well, the name of this sermon series is "Incomparable God." And this sermon series comes from one verse, and I want us all to memorize this verse over the next six weeks.
04:13-04:14
But the whole series comes from one verse.
04:14-04:31
Isaiah 46.5 that says - this is the Lord speaking - He said, "To whom will you liken Me and make Me equal and compare Me that we may be alike?" God is saying what would you compare Me to?
04:31-04:33
Who would you compare Me to?
04:33-04:36
Is there anything that you could compare Me to?
04:38-04:40
God is described in a lot of ways.
04:42-05:00
The one word that we're really going to be in this series, the one word from Isaiah 46, 5 we're really going after is the word "incomparable." God is incomparable. So if you're in Isaiah chapter 6, we're going to look at the text here in a second, but I want to give you a little background.
05:01-05:17
You can read about the ministry of Isaiah in the book of 2 Kings chapter 16 through 20. Isaiah was actually considered Israel's greatest prophet, And Isaiah preached to kings, and Isaiah preached to commoners.
05:19-05:26
He was a prophet actually specifically to Judah, and Isaiah is quoted in the New Testament somewhere around 65 times.
05:27-05:30
Way more than any other prophet from the Old Testament.
05:31-05:37
And when we look at the text here, Isaiah is immediately going to mention a king, Uzziah.
05:37-05:41
And I need to give you a little background on the king, because it's going to help set the stage for our text.
05:41-05:47
But Uzziah was the king of Judah and he actually reigned 52 years.
05:49-05:51
And he started when he was 16.
05:52-05:53
Does anybody here that's 16?
05:54-05:56
Close to 16, 15-ish?
05:56-05:57
Raise your hand.
05:57-05:58
Okay, we have a few of you.
05:59-06:00
What are you doing with your life?
06:03-06:06
Uzziah was the king of Judah when he was 16.
06:06-06:07
What are you doing?
06:09-06:10
hopefully staying in school, kids.
06:13-06:15
But he reigned for 52 years.
06:15-06:19
And during his reign, he brought wealth and peace and security.
06:19-06:25
And he brought the best days of Israel since the days of Solomon.
06:25-06:32
But as often happens in these types of scenarios, he became very prideful.
06:32-06:35
You can imagine what a 52-year run would do to somebody.
06:35-06:37
He became very prideful.
06:38-06:40
And he died in 739 B.C.
06:41-06:43
because he crossed the line.
06:43-06:50
He was attempting to do priestly duties and the Lord made it clear, only priests do priestly things.
06:50-06:51
You're not a priest.
06:51-06:56
And he crossed the line and the Lord struck him with leprosy.
06:57-06:59
You can read about that in 2 Chronicles 26.
07:00-07:05
Well, his death understandably brought fear.
07:05-07:17
You see, at this point in Israel's history, You had the Assyrians and you had the Babylonians on the horizon and you had all these nations - there was this international threat looming.
07:18-07:24
And this king that reigned for 52 years brought so much peace and security to your country, suddenly he's dead.
07:26-07:30
And the nation was saying, now what's going to happen?
07:32-07:34
What was the culture of Isaiah's day?
07:36-07:42
Isaiah's day was a time of self-indulgence, and empty religion, and rampant immorality.
07:44-07:48
I was studying that this week and I thought, wow, that sounds familiar, doesn't it?
07:49-07:53
A culture that is content with empty religion.
07:54-07:57
A culture that has embraced immorality.
07:57-08:00
A culture that is so self-centered.
08:02-08:09
A culture that has huge question marks concerning the political landscape of the nation.
08:09-08:10
Does that sound familiar to anybody else?
08:13-08:23
Without making this a political thing, everybody I talk to has huge concerns over the upcoming election.
08:25-08:29
Huge question marks concerning what's going to happen with our nation.
08:29-08:32
Because if this person gets elected, it looks like the country could go this way.
08:32-08:36
But if this person gets elected, it It looks like things could go this way.
08:36-08:43
Huge question marks concerning the political landscape of our nation, just like in Isaiah's day.
08:43-08:48
And it's easy to fall into fear and despair.
08:49-08:54
We don't seemingly have much, if any, control over those things.
08:54-08:57
And what's going to happen if so-and-so gets in office and this happens?
08:58-09:03
And for some people, they fall into what we would call exasperated indifference.
09:03-09:04
Like, oh, it doesn't matter anyways.
09:07-09:20
Well, like Isaiah, what we need in this culture of immorality and empty religion and concerns over the political landscape, what we need is a fresh encounter with God.
09:21-09:23
That's exactly what happened to the prophet.
09:23-09:25
Look at Isaiah 6.
09:26-09:28
Here's the main point for the day.
09:30-09:36
God's holiness defines Him and changes me.
09:38-09:43
If you're taking notes, first of all, as advertised, God's holiness defines Him.
09:45-09:45
Look at verse 1.
09:46-09:50
Isaiah says, "In the year that King Uzziah died..." See why that's important?
09:51-10:03
"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, The train of His robe filled the temple.
10:06-10:12
Like the Apostle John in the book of Revelation, Isaiah was transported to the temple in heaven.
10:13-10:16
You're like, "Well, I didn't know there was a temple in heaven." There absolutely is.
10:16-10:26
If you read the book of Revelation, the Bible says that there is a temple in heaven, and in fact, the earthly temple was to be modeled after the heavenly temple.
10:29-10:33
Isaiah says that the train of his robe filled the temple.
10:33-10:38
And these days, the length of the king's robe is greatness.
10:39-10:45
Isaiah saw the Lord - the train of His robe actually filled the entire temple.
10:47-10:48
So you see the point here.
10:49-11:03
The king Uzziah died, and Isaiah saw the actual real king on the throne at a time of potential political unrest, the message to Isaiah was crystal clear.
11:04-11:07
God is still in control.
11:08-11:10
That's what Isaiah needed to see.
11:12-11:16
Was that the Lord was still seated on His throne, still high and lifted up.
11:18-11:20
Church, that's what we need to be reminded of.
11:22-11:23
God is still in control.
11:25-11:32
Do you realize in a hundred years the earth is going to be populated by entirely different people?
11:32-11:33
Did you ever think about that?
11:35-11:49
If Christ tarries in His return, if things are going as they are in the next hundred years, the earth will be populated by all different people, including all different world leaders.
11:51-11:58
I read a stat this week - I didn't have time to really check it out - turnover in world leadership is 100%.
12:01-12:10
But God remains alive and active and seated on the throne, ruling every molecule of the universe.
12:10-12:11
I love this.
12:11-12:12
From a seated position.
12:13-12:15
Do you see how awesome God is?
12:15-12:18
God's not running around frantic and "Oh, can't you see I have died?
12:19-12:23
Well, I guess I caused all these problems here." That's not God.
12:23-12:34
God is seated, ruling everything simultaneously in the universe in a resting position.
12:36-12:42
Verse 2 says, "Above Him stood the seraphim." What are seraphim?
12:42-12:44
Those are angels.
12:44-12:51
It actually comes from the Hebrew word that means "to burn." One of them stood to serve him.
12:51-12:52
Each had six wings.
12:54-12:58
With two he covered his face." That's reverence.
12:59-13:05
To be in the presence of God, they had to cover their faces.
13:08-13:11
To shield themselves from His awesomeness.
13:13-13:18
It says with two wings, with two he covered his feet.
13:20-13:21
That's humility.
13:23-13:33
It reminds you of Exodus 3 when the Lord told Moses to take his shoes off because he was standing on holy ground.
13:33-13:35
Joshua 5 - same thing.
13:36-13:38
You're standing on holy ground.
13:39-13:40
That's humility.
13:41-13:48
And it says, "And with two, he flew." That's service.
13:48-13:56
these incredible, angelic beings in the presence of the Lord, serving the Lord.
13:59-14:09
It says, "And one called to another and said, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
14:10-14:19
The whole earth is full of His glory.'" Holy three times.
14:19-14:24
That was a Jewish figure of speech to repeat a word like that.
14:25-14:26
Usually it was twice.
14:26-14:33
Remember, Jesus, when He would teach, oftentimes He would say, "Truly, truly, I say to you..." It was a figure of speech.
14:33-14:40
Or "Amen, amen, I say to you." Or "Verily, verily, I say to you." That was a figure of speech that meant this is very important.
14:41-14:46
And here, God's holiness is being emphasized.
14:48-14:53
Not once, not even twice, which was the norm, but three times.
14:55-15:01
The Bible doesn't say that God is love, love, love.
15:01-15:01
God is love.
15:02-15:07
But love is never communicated with the triplicate form in this way.
15:08-15:13
The Bible doesn't say God is wrath, wrath, wrath.
15:13-15:18
God is a God of judgment and wrath, but the Bible doesn't communicate it that way.
15:18-15:30
The only word that the Bible uses in this triplicate form to describe God is the word "holy." And it happens again in Revelation 4 in verse 8 when John was in the throne room.
15:31-15:32
Same song was being sung.
15:33-15:45
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord." Holiness is the defining characteristic of God.
15:47-15:48
So what is holiness?
15:50-15:53
Holiness is not organ music and stained glass.
15:54-15:55
There's nothing wrong with that stuff.
15:56-15:58
But that's not holiness.
15:58-16:02
The word is actually used over 600 times in the Bible.
16:02-16:14
The Old Testament Hebrew word is "kadesh." The New Testament Greek word is "hagios." And there's really no term that's equal with either word.
16:15-16:18
That's why this is a tough message to communicate.
16:18-16:25
You see, when we talked about marriage, we can conceptualize marriage with man and woman and God's picture.
16:25-16:26
We talked about witnessing.
16:27-16:30
We can conceptualize taking this Gospel message and telling somebody.
16:31-16:36
But when we talk about holiness, There's nothing that I can compare that to.
16:37-16:38
There's no other equivalent.
16:39-16:43
Because the word literally means set-apartness.
16:44-16:46
Set-apartness. That's what it means.
16:47-16:52
It means that God is different.
16:53-16:54
He's set apart.
16:57-17:00
If I asked you, what is like God?
17:00-17:01
An angel?
17:02-17:03
Me?
17:04-17:07
or my dog, which one of these is like God?
17:07-17:08
What's the answer?
17:09-17:10
That's a trick question.
17:11-17:12
The answer is none of the above.
17:12-17:13
Right?
17:13-17:15
Because there is nothing like God.
17:16-17:16
Nothing.
17:18-17:20
Isaiah 46.5 - what did we see?
17:20-17:24
To whom will you liken me and make me equal and compare me that we may be alike?
17:25-17:26
What's the answer to that?
17:27-17:28
Nothing.
17:29-17:42
It's God's very nature set apart from everything everyone, his sovereignty, his righteousness, his majesty, his his awesomeness and his purity and his perfection.
17:43-17:49
And you can take all of those and and encapsulate them in one concept.
17:49-17:52
And the word is God is holy.
17:54-17:57
That's why when Jesus was teaching us to pray, do you know the Lord's Prayer?
17:58-18:00
Our Father in heaven, what's the next line?
18:01-18:02
Hallowed be your name.
18:02-18:04
What's "hallowed" mean?
18:04-18:07
I used to think it meant it was hollowed out like a log.
18:07-18:08
That's not what that means.
18:09-18:11
The word "hallowed" just means holy.
18:11-18:14
Jesus said when you pray, your prayer should start with this.
18:15-18:17
Father in Heaven, You are holy.
18:18-18:25
You are set apart and different than anything in the universe - seen and unseen.
18:26-18:28
Look at v. 4. Here's the reaction.
18:31-18:42
and the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of Him who called, and the house was filled with smoke." That's the reaction.
18:43-18:44
The very presence of God.
18:45-18:47
God is a consuming fire.
18:47-18:51
God is not someone that we toy around with or think lightly.
18:52-18:55
He's holy and exalted above all things.
18:56-18:57
God's holiness defines Him.
19:00-19:01
I can only jot this down.
19:01-19:03
God's holiness changes me.
19:05-19:08
God's holiness changes me.
19:10-19:17
Every once in a while, you read about these preachers that say that they see the Lord.
19:18-19:23
And my answer to that is, "No, you didn't." Like, well, how do you know that?
19:25-19:33
I read this goofy guy was saying Every morning while he's brushing his teeth, Jesus comes into the bathroom and like hangs out with him.
19:34-19:35
What are you talking about?
19:36-19:37
I call baloney on that.
19:38-19:40
I don't think that that happens to anybody.
19:40-19:42
You know, Jesus hangs out in the bathroom with him.
19:42-19:43
Come on.
19:44-19:45
Like, well, how are you so sure?
19:45-19:46
Well, here's how I'm sure.
19:47-19:54
While Jesus was on the earth doing his ministry, during his three years of ministry, who would you say his best friend on the earth was, his BFF?
19:54-19:56
It was probably the apostle John, right?
19:57-20:02
John spent as much or more time with Jesus than anybody.
20:02-20:05
He was known as the disciple whom Jesus loved.
20:05-20:08
He was the one at the Last Supper who was leaning on Jesus.
20:09-20:12
Jesus and John were extremely tight.
20:13-20:19
In Revelation 1, Jesus in His glorified form shows up to His best friend John.
20:19-20:20
And what's John's reaction?
20:21-20:26
He passed out, fainted before the awesomeness of the glorified Jesus Christ.
20:27-20:42
What that tells me is if Jesus' best friend that spent three years with Him constantly fell down in awe of the presence, why would I think that some joker in Topeka, Kansas has Jesus in his bathroom while he's brushing his teeth?
20:43-20:44
I'm not buying it.
20:46-20:57
So, we might not have the vision that Isaiah or John had, but we still experience the presence of the Lord, don't we?
20:58-21:10
When we come under the teaching of His Word, when God's Holy Spirit is at work and ministering to us, there is a real sense in which we're coming into God's presence.
21:11-21:15
And when we do, God's holiness changes me.
21:16-21:17
How does that happen?
21:18-21:22
First of all, letter A, encountering His holiness breaks me.
21:23-21:24
Look at v. 5.
21:25-21:29
And Isaiah says, "And I said, 'Woe is me, for I am lost!
21:29-21:43
For I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.'" When you read the Old Testament prophets, they had really two favorite words.
21:43-21:47
One word was "blessed." That was happy, successful, prosperous.
21:47-21:49
You'll be blessed if you do this.
21:49-21:54
But they had another favorite word, and the word was "woe." That was a word of judgment.
21:55-22:03
That's what Isaiah - immediately upon encountering the holiness of the Lord, he says, "Woe is me!" He's pronouncing a curse on himself.
22:04-22:10
Saying I'm standing in judgment right now because I am in the presence of the Almighty.
22:12-22:17
He says next, "For I am lost." I am lost.
22:17-22:28
That word could also be translated "destroyed." Just picture a drinking glass falling to the floor and on impact, shattering into hundreds of pieces.
22:28-22:29
That's the picture.
22:30-22:38
Isaiah says, "I am shattered." I am shattered before the holy awesomeness of the Lord.
22:40-22:50
All that Isaiah sees and all that you're going to see when we encounter the Lord and His holiness is your defilement.
22:51-22:56
In Isaiah we say God is so holy, and I am so lost.
22:57-23:09
Imagine the criminal in prison going to court to be sentenced for his crimes, and he knows that that judge in the courtroom is just waiting to throw the book at this guy.
23:09-23:10
He knows he's guilty.
23:10-23:11
He knows the evidence.
23:11-23:17
He knows for a fact that when he gets to court, the judge is going to pronounce the sentence.
23:18-23:51
It's that feeling when that man walks into the courtroom a trillion or it's the feeling that your kids get when you tell them not to do something and you walk in the room and they're doing just what you told them not to do. How many parents have seen that look in your kids faces? Okay, how many kids have had that look in their face? I see some of you smiling like yeah, you know that look right? Parents you know that look. You walk in and they give you that look like I am so busted. We had that at our house one when Gordy was a puppy, Kate was trying to stuff him in the garbage can.
23:52-23:56
And I came around the corner and I recognized that look.
23:56-23:58
It is - I am so busted.
24:00-24:04
And it is that times a trillion.
24:06-24:08
Standing before the holiness of the Lord.
24:09-24:18
He said, "I'm a man of unclean lips." He didn't say, "Now that I stand in the holiness of the Lord, how rotten my spouse is.
24:18-24:21
Or my neighbor is such a wicked sinner.
24:22-24:23
Notice it starts with this.
24:23-24:25
It's about you and your sin.
24:26-24:30
When you see God, you see yourself for who you really are.
24:32-24:34
And it gives you a true self-assessment.
24:34-24:38
And that assessment is this - I'm a wretched person.
24:39-24:41
It says I'm a man of unclean lips.
24:41-24:44
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
24:45-24:46
What's the talk about the lips?
24:47-24:49
Well, your mouth is an indicator of the heart, isn't it?
24:50-24:52
Out of the abundance of the heart, what?
24:53-24:54
The mouth speaks.
24:55-25:00
And Isaiah here standing before the holiness of the Lord says first of all, it's about Him.
25:00-25:02
I'm a sinner.
25:03-25:06
His very next thought is, you know, that's my whole culture.
25:08-25:13
I live among a people who are sinners.
25:14-25:15
That's how it works.
25:15-25:17
You see it in yourself first, then you see it in the people around you.
25:19-25:20
You see it in yourself.
25:20-25:28
I'm a person full of lust and hate, and I can have such foul, evil attitudes.
25:28-25:31
I can have such a hateful spirit in me.
25:31-25:32
I can be crude.
25:33-25:34
I can be rebellious.
25:35-25:37
And I see that in me.
25:38-25:42
And then I look around and I'm like, I see that in all of us.
25:44-25:48
a humbling thing that utterly breaks you.
25:50-25:50
Let her be.
25:50-25:52
When I'm broken, I'm ready to be cleansed.
25:54-25:55
Have you truly been broken?
25:56-25:59
We can't really talk about this next part until we're sure that we've been broken.
26:00-26:01
Here's five signs that you're not broken.
26:01-26:05
I'm going to go through these very quickly because this is going to apply to some people.
26:05-26:07
These are five signs that you're not.
26:07-26:11
If you say any of these five things, you're not broken.
26:12-26:14
one is this, I'm not that bad.
26:16-26:20
Like, I don't know what Jeff was so fired up about today, because I don't really think I'm that bad of a person.
26:20-26:21
I don't think I'm that bad.
26:23-26:25
Somebody that says that is not broken.
26:25-26:31
Secondly, along the same lines, I'm not as bad as blank.
26:32-26:32
Like, you know what?
26:33-26:33
You're right.
26:33-26:33
I make mistakes.
26:34-26:35
I am a bad person.
26:36-26:37
But I'm not as bad as Tony.
26:38-26:39
And you know what?
26:40-26:46
When I look at my life, yeah, I have some regrets, but I look at Tony's life and I'm like, you know, I am so much better off than that guy.
26:47-26:50
And that's not what somebody that's broken says.
26:51-26:55
They're not comparing their wickedness with somebody else's because God doesn't.
26:57-26:58
We're the same in His eyes.
26:59-27:07
Number three, sign you're not broken, is when you say this, I intend to stop this particular sin, whatever it is, fill in the blank.
27:07-27:09
I intend to stop doing that sometime.
27:10-27:12
That's a sign of not being broken.
27:12-27:16
Like I know I shouldn't have this relationship.
27:16-27:19
I shouldn't have it.
27:20-27:22
I'm going to break that off sometime.
27:24-27:33
We have this really ambiguous plan about repentance that takes place someday in the future where maybe you're going to repent.
27:34-27:37
And that is not the sign of brokenness.
27:38-27:50
Number four, I've heard people say this, justifying their sin, they say this, "God understands why I have to do this." They're living in flagrant sin and you're trying to talk to them about it.
27:50-27:57
"Look, I know I probably shouldn't be doing this, but God understands." Like, oh, God gave you a hall pass on sin.
27:58-27:59
Did not know that.
28:00-28:06
Three years of Bible college and Harvest Training Center studying this book for the last 20 years, I completely missed that God does that for some people.
28:08-28:12
That you get to sin for free card was not aware.
28:14-28:15
Okay, sarcasm off.
28:15-28:18
That's not a broken person that says that.
28:19-28:20
Here's another sign that you're not broken.
28:21-28:28
Number five, is when you say this, "I'll clean up my act and then I'll come to Jesus." I realize what you're saying.
28:28-28:31
Let me get my act together and I'll come to Jesus.
28:32-28:33
you're never going to get there.
28:34-28:35
I'm telling you right now.
28:35-28:41
If you're waiting to clean your act up before you come to Christ, you are never going to come to Christ because you can't do it.
28:43-28:45
It shows a total lack of urgency.
28:47-28:49
It shows a total lack of brokenness.
28:50-28:55
See, brokenness is no excuses, no trivializing, no comparing myself to someone else.
28:56-29:08
Faith begins when you're utterly broken and you can't come to that place of faith until you get to the place where you say, "I am a sinner.
29:09-29:29
I am guilty of sin." That's why Jesus in giving the beatitudes in Matthew 5:3 started the beatitudes with this, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Jesus was talking about the progression of spiritual growth in life, but it has to start with being spiritually bankrupt.
29:29-29:30
I've got nothing in the tank.
29:31-29:32
I've got nothing in the account.
29:32-29:33
I am completely broken.
29:36-29:38
It's not just adding God to your resume either.
29:40-29:43
Several years ago, I had a mom call.
29:43-29:46
She had these two teenage sons.
29:47-29:55
And the mother called me and said, "Hey, my sons want to get baptized." I'm like, "That's fantastic!" So let's get together and talk about it.
29:55-29:57
I'd like to talk to them and I'd like to talk to you.
29:57-30:00
and she brought her sons to my office.
30:01-30:07
And I'm like, "Okay, so, question, "ask everybody that wants to get baptized." I'm like, "Tell me why you want to get baptized.
30:08-30:09
"Is this what you want to hear?
30:09-30:29
"Like, my adult sons want to get baptized?" I'm like, "Yeah." So I'm like, "All right, tell me why "you want to get baptized." And the one son goes, "Yeah, you know, "my grandma died a few months ago, "and it was really hard, and I look back, I thought, you know, must have been God that got me through that.
30:31-30:42
I'm like, "Okay, what about you young man? Why do you want to get baptized?" And his answer was, "You know, I was at church camp last summer, and all these kids were baptized.
30:44-30:47
And I look back on that now, and I think, you know what?
30:48-30:59
Maybe I should have gotten baptized too." Like, "Okay, well, why do you think you should have gotten baptized too?" And his answer was, "Well, because the other kids were." I was really like the only kid that didn't.
30:59-31:02
And I'm like, maybe, maybe, maybe I should have done it.
31:02-31:09
I sat with these kids for an hour, trying to talk to them, looking for any word like sin.
31:11-31:16
It got to the point, if they would have said the name Jesus, I would have felt like we're getting somewhere.
31:17-31:18
There was no mention of the cross.
31:18-31:31
There was no mention of born again, by giving your life to any term that goes with conversion or mentions the name of Jesus - not one mention of any of that.
31:31-31:32
It was all about Grandma and church.
31:33-31:37
I said, I'm not sure that you're ready to get baptized, but here's what I'll do for you.
31:37-31:46
If you want, you guys can come in here every week and I'd like to sit down with the Bible and tell you what it means to be baptized and what it means to come to saving faith in Jesus Christ.
31:46-32:00
I'll sit down with you every week and talk about that with you." Well, they got up and slammed the door and shouted a few words on their way out.
32:01-32:05
And I thought to myself, I live among a people of unclean lips.
32:07-32:10
See, the point is you don't just add God to your resume.
32:11-32:18
There was no sign of any kind of brokenness or understanding of the Gospel Jesus or the cross.
32:19-32:20
You have to be broken.
32:21-32:28
And when you are, when you're truly broken, you understand the need for grace and you're ready to receive it.
32:30-32:31
Look at verses 6 and 7.
32:31-32:33
"When I'm broken, I'm ready to be cleansed.
32:35-32:42
And one of the seraphim flew to me having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.
32:43-32:46
And he touched my mouth and said, 'Behold, this has touched your lips.
32:47-32:51
Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.
32:53-33:00
So you have Isaiah broken, experiencing guilt, taken away and atonement.
33:02-33:11
Church, when we are broken over our sin, we experience something so much greater than even what Isaiah experienced in this passage.
33:12-33:14
Because we live on this side of the cross.
33:16-33:21
We live in the period of history after Jesus finished His work.
33:23-33:30
So, Isaiah had his guilt atoned for.
33:31-33:32
His guilt taken away.
33:32-33:33
Your sin atoned for.
33:34-33:36
Isaiah was atoned for.
33:36-33:38
We have something much greater.
33:41-33:50
Because the Bible tells us because of Jesus Christ completed work on the cross, our sin is taken away, and God gives us His very righteousness.
33:52-34:15
2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." Philippians 3:9, Paul says, "Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ." You see, the thing that God offers us He doesn't have to atone our sin.
34:15-34:18
He gives us His very righteousness.
34:19-34:22
More than cleansing, we get transformation.
34:25-34:26
God's righteousness put on my account.
34:28-34:32
So when I'm broken, I'm ready to be cleansed.
34:32-34:43
I'm ready to throw myself at the mercy of this God that I've sinned against to find that He's already done the work to restore me through Jesus Christ.
34:45-34:52
And finally for today, when I am cleansed, I am ready to serve Him.
34:53-34:55
When I am cleansed, I am ready to serve Him.
34:58-34:59
Look at verse 8.
35:00-35:06
"And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send?
35:07-35:20
And who will go for us?' And I said, "Here am I. Send me." Cleansed and ready for service, Isaiah now really has something to testify.
35:22-35:29
He didn't go out as some Bible scholar ready to conjugate Hebrew verbs.
35:31-35:41
He went out as someone who experienced God's cleansing and God's forgiveness to the same people that he had just said in the exact same position that he was in.
35:42-35:49
He was going out to a people - preaching message people - that would say, well, can God really forgive my sin?
35:49-35:52
Can God really restore me?
35:53-36:01
See, Isaiah can now say, you know what, He can and He will, and I know this for a fact because I just experienced it personally.
36:02-36:04
And that's the motivation for ministry, isn't it?
36:06-36:12
Not obligation or I'm going to get involved because I hope I meet a nice church girl there, or guilt.
36:14-36:16
None of those are motivation for ministry.
36:17-36:17
It's this.
36:18-36:27
I want other people to experience what I've experienced, and I will do my part to allow God to use me to reach others.
36:29-36:32
When I'm cleansed, I'm ready to serve Him.
36:34-36:36
So when I encounter God, I'm broken.
36:36-36:38
And when I'm broken, I'm ready to be cleansed.
36:38-36:42
I'm cleansed, I'm ready, now I'm eager to serve Him.
36:45-36:46
Because holiness defines God.
36:47-36:48
And it changes me.
36:50-36:53
But we're going to be going to the Lord's table today.
36:55-37:06
This is an extremely appropriate way to end studying this particular passage because the Lord's table takes us back to our cleansing moment, doesn't it?
37:08-37:12
See, you're not going to be touched by a burning coal.
37:14-37:16
You've been touched by the blood of Jesus Christ.
37:17-37:22
Jesus has always been in the business of restoring broken sinners.
37:22-37:28
In fact, this is the thing that blows my mind about this passage we studied more than anything.
37:30-37:38
Jesus Christ in His glorified, pre-incarnate form was literally Isaiah saw in this passage.
37:38-37:39
Did you know that?
37:40-37:41
I brought this reference down.
37:41-37:49
John 12:41 John was commenting on how Jesus fulfilled prophecy in Isaiah.
37:50-37:51
And then he writes this in verse 41.
37:52-37:57
Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of Him.
37:59-38:03
This was none other than Jesus Christ that John witnessed.
38:04-38:06
seated on the throne, high and lifted up.
38:07-38:35
So as we come to the Lord's table today, let's once again encounter the holiness of God and see our own unworthiness with the basket and the grace that's been poured out on us, made righteous and ready to serve by the cleansing the transforming power of Jesus Christ.
38:35-38:36
Will you pray with me, please?
38:38-38:45
Our Father in Heaven, as we come to Your table, we can sort of see ourselves like Isaiah.
38:46-38:50
By nature, we are fallen people and we certainly live in a fallen world.
38:52-38:57
We are people of unclean lips and we live among people of unclean lips.
38:58-39:03
Father, we come to Your table remembering and thanking you.
39:05-39:16
Though our mouths were in touch with a burning coal as you did for Isaiah, you've reached out to us with something so much more precious and valuable.
39:18-39:20
Something that doesn't just atone sin.
39:20-39:26
Something that takes it away and transforms us.
39:28-39:29
the blood of Jesus Christ.
39:30-39:38
Father, as we examine Your holiness, we don't have a leg to stand on on our own.
39:39-39:46
We come to Your table rejoicing that You have given us the very righteousness of Yourself.
39:46-39:48
You've given us Your righteousness.
39:49-40:05
You see us as perfect as You are because of what Your Son accomplished place. Let us in awe of you once again, Father. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Isaiah 6:1-8

Why was it important for Isaiah to see God seated on the throne (Is 6:1)? Does this encourage you in light of our country’s current political scene?
In your own words, define “holiness”.
How does seeing God’s holiness affect man (see Is 6:5)? Why is that?
Upon encountering God’s holiness, Isaiah noticed first he was a “man of unclean lips” and he lived among a “people of unclean lips”. What does that mean, and how can you apply that to yourself and our culture?
Why did Isaiah need cleansed before he responded to the call to ministry? What does this say about you and I?

Breakout Questions:

Pray for God to grab each of us afresh with His holiness.

Jeff Miller

February 14, 2016

Power & Witness

The Power to Be a Witness

Jeff Miller

February 14, 2016

Power & Witness

Witnessing is Easy!

...When you are rightly Prepared. (Acts 4:13)

...When God’s Work is clearly Seen. (Acts 4:14)

...When you love God more than you Fear Man. (Acts 4:15-19)

...When you Remember what Jesus has done for You. (Acts 4:20-22)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:03
Open up your Bibles with me, please, to Acts chapter 4.
00:04-00:06
Acts chapter 4.
00:06-00:09
We're going to be picking up in verse 13.
00:11-00:24
And it was about three years ago or so, Taylor Brown was interning with us, and it was-- some of you guys were here, and you remember that-- and it was his first big opportunity to preach.
00:25-00:30
And Taylor Brown's grandfather came, And his name is Charlie Brown.
00:30-00:34
He was Charlie Brown before Charlie Brown was a thing, actually.
00:35-00:42
But on that particular morning, we had some extra guests and visitors coming to hear Taylor give one of his first big sermons.
00:44-00:52
And it was a morning that Cade was just sort of yammering at Aaron, just talk, talk, talk about this, that, and the other.
00:52-00:54
And Aaron was trying to talk to people.
00:54-00:56
And finally, Aaron had turned to Cade.
00:57-01:14
and she said, "Why don't you just go say good morning to someone?" So Cade immediately turned and walked right over to Taylor Brown's grandfather, walked right up to him and looked him in the eye and said, "Good morning. Oh wow, you are very old.
01:15-01:37
That's why Cade is no longer on the assimilation team." Well the truth is, well the truth is I have dozens of stories like that about Cade. But we're trying to teach him and we're trying to show him how he can grow in his relations with one another. And that's what we've been doing these past three weeks.
01:38-02:41
We've been talking about for us growing as witnesses for Jesus Christ. What do we do when we have opportunity to share the gospel of Jesus Christ? Just as a review, we're talking about this all year. Jesus said in Acts chapter 1 verse 8, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses." Jesus said that his Holy Spirit was going to come and dwell all believers so that we might be witnesses for him. And two weeks ago Peter showed us how to witness. We talked about making it clear. Your witnessing should be about God. We should be and you need to use God's Word and no matter what, never compromise.
02:41-02:45
And that's where we left off last week in Acts chapter 4 and verse 12.
02:46-03:11
Peter capped off his message to the religious leaders, you know, the people who are in the church, who were calling him to the carpet for preaching Jesus, Peter said, "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." There are really two big myths when it comes to witnessing.
03:12-03:19
And the first one we addressed last week, but for the people that say, "Well, you know, Witnessing is just not really my thing.
03:20-03:22
That's just not, that's not really my thing.
03:22-03:26
If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, witnessing is your thing.
03:26-03:29
That's why you have his power, so that you might be a witness.
03:30-03:35
But there's another big myth when it comes to witnessing, and the myth is this.
03:36-03:37
Witnessing's hard.
03:38-03:39
You know, witnessing's hard.
03:39-03:45
I just don't know what to say, and what if they ask me questions and I don't know the answer?
03:47-03:51
Well, it's a myth, because witnessing actually isn't hard.
03:52-03:59
The truth is, when you're walking with Jesus Christ, witnessing is a very natural thing.
03:59-04:01
That's what we're going to see in our text today.
04:02-04:05
If you have your outline, witnessing is easy.
04:06-04:07
Witnessing is easy.
04:09-04:13
We are going to have to explain how that is, so we're going to let the Word of God show us.
04:13-04:15
First of all, look at verse 13.
04:16-04:44
"Witnessing is easy when you are rightly prepared." When you are rightly prepared, verse 13 says, "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished, and they recognized that they had been with Jesus." So witnessing is easy, first of all, when you're rightly prepared.
04:46-05:00
So here you have Peter and John, and this miracle is performed, and they're speaking with great authority, and they were people that didn't have any formal religious training, but they had incredible Bible knowledge.
05:01-05:05
This would have been déjà vu to these religious leaders.
05:06-05:10
Like, "Wait a minute, didn't we just deal with this?
05:10-05:19
Wasn't Jesus just this blue-collar guy that spoke with authority and knew the Word of God?" Well, the déjà vu really hit home.
05:19-05:33
Remember, two months prior, you can read about it in Matthew chapter 21, when Jesus was questioned about his authority, he said, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." He was speaking of himself.
05:34-05:39
Then Peter and John, when they were called out for preaching Jesus, Peter preached the same verse.
05:47-06:01
So these guys were, your Bible says, they were bold and they were astonishing, but yet they were uneducated and they were common.
06:03-06:04
How can all these things be?
06:06-06:09
Well, the key phrase, look at the end of verse 13, this is the key phrase.
06:10-06:11
They had been with Jesus.
06:13-06:23
It says they had been with Jesus, and that means a lot more than they were hanging out with Jesus, because isn't it true that when you spend time with Jesus, He changes you?
06:23-06:24
Have you noticed that?
06:25-06:29
When you spend time with Jesus Christ, He changes you.
06:31-06:33
You know, church, I went to Bible college.
06:34-06:36
I went to the Harvest Bible Chapel Training Center.
06:36-06:38
and others certainly value in education.
06:40-06:54
I have read a stack of books about how to witness and natural evangelism and inside the mind of the unchurched and you know how to share the gospel naturally.
06:54-06:59
And certainly there's value in reading all of these things.
07:00-07:02
But you got to mark this down.
07:02-07:10
Nothing, nothing prepares you to be a witness more than just being with Jesus Christ yourself.
07:11-07:19
That's what's going to prepare you in prayer, in worship, in his word, meditating on it.
07:19-07:20
It fires you up.
07:21-07:25
Nothing's going to prepare you for being a witness more than being with Jesus Christ yourself.
07:26-07:30
You know, it's sort of like, you know how it is when you watch Rocky?
07:30-07:34
We've all seen, how many of you have seen one of the like 12 Rocky movies?
07:34-07:35
You've seen Rocky, right?
07:36-07:48
Now if you're like me, when you're done watching Rocky, don't you feel like, "I'm going to be a boxer." Don't you feel like you could walk outside and whoop anybody?
07:48-07:50
How many people feel like that after you watch Rocky?
07:50-07:51
Don't lie, come on.
07:52-07:52
Totally.
07:53-08:00
You watch Rocky and you walk outside and you're just like, "Bring it!" I would get my tail kicked.
08:01-08:03
But you feel so fired up!
08:05-08:16
You see like one of those Fast and the Furious movies, and you get back in your Dodge Neon, and you're tearing out of the parking lot, and you're like, "That's not me!
08:17-08:21
I'm such a crazy, insane, good driver!" Anybody else?
08:22-08:25
How many people got a ticket pulling out from seeing that movie?
08:27-09:01
drivers right Amanda but you watch that movie and you sort of feel like I can so do that that is so me and um that's sort of the feeling you get when you go to a worship service or a baptism service you're leaving you're leaving church here haven't you ever felt like when you when you left church don't you just feel so fired up to witness like we're going to lunch and I'm telling that waitress about Jesus and you're just you're so excited about the gospel and about Jesus and about what he's done and you're just fired up.
09:03-09:03
Why is that?
09:04-09:06
It's because corporately we were just with him.
09:07-09:12
You know, we spend time in worship and we spend time praying together and we spend time in his word.
09:12-09:16
We spend time in his presence and it fires us up.
09:18-09:29
And that should be happening privately in your life as well, because nothing is going to rightly prepare you to witness better than spending time with Jesus.
09:30-09:35
I was talking to Mark Gort this week, he's one of our elders, and he was telling me he was studying 1 Corinthians.
09:36-09:41
And in 1 Corinthians 4.10, it says that we are fools for Christ.
09:41-09:45
And something that Mark was sharing with me that I just, I got a kick out of it.
09:45-09:51
He said the Greek word for fool is moros, which is where we get the word, anyone?
09:53-09:53
Moron.
09:54-09:59
In other words, we are common uneducated morons for Christ.
10:01-10:02
And you're like, speak for yourself.
10:03-10:06
And I'm like, I am speaking for myself, but I'm speaking for you too.
10:06-10:07
Look, you know what?
10:07-10:11
At the end of the day, the Bible just says we're morons for Jesus.
10:13-10:36
Or to say it more eloquently, another friend of mine says, "I'm just a nobody telling everybody about somebody that can change anybody." And when it comes to witnessing, Church, it's not about how many witnessing books you've read or how many Bible college degrees you have or how many Billy Graham training seminars you've attended and I have all my certificates framed and on the wall.
10:37-10:41
Hey, those things are great, but nothing prepares you to witness.
10:43-10:51
Like spending time with Jesus Christ yourself, that's what these men, these religious leaders recognize about Peter and John, like these guys have been with Jesus.
10:53-10:56
So witnessing is easy, easy when you're rightly prepared.
10:56-11:00
Secondly, witnessing is easy when God's work is clearly seen.
11:01-11:02
Look at verse 14.
11:04-11:13
Verse 14 says, "But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition." So do you have this scene?
11:14-11:15
Do you have the scene?
11:16-11:36
Here's all these religious leaders, and they're wearing their fancy-schmancy robes, and they got these two grungy fishermen, but also with them is this man who everybody knew was lame and was begging for years, standing there totally healed.
11:38-11:47
And their response in taking this whole scene in is, "I got nothing. I got nothing." What can you say?
11:48-11:52
What can you say when God is clearly at work? What can you say about that?
11:53-11:57
What can you possibly say in opposition when God is so clearly at work?
11:58-12:07
It's easy to be bold in our faith when God is at work, because it's hard to argue with real results.
12:08-12:18
You can imagine somebody coming into this cafeteria this morning and walking up saying, "You know, Jeff, you need to stop telling people that God is alive and that God is at work.
12:18-12:24
You need to stop telling people that." My response would be, "Look at what's happening.
12:25-12:32
Look at what's happening around the room." We haven't had anybody that was healed from being lame.
12:32-12:34
We don't have anybody like that in the church yet.
12:35-12:40
But we have an even greater miracle that took place in this church.
12:40-12:42
That's a testimony of changed lives.
12:43-12:45
Yeah, a guy that was lame, not walking, that's pretty cool.
12:46-12:56
I'll tell you what's even cooler, somebody that was dead in their sins and alienated from God, born again, alive in Christ, totally transformed, that's an even greater miracle.
12:57-13:36
and we have lots of testimonies about that you see people that can give testimony of sin being forgiven public professions of faith in baptism uh... hurts that have been healed needs it had been met it fires up your faith when you see god move i imagine it did for peter and john you know for these guys to be like you gotta stop with the jesus talk And here's the healed man standing right beside him and Peter and John are just like, we can't do that because God is very clearly at work and I can't shut up about that.
13:38-13:44
So our mission, like Peter and John, our mission is not just saying the message.
13:45-13:59
You know, I think sometimes when we think of witnessing and evangelism, we think it's It's just about getting this right message, this right presentation packaged, and we just give that out to people.
13:59-14:01
And it's more than that.
14:03-14:09
Discipleship is getting involved with people and seeing the effects of the message.
14:11-14:19
Like Peter and John, God gives us power to witness, and then we see God's power at work into lives of those we witness to.
14:21-14:25
And we realize that this isn't some detached conceptual message.
14:26-14:30
This is a message that transforms lives and that fires us up even more.
14:33-14:35
Greatest example of that is Jesus.
14:36-14:42
You know, for Jesus ministry, he didn't just run around telling everybody, hey, by the way, I'm God in the flesh.
14:42-14:51
FYI Let me tell you some things about the kingdom of heaven FYI, what do you see in Jesus ministry countless?
14:52-15:08
people being healed of blindness and deafness and leprosy and raising people from the dead and Feeding multitudes at least on two different occasions Jesus fed thousands of people. Why did he do all of those things?
15:09-16:15
Because you couldn't deny Jesus message when he was saying he came to love and to serve He backed it up So the God's work was clearly seen It's very hard to make a claim when you can't back it up But when you see God at work like these religious leaders saw God was very clearly at work Can't deny the message So witnessing is easy church first of all when you're rightly prepared secondly when God's work is clearly seen thirdly It's easy to witness when you love God more than you fear man When you love God more than you fear man Jumped down to 15, but when they had commanded them to leave the council they conferred with one another Okay, so these religious leaders are like, okay, we need to call a recess And they sort of whisked Peter and John away and said we need to huddle up What are we going to do?
16:16-17:14
Verse 13 talks about Peter and John's boldness when we talk about boldness. I mentioned this last week It's not boldness isn't being obnoxious or jerky You know, it's not bold to go to your neighbor's house and pound on their door and say hey, you're going to hell pagan You better repent that's not bold. That's that's obnoxious Boldness is simply this when God gives me opportunity to speak up. I'm going to open my mouth and I'm going to speak up Boldness doesn't mean you're not nervous It's okay to be nervous Pastor Jeff are you still nervous? I had somebody asked me that recently you nervous when you preach You've been doing it almost 20 years now. Are you nervous when you preach and the answer is every single time It's okay to be nervous boldness is despite my fears, despite my nervousness, I'm gonna speak up and I'm going to say, hey, let me tell you who Jesus Christ is and what he's about.
17:14-17:15
That's boldness.
17:16-17:20
So they call this recess, verse 15, what are we gonna do?
17:22-17:24
Verse 16, saying, "What shall we do with these men?
17:26-17:37
For that a notable sign has been performed through them as evidence to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it." See, that was the problem.
17:38-17:41
The problem was how evident the miracle was.
17:41-17:43
They're like, "We got a problem.
17:44-17:55
These guys are running around preaching Jesus, which is a big enough problem enough, but we can't easily refute their message because everybody knew about this man.
17:56-18:01
So what are we gonna do about this?" Look at verse 17 and 18.
18:01-18:01
Here's their plan.
18:01-18:02
You ready for this?
18:02-18:03
Here's their plan.
18:05-18:13
But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.
18:15-18:25
So they called them, they called Peter and John back, they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.
18:27-18:28
Like here's the plan.
18:29-18:38
We can't deny the miracle, so we're going to tell them They're forbidden to tell people about Jesus Christ.
18:38-18:39
It's kind of ironic.
18:39-18:42
In our day, we have to coax people to witness.
18:42-18:43
We have to encourage people.
18:44-18:45
Come on, speak up for Jesus.
18:45-18:46
Don't be afraid to witness.
18:46-18:48
That's a problem in our day.
18:48-18:50
In their day, they couldn't get these guys to shut up.
18:52-18:53
See, that was their plan.
18:53-18:55
Just, okay, here's the deal, guys.
18:56-18:58
We had a meeting and here's our ruling.
18:59-19:00
Stop talking about Jesus.
19:01-19:02
That's the ruling, okay?
19:03-19:03
That's the plan.
19:04-19:06
I love Peter's answer. Look at verse 19.
19:09-19:29
But Peter and John answered them, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you, rather than to God, you must judge." Peter's basically saying, "Okay, you say don't speak.
19:35-19:41
So, which one do you think God wants me to do?" There again, Peter put the ball back in their court.
19:41-19:43
He's like, "Guys, you see our dilemma.
19:44-19:47
You put a gag order on us, but God told us to proclaim the gospel.
19:47-19:54
So, which one do you think would be more honoring to God here?" Putting them back on defense.
19:56-19:57
And somebody at this point is like, "Wait a second.
19:59-20:09
If these religious leaders were also like the ruling body in Israel, like we talked about last week, shouldn't we always submit to the government?
20:11-20:13
Doesn't the Bible say we should submit to the government?
20:14-20:15
Yes, the Bible absolutely does say that.
20:15-20:17
Romans 13, Paul talks about it.
20:18-20:27
Peter himself right here, 1 Peter 2 and verse 13 says that we should submit to the government.
20:27-20:30
So the answer is, should we submit to the government? Yes, we should.
20:31-20:35
We should absolutely submit to the government, unless...
20:36-20:43
unless the government orders us to do something that violates the Word of God.
20:44-21:09
For example, if the government, if the United States government today said, "From now on, it's illegal to tell people that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation." I'd do what I've been doing for the last 20 years, because God has commanded this message to be preached.
21:11-21:20
So in that case, I would have to respectfully decline the command of the government, if something like that was forbidden.
21:21-21:31
If the government commands you to do something that God forbids, or the government forbids something that God doesn't forbid, God commands, in that case, you appeal to the higher authority.
21:31-21:33
That's what Peter was doing here.
21:34-21:35
Appealing to the higher authority.
21:36-21:46
Like, look, I know you're telling me to shut up, but somebody over you, somebody over you said that I'm supposed to speak up.
21:48-21:50
So you tell me which is proper.
21:53-22:01
So in that case you appeal to the higher authority and also in that case you have to decide which is stronger in your life, your love for God or your fear of man.
22:03-22:19
On one hand you have the God who loves you and purchased your salvation and indwells you and has all power and works all things for the counsel of his good versus willfully ignorant and wicked people who might persecute you because they don't like your beliefs.
22:21-22:22
Which one are you going to go with there?
22:25-22:27
Why is it such a hard decision?
22:27-22:30
Well, because we see the people.
22:32-22:34
That's why naturally we fear them.
22:35-22:36
We don't see God.
22:38-22:39
That's where faith comes in.
22:41-22:52
In times like this, when somebody in authority tells you to stop preaching the gospel, it's It's only by faith in God that you can continue to preach the gospel.
22:54-22:55
So which is stronger in you?
22:56-22:58
Is it love or is it fear?
22:59-23:01
In our flesh it's just fear.
23:03-23:12
I'd like to remind you 1 Timothy 1.7 says that God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control.
23:11-23:39
control yeah it can be scary but that's why God already supplied the power ahead of time you will receive power you'll be my witnesses and when we're doing it in God's power not our own that makes witnessing pretty easy and finally for today witnessing is easy when you remember what Jesus has done for you.
23:41-23:44
Witnessing is easy when you remember what Jesus has done for you.
23:45-23:51
Look at these last few verses. Peter says, "For we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.
23:53-24:04
And when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them because of the people for all were praising God for what had happened.
24:06-24:16
for the man on whom the sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old I looked at that last verse this week and I'm like what's that all about?
24:18-24:24
The man on whom the sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old Yeah, it's tough being a sports fan isn't it?
24:25-24:43
because when an athlete hits like thirty-five they talk about him like he's Methuselah you know, you heard that with the Super Bowl like Peyton Manning, they're like "Well, you know, he doesn't have much left in the tank because he is 39." I don't like hearing that.
24:45-24:46
So where was I?
24:46-24:51
Oh yeah, it's easy to witness when you remember what Jesus has done for you.
24:52-24:55
Verse 20 is actually a double negative in the Greek.
24:56-25:03
Literally, Peter says, "I cannot not speak." You're saying don't speak?
25:04-25:11
I cannot not speak. It is literally impossible for me to keep my mouth shut about Jesus.
25:12-25:15
And I would just like to remind you as we're coming down the homestretch here, do you remember?
25:18-25:28
Do you remember how you were when Jesus found you? Do you remember how you were? Do you remember discovering the grace, the love, the forgiveness?
25:30-26:04
Do you remember when Jesus made all things new in your life? Do you remember when your life suddenly had meaning because you realized that God who created you loves you and has a purpose for your life? Do you remember that? It happened to me. The immoral, foul, hungover, lost guy learned about the forgiveness and love of Jesus Christ. My life hasn't been the same. I've been keeping journals since I was 16. Not like every day, but just trying to highlight events.
26:04-26:07
And every so often, I just kind of go in and just break down what's happening.
26:08-26:10
Like I said, I've been doing that since I was 16.
26:10-26:11
And I.
26:12-26:14
I came to Christ when I was 20.
26:15-26:41
And I'm so thankful now that I started those journals before I came to Christ, because you can go back and read them and you can like see the page where it happened. And I go back and look at them, I don't even recognize guy that wrote this stuff before I came to Christ. I'm like, "Who wrote this?" It was me. It's in my handwriting. And the times that I wonder, you know, "What's God doing?
26:41-27:00
Is God at work? Has God really called me?" And I go back and look at that, and I can take you to the page back in 1995 when everything changed. And the things that I've seen God do since then. I have pages and pages and pages of answered prayer.
27:01-28:10
You know, I can tell you stories about, you know, when I thought Cade was going to die from the horse kick and Aaron was praying over him and not one broken bone. It was a miracle. Even recently, concerned about Aaron's health and the miraculous comeback she made from that. I could tell you stories of when we had the bank account was down to like seven cents and literally not two nickels to rub together and God came through with miraculous provision and I look back on my life and see so many times that the Lord has shown up in so many different ways and all I can say is the same thing that Peter says here. I cannot not speak about Jesus Christ. I can't deny what he's done in my life, so I can't shut up. No matter what that's going to cost me, I can't shut up, because I've had a front row seat of seeing him do some amazing things. And you know what?
28:11-28:21
So have you. That's one of the things I love when somebody becomes a member of the church and they sit down with one of our elders and myself, and they share their testimony with us.
28:21-28:23
I love hearing testimonies.
28:23-28:37
I love hearing testimonies, and I love seeing the joy in the people's faces when they say how they came to Christ and how they were in such a miserable place and how Jesus Christ changed and transformed and saved them.
28:37-28:40
I could listen to testimonies all day.
28:40-28:42
The power of God at work.
28:43-28:44
So don't forget.
28:46-28:51
You'll never forget who you were before Christ changed you.
28:53-29:04
So when the person comes along, whether it's now or whether it's down the road, when the person comes along and says, "Hey, hey, you've got to stop being so fired up about Jesus." You say, "I can't help it.
29:05-29:06
I can't help it.
29:07-29:10
I can't deny the effect that he's had on my life.
29:11-29:14
I have written documentation of the effect that he's had on my life.
29:14-29:43
I can't I can't deny I heard one person describe sharing the gospel sharing witnessing talking about it being natural they talked about witnessing this way they said you know evangelism is really just one beggar telling another beggar where he can find some bread and if you put yourself in that scenario imagine if you're a beggar and you found this place that says hey we have as much bread as we can give out.
29:43-29:45
Anybody who's hungry can come and get it.
29:45-29:50
Wouldn't you go and tell your beggar friends, "Hey, I found the answer to our problem.
29:50-29:54
I found a place where we can get fed." And that's the gospel.
29:55-30:00
That's when God takes us rotten, rebellious sinners and transforms us.
30:01-30:05
And then we go out and find other rotten, rebellious sinners and we're like, "Hey, we found the answer.
30:06-30:13
We found Jesus Christ and he can save you and he can change you." Witnessing is easy.
30:15-30:31
When you are a witness, when you're like Peter and John, when you've seen and heard and experienced the Lord in your own life, when you've seen His hand at work in others, you can say, you know, witnessing isn't something that I do.
30:34-30:36
Being a witness is actually what I am.
30:36-30:46
And when I'm being true to what I am, then I find that witnessing is easy.
30:47-30:47
Let's pray.
30:49-30:59
Father in heaven, we thank you so much for the example that you've set forth in your Word from Peter, that you've preserved for us, that we can go back and read these accounts.
30:59-31:12
such great encouragement, Father, to see that I think so many times we think that we have to be Bible college graduates or we have to have some kind of certification.
31:13-32:25
We don't see that in your Word. We see regular blue-collar fishermen that you used to turn the world upside down simply because they had been with Jesus, simply because they had stories of the way that Jesus Christ had changed them. They had seen too much and they have heard too much and they had they had witnessed too much about Jesus to even want to shut up about him. They'd seen too much. They couldn't stop speaking about Jesus. And Father I pray that for this church. I pray that we wouldn't be so consumed with these other things that we lose sight of God at work in our lives how you saved us how you changed us and how you continue to do that every day how you continue to transform us and grow us and mature us in our walks father I pray I pray father that we would cultivate that time with you in your word and in prayer and in private worship.
32:30-32:46
So that Father as we are nurturing this real relationship that we have with you, we're going to walk out of our doors and realize that witnessing is actually a very easy thing because it's the overflow of what you're already doing.
32:48-32:51
So Father, I pray for all of us, for myself and my brothers and sisters here.
32:52-32:53
Grow us.
32:55-32:59
Grow us as witnesses for Jesus Christ.
33:00-33:02
It's in His name that we pray.
33:03-33:03
Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 4:13-22

How did the religious leaders know Peter and John had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13)? How will people know YOU have?
Why do some people, like these religious leaders in this passage, refuse to accept Jesus even though they can’t deny the evidence of Who He is? Hint: See John 3:19.
Share some things that you have seen Jesus do in your life, or the lives of those around you, that you cannot deny (as Peter said in Acts 4:20).

Breakout Questions:

Pray for each person in the group, by name, to be a better witness. Take turns praying, pray for the person on your left, he prays for the person on his left, etc...

Jeff Miller

February 7, 2016

Power & Witness

The Power to Witness to Haters

Jeff Miller

February 7, 2016

Power & Witness

Haters are going to Hate...

...and they’ll Call You Out. (Acts 4:1-7)

How to Witness to Haters:

Put them on Defense! (Acts 4:8-10)

Use God’s Word! (Acts 4:11)

Don’t Compromise the Message! (Acts 4:12)

John 14:6 - ...no one comes the Father except through me.

1 Timothy 2:5 - For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus

John 3:36 – Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him.

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:04
Open up your Bibles to the book of Acts and chapter 4.
00:05-00:12
Acts chapter 4, we've been walking through the book of Acts this year, and really the book of Acts is about one thing.
00:12-00:16
It's a long book in your Bible, but it's really just about one thing.
00:17-00:20
It's about what Jesus said in Acts chapter 1, verse 8.
00:20-00:31
Jesus told his disciples, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, "and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
00:31-00:33
That's what the book of Acts is about.
00:33-00:35
Jesus said power is coming so that you may be My witnesses.
00:37-00:39
And immediately, the power came.
00:39-00:40
God's Holy Spirit came.
00:41-00:49
And the rest of the book of Acts is about God's people and the power of the Holy Spirit being witnesses for Jesus Christ.
00:49-00:51
And that carries on today.
00:52-00:57
So if you are - listen to this - because if you don't get this, the rest of the sermon's not going to mean much to you.
00:58-01:10
But if you are a true follower of Jesus Christ - a true follower, not "I'm a churchgoer." Well, I'm not Buddhist or whatever, so I guess I'm a Christian.
01:10-01:26
If you are a true follower, a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, the question is not "am I a witness?" The question is "what kind of witness am I?" Okay?
01:26-01:35
So, if you're sitting here today, you're like, "Well, I'm a Christian, but I'm not really a witness for Christ." That's impossible, according to the Bible.
01:36-01:43
That'd be like you sitting here saying, "Well, yeah, I'm a human being, but I'm not really a mammal." You are!
01:44-01:46
It's the very nature of what you are.
01:46-01:53
Jesus said the Holy Spirit has come so that we may be witnesses for Him.
01:53-01:56
So if you're a born-again believer, You are a witness.
01:57-01:59
What kind of witness are you?
02:00-02:05
Remember in Acts 3, we saw that Peter and John healed this lame beggar at the temple.
02:05-02:11
And in v. 10, everyone recognized this healed man and was amazed.
02:13-02:16
And last week, we saw that Peter showed us how to witness.
02:17-02:19
We saw how Peter made it really clear.
02:21-02:22
The Gospel's about God.
02:24-02:27
He talked about our guilt and God's grace.
02:27-02:30
And he showed us that a response is required.
02:32-02:33
Well, church, you're going to get a response.
02:35-02:40
And sometimes, much like Peter and John, the response that you get is going to be persecution.
02:42-02:44
I believe this is on your outline.
02:46-02:50
"Haters are going to hate." Is that on your outline?
02:51-02:54
That is actually the proper syntax for it.
02:54-03:09
You may more commonly know this phrase as "haters gonna hate." And in my undying efforts to stay relevant and fresh to the young people of the church, I take time to learn the vernacular.
03:11-03:15
"Haters gonna hate." How many people are familiar with the phrase "haters gonna hate"?
03:15-03:16
How many people have heard that?
03:17-03:20
How many people have never heard that phrase before just now?
03:20-03:22
Wow! Wow!
03:22-03:24
You've never heard "hater's gonna hate"?
03:25-03:25
Wow!
03:26-03:27
Alright, hands up again to people that have.
03:29-03:29
Okay.
03:31-03:31
Wow.
03:32-03:35
Well, I don't know where I first heard the term.
03:36-03:38
But it's just sort of become part of pop culture.
03:39-03:53
You know, when somebody shows disdain for something that you may be interested in, the phrase is, "Well, you know, he's a hater, and haters are going to hate, or haters gonna hate.
03:53-04:05
And again, in my devotion to you to stay fresh and relevant with the slang of the youth, I, alright, I googled this to see where it came from.
04:07-04:10
Do you know where this phrase was popularized?
04:11-04:12
If you know, shout it out.
04:13-04:15
Taylor Swift, right?
04:15-04:17
Taylor Swift, and what's the name of the song?
04:17-04:18
Who knows the name of the song?
04:19-04:20
What's the name of the song, Livvy?
04:21-04:22
"Shake It Off," that's right.
04:23-04:24
At least that's what Google said.
04:25-04:28
So Livvy and Google are on the same page there.
04:28-04:43
"Shake It Off." Well, maybe, Livvy, you didn't know this, but do you know Taylor Swift was sued in October by Jessie Graham, an R&B singer who claims that she stole that phrase from him?
04:44-04:51
Well, I don't know who said it first, But, it's true that haters are going to hate.
04:53-05:01
And you know, I wish everyone that we shared the gospel with was eager to hear it, or at least curious to hear it.
05:02-05:16
And I know when I was first called into the ministry, I thought, well, this is great, because Jesus is awesome, and Jesus loves people, and I love people, and people are going to love me telling them about Jesus.
05:18-05:21
And I found that that is not always the case.
05:22-05:37
I found that there are people - not only do they not want to hear it, but they're going to hate you because you want to share it.
05:39-05:42
You see, when we talk about witnessing, there's really two kinds of witnessing.
05:43-05:46
You witness to people that are interested, like we've seen so far in Acts, right?
05:47-05:48
Pentecost, Acts 3, you know the crowd.
05:50-05:58
And there's people who are going to challenge you because they hate the gospel, they hate the church, they hate Jesus, and they hate Jesus' followers.
05:59-06:00
And there is nothing new under the sun.
06:01-06:06
In fact, Acts chapter 4 records the first opposition to the church.
06:08-06:16
And as we go through Acts chapters 4 through 28, There's something like only three chapters in the rest of the book of Acts where there's not persecution mentioned.
06:17-06:20
So, buckle up.
06:22-06:23
Haters are going to hate.
06:25-06:29
Secondly, haters are going to hate and they'll call you out.
06:30-06:32
Church, you need to be ready for this. Some of you have been there.
06:33-06:35
If you haven't, you will be.
06:37-06:38
They're going to call you out.
06:39-06:48
You don't have to go look for people who hate the gospel, because we're going to see from the text, they're going to find you.
06:49-06:52
Okay, so let's kind of set the stage here with the text.
06:52-06:53
Look at Acts chapter 4, look at verse 1.
06:53-06:57
It says, "And as they were speaking to the people," that's Peter and John, right?
06:57-07:09
"And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them." The captain of the temple.
07:09-07:12
You know, the temple, they had like their own police force.
07:12-07:14
Their own security guard.
07:14-07:17
And this was the captain of that guard.
07:18-07:20
And the Sadducees.
07:21-07:22
Who were the Sadducees?
07:22-07:27
Well, the Sadducees were the dominant religious and political force in Israel.
07:28-07:33
You know, they were Jewish religious leaders who were also wealthy landowners.
07:33-07:34
And this was their deal.
07:35-07:38
They wanted to keep peace with Rome no matter what.
07:41-07:47
Because if Rome sensed any kind of a threat with the Jews, they could have come and taken these people's wealth and taken their land.
07:48-07:51
So the Sadducees were like, "Everything's okay here.
07:51-08:01
We kind of got our thing under Roman occupation, but let's not cause any problems." So they made peace with Rome under their occupation.
08:03-08:04
To protect themselves.
08:04-08:10
The Sadducees didn't believe in angels, they didn't believe in resurrection, they didn't believe that there was any kind of a spirit world.
08:10-08:17
In fact, they claimed that they really only believed the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, the books of Moses.
08:18-08:22
But when we walked through the Gospel of Mark, we saw that they didn't even really believe that.
08:23-08:27
In other words, these guys were the religious liberals of the day.
08:29-08:31
But they were also in the position of power.
08:31-09:08
Okay, so verse 2 says, "Greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead." Annoyed - this word also can be translated "pained." The Sadducees were like, "These guys are a pain in my neck because you're teaching something that we don't believe." These Sadducees were so fired up that these uneducated people were preaching what the religious leaders would have thought was a false doctrine, which is resurrection.
09:11-09:12
Here's another problem.
09:13-09:21
This teaching centered around a person - Jesus Christ - who they just executed two months ago at this point.
09:22-09:24
So you can imagine how fired up they were.
09:24-09:27
We thought we were done with the Jesus of Nazareth business.
09:28-09:35
finally put to rest, and yeah, there's some people saying He rose from the dead, but His ministry's done.
09:35-09:41
Now all of a sudden, crowds are gathering, and who's the name centered around the controversy?
09:41-09:42
Jesus again?
09:44-09:45
Come on!
09:47-09:56
Side note, one of the biggest reasons given for the hate on Christians - people say this - Christians are intolerant.
09:57-09:58
Christians are intolerant.
09:58-10:02
And I look at this passage and I say, well, who's being intolerant?
10:03-10:09
You notice, it's true in the text, but it's also true in the news, and it's going to be true in your neighborhood if it's not already.
10:11-10:15
There is no such thing as live and let live when it comes to Christians, right?
10:16-10:18
I have friends that believe differently than I do.
10:19-10:20
And that's okay.
10:20-10:22
I witness to them when I can.
10:22-10:30
I'm not forcing my beliefs on anyone any more than these apostles were.
10:30-10:34
They had a crowd gathered because there was a miracle and they were telling them about Jesus.
10:34-10:37
They weren't forcing anybody to do anything.
10:38-10:40
But you see, when it comes to Christians, there is no live and let live.
10:40-10:42
Like, I don't really believe that, but whatever.
10:42-10:47
When it comes to Christians, you guys need to shut your mouths with the Jesus talk.
10:48-10:49
Stop with the Bible stuff, ok?
10:49-10:50
We don't want to hear it.
10:51-10:52
I'm tolerant.
10:54-10:55
And the page - it's in the news.
10:55-10:58
It's happening in your neighborhood if it's not already.
10:59-11:00
It's coming.
11:01-11:01
Look at verse 3.
11:03-11:12
It says, "And they arrested them and put them into custody until the next day, for it was already evening." Technically, they weren't allowed to have trials at night.
11:13-11:16
Like, wait a minute, didn't Jesus' trial happen at night?
11:16-11:16
Yeah.
11:17-11:18
That was wrong.
11:18-11:19
What they did.
11:19-11:29
an exception for Jesus. So technically they weren't allowed to have trials at night, so since it was evening they took the two biggest leaders in the church, right?
11:29-11:38
Peter and John, and they incarcerated them. Good news, nothing stops the gospel.
11:38-11:48
Verse 4 says, "But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of men came to about 5,000.
11:50-11:57
My best understanding when you look at the original language, when it says the number came to about 5,000, that it's adding to Pentecost.
11:58-12:02
Saying 5,000 total at this point, according to the language.
12:02-12:03
But you understand the point.
12:04-12:05
The point isn't counting beans here.
12:05-12:14
The point is, the church is exploding, and even when you arrest the pastors, the church is still exploding because God is at work.
12:16-12:18
More people being saved.
12:19-12:22
About 2,000 more people from Pentecost saved.
12:23-12:24
Look at v. 5.
12:24-12:38
It says, "On the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes - the religious leaders also called the Sanhedrin - we'll talk about them in a second - is gathered together in Jerusalem." Time for the trial.
12:38-12:39
And look who's involved in v. 6.
12:40-12:41
This is interesting.
12:42-13:08
"Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high priestly family." So if you're familiar with your Bibles, and you look at this list of names, you could say, "Well, from an earthly perspective, things aren't looking very good for Peter and John." Annas, at this time, was the most powerful man in Israel.
13:09-13:12
Now, when this was being written, he wasn't technically the high priest.
13:13-13:16
His son Caiaphas was technically the high priest.
13:17-13:19
But it was sort of like, you know how we do with the presidents?
13:20-13:23
You know, once you're president, you keep the president name, right?
13:23-13:25
Like President Bush and President Clinton.
13:25-13:29
Out of respect for them having held that office, they're still referred to as the president.
13:30-13:31
That's how it was with the high priest.
13:32-13:35
So he was still referred to, Annas, as the high priest.
13:35-13:39
but another thing was this, Annas, he was controlling things behind the scenes.
13:42-13:49
His son might have been the one holding the office, but Annas was the one working behind the scenes.
13:49-13:53
In fact, John 18, Annas was a key figure in Jesus' trials.
13:56-13:57
So do you have the scene?
13:59-14:08
Here two months earlier, Annas and company thought that they had dealt with Jesus A few months later, Annison Company is still dealing with Jesus.
14:10-14:11
Look at v. 7.
14:13-14:20
"When they had set them in the midst..." They would form a semicircle and put them in the midst of them.
14:20-14:32
"When they had set them in the midst, they inquired, 'By what power or by what name did you do this?'" See the question?
14:34-14:39
What power or what name did you do this?
14:39-14:41
It really comes down to an authority issue.
14:42-14:43
It's an authority issue.
14:44-14:47
What gives you the right to do what you did?
14:49-14:50
What authority do you have?
14:51-14:56
You see, we talked about the Sadducees and the Sanhedrin and Annas and Caiaphas.
14:57-15:00
Today, we're just going to put them all in a category, and the category is haters.
15:01-15:03
Haters, obviously.
15:04-15:06
So these haters put them on the spot.
15:06-15:08
And this is serious business.
15:09-15:13
This Sanhedrin was basically Israel's Supreme Court.
15:14-15:27
And imagine, the Supreme Court of haters has these two evangelists on trial, and you think, well, maybe Peter and John are going to do a little damage control at this point.
15:30-15:32
It's going to happen to you at some point.
15:33-15:36
If you're a faithful witness for Jesus Christ, it's going to happen.
15:36-15:37
Somebody's going to call you out.
15:38-15:42
Somebody's going to say, "Were you telling people about Jesus?
15:43-15:44
Were you telling people about the Bible?
15:44-15:46
What gives you the right to do that?
15:46-15:50
Who do you think you are?" It's going to happen.
15:50-15:53
When you witness, you are going to attract haters.
15:53-15:56
When you witness, you are going to attract haters.
15:58-16:07
"Pastor Jeff, have you ever attracted haters?" "Everybody loves me." You know something I've learned is I am everybody's cup of tea.
16:08-16:09
That is so not true.
16:10-16:13
I was just jotting down some examples.
16:13-16:18
If you want to hear the whole story, buy me lunch, and I'll tell you all of these.
16:19-16:21
Actually, you might have to buy me lunch and supper if you want to hear all of them.
16:22-16:24
But if you want to hear them, buy me lunch.
16:24-16:26
I'll be happy to go to lunch with you.
16:27-16:28
I'll tell you the full version.
16:30-16:32
I'm going to give you a couple examples from my own life.
16:34-16:44
As a result to a letter to the editor that I sent to the newspaper some years back, I had a woman calling my house, demanding to meet with me.
16:45-17:06
And I said, "Why do you want to meet with me?" She says, "Because of what you teach, you are a dangerous man." tracked me down in my office and the letter was because some goofy doctor was saying you can't be a Christian and you can't be a scientist at the same time.
17:06-18:14
I sent a letter to the editor I'm like here's all the major branches of science that were founded by Christians and the list is like as long as your arm of sciences that were founded by Christians. I'm like so let's let's knock off the silly notion that Christians can't be scientists. In fact it looks like Christians invented science. And so this lady came after me for that. And it wasn't to share a muffin. I'll tell you the rest of the story if you buy me lunch. My wife and I were put on trial, literally trial, in the courtroom because we were accused of baptizing foster children that were under our care. We did not. We did not baptize them. We were accused. I was called to a meeting at the prison because I was accused of anti-catholic teaching in our Bible study. I was called out. "What is this that you're teaching?" I had some friends at church camp that I got involved secondhand, but I had friends at church camp that were called out because they were teaching Jesus. You remember this?
18:15-18:58
They were like, "What are you going to do to get saved?" And these friends were like, "Well, you got to receive Jesus Christ." And, "Well, you didn't preach baptism the way that we want you to teach baptism and church people calling us out because of the message circling around Jesus. I was chewed out by a missionary one time over lunch. I was chewed out by a missionary for not agreeing with him that Islam is a wonderful religion of peace. He was just going on and on about all Islam is so wonderful and Muslims are so... Muslims are just you know wonderful peaceful and I said, "Yeah, if you're a Muslim." Doesn't work out so well if you're a Christian or a Jew though.
18:59-19:01
You might want to check your facts on that.
19:04-19:05
And that lunch didn't end well.
19:07-19:08
I think he even left me with the check.
19:10-19:11
But it didn't go well.
19:13-19:14
My point is this.
19:15-19:30
When you witness someone is going to come after you, Somebody at some point is going to say, "What gives you the right?" And the question that we're going to answer today from God's Word - not my answer - we're going to see it straight from God's Word.
19:31-19:33
What do we do when we're challenged by haters?
19:35-19:36
So understand the difference in witnessing.
19:36-19:45
We're not talking about, "I'm curious to hear what you believe." We're talking about, "Who do you think you are?" So what do we do when we're challenged by haters?
19:45-19:48
Number one, put them on defense.
19:50-19:54
them on defense. Look at verses 8 through 10. Okay, so Peter's about to speak.
19:56-20:02
And Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit. That's like the key to all of this, all right?
20:04-20:11
I find it so ironic. They're like, "By what power do you do this?" Next verse. "Filled with the Holy Spirit." You want power?
20:12-20:50
How about the power of God? Wow. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, it said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders, "if we are being examined today "concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, "by what means this man has been healed, "let it be known to all of you "and to all the people of Israel "that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, "whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, By Him, this man is standing before you well." Wow.
20:52-20:58
Peter and John are put on trial, but did you see how quickly the Sanhedrin - the haters - were put on trial?
20:59-21:03
Peter went right to the attack, right to the offense.
21:04-21:08
Peter was basically saying, "Is it wrong to heal a lame person?" Is that what the trial is about?
21:09-21:10
It's wrong to heal a lame person?
21:10-21:11
I'm sorry, I missed that part.
21:13-21:16
We're on trial for doing something good for a crippled man.
21:17-21:19
If you're really interested, you need to know.
21:20-21:21
Jesus.
21:22-21:23
You killed Him.
21:23-21:25
God raised Him from the dead.
21:25-21:26
And Jesus healed this man.
21:28-21:35
Something we see Peter doing in taking the offense is something that you need to discipline yourself to do and learn how to do.
21:35-21:36
And it comes through witnessing.
21:36-21:37
I said it last week.
21:37-21:38
We have a prison ministry.
21:39-21:39
You want to learn how to witness?
21:39-21:40
Sign up for prison ministry.
21:42-21:49
I promise you, in a few months, you'll be the best witness you've ever been getting in there, witnessing the people.
21:51-21:52
But you need to steer the conversation.
21:54-22:01
So often, we think we just need to let people pepper us with the accusations and put us on the defense.
22:02-22:03
You steer the conversation.
22:04-22:05
Do you know who's the master of doing this?
22:05-22:11
Do you know who the best person of all time of steering the conversation about Jesus.
22:12-22:17
I love the Gospels - just how Jesus did this all the time.
22:18-22:21
Matthew 21, for example, Jesus was asked about His authority.
22:23-22:25
By what authority are you doing these things?
22:25-22:28
And Jesus said, alright, let me ask you a question.
22:28-22:30
You answer my question, I'll answer your question.
22:30-22:33
John's baptism - was it from heaven or was it from man?
22:34-22:41
were like, Matthew 22, Jesus was challenged, is it lawful to pay taxes?
22:42-22:45
And Jesus says, who's on the coin?
22:46-22:50
See how he put on the defense, but went on the offense.
22:52-23:00
Luke 10 25, Jesus was asked, you know, about the commandments and Jesus said, obviously love God, heart, soul, mind, and strength, love your neighbor as yourself.
23:01-23:07
And then the Bible says that trying to justify himself, the one lawyer, the expert in the law said, well, who's my neighbor?
23:09-23:10
And putting Jesus on the defense.
23:11-23:11
Who's my neighbor?
23:12-23:13
Jesus said, let me tell you a story.
23:14-23:15
And he tells him the story of the Good Samaritan.
23:16-23:22
And Jesus closes that story by saying, now, let me ask you, which of these men was a neighbor to the man who fell among robbers?
23:23-23:25
He turned the tables completely on them.
23:26-23:29
And when you're witnessing the haters, church, you put them on the defense.
23:31-23:34
And the way that you do that is by asking them questions.
23:36-23:37
That's essentially what Peter was doing here.
23:37-23:39
Like, "Oh, is it wrong to heal lame people?
23:40-23:43
"Is that what's going on?" Ask questions.
23:44-23:48
Like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, "I'm not really sure what questions to ask." I'm gonna give you three questions to ask.
23:48-23:55
When you're being challenged, when you're being attacked, I'm gonna give you three questions that work beautifully every time.
23:56-23:58
Jot these down, three good questions to ask.
23:59-24:01
You ask them when you're being attacked.
24:02-24:06
You don't ask these in a jerky way, or it doesn't work, because now you're just being a jerk.
24:06-24:08
You ask them respectfully.
24:08-24:09
Peter was very respectful to them.
24:09-24:13
I know I got a little smart-alecky in recounting it, but Peter wasn't smart-alecky.
24:13-24:14
He was respectful.
24:14-24:18
And when you ask the questions, be respectful.
24:19-24:20
And ask these three questions.
24:20-24:22
The first question is, what do you believe?
24:23-24:26
You know, you're asking me about my beliefs.
24:26-24:28
Here's the first question. What do you believe?
24:30-24:39
"What do I believe about what?" "What do you believe about what happens when you die?" I'm curious what you think. What happens when we die?
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And let them talk. What do you believe about Jesus? Do you think He was God in the flesh or do you think He was just some guy? What do you believe?
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Get people to share what they believe. Just ask them.
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Don't try to correct them.
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Don't interrupt them.
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Just ask them, "Let me hear what you believe." And then after they share with you what they believe, the second question is, "Well, why do you believe that?" "Why do you believe that?
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Is that something you were always taught?
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Is that something your grandma told you?
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Were you raised in a church that taught that?
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Is that your opinion?" Just ask people, "Where did you come up with that?" do you believe? And again, respectfully, and why do you believe that? Okay, and here's the third question. This is really important. You need to write this down and memorize it. If what you believe were wrong, would you want to know? Now listen, I promise you, if you ask somebody that question, what they're going to say is what I believe is not wrong. This is a yes or no question. They only have two choices yes or no if what you believe were wrong would you want to know yes or no I have been challenged by so many people when I ask these questions they end up looking very foolish and I'm not trying to make them look foolish it's not my goal I don't want to make anybody look or feel stupid they bring it on themselves like I had an atheist friend one time challenging me on some stuff. I'm like, "Well, his name was Tom." I said, "Tom, what do you think happens when you die?" He goes, "Well, I think it's whatever you want to believe in. Like, if you believe God's a pink elephant, when you die you'll be with a pink elephant." I said, "Do you really believe that, Tom?" And when I said that to him, it was like you could have knocked him over with a feather. He was like... It didn't sound stupid until he verbalized it. So what do you believe? Why would you want to know?
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See, here's the thing.
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What you believe were wrong, what do you want to know?
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If they say no, then there's really no point in further talking, right?
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Okay.
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But if yes, and you say, "Well, you know what?
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I'd like to share some things with you about what the Word of God says," if you're interested.
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So, what do you do with haters?
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First of all, look at Peter.
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Put them on the defense.
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He went right after it.
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right after it and you go right after it, not obnoxious, not arrogant, not cocky, but the biblical word, we're going to talk about this next week, the biblical word is boldness.
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Boldness doesn't mean abrasive, boldness just means this, I'm not afraid to speak up. I'll speak up humbly, I'll speak up lovingly, but I'm not afraid to speak up and that's what That's what Peter did here.
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Not disrespectful, but very bold.
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Secondly, use God's Word.
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Use God's Word.
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Peter's like, since we're on trial for doing something good for a crippled man, if you're really interested, you need to know Jesus - you killed Him, God raised Him, Jesus healed this man, I'm not finished!
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Look at verse 11.
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He says, "This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you - the builders.
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Which has become a cornerstone.
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What's the cornerstone?
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Well, this is actually a quote from Psalm 118 v. 22.
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What's the cornerstone?
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When they wanted to build a building in these days, they didn't call the concrete company and say I need you to come with your trucks and pour a slab.
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They didn't do it that way.
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They would have a bunch of stones that they would build.
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But the most important stone of all of them was the cornerstone.
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The cornerstone was the first stone that was laid.
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And it had to be the right size, and it had to be the right shape, and it had to be the right angle.
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And the cornerstone was placed so that as the rest of the stones were built around it, the building would get its alignment from the cornerstone.
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And Peter here is saying, listen, Jesus is the cornerstone.
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Meaning everything in God's Kingdom is built from Jesus Christ.
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Everything in God's Kingdom is aligned to Jesus Christ.
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He is the most important part Kingdom." In other words, Peter was quoting this verse to say you rejected Him.
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You rejected the cornerstone that God gave Him the highest exaltation possible.
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You know something that really makes this verse cool in this context?
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Jot this down.
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Matthew 21.42 Jesus' authority was challenged.
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When Jesus' authority was challenged, does anybody want to guess what verse He used?
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Psalm 118.22 Jesus said, "The stone that you've rejected has become the cornerstone." Now fast forward here just a couple of months, and Peter on trial for Jesus.
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Do you think Peter was having a flashback moment of when Jesus was dealing with haters?
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Do you think Peter had this flashback moment Oh, I remember the verse that Jesus used.
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Rejecting the cornerstone.
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And that's exactly what you're doing.
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Very significant verse.
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So my point is this, church, if Jesus and Peter used the Word of God, do I think that I don't need to?
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Every word that came out of Jesus' mouth was the Word of God, but He still found it important in quoting Scripture and showing the power and the authority that the Word of God has.
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So when you're dealing with haters, use God's Word.
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Why? Well, there's really two reasons.
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One, God's Word has the power.
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We'll talk about that in a second.
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But another reason you want to use God's Word is it helps keep you objective.
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Not jerky or abrasive.
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It helps keep you objective because when you get into these kind of arguments with haters - discussions, debates, whatever word you want to use - it's easy to attack the person.
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It's easy to attack the person.
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They say, "Well, you're an idiot for believing that the Bible's true." And you're like, "Well, you're a godless pagan moron for not believing the Bible." Great, now we're just name-calling.
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You see, taking people to the Word of God - let's get objective here.
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Let's just deal with facts, right?
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Let's just deal with facts.
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This isn't about me or my personality.
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It's not even really about you or your personality.
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This is about the Word of God.
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political ads how many people just love political ads show it raise your hands come on get them up high if you love political ads I got one maybe don't you just love those political ads you know the ones that I love sarcasm you know the ones that I love are the ones that just come out and they're like my the person that is running against me is the most horrible evil wicked person of all time and you know he kicks puppies on his day off and he steals from the elderly but you should vote for me paid for by the committee for me whatever and Aaron and I've said this so many times over the years why don't the candidates just get on and say here's here's what I believe in here's my platform here's why you should vote for me because I'm going to XYZ but the closer you get to election you see very little of that but you see a whole lot of don't put don't "I'm going to vote for this piece of trash." True or false?
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"I don't like them.
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They're grating on my spirit." But that's what people do.
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So when you're dealing with haters and sharing the Gospel, don't make it your opinion versus my opinion.
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You need to make it this is your opinion versus the Word of God.
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Your opinion versus the Word of God.
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Okay, this is what you're saying, I'm going to show you what the Bible says about that.
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Because honestly, at the end of the day, my opinion means very little.
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My opinion doesn't mean anything.
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When you take me to lunch to hear my stories, I'll give you my opinion on anything you want, but I'm telling you it's not worth anything.
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It's just not. It's just my opinion.
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But, God's Word has power.
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You know what kind of power God's Word has?
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Isaiah 55:11 God says that His Word, when it's sent forth, it always accomplishes the purpose for which He sent it.
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There is nothing else in existence that works 100% perfectly every time.
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And God says this does.
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My Word always accomplishes the purposes for which I sent it out.
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That's why a pastor friend of mine has said this.
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I don't know if it's original with him, but I love the expression.
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He says the Word of God - the Word of God is like a lion.
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You don't need to defend a lion.
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You let the lion out of the cage, and the lion's going to defend himself.
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And when you're dealing with haters, you let the lion out.
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You don't need to defend God's Word.
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You let God's Word out, God will defend Himself.
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He doesn't need you to do that.
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What He's called you to do is to proclaim it.
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So use God's Word.
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Real quick story, the effectiveness of this. One time in prison ministry, this was still at the old prison, it was still like a dungeon, but the one night we actually, this particular it wasn't we, it was just me, and the guys were coming in and there were about probably 20 guys this night in a like an 8x20 room. These two enormous gentlemen came in. They didn't look like they were there for a picnic, They looked like they were there for a fight.
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And I started sharing the gospel.
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And one man raised his hand.
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He said, "The Bible doesn't say that Jesus is actually God." And he didn't say it like, "Pastor Jeff, I'm kind of interested in what you think about the divinity of Christ." It was slap in the face, throw the gauntlet down kind of thing.
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He's like, "The Bible doesn't say that." So I just smiled and I said, "Well, let's see what the Bible does say." We walked through John chapter one, we walked through John chapter eight, we walked through John chapter 10, we walked through Colossians one, I think we even ended up in Revelation one, and back to Hebrews one, where God the Father calls God the Son God, and through this impromptu Bible study, I said, "So what does it look like "the Bible says to you about Jesus?" You know, they didn't say a word the rest of the night, and they never came back.
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Because you see, their issue was with God's Word, not me.
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I didn't invent this idea that Jesus is God.
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That's the truth of God's Word.
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So I'm like, look guys, here's what it says.
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You see that?
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Your issue's with God, not with me.
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So use God's Word.
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And then finally, finally, don't compromise the message.
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Don't compromise the message.
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Look at verse 12.
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This should be highlighted in every Bible here.
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There is salvation.
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Look at v. 12.
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"There is salvation..." "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." In our day of political correctness, everybody is offended by everything.
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I shared with you before, that really hit the beyond the you know point of no return when everybody was all offended by the Dukes of Hazzard. Wow there's just no going back now.
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With everybody being offended by everything you know at this point as we're reading the sermon we get to verse 12 and we're like you know what Peter maybe you should maybe you should pump the brakes a little here. I mean you came off a little strong with the cornerstone remark. Maybe you should pump the brakes a little here and Peter's like, "Nah, full gas," and just like right into verse 12.
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Remember the original argument, the original accusation, "By what name do you do this?" Verse 12, Peter's like, "You want a name? I'll give you a name. Jesus Christ. There is no other name that will save." Even saying that now, there might be some people in the auditorium that are like, "Oh, I don't know if I I like hearing that.
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Or I don't know if I really believe that.
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Understand, church, this is what the Bible says.
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Salvation is in no one else.
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John 14:6 - do we have these verses?
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John 14:6 Jesus said, "No one comes to the Father except through Me." Was Jesus telling the truth or was He not telling the truth?
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1 Timothy 2:5 It says, "For there is one God as one mediator between God and man - that man Jesus Christ.
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John 3:36 says, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.
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Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life.
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But the wrath of God abides upon him." The Bible is clear.
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Peter makes it clear here.
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There's salvation in no one else.
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There is no other name under heaven even among men by which we must be saved." We're getting ready to move, and we've had to do a lot of repairs in the house - just some of them little things, but we found we had a couple of kind of major things.
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Like we had a plumbing issue where a pipe wasn't going to the right drain and it had to be rerouted.
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And I'm like, well, that's a little beyond me.
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I needed a plumber.
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When I needed help to fix this plumbing situation, I didn't just grab the phone book and-- I'm sorry.
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In my quest to be relevant, I forgot.
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How many people here know what a phone book is?
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OK, when I was a kid, we had these white and yellow books.
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And they threw like three of them on your curb.
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And when I needed a plumber, I didn't just like open up the phone book and go to the white pages and be like, you know, Herbert Smith.
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I'm just going to call him up.
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Hey, can you come and fix my plumbing?
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Like, who is this?
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I didn't just call on anybody to fix the plumbing.
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I needed the name of a plumber.
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And when I was given the name of a plumber, I called that guy to come and help me fix the plumbing problem.
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We had a little electrical problem.
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One of the thermostats, the current wasn't going to it.
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I don't mess with electricity.
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But I didn't just grab the phone book and just start randomly picking people.
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Hey, can you come and risk your life to fix my thermostat?
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I had an electric problem, so I needed the name of an electrician that could come and fix the electric problem.
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Not just any name was going to do, right?
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Here's the thing.
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You and I, we need a Savior.
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Because we have a problem with sin.
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We are guilty and it's destroying us by nature.
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We need a Savior.
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You need someone who paid the penalty for your sins that you committed against God.
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And you need someone who can restore to you the eternal life that was forfeited when Adam and Eve brought sin into the world.
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You need a Savior, and Muhammad cannot do that.
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Joseph Smith and Charles Taze Russell and Mary Baker Eddy and the Buddha - none of those people are able to save you Because there's only ever been One who died and rose from the dead so that we could be forgiven and have eternal life.
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And that One - the only One that's ever done that - is Jesus Christ.
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So that's why Peter here in Acts 4:12, and that's why you and I, church, need to get to that mindset in our lives where we say I am not going to compromise on the message.
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Because I'm more concerned about offending God and I am about offending people.
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And you know, the same Peter that's speaking here, the same Peter later wrote a couple of letters that are actually in your Bible, and one of them, 1 Peter 3:15, Peter said we should always be prepared to make a defense for anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you, in us.
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The question, church, as we close, as our worship team comes up, Are you prepared?
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Are you prepared?
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The days are coming, church.
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The days are coming, church, that you're either going to have to pretend you don't know Jesus like Peter did during Jesus' trial, or you're going to boldly stand on the truth of Jesus like Peter did in Acts 4.
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Are you ready for that?
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Church, you know, maybe Maybe like Peter, maybe you blew it before.
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Maybe like Peter, you had an opportunity to share the Gospel and you blew it.
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You had an opportunity to stand for Christ and you blew it.
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Like Peter did when Jesus was on trial.
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But also like Peter, you're going to get another chance to do it right.
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As we bow our heads in prayer prayer team comes forward.
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We're going to pray that we allow God's Spirit to give us power to witness, to be bold witnesses even when we have to deal with haters.
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Let's pray.
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Father in Heaven, we thank You for the truth of Your Word.
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And it is Your Word that gives us the authority to make the statements that we make.
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don't make up the message, but Father, You've called us to broadcast it.
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You've called us to be witnesses.
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And Father, we know what motivates You is love.
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We know, Father, that we can't stand and say, "believe anything you want," because that's going to send people to hell.
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It is Your heart that people are saved.
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It is Your heart that they know the name the only One who can save them.
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And that name is Jesus Christ.
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God in the flesh.
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Crucified for our sins.
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Resurrected for our life.
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But Father, I'm sure there are some people in this room right now who maybe feel the pressure of people challenging them on their faith or what they're teaching.
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to witness.
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Father, there are people here that that's coming real soon.
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I don't know how.
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I've seen it show up a lot in my own life in a lot of really weird ways.
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I pray, Father, for all of us that You would equip us.
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And yes, we should be equipped by studying Your Word.
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And yes, we should be equipped by taking opportunities to witness.
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But the number one way that we are going to be equipped and prepared by living in the power of your Holy Spirit.
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Because that is where we get the ability to be witnesses.
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Father, we don't want to shrink back.
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We want to go forth not in arrogance.
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We want to go forth in humility.
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But with a godly boldness and confidence that says we are witnesses, even in the face of those who would hate.
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Give us opportunities, Father.
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Let us honor You when those opportunities come.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 4:1-12

Why do you think there is animosity towards the Gospel? Why are people who attack Christians unwilling to “live and let live”?
In verse 8, the Holy Spirit gave Peter POWER to WITNESS. Does the Holy Spirit still do this today? How? What does that look like?
Explain why Jesus is the only way to salvation.
Can you share a story of a time a “hater” attacked your beliefs? How did you respond?

Breakout Questions:

Pray for those persecuted for the Gospel across the world!

Incomparably Awesome.

Incomparably Just.

Incomparably Holy.

The Power to Be a Witness

The Power to Witness to Haters

Upcoming Small Group Questions CLICK HERE

How much of the Bible have we covered since 2011?

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