Acts 4:1-22 | Pressure

Zach Cunningham continues a series on the book of Acts. 

Transcript

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We are back and we are back in the book of Acts. Okay, if you want to get a head start, turn to the Book of Acts, chapter four. That's where we're gonna be this morning. Jumping right back where we left off last week. Hey, welcome if you're new, if you haven't met. My name is Zach. I'm one of the pastors here, and I'm so excited that you're here. Hope you've had a great weekend. And guys, what a weekend, okay? Spring is here, but it feels like summer, baby. Okay. Sunshine, okay. Some of you got some sun. Some of you need to be reminded. Sunscreen, okay, gentlemen. Come on, baby, sunscreen. You gotta put it on. I love it. I love the heat. Okay, I'll tell you what, after six years of living in Michigan, I told myself I'd never complain about the heat again. Okay, small tax to pay for beautiful winters. So happy spring to you all, and happy March Madness to all who celebrate. I hope your brackets are doing as well as Tyson's and mine. I'm in second place. Let's go. Um I love March Madness. It's a unique experience. Okay. One of my favorite things about March Madness so far is the staggered starts of the games, which means staggered endings usually. Um I haven't watched the whole game yet uh from top to bottom, uh, except Duke in Siena almost. Oh my gosh, what almost an ending there. But I what I love about March Madness is I don't love blowouts. I'm not watching blowouts, even Michigan State blowouts. Go Green? Go white. Okay. But I love to watch. It's a cold here. Um I love to watch the endings. I just watch the endings of the game. Okay, if it's a five-point game with five minutes left, I'm tuning in because I love the madness, like uh Kentucky and Santa Clara game. You guys see the end of that one? Anyways, I love the ending. There's something about March. There's something about March madness, the endings of it all that appeals to me. Maybe it appeals to a lot of you, even if you don't love sports or college basketball, because all of us, we love to see wild endings, okay, like Nebraska last night, almost a wild ending. We love to see crazy upsets where the one guy from the no-name school makes a name for himself, like the guy from High Point, okay, tough loss last night. Or in other words, here's the point I'm trying to make. All of us, we love to see performance, incredible performances, under pressure. Like when the pressure rises, I love to see who's gonna rise up with it. Okay, who's gonna make a name for it himself, who's got what it takes? When the pressure rises, who rises to the occasion? We all love clutch, end-of-game performances. I wonder what you think about or who you think about when you think about great endings. Okay, clutch performances, maybe it's the golden goal that just happened, or Steph in the Olympics. Or maybe if you go back like to some of the greatest, David Tyree's catch on his helmet, Michael Jordan the shot, or to show you baseball fans some love. I'm told that Kirk Gibson's walk-off home run, is that do anything for anybody? Probably not. Baseball's terrible, is one of the most legendary moments in baseball history. Okay, guys, we could keep going. We could keep going. But here's what I've noticed: insane pressure leads to incredible performances. Pressure makes diamonds. And even us in this room today, we're we're not all super athletes like Drake Daniels. And we don't always have the clock ticking down, but we too, if you think about it, every day, you know, any day, honestly, we all face pressure in life. Whether it's relational pressure, financial pressure, pressure from school, pressure from the kids, okay, you got a leak in your basement, whatever it is, we all face pressure. And the question, oftentimes, that comes with pressure is this when the pressure rises on us, what is revealed inside of us? Like what comes out? Like when the pressure comes on you, what comes out of you? What's truly inside of you? How do you rise to the occasion? Do you perform well under pressure, or are you overcome and crumble under the weight of it? Because here's what I've noticed. I think a decent argument can be made that when pressure comes on us, it both reveals what's inside of us, but also it creates things in us, for better or for worse. And I start there this morning because we've made it to the point in the book of Acts where the question is the same. Like, what happens, not to athletes or to moms and dads and roommates when the pressure rises, but what happens to the church, to God's people, when all of a sudden the temperature is turned up and pressure comes. What is revealed in the church and what's refined, what's created? Okay, I'm excited for Acts chapter 4. It's a great text. Okay, I want to show you a few things that are on full display in the early church, a few diamonds that are created that all week, as I've been thinking about these things, I've been praying these few things over our church here at King's Church. In fact, here's what I want to do. I want to do something unique this morning. We do it every once in a while. I'm gonna preach a sermon, but at the end of the sermon, I actually want to pray together for these things that we're about to see in Acts chapter 4. Get on our knees and pray. So I'm just a little heads up from the jump. I'm gonna, we're gonna make our way through Acts 4, 22 verses, but we're gonna pray together. And it'd be a great morning to do that. Sound good? Okay, we're in Acts chapter 4. Let's jump back into Jerusalem. Acts chapter 4, verse 1. Here's a recap of last episode. Okay, back in Jerusalem. We're outside the temple. Can you guys remember this? Peter and John are going to pray. There's a beggar outside the beautiful gate. He asks for money, and what does Peter say? We don't got silver and gold, but what I do have, I give to you in the name of Jesus, walk. And he does, miracle. He gets up and he's throwing a party, he's dancing, and he's not the only one. All of the people are amazed. And Peter sees an opportunity, and what does he do? He gets up and he preaches this incredible sermon all about Jesus. Owen did a great job last week preaching our way through the end of Acts chapter 3. But with all the commotion going on and all the chaos, Peter doesn't just have the attention of all the people, but also the attention of the religious rulers of the day. And guys, they are not happy. Okay, look at verse 1 of chapter 4. We'll pick it up. Verse 1. While they, Peter and John, were speaking to the people, the priest, the captain of the temple police, and the Sadducees confronted them, because they were annoyed that they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. And so they seized them, took them into custody until the next day, since it was already evening. Okay, so you can kind of ar you can kind of almost picture the scene here. Okay, like a movie with a house party that gets out of control and the cops were all onto the scene. But but this is different than that. This is more like this. Imagine we're at church and I'm preaching, and all of a sudden some people come and try to shut it down. Okay, not unlike what happened in Minneapolis a few months back. But it wasn't protesters doing that here. Imagine if the cops came in to the scene and they say, hey, no more talking about Jesus. But look at verse one again. Who is it? It says, while they were speaking to the people, notice who it is: the priest, Jewish priest, priest, the captain of the temple police, and the Sadducees confronted them. So notice this wasn't like uh, hey, after they're done, like pull them aside, like, hey, don't do that again. No, it says, while they were preaching, all these guys confronted them. Or maybe your translation says, came upon them, and you can see it here. It's the priest, the Jewish priest, say it again. Goodness. The captain of the temple police and who? The Sadducees. I don't have a lot of time to explain who the Sadducees are, but Luke does a good job helping us understand. Look at verse 2. Because they were annoyed. Why? That they were teaching the people about something specific and proclaiming in Jesus what? The resurrection of the dead. You see, that last phrase is key. The Sadducees were a segment of the Jewish population that tended to be the wealthy, influential people, but also they did not believe in the supernatural. They didn't believe in anything miraculous or the resurrection of the dead. Like this life is all there is. So Easter would be their worst nightmare. Okay? They didn't believe anybody could resurrect from the dead. And here we have Peter doing what? Proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. So it ticks them off. It says they get annoyed. And so imagine it's like, hey, party's over. Go home. They seize Peter and John, and it says they take them to jail for the night. Okay, no charges of murder or rioting, but for simply preaching a message that they didn't like. Now, if you zoom out from this part in Acts and take the book of Acts as a whole, what we read here is pretty unique. Okay, this is special because so far in the book of Acts, things have been going pretty great for the followers of Jesus, right? They get the spirit, they get power, 3,000 people get saved. They're living in this great new community with a great culture, like all of this stuff is going great. But in Acts chapter 4, the background music changes, the scene gets darker, and pressure comes. And more than just any pressure, this is the first time that the New Testament church faces persecution for their faith. And the question that the crowd would have been asking when Peter and John get carried away, and the question you would be asking, if this is the first time you've ever read this, is this what happens to the church when pressure rises, when persecution comes? Like, do they kind of disperse, go home, ditch this whole resurrected Jesus thing? Do they run in fear? Do they hide in caves? Do they leave Peter and John behind and pretend to never know them? What happens? Well, it's here that we're exposed to one of the most counterintuitive yet repeated themes in all of the Bible that persecution is not a threat to the church, it's fuel for the church. It doesn't slow it down, but God uses persecution to speed things up. Because look at verse 4. The first three verses are bad news, but look at verse 4. It's an amazing one. But many of those who heard the message believed. And the number of men came to be about five thousand men. Okay, so the enemies of Jesus come and they took two of the men away, but right on the heels of that, like whack-a-mole or pulling weeds, or like Hercules and that big dragon thing, like you take out one, you take out two, and here it says 5,000 people replace it. They try to squash the message of Jesus, but Luke is communicating to us they only accelerated it. Like no longer are these guys just amazed by the miracle, but they're now saved by the message, right? They believe in Jesus. And one moment of persecution, by my math, about doubles or triples the church in the book of Acts, which leads us to the very first thing that comes when pressure rises. We see fruit. Okay, fruit despite persecution. We see fruit. Like when the heat rises, like it has in Texas this weekend, it doesn't kill the tree, it puts fruit on the tree. Okay, this is what happens when persecution comes. And we don't just see this in the book of Acts. Okay, God didn't stop this pattern 2,000 years ago, but all across church history, if you look at it, you're gonna see the same theme. Like when the Roman Empire persecuted Christians, Nero, it didn't slow down the church, it spread it over the entire continent of Europe. Even though they fed Christians to lions and let them on fire, it lit the church on fire and it spread it across Europe. Think about the Reformation. When a guy named William Tyndale wanted to get the Bible translated into English, into the hands of the people, not just in the hands of the priest, but let's get the Bible into the hands of the people. Got him executed. And yet it was too late. The translations of English Bible spread and it sparked the Reformation. Okay, or more recently, you can think about South Korea in the 1910s. You can think about China in the 1940s, or even today, modern Iran. Myssiologists say is both the most persecuted church in the world and the fastest growing church in the world. Okay, the theme is over and over again. Here's the encouragement for us. God, when there's real violence, real persecution, there's also real fruit. And for a lot of us in this room, you don't got to read the book of Acts and you don't need to look at church history. No, you can see it with your own life. I have talked to many people in this room right now who also face persecution for their faith. It's not just something they read in a book, but they've seen it with their own lives. And this is an encouragement to us. Okay, even my life and my family recently, things said to us, throw shade on our faith. This book and this verse is an encouragement to us because anytime there's heat or persecution on the church, it's almost always a sign that God is up to something, that God is on the move. He likes to use pressure to do something either through us or inside of us, to spread the gospel or to make us more like Jesus. And so let's take heart when stuff comes our way and let's pray for fruit. But also let's pray for courage to keep speaking. And speaking of courage, that's what we see next in our text. Let's jump back in. Okay, remember the boys are in jail, but it's the next day now, and things are gonna heat up some more. Verse 5, look at what it says. The next day, more people. Their rulers, the elders, the scribes assembled in Jerusalem, they're not alone. Verse 6, with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, his son-in-law, John, Alexander, and all of the members of the high priestly families. Big room. Verse 7. After they had Peter and John stand before them, they began to question them By what power or in what name have you done this? Okay, so picture the scene. We move from one party to the next. Okay, lots of different people, but a different vibe here. Okay, this time we get all these new people. You've got rulers and elders and scribes. We have Annas the high priest, Caiaphas his son-in-law, and all the members of the Sanhedrin, or in other words, 71 or so members are there. So try to imagine you're the person standing here. It would be like a mix of standing before the Supreme Court, the Senate, with some like religious authority mixed in. Okay, but what makes this scene even more interesting and even more intimidating for Peter is that these guys are the same guys that condemned Jesus to death. Like Peter standing likely in the same court that Jesus was tried. And so now you got Peter and John here knowing full well these are the guys that killed Jesus, your leader, and now they're questioning him, asking them about the healing of this man. And here's the question Hey, by what power or in whose name are you doing this? Or in other words, how'd you do it? Like, what kind of witchcraft are you doing? Like what kind of game are you playing here? Now, try to imagine you're Peter and absorb all of the intimidation of this scene, all of the stress of this situation, and then look at what Peter says next. It's crazy. Okay, verse 8. And then Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit. Man, I'll just underline that phrase. And he said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we're being examined today about a good deed done to a disabled man by what means he was 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, and whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing here before you healthy. Verse 11. This Jesus is the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to man by which we must be saved. Okay, wow. Okay, there's been a lot of courageous and epic speeches in history. Okay, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, here I stand, or the President in Independence Day before taking down the aliens. But perhaps, guys, perhaps no speeches, or that's a great perhaps no speeches are more courageous than this one from Peter staring death in the face. By what power and what name do we do this, you ask? And then Peter preaches almost the same sermon that he preached to 5,000 people the day before. This thing and this miracle is all about Jesus. And he gives some quick things about Jesus. Okay, three things. Jesus is the wonder worker, Jesus is the cornerstone, and Jesus is the only way. First of all, Jesus is the wonder worker. Who authorized this man to get healed? You know, they probably expect Peter to say the God of Israel did, right? Yahweh did it. Or by their own prophetic authority or by prayer, but they don't say that. They say what? Jesus of Nazareth, the one that you killed, did this. Like you thought he was dead, he is very much alive. He's a wonder worker. But he's not just that, he's also the cornerstone. And Peter does something baller here. He quotes Psalm 118 Adam, a psalm they would have known, okay, a psalm that was read at Passover about how Israel was going to actually reject God's chosen king. He says, This Jesus, verse 11, is the stone by which you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone. So Peter says, Hey, you guys are the builders. You're the ones who're supposed to be leading this construction, and yet you rejected the stone that all the other stones lean on. You rejected Jesus. And then he speaks one of the most important verses in all of the Bible, one of the clearest claims to the exclusivity of Jesus. Highlight it, star it, verse 12. There is salvation in no one else. For there is no other name given to man by which we must be saved. Peter says to these guys, and to the Roman pluralistic culture he's living in, and he says it to our American pluralistic world that we're living in, that Jesus is the only door, the only gate, the only path, the only lifeboat. Like despite what culture might say, that all roads lead to heaven, if you have a sincere heart, Peter says it clearly, no. There's salvation in no one else except Jesus. He is the way, he is the truth, and he is the life, and no one gets to the Father except through the Son. It's the idea of the exclusivity of Christ. Like there's an exclusiveness to what we're doing here, to Christianity. And really every religion, if you push it far enough, is an exclusive religion. They all claim that this is the way and this is not. But what I love about what people say about Christianity is this that while it is exclusive, it's the most inclusive, exclusive religion there is. Or in other words, yeah, there's only one door. And you can only go through Jesus to be saved, but anybody can come to Jesus. Doesn't matter your background, doesn't matter your previous religion, it doesn't matter what country you're from or what sins you've committed, anybody can come to Jesus. There's no barrier to entry, the invites have gone out. That if you come to Jesus through faith in him, he will take off your dirty robe and he will give you a clean one. No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus. So come to him. That's the offer before everybody in this room. And guys, what's crazy is this in verse 12, when Peter is preaching that to all of these Jews, he's not just condemning them, he's actually offering them salvation. There's salvation and no one else. To the people who killed Jesus, even come, come, he is the only way to heaven. And so we're gonna move on from this, but just for a moment, I want to highlight the second thing, the diamonds that we find here, that when pressure rises, we don't just get fruit, we see courage, courage before authorities, unreal courage before people who might kill Peter, especially from Peter. Guys, Peter, the one who lacked courage about 50 days ago before one little girl, now has courage before 71 or so men who have the power to kill him, speaking clearly. You want to talk about courage. And that's what I've been praying for people in this room for our church. See, I'm doubtful that we're gonna find ourselves in a situation just like this. Okay, many of you likely aren't gonna be brought before police or political officials for your faith, maybe someday, but I have prayed for courage to not just stand before police or politicians, but courage to stand before our families, to stand before our friends and co-workers and teachers or whatever situation you may find yourself in. For in that moment, like Luke 12 says, that the Spirit would give you words to speak, courage to speak, courage to do what's right, courage to not cut corners or cheat or lie, even if your boss is asking you to at work, courage to invite people to faith, to invite neighbors to Easter. I think one of my prayers is this that when People think about King's Church, they first think about Jesus the King, but also they think about the courage that exists in the hearts of the people in this room. That we're just a bunch of ordinary people with some extraordinary courage, full of courage, full of faith, but also full of power. Okay, which leads me to our final ground we're gonna take today. Because if you think Peter and John have been bold so far, just you wait. Okay, the pinnacle is coming. Keep going. Look at verse 13. Peter gives this epic speech to all these guys and it catches them off guard. Verse 13. It says, when they observed the boldness, there it is, of Peter and John, and they realized that they were uneducated and untrained men. They were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus. And since they saw the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in opposition. And so after they ordered them to leave the Sanhedrin, they conferred among themselves, saying, Well, what are we going to do with these guys? For an obvious sign has been done through them, clear to everybody living in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But so that this does not spread any further among the people, let's threaten them against speaking to anybody in this name again. And so they called for them and ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. Okay, so a bit of funny response here. They don't know what to do with these guys because here's this man standing with them who's been lame for 40 years, now standing in their midst, okay? An undeniable, verifiable miracle. And so they're all like, well, what are we gonna do? Arrest them for healing a guy? We can't do that. The people would go crazy. And so instead, they try to silence them, they try to threaten them. Hey, no more Jesus stuff. But go back to verse 13, because verse 13 is one I want to highlight and try to get into our bones here. Look back at it slowly. It's remarkable. Verse 13. When they observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized they were uneducated, untrained men, they were amazed and they recognized they had been with Jesus. Okay, that verse right there, it's got a special spot in my life and in the life of this church. It's actually the verse that our sending church, the Commons, in East Lansing, Michigan, was named after. I think Austin and Troy both, our guest preachers, highlighted this verse. Okay, just think about it. The Rulus, they see Peter and John's boldness, and it but also they kind of size them up. Okay, fun fact some of our guys in our church, uh, including all the staff guys except for me, play on a basketball team on Sunday nights. And uh they've been having a great season so far, but tonight they play a team called the Bricks. And uh they've been sizing them up, and they tell me that their name does fit their team, that they are awful. They throw up bricks. And so tonight, 8 p.m., Tyson tells me he's scoring 30 points, okay? And so McMath Middle School, 8 p.m., let's go celebrate, guys. Okay, some of you come out, watch them. They've been sizing them up. That's kind of like what these religious leaders have been doing to Peter and John. They've been looking at these guys. These the dudes doing this? Untrained, uneducated men, a bunch of ordinary, common guys. Literally, the word uneducated here is the word idiotus in the Greek. Okay, these guys, some idiots who are doing this, but they're doing math. And here's the math that they do. They see the boldness of Peter and John, and they add in the fact that they're uneducated, idiot fishermen from Galilee, and there's only one explanation, and it's this. I love it. They were amazed, and they recognized they'd been with Jesus. Hey, wouldn't that be an awesome thing said about us here at this church? Or about your life. Like the way we live, our boldness, our faith, that the only explanation for what's happening here in our midst is that Jesus is with us. Like I love this idea in the Bible, and we see it over and over again, and I'm living proof of it, that we don't need to be extraordinary people to have an extraordinary impact on the kingdom of God. In fact, God loves to show his power through ordinary people, okay, which is the final thing I'll highlight for us when pressure comes and when persecution and intimidation comes and the darkness sets in, that is an opportunity for God's power to come bursting through, and specifically, power through ordinary people. There it is, power through common ordinary people. Listen, God doesn't reserve his power for the rulers or the pastors or super religious people, but he loves to display his power through ordinary people. Or in other words, he loves to take teams like the bricks and upset the mighty King's Church team. Watch out, boys. My point is this, we'll wrap it up soon. Pressure in the church and across church history, it almost always results in fruit, salvations, courage in the hearts of believers, and power through ordinary people. That's what we see in the book of Acts. And when you mix all of that together, it always leads to a church whose heart is on fire, but also a church whose mouth can't stop talking about Jesus. I love our ending here. Look at verse 18 again. So they called for them and ordered them not to speak or teach at all the name of Jesus. And Peter and John answered them whether it's right in the sight of God for us to listen to you, rather to God, you decide. For we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. And after threatening them further, so they said more things, they released them. They found no way to punish them because the people were all giving glory to God over what's been done, for this sign of healing had been performed on a man over 40 years old. Okay, again, bold play from Peter here. Okay, I love his response. He says, Hey, look, you can tell us to be quiet, but if we're given the choice from obeying God's authority and man's authority, we're gonna choose God's authority. And then he gives this incredible line. He says, This we are unable to stop speaking about what we've seen and heard. Literally, it's an impossibility. It's not in the cards. We're not gonna stop. The gospel proclamation is unavoidable because listen, when Jesus changes your life, silence stops being an option. Like when you've had an encounter with the living and resurrected Jesus, and your heart has been given new life and new purpose and new wonder for the power of God, you can't help but speak of the goodness and the power and the majesty of King Jesus. See, verse 20, it's been also a special verse for me. I've had a lot of people over the years come up to me and say things like this Dude, I could never do public speaking like that. I mean, I hate public speaking. Like, I don't know how you do it. And it's funny for me when people say that because for all of my life, I also have hated public speaking. Uh, in fact, I actually had somewhat of a, I say this not lightly, of a traumatic experience with public speaking in my youth. Okay, long story short, I'll share it quick. Uh, when I was in seventh grade, I was in this like club in my high school. Uh, it's like a national honor society where my school would go to like a convention in Texas with all these other schools, like a hundred schools, and there'd be competitions like math, talent. But also, each school would choose one person to be the candidate to run for office. And what what this means is at this convention, there'd be a stage in 3,000 people, and somebody had to give a speech. And so my my school, for some reason, chose me to be the guy, okay, to give a speech. And I was running for vice president, okay, Z C for VP, okay. It worked, it was a cool shirt. Anyways, Zach in Black, okay, with this whole skit. Anyways, my twin brother came out on a motorcycle as me in the campaign skit. Hey, nonetheless, so I go to Dallas in one of these hotels, and I give a speech in front of 3,000 people, two minutes, and it went great. I actually won, okay, I got voted. But here's the issue with that. Oh, thanks, Abby, appreciate that. Um, I actually ran unopposed, nobody ran against me because my school I this is not my notes. My school hadn't lost in 12 years, so literally eight people ran for president, eight ran for treasurer, and one ran for vice president. I mean, anyway, so but here's the issue with that, guys. It went great, but when you win at state, you gotta preach at nationals, okay? You gotta give a speech at nationals. And so what this means is in eighth grade, going into it the summer, I had to go to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in their convention center, and I had to give a speech running against real people, not nobody, and I had to give a speech not in front of 3,000 people, but 12,000. And so I'm in eighth grade, picture me, man. I'm so young, my hair's down my shoulders, and it's my turn to go. And I walk on stage, and I I stand on stage just going, I don't know, 12 years old, and the lights are bright, literally and metaphorically, and I'm standing there with a speech with my you know microphone, and I go, hey guys, my name is Zach. And I forget my speech in front of all these people. And you know, I'm standing there, it's I it's so silent, and I don't know what to do, man. I just it blink. And I go, and I'm not kidding, that's my mom. And no joke, at this moment, I guess, what would you do? And so, no joke, a tear runs down my face, and I run down the stage and I forget my stage. Everybody is laughing at me. Thank you for that, appreciate that. And uh, I embarrass myself, I embarrass my school, my family name, guys. From all of high school, sticks with you, bro. Like, from all of high school, I'm not kidding. Ask anybody in Honey Grove, there's only a thousand of them. If you ask any of them, they knew me as Ozak, the guy who forgot his speech. And I remember praying. Stop doing that, guys. I'm trying to preach. We're two minutes over. This is on you. Uh, we gotta pray still. I'm literally not kidding when I say this. I prayed in Myrtle Beach on the beach, because my mom took me there that day to make me feel better. I prayed on the beach. Lord, God, I will never do public speaking again. I will be an accountant and sit in a cubicle and be quiet. And speech class in high school was the worst. And I share that to say this. Guys, Jesus hasn't just given me new life, he's given me something to speak about. Like, like public speaking, guys, I have a love-hate relationship with this. I get nervous every time. But listen, the gospel is too sweet, and Jesus is too powerful for me to sit aside and not open my mouth. And listen, if you're a Christian, you've also been given something to speak about. Do you want to see the power of God on display in front of your eyeballs? Like all of us, if you've seen the power of God in your life and the truth of gospel, like if you've heard the truth of the gospel and the promises, you should be able to say, like Peter, we are unable to stop speaking of what we have seen and heard. Like what we have seen is too great, and what we have heard is too important that we can't stop speaking. And you don't have to stand on a stage. Okay, you're standing on a platform to tell people about Jesus. In fact, guys, the most important speaking I've ever done in my life, it's not speaking I've done on a stage. It's the speaking I've done to my kids before bed. It's the speaking I've done to friends who need a word of encouragement. And listen, if you've been given the gospel, you've been given a platform to speak, to speak encouragement, to share the gospel to your neighbors, to your friends. Let's be a church that's committed to this. Do you want to see the power of God in your life? Okay, whatever it may look like for you, are you willing to open your mouth for a savior who is willing to open his heart and sacrifice his body for you? Do you want a front row seat of what God's gonna do in your life? You want opportunities to see some fruit, to have some courage, to see God's power on display. I promise you, start speaking and you'll see it. And so here's what we're gonna do. I want the band to come back up. I want to pray for us. And so here's what we're gonna do with these things in mind, as we think about fruit and courage. I want you right now, why don't you make some eye contact with some people? We're gonna pray in groups of three or four. Okay, can we do that?