Led By Courage - Tim Evans

Ps Tim Evans has been handed the baton for the next sermon in our "Led By" series. We have leant about being Led By A Limp, Led By The Spirit, Led By Discernment: This is Led By Courage. 

Ps Tim Evans teachers from Acts 18: 1-11 - "Do not be afraid, But go on speaking and do not be silent" 

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Transcript

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Wonderful. Great, let's jump into it. So uh Luke Luke is Luke was meant to be in Kuala Lumpa right now, but he's here. Um he's going to an alpha conference there. So he might leave in the middle of the service. That's not because he's uh disappointed. It's because he's gonna go catch a fly. Um which is which is good to part of yeah, part of the alpha crew. Is that the head office? Is it the head of alpha there? Yeah. Yeah, also for Asia. So that's pretty cool. And Elpha's a big part of what we do here as well. So we're very grateful for them, and um they've oh they've been such a blessing uh to us as well. Um but great, yes, so let's jump into it. So today we are continuing with our series of being led by the spirit, and we're talking through Acts. So if you've been coming the last few weeks, we've been slowly making our way along. And last week Luke shared about uh from Acts chapter 16 on open doors, God's kind of the spirit in our life with decision making, and sometimes when we get fear, how do we approach that? What do we do about that? So today we're gonna continue on. I've got a pretty simple message, but hopefully it's encouraging, and it's all about it's all about courage. So we're gonna jump a little bit ahead to chapter 18 in Acts, and it's all about how we can have courage for for the road ahead. Um, and really it's about you know those big moments in life, having the courage to step out for Jesus and be a part of not just what God wants to do in our life, but what God wants to do on in Brisbane and on the earth through the earth with us and through our lives. And hopefully, as a church, we we want to put our hand up and say, Yes, God, we want to come along, we want to join with your mission and be a part of that, even though maybe it's a little small part, uh, but we want to be be a part of making that happen. So this is not this is not like a psychological talk. We got we got legit clinical psychologists here. This is just about how do we get spirit-led courage to take big steps in our lives and step up because there's a lot of people here who are doing pretty courageous things in this church, I know, and taking risks and starting business, starting new things, and and I know the feeling of feeling like okay, if I if I completely focus on a problem, I can figure it out. I know, I know if I put all my energy into a problem, I can figure it out, I can find a solution, um, and I can I can solve it. But not every problem in life, as we know, is completely solvable. There are there are things that come up in life where we need courage and we can't fully understand. And that's when we need the Holy Spirit to come and partner with us, partner in us, and help us take courageous steps for the kingdom of God. Um, so let's jump into a chaps, um, chaps. Um, Acts chapter 18 uh from one. So this is this is Paul in Corinth. So last week, this is about um in chapter 16, that's about two or three years prior. This is his first time going to the city of Corinth. So this is before he writes, obviously, 1 Corinthians, the letter to the church there. And maybe in like chronologically in his journey, he's about it's about 15 years after he met Jesus on the road to Damascus after his conversion. And there's very few Jesus believers there. There's a very few. So he's going to start this new uh group. He's gonna he's really going there to preach the gospel and tell the Jews about Jesus and beyond. So let's jump into this story. It says, after this, he left Athens and went to Corinth, and he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently came from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded that all the Jews leave Rome, and he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked, for they were tent makers by trade. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that Christ was Jesus. And then they opposed him and reviled him, and he shook his he shook his garments, and he said to them, Your blood be on your hands. I'm innocent. From now on, I'll go to the sweet, sweet Gentiles, and go tell them about Jesus. And he left there and went to the house of a man named Um Titius. Oh, that's probably not the right the right pronunciation. He was the uh he was um uh where is it? A worshipper of God, and his house was right next door to the synagogue there. Um so he believed the Lord together with his entire household as Paul talked to him, and many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision. So this is the key part I want to focus on today, is this this vision to Paul. It says, Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one um lost it, no one will attack you uh to harm you. For I have many in this city who are my people, and he stayed there for another year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. Great, great. So we want to just talk, just break down that last part, um verse 9 and 10 there, and um, and I just want to discuss how we can have like how really it's Paul's story, and just see how the Holy Spirit encouraged him and used him, obviously, to build a pretty influential uh church there in Corinth. And it starts off there by saying, Do not be afraid. And maybe the command reveals the condition. Obviously, I don't know how Paul felt, but for Jesus to say, do not be afraid, probably means Paul was afraid. And there's probably reason for that, because up to that point, Paul had already been rejected multiple times, like he had just had a rough time in Athens. Um, he'd been beaten, I'm pretty sure he'd been imprisoned by this point as well. So he knew what it meant to stand and tell people about Jesus. He knew what was likely to happen, what kind of opposition he was going to face. So the point is, fear was probably understandable. And I think the encouragement here for me that I take is if Paul felt fear, it's pretty understandable that we might feel fear in our lives. So if you feel anxious or worried about the future, you're in good company. In fact, probably all the heroes in the Bible felt fear at some point and their stories, we have their stories because they had the courage from the Holy Spirit to, in the face of fear, to choose the ways of God regardless. But I want to encourage us the solution here, what I'm trying to propose, is not to become more spiritual. Not that that's a bad thing, don't become less spiritual. Uh, but the solution is not to like pray hard, oh no, I'm anxious, I have fear, something's wrong with me. That's not what we're saying here. I guess the thought is the thought is God is with us, God was with Paul, and yes, there's gonna be some scary things we're gonna go through, but Jesus is gonna be with us in that fear. So that's the key point here. And the vision then goes on to say, go on speaking and do not be silent. So the instruction was keep going, keep going. Yes, it's scary, uh, but don't be afraid, keep going, keep speaking, keep sharing. Because fear wants us to probably stop, stop and retreat and hide, which is pretty natural. I mean, that's self-preservation, it's there for a purpose, probably, to be afraid, because you know, okay, if I if I go out, I might get hurt, something might happen to me. Um, but but what God wants to do is stand with us so that in those important, I'm not saying just be silly, and uh, we're skydiving for Jesus. No, the point is we're taking courageous decisions for the kingdom of God. Um, and maybe it's the word from God for us is more is a bit simpler than what we think. Maybe it's not like this new whole new thing that God's doing, but it's just like to Paul, keep on going. Like you need the encourage that you're already on the journey, keep on going. Because I love I love the start of things, like the initial inertia when you start something, it's really exciting. But when something needs to keep on going through the hard times, maybe the start of a relationship is really fun, but then when you have your first fight, it's like, oh no, and then your second fight, oh, or maybe raising children. You can't really jump out of that one. But um, but you got to keep on going. You need God's help to keep on taking steps of faith. And I think at the same time, being led by the Spirit can often be less dramatic than maybe we can make it out to be. Um, it might just be the next obvious step, the next obvious, faithful step that you know you need to take, but it's a bit scary. Um, and so maybe we over-dramaticize it, but we know, okay, this is what I need to do. I need to take action here. Um, I work, I work in personal finance. Um, and I've definitely seen in that world the clients that have the most success are the clients that take action. Uh, which is and it's understandable to be nervous, and a huge part of my job is just to like be there to encourage them to take take action. Uh, because uh like a lot of people are really great, they're like, Oh, I'm a good saver and I'm debt-free, and but this is kind of a defensive approach. But then to then start saying, Okay, I'm gonna invest in something that I can't control is pretty scary. And our job is there, okay, bit of encouragement, bit of courage. Obviously, Paul is not talking about courage for investing. Okay, I know that. Um, we're good, we're good. He's talking about sharing the gospel, but I think what I've found is action tends to beget action. Um, and we need courage to take that first step for Jesus, and that first step on that journey. So, just a question for us today to think about is what situation are you waiting to feel completely confident about before you take a step out for Jesus? Is there anything that you're hitting pause because you're a bit nervous, which is probably fair enough, but maybe we need that whole that we need some courage to take a step for Jesus, to share, maybe share the gospel with that person, right? To take that step uh and into the unknown. Um, because I mean I suppose I use the word confidence, and I don't think confidence and courage are mutually exclusive. But if I'm fully confident in something, I don't really need courage. If I know exactly what's gonna happen, I know I have the ability to do something, um, I don't really need to be very courageous. But I think like what Nathan shared in the prayer, Reverend Nathan, how can I miss Nathan? Oh, there he is. But what he shared in the, you know, in our weakness, God is strong, and I think that's why God uses us in our weakness, and we can step out and get filled with the spirit and let God shine, not our confidence, but God's power in our lives. Great. So, where did Paul's courage come from? I think what we're getting from here is Paul's courage came from the Spirit of God. Maybe it's not necessarily uh personality type, although that's maybe a rabbit hole, and everyone's has a beautiful personality from God with strengths and weaknesses that can be used for the kingdom. Uh, but I suppose Paul is often imagined as like this bold, strong person in the Bible. I don't know if that's right. I used I used to work with a a Buddhist monk um at Kinki University. I don't know, that's the beginning of a joke. I worked at the Buddhist monk at Kinki. Anyway, I worked at Kinki University for 12 years, so I can't really scrub that from my resume either. That's a hard one to explain to employees. But anyway, uh so I worked with uh once a week, I was very young, I was in my early 20s, and this monk was in his 50s, and we would catch that, we'd go home once a week on the same train, and we would talk about faith. He always wanted to talk about faith, and he would always say, Oh, I like Jesus, he's alright, but he's like, I don't like Paul. Paul's bossy, Paul's mean, Paul's telling everyone what to do and what not to do. And looking back, I think now I have much better answers for him. Maybe he sent me on a journey searching, but back then, probably my answers weren't that great as a young 20 20-something-year-old. Um, point of that story, I'm not sure what the point of that story is, but the point is that I think there's an image of Paul that he's like this unstoppable force. If you read some of his letters, he seems like a pretty tough guy. Um, and and I think a lot of people do struggle with with Paul. And I'd encourage you, if you if you do, uh N.T. Wright has a beautiful book about Paul. It's chunky, so good luck, but it's really, really good. Um, if you want a bit of extracurricular reading. Uh, but but Paul says, well, he says later in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 3, is he said, so this is he's writing this to this church after the day, and he's saying, I came to you in fear and trembling and weakness, which is an interesting quote for him to say about himself. Now, possibly some of that is maybe a posture of humility that he came, like he's presenting the word of God, but also possible he was he was fearful, and he's also being quite honest about how he felt. Um, there's another scripture in in 2 Corinthians 10 10. So this is even later, when Paul had been been again, and people accuse him of being weak in his speak, but speech, but strong in his his letters. So um, you know, people have oh, you've got a lot to say, you've got a lot to say online, but when you're in person, you're weak. I'm I'm part of my the Young the Yoronga like Facebook group. Are you in your local Facebook group? Goodness, people are you in you in that one? It's you people are awful in that group. Ben, you've left your your bins out for two days. You haven't put them back in. They're on the street, they're all smiles. People are brutal. If you're not in a group, join the Yoronga one if you want some entertainment. It's it's awful. It's an eight-year-old with a lemonade stand getting oh you anyway. Our ones, our ones, no, don't join it. Um, but yeah, I've got the point of that. Um, so but the point is like strong and strong in speech, uh, strong in his letters, weak in his speech. I guess that's that's what I think of. Don't join that group. Um, it's an awful group. Stresses me out. Uh, Paul, so Paul stayed there, even though in he felt weak and stressed, but he stayed there for 18 months, and he probably had a a few excuses why he wouldn't be the guy for the job, I'd imagine, because it was a that's a pretty tough job starting a new church in a place where there's like legit opposition, I think that we have not experienced. Um, but I think so often we can also excuse ourselves from being part of what God's doing on earth. And we can say, Oh, I'm not outgoing enough, or I'm not confident enough, or I don't have leadership abilities in my life. Um, or probably the biggest one, the most honest one for us is I'm not good enough. Like I feel if I I have to represent Jesus and then I'm gonna tell people about Jesus and then they're gonna look at my life, and it's not perfect. I think that's if we're honest, that's a pretty big, that's a big blocker for me if they see me going, oh, oh, but look at you, but what you posted the other day. But I think I think even Paul experienced that, but that's why we need the spirit of God. That's the whole Bible, by the way, bar Jesus. Everyone in the Bible, there's they're pretty ugly stories of some people doing some pretty terrible things, but God still used them, which is incredible. Because ultimately, God's plan, God loves the world more than we could ever love the world. Like, you know, we can think how much we want to see God's kingdom come on earth. How much more does God want to see it? I guess what I'm saying is the responsibility, we're a part of it, but this is God's mission for the world, he is gonna equip us with what we need that we can go out and be a part of what he's doing here. Um, and that's his answer, that's what he says then in verse 10. He says, for to back to the vision to Paul, I am with you. And this is the thesis of like kind of what we're trying to share with this whole series of the Holy Spirit, i.e., God is with us as we go out into the world. And courage in our life begins with God's presence in our life, and that's why we gather and we pray together and we worship together and we read the Bible, and if we're able, we meet together and then maybe share what we're going through and what we need courage with and pray for each other. That's that's all part of it. There's nothing wrong with a bit of extrinsic motivation in our life, like with a bit of a bit of encouragement from one another. And so Paul had some fear, i.e., that's uncertainty about tomorrow. And what did God do? God came to him in a vision and shared this, shared this word. And when I hear the word um vision, I'm pretty simple, I think of like vision, and my idea of what a vision is is like a snapshot of the future, I suppose. And if I had a if I had a vision, oh, this is what's gonna happen tomorrow, and I know exactly what's gonna happen, I I can now prepare for that. Okay, cool. I know what's gonna happen, I'm gonna get ready, this is what I'm gonna do. Uh so it's an interesting word here that he has a vision, but Paul's vision is not what would happen, it's just encouragement to keep going. It's like keep going, I'm with you. It almost sounds too normal that we could like maybe brush that off in our own lives, where maybe God's encouraging us, keep going, keep going, but we're like, oh, that's too normal, that can't be from God. Um, I need a vision, a big picture of the future. But God doesn't always, almost ever, promise a defined outcome, maybe that we want. Um, but he does promise that he's gonna be with us in that. So then in verse 10 it goes on, it says, And no one will attack you and harm you. Paul does get attacked, but that's after Corinth, and he'll probably beheaded, but anyway. Um, for I have many in this city who are my people. This is such a huge encouragement. And this this scripture gave me so much comfort when I lived in Japan uh for a long time. And Japan, it's people say there's statistically the second fewest Christians, supposedly, in some um some boards, are behind, ahead of Pakistan, depends which team you're on, I guess. Um, but but the second fewest, there's almost no one that knows knows Jesus in Japan, um, which is pretty wild. And I didn't work with any Kinki University, might surprise you didn't work with any Christians, no, you don't meet Christians uh as you go through your everyday life. Uh, but this scripture gave me so much comfort that God God was working in the background where I couldn't see. It's not on me, it's not I'm not, I wasn't in Japan to save Japan. That would be terrible. Jesus is gonna help Japan. Jesus is loves Japan while it's there. And I think you typically wouldn't stand on the street and like preach on a box and shout at people. People did that. Hey Yu Diki, people would shout that shout on the street saying, Oh, you know, people had done that. That was the strategy since Japan opened its borders for like a hundred years, pretty much. And I mean, God can use that for sure. But what we saw was when you made friends and you shared your life, your life which was touched by Jesus, the result was they would see the gospel. And once you built a relationship, they would see the and then you can have a discussion. It was very natural, and it's exactly the same in Japan, where there's no one knows Jesus here in Australia. We found where I don't know, where probably everyone, you know, everyone knows of Jesus, right? But we found we hang out with our daughters, friends, parents all the time, and it's a natural part. It always comes out. We hang we usually hang out on Saturday nights, and it always comes out. We go to church, we're people of faith, and it's not a big deal. Honestly, they're all millennials, they don't want to offend anyone, they are actually genuinely interested to have a conversation. It's never like this confrontational thing, it's not what Paul experienced, that's that's for sure. Um, but but the point is of that scripture, I just love it, it just gives you or gave Paul, I would think, some perspective to zoom out a bit. I have many people in this city. Maybe Paul was just in that fear, concerned, and God just pulls him out of it and say, wait a second, this is my city. There are many people in the city, and I think that's a good reminder for us as well to maybe zoom out sometimes when we're in the hole, in the fear, to say, okay, you know what? God is bigger than whatever this whatever situation I'm I'm going through. Um because yeah, it's easy to see the obstacles, and obviously Paul was possibly seeing those obstacles, but they were very real. Um, but that's when we need God to come in and be like, okay, I'm with you. Oh, let's move on. It's it is 1110, and I wasted time telling you about Kinky University. Um cool. We'll we'll keep going. Okay, let's let's just read that scripture of the whole thing one more time. It says, do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent. For I am with you, no one will attack or harm you. For I have many who are in this city that are my people. Um yeah, I probably want to wrap up there, but the encouragement is is that ultimately let's let God's spirit come into our lives. Give us the courage. And this story is about sharing the gospel. Like fundamentally, it's about sharing the gospel. But the resurrection power in our lives completely changes the way that we live life. And I think our lives do become the way we share the gospel. And like I said, when I I'm working finance, I don't have a lot of opportunities to be like, I'm gonna share the gospel now with you. But that's but I wanted to permeate everything that I do and the way that I carry myself. I love um compassion. We support compassion here. And compassion, their their little tag is what is it, getting children out of poverty in Jesus' name. And that little tag has actually caused them problems in some countries to have like in Jesus' name. And they could have maybe removed the Jesus part and got into more countries, it made them their mission a little bit easier. But their fundamental mission is not just to feed children, the fundamental mission is to give them the spirit of God. And they the way that compassion works is they partner with local churches. We're in um we're just outside of Bali in Indonesia where we spot a big group. That's connected to a church. So these kids aren't just getting a meal and education, they're also getting the spirit of God, they're getting taught Jesus, and that's a huge part of their mission. And I wonder if we can apply that to our lives, um, whatever it is, um, getting people deeper into debt in Jesus' name. No, no, that's not what it's not what I do. Um it's not just what I do. Um, but if we can just carry ourselves with that spirit of we're carrying Jesus with us, and yeah, there might be bad actors out there, but the way that we are carrying our whole lives is with the sp the spirit of God, with the power of Jesus. And I think that the impact of that is far beyond probably our words, even um uh just the way that we act and what they see. So I would love to wrap up there and pray for us. Um and if maybe you're not in a moment where you need some big, you have a big courageous decision, but it's always there's always moments in life where where we're gonna need courage. But I just want to pray, like wherever you're at, um, that the spirit will fill us as a as a body and ultimately we'll be part of what God's doing, not just our gender, but part of what God's doing. So if that's you, just where you, if you're comfortable, you can close your eyes and God, uh we love you so much, and we just pray for your spirit and that you would help us in our weakness, God, and areas that God, maybe even like Paul, where he gave up his strength and that confidence so that you would come in and fuel him. And God, that we would take the risk to rely on you in that sense, to not have all the answers all the time, God, but to let you work through us and in us. And I just pray as a as a church, as a body together, that we'd honor you with what we do. And I pray for all of our workplaces or our schools or our families, God. I pray for our families that that you would help us to carry ourselves in a way that that honors you and represents you, God. But also take the pressure off people's shoulders to be to be perfect and flawless. We thank you that you use people with flaws, and we thank you for your forgiveness. And and even though we we mess up, God, that you pick us up and you're still with us, you don't leave us when we mess up, but you're there with us, pushing us forward. I just pray for your your courage. It doesn't come from our hard work, but it comes from you, God. We thank you for your spirit and the strength that you give us. Amen. Amen. Well, thank you so much for your time. We're gonna end there. Um, if you uh would like any prayer, we're just gonna hang up, hang out out here for a little bit. If you want to pray, please come forward. We'd love to pray for you, uh, whatever it is. Um otherwise, we're finished there. Uh, but church is not finished. We love spending time together hanging out. This is an important part. Like I said, this is where we talk and get real and encourage one another. Otherwise, thank you so much for your time. Have a lovely week. Um, and next week is going to be really good. So, come on, we're gonna have Renee speaking for us, which is pretty exciting. So, um looking forward to that um as well. So, have a wonderful week. If you want prayer, please come on down.