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What's good to see you, Providence family. Hope you've had a great week. I'm glad you're here. If you're a guest with us today, we're honored that you have joined us. Um, sincere in that. We're glad that you're here. And uh in about a month, we're gonna celebrate Easter, the first weekend in April. And um and we're obviously very excited about that. Um the fact is, if you are here very often at all, you know that every time we gather, we think about Jesus, his life, his death, his resurrection. We celebrate it, we sing about it every single weekend. And so it's not gonna be drastically different um for those of us who are here all the time. Um, but there are gonna be a lot more people. And so we believe that we're gonna need to uh to have six services that weekend. So there'll be two on Saturday, four on Sunday, and here's how you can help. Okay. How you can help is you can go to pray.org slash info and you're gonna find the second thing there. It simply has this R work. And if you just hit on it, and if you can let the rest of your church family know which services that which service or services you're gonna be at, and how many seats you need for you and those who are um in your family are and um and what that does, um, it's not really for me. What it does is it's you sharing with the rest of your church family where you'll be. And as a result of that, um, all of the rest of the church family sees where seats are still open and available. And so it's a way for them to serve you, and it's a way for you to serve them, for us to serve each other. And uh, and so I know it's kind of weird because it feels like I got to sign up to go to church. A lot of people won't, but if you will, it would be really, really helpful in trying to balance out the people who will be here um on that weekend. And so um, I also want to ask you to be praying. Uh, I ask you to pray this for every single week. Every time we gather, we want to be amazed at Jesus' life. As followers of Christ, every time we come, we want to have the like the true embers that are in our heart of faith for us to fan into those, those into flame to where we would be excited about walking with Jesus and making him known. Um, but that weekend in particular, you know there's going to be a lot of people, as there are right now in this room, who don't know the Lord. And so I want to ask, even as we pray right now for our time over the next few moments, but also on that weekend, that the Lord would open up people's eyes and help them to see um Jesus and his significance and how he is the greatest treasure, the treasure hidden in the field. So let me pray for us, okay? Father in heaven, we bow before you and we pray for that weekend and we pray for now as we open your word that you would open up our heart. We are grateful for the privilege to be able to walk with you, to talk with you, to sing to you, to hear from you. The privilege to be able to live this life. Knowing you, our Creator, being filled by your spirit, having a relationship through Christ. What a gift that you have given to us. And Lord, as we gather here, we pray for the 130-so people who are on a short-term trip right now to take the gospel. As they're in Africa and Asia and Europe, we ask that you would protect them, that you would provide for them, that you would give them courage. And Lord, we pray that people would believe. And now, Lord, as we do open your word, we pray that you would open up our hearts, give us a holy curiosity and a courage to apply what we find. Please help us now. Speak through weakness for your glory, I pray in Christ's name. Amen. If you have a Bible, if you would turn with me to Acts chapter 21. Acts chapter 21. Um, if you're new with us, we're in a series verse by verse through the book of Acts, and uh, this is where we're at. We're up to chapter 21. We're gonna start in a moment here in verse 37. And Acts features a tremendous example all through the pages of courage. And courage is needed in your life and my life. There are things in front of you right now that make you frightened. It's natural. All of us experience those things, and we know that courage is not the absence of fear, it's the presence of having a heart and a willingness and an ability to do what's right and to do what's hard, even when we are afraid. And we know that this word that we use, it's used in a variety of different ways where we look and we go, now that's courage. When someone risks their life in order to rescue someone else, we say that's courage. When someone holds fast to their own convictions, we say that's courage. When someone tries something new, or when someone has an idea they've had for a long period of their life, and yet they re-examine the truth to see if that's actually true, with the possibility that it could alter their worldview. That takes a lot of courage to re-examine even our own beliefs, to speak the truth to a friend, or to speak the truth to a crowd. Well, all of that requires courage. And Acts is the story, really, of courage. Seen in the first people who saw that Jesus was the treasure, that he was the Savior of the world, and they put their faith in him, were filled with the Holy Spirit, and suddenly they became this unstoppable, courageous people to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. One of these followers that the book of Acts highlights his story, maybe more than all the rest, would be a man named Paul. And Paul, within the book of Acts, we've already studied, he's gone on three missionary journeys. If we were to compile the time that it took when he was away from home, as well as all the places that he went, we know that the time on these three journeys amassed to 12 years of his life, and he traveled by foot or boat 7,000 miles to take the gospel to people who've never heard that Jesus can forgive us and will forgive us if we put our trust in him. Well, at the tail end of his third missionary journey, he comes to the city of Jerusalem. There was a lot of people who warned him, said, When you get there, it's going to be a really hard thing. I don't think you should go, but he was convinced that he was supposed to be there. So he arrives in Jerusalem, a city where some news had been circulating. It was a false report of his own heart. It was circulated that he was against the Jewish people, against the law, that's the Old Testament law, and against the temple. We read about this last week. And so he comes into the temple, and sure enough, the Jews see him. And last week we saw that they seized him and then they began to beat him. They dragged him out of the temple. They shut the doors and then they proceeded to beat him, it says, with the intention to kill him. They were trying to beat him to death. News of what was happening reached the soldiers of Rome. So they rush in, and it says that they stop to protect him. They're trying to figure out what's going on. They don't know. It's a frenzy. It's a crowd that's in the middle of a riot. And so it says that they continue to beat him, and so they arrest him and they bind him, it says, in two chains. And because they were still so violent, it says that they had to get him out of there. And so two of the soldiers picked him up on their shoulders and began walking through the crowd in order to bring him to the barracks for his own safety, where they would then take him to interrogate him. And this is where our story begins. Verse 37 As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the tribune, that's the Roman commander, May I say something to you? And he said, Do you know Greek? Are you not the Egyptian then who recently stirred up a revolt and led the 4,000 men of the assassins out into the wilderness? And Paul replied, I'm a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no obscure city. I beg you, permit me to speak to the people. And when he had given him permission, Paul standing on the steps, motioned with his hand to the people, and when there was a great hush, he addressed them in the Hebrew language. Now, before we read, and we will, all 29 of the next verses that explain what he said and what happened as a result of that, I want to pause. This message really is about courage, the courage that the Holy Spirit gives to us. And what we find within these moments that are just before he opens his mouth to address the massive crowd that was pretty violent towards him. We find the first principle here of courage, which I think is amazing, and that's that the Holy Spirit awakens courage at unexpected times. And this is such an important thing because many of us we wake up and we don't know what we're supposed to be afraid of that day because that hasn't happened yet. There are many times that suddenly something that was fearful comes upon us. Sometimes we anticipate it, and so we're anxious about it. We know it's coming. I got a speech class, I'm gonna have to give a speech in two weeks, and then four, 13 days, and 12 days, and you're nervous about it. But sometimes it arrives when it's unexpected. And it's really important for us to be able to understand how do we find the courage that's there waiting for us when we need it in unexpected times. I want you to think about how amazing this situation really was. Try as best as you can to imagine his vulnerable position. He's been beaten with intentions to kill him, which means they weren't slapping him. They were trying to harm him. So it doesn't say as much. I can only imagine, though, that there's blood on his lip. There's probably red uh welts or or um, you know, like all over his face. Like he's beaten, his hair's gotta be all messed up, and then all of a sudden, you talk about a vulnerable position, you get chained. You got a crowd around you trying to beat you up to kill you, and that you and they put chains around you. And then it says, just think about how vulnerable this is. Just imagine being him bound in chains and picked up on two Roman soldiers' shoulders, and they're walking him through the crown without the ability to protect yourself from further blows. That really would be a difficult time naturally to try to proclaim to people the victorious Christian life. Isn't it beautiful though? There's things that we know about them, things that we know were not true about him. You see, instead of being controlled, all of us are controlled by something today. There is a motivating force within our heart today that's leading to our responses, our reactions, our words. We're all controlled by something, and he could have been controlled by a lot of things. Instead of being controlled in that moment by anger, which would have led him, like so many people in the world, when they're mistreated like this, to just scream out, let me tell you where you can all go. But that's not what came out of his mouth because they was not controlled by anger. He could have been controlled by self-pity, sort of causing him to sink into his shell. But that's not what we find from him either. Instead, what we find is that he's controlled by the Holy Spirit. And as such, the Holy Spirit actually takes him and his life. He gives him such courage and poise that he's able to turn Paul's pain into a platform to tell people about Christ. Let me show you how he does it. In formal Greek, Paul addresses the commander of the Romans and he says, May I say something to you? He says it in Greek, and we know that because of what says next. He says, Wait a minute, do you know Greek? Formal Greek is what the Roman commander would have spoken. Why would he do this? Well, it's wisdom, it's tact, it's poise. He has still a clear mind, and he's thinking, how can I show him that I'm educated and cultured, that I'm not just a troublemaker? How can I speak to him in a way that he's going to incline his heart to me to try to listen? And so he chose to speak in a language that this Roman would respect. Interestingly, he gets his attention. And before he can ask him to do anything, this Roman commander tells him, Well, I've heard some other things about you. And he's confused about who he's even arrested. He says, Wait a minute, verse 38, are you not the Egyptian who recently stirred up a revolt and led the 4,000 men of the assassins into the wilderness? That just sounds like a movie or a video game, doesn't it? Literally, he says, Aren't you an Egyptian terrorist? And Paul says, Uh, no, I'm a Jew from Tarsus. Not an obscure, it's not a massive city, but it's not obscure either. And then notice, I love this. He shows, he shows the Roman commander that he respects the commander's authority. He doesn't demand anything, he doesn't scream at him, he begs him to permit me to speak to the people. He has his attention, now his respect. He agrees. They lower Paul, and if his arms were bound, now all of a sudden at least one of them is not bound because he raises it up. And verse 40 tells us that as he did so, when there was a great hush, he addressed them in the Hebrew language. Now, I underline Hebrew, and this is why. Some of your Bible translations, right now, you may look down and you and might say Aramaic. So I want to at least explain why your Bible might say that, okay? 500 years before this time, the Jewish people they went into exile. And they were literally scattered all over the empire. And as they scattered, they learned lots of different languages. And one of those that they all learned, though, was Aramaic. Over 500 years, many of the families who once were Jews, they didn't teach their kids Hebrew because they lived in other places where Hebrew wasn't spoken, but they all spoke Aramaic. And so when the Jewish people came back to Jerusalem, they would typically speak to one another in the first century in Aramaic. Now, I don't know, like it's still a little confusing to me because mine says Hebrew and yours may say Aramaic. That's at least why it says Aramaic, is that Aramaic was the functional language that they spoke to one another in the first century as Jewish people. I think the main point though is this is that Paul is demonstrating such a clear mind, such a poise, a courage from the Holy Spirit that he can look at a Roman and say, I need to speak to Greek to him. And then he can look at the crowd and he says, Now, what's the language that most of these people will be able to understand? And he chooses Hebrew or Aramaic. It's really a beautiful thing. And you ask yourself, where did he get all this poise? How was this possible? You see, it's amazing to me that the Holy Spirit used his courage, his poise. He also used language that he knew, all these resources in order for this prisoner to gain temporary control over everybody. The Romans are yielding to his request. And he has created a holy hush over all the people by what he did. Now, where do you get that kind of poise and courage? Well, the rest of Paul's life, he continues to write and he speaks about where this courage and poise comes from. And he speaks about it that it comes from the Holy Spirit. And he gives us what is both a metaphor and a way to live in some of his writings that he demonstrates right here before he speaks his story to the people. And this is the application for this first point is let me encourage you to learn to walk with the Spirit, to walk with the Spirit. You see, when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we are filled with the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit comes and lives within our heart, and and and God's Spirit, He counsels us and teaches us and allows us to understand the Scripture. When we get off course, he convicts us. And so this is what you need to understand is that if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you are accompanied by the Holy Spirit always. Let me say it another way. You are never in your bedroom alone. You are never in your car alone. You never go on a walk by yourself. And this is the secret to the Christian life. You see, Paul will say, if we walk by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. If we live by the Spirit, if he lives within us, then he says, walk with him, keep in step with him. So here's the question for you: how do you walk with a friend? When you go on a walk, like a real walk, outside with a friend, how do you walk with them? I know that it's almost too simple to answer. You're like, this can't be what he really wants. How you walk with a friend is you attend to their steps. You start on a walk and you're in the woods and you're walking down the path, one turns right, one turns left, you're both walking, but you're not walking together anymore. Well, the Holy Spirit is with you always. And yet there is a way for you to walk with the Holy Spirit, to be sensitive to his promptings that allows you to be sensitive to the courage that he wants to give you in those moments at unexpected times. It's hard for us to imagine walking with someone we can't see. So let me just share with you not the way, but it's how I try to walk with the Spirit. What does that mean to walk with the Spirit? So literally almost I'll say it that way. Almost every single morning of my life, I wake up and the first impulse that comes through my mind, because there's now a pattern, is I say, Good morning, Lord. Why? Because he's in the room. He's with me. Good morning, Lord. And then I say, Thank you so much for the privilege to wake up and live in your world. And then I get out of bed and I go downstairs to open the Bible in order to read it. And before I read it, he reminds me that the Bible says I can't understand the things from the Spirit of God, meaning God's word, his wisdom to us, without the Spirit of God. And so before I read, I pray and say, Spirit, would you help me to see what is true, what is right? And then I read. And I get done reading. And I say, I'm gonna read it again, but before I read it again, is this what you mean? Is this what this says? And if it's not, would you help me to see things within the words that I didn't see the first time? Or remind me of other things that I've read before so that I arrive where you want me to arrive. After doing so, then I say, All right, how do you want me to apply this? And then I go and I start living my day, right? I leave, and as I leave, there's meetings and there's counseling, all these all these various places. And as I go, I'm not dropping on my knees, but I'm praying throughout the day. Just little prayers. All right, Lord, would you help me in this? Would you give me wisdom in this? When I get off step and I feel like, man, I think I sinned against the Lord, and he convicts me of sin, quickly responsive to the Holy Spirit. God, would you forgive me? I get into moments and I feel fear. I feel nervous about something, anxious about something. And I'm like, Lord, right now, would you give me courage, the courage that I need right now? And all of a sudden I continue to move. I get to the end of the day. At the end of the day, after I've said goodnight to my wife Tabitha, sitting there, and it's just the quad of the day, I do two last things. I thank the Lord for what I saw on the day. And sometimes you have a hard day, and sometimes you don't feel thankful. And typically the Lord reminds me in that moment that the wage of sin is death, and I'm a sinner, which means what I deserve is to die. Now, all of a sudden, what I can do is I can look at everything that happened in the day that was better than me dying today. And now I have a list of things to be thankful for. And then I close and I say, I'm gonna go to sleep, and I know you're not. And if you grant me to wake to live in the morning, I want to walk with you. And I wake up in the morning, and what do I say? Good morning, Lord. Thank you for the privilege to walk with you and to be alive in your world today. And that's not the way, it's a way. But my question is this if the Holy Spirit, a person who has personal attributes, is walking with you as a follower of Christ every day of your life, how do you walk with him? You need an answer for that. The main reason you need an answer for that is because the secret of the Christian life is there's not a thing that he's asking. Us to do within the Bible, where he expects that we have the power in and of ourselves to accomplish it. The power is through the Holy Spirit. So we have to walk with him. Okay, so what did he say? Verse one. Brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you. And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became even more quiet. And he said, I am a Jew born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel, all according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers. Being zealous for God, as all of you are this day, I persecuted this way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, as the high priests and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers, and I and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished. As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me, and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And I answered, Who are you, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. Now those who were with me saw the light, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. And I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, Rise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do. And since I could not see, because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me and came into Damascus. And one Ananias, a devout man, according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who live there, came to me and standing by me, said to me, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And at that very hour I received my sight and saw him. And he said, The God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the righteous one, and to hear a voice from his mouth, for you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard. And now why do you wait, rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name? When I had returned to Jerusalem, was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and saw him saying to me, Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me. And I said, Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. And when the blood of Stephen, your witness, was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him. And he said to me, Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. Up to this word they listened to him. And then they raised their voices and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he should not be allowed to live. As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, the tribune ordered him to be brought into the barracks, saying that he should be examined by flogging to find out why they were shouting against him like this. But when they had stretched him out for the whips, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, Is it lawful for you to flog a man who's a Roman citizen and uncondemned? When the centurion heard this, he went to the tribune and said to him, What are you about to do? For this man is a Roman citizen. So that tribune came and said to him, Tell me, are you a Roman citizen? And he said, Yes. And he answered, I bought this citizenship for a large sum. And Paul said, But I am a citizen by birth. So those who were about to examine him withdrew from him immediately. And the tribune also was afraid, for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound him. In the New Testament, of course, the book of Acts is one of the longer books. And yet, if it was pulled out of the Bible and published and put in a bookstore, it would be a relatively small book. It's not that many words. And yet, interestingly, in as small of a book as it is, this account and these details are written out three different times, which is a lot of space to give in a smaller book to one account, emphasizing its significance, showing us that God really did call to be him to be an apostle, but also because there's simply so much for us to learn. And so what I showed you, the first little verses, is that the Holy Spirit awakens courage at unexpected times. And what we find here in this passage, in this speech of his, his testimony, is that the Holy Spirit awakens courage to tell an unexpected story. You see, in the heart of every man in the world is a false assumption that we must climb. In order to arrive, in order to achieve, in order to be accepted, we must climb. And so all around the world you find people that view life like a ladder. That performance equals acceptance. Certainly before man, but also before God. And so many people and lots of cultures around the world, they view religion and morality like a ladder that extends from earth and it goes up and it leans against the doorway of heaven. And if we climb well enough, then we'll arrive. If you're on that ladder, one of the things you know is this is that you find that you look up and you see people in front of you, they're outpacing you. And what does that do? It creates a dysfunctional attitude of anxiety. I'm not doing enough. Now you can't rest. Many of us, though, we're in the middle of climbing and we look down and we see all the people beneath us, and we think, oh my gosh, I'm so much better. And now all of a sudden you have a dysfunctional attitude of arrogance. Ladder climbing creates anxious and arrogant people, but not citizens of heaven. And therefore, it is absolutely unexpected whenever we share a story, where in that story we share that our hope in life and our assurance in death is not due to our superior climbing, but another man's superior descent. That Christ was in heaven who came to the earth to live in our place, to die in our place, who rose from the dead, who gives us his righteousness, who gives us access to heaven, who gives us a righteous record that we stand before the Lord with a clear conscience. And this is what Paul does. He tells a story. You notice he begins and he says, This is my life before Christ. Verse 3, I am a Jew, brought up in the city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel, according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day. What's he saying? He's saying, Before I met Christ, I was amazing at climbing. Amazing. You notice the words that I have highlighted up there. What he says is this I had the right ethnicity. I was a Jew. I had the right geography. I was in Jerusalem. I had the right theology. I studied under one of the greatest rabbis in Jewish history. I had the right morality. I was the Pharisee, the strictest manner of the Jewish people. You see, we hear the word Pharisee and we think, oh, that's that's an insult. No, Pharisee at that point in time was a proof of like moral intelligence. It was like he was saying that I was working so hard to be a good man. And he says, not only that, he said, I had the right sincerity, I was zealous. I was climbing so well. And Jesus said, on the way, the truth and the life, and there's many people who thought he actually was. And so he says, the way, which is how Christians were referred to in the time, those people are of the way, meaning of following Jesus as the way. He says, Those who believed in Jesus and who believed that Jesus was the way were a threat to my way. And so I hunted them down as far as Damascus. So that was before Jesus. And then all of a sudden, what do we find? We find what he says next is then the second part of his testimony is then there was this collision with Jesus. He says, A great light, verse 6 from heaven suddenly shone around me, and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Now this is amazing. From verse 3, he assumed that he knew God. He would have told you, if you asked, Do you know who God is? He would say, I know exactly who God is. I know God more than you know God. But now all of a sudden he's standing in front of somebody whose glory and radiance was so bright that it knocked him to the ground. He knew this was God. He did not know him. And therefore, this is the first time that Paul said to himself, I thought I knew God, but I don't know God. Because I don't know him. And so he asked him a question, Who are you? And he said, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. In Acts 9, we're told that his blindness actually lasted three days, giving him time to think, because that's the only thing he could do. And in Romans 7 and several of the books, we're told what he was thinking about. He certainly saw that his own sin nature was exposed in Romans 7. But not only that, he saw the Christ alive. Now, what did that mean? He had three days to think this through. And so he knew that Jesus could not be the Christ until he saw him resurrected in his glory. And now all of a sudden, it like the that penny dropped, and suddenly he started thinking, wait a minute. If he rose from the dead, then when he was on the cross, he wasn't cursed for his own sin, he was cursed for our sin. Because if he had been cursed for his sin, the wage of sin is death, he would have stayed dead as a penalty for his own sin. But the fact that he rose from the dead proves. It proves he really is the way. It proves that he didn't die for his sin. It proves he died for mine. So there was this collision with the Lord. And then all of a sudden, the next step he talks about is that collision doesn't equal salvation. I have to do something, I have to believe. So it says, after three days, a Jew named Ananias came to him and he spoke a blessing. He says, You're not going to believe how blessed you are. He says, God, our father's appointed you to know his will, to see the Christ, the righteous one, and to hear a voice from his mouth. You're gonna be his witness everywhere. But there's something you must do. Yes, what is it? Whatever. Verse 16 Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name. And we'll come back to that in just one moment. But to continue to trace the story, essentially what he says is, and that's what I did. That's what I did. And then we get a brief snippet of what happened after putting his trust in Christ. He returns to Jerusalem. In the book of Galatians, we're told that it wasn't until th it was a full three years after. And so he trusts Christ, he leaves Jerusalem, or he's gone. And he waits three years, and after three years, he comes into Jerusalem in order to meet James and all the other apostles who were still there. And while he's there in Jerusalem, the first time back, Jesus comes to him and he says, You better get out of here. That's what we read. And Paul says, Where am I gonna go? I've mistreated every Christian I know. And he says, Verse 21, I'm gonna send you away to the Gentiles. He became the apostle to the Gentiles. In other words, he's saying, and that has been my life mission ever since. So we find within Paul in this story, this is my life before Jesus. This is how I collided with Jesus. This is how I trusted Jesus, and this is what's been happening in my life since trusting Jesus. And here's my question to you: what's your story? For those of you who have put your faith in Christ, do you remember what life was like before Jesus? What you were doing, what it felt like? Do you remember the collision? It may be that you and I have never collided with a light that knocked us to the ground and caused a blindness. But everyone who gets saved, everyone who is born again, there's a collision. Perhaps it's where you hear the gospel for the first time and you feel conviction of your own sin and you get knocked to the ground emotionally or spiritually, where you're like, I need somebody, but there must be a collision. Do you remember the collision? Do you remember your initial big question marks? The initial oppositions in your heart, the obstacles. And do you remember how what Jesus did in order to navigate you through those obstacles? You see, it's very important for us to do this application, and that is let me encourage us to be ready to tell our story that leads to his story. You know, you are given, and so am I, an opportunity to share the gospel so many more op more times than you can possibly imagine. This is why. Anytime anyone has ever come up to you and said, Why don't you tell me about yourself? Now you tell your story. It is such a lack of courage if Jesus is really the most consequential person in your life, to leave that person thinking, oh. They were born in this city and they're an engineer. You see, friends, your story is never intended to be the destination, just the bridge. He worked in your life, gave you a story, but that story points to his story. This is why I would encourage you to think about your story because whatever fails to stir our heart is not going to proceed from our mouth. You know this. You talk about what you love. But Jesus said it this way: out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So let me encourage you to take a few moments and remember your story. The last thing I want you to see is the Holy Spirit awakens courage in unexpected ways. How do we get this courage? How did Paul actually find this courage? And I have to lean on a man named Tim Keller and let you know that I'm leaning on him. He's in heaven now. He was a pastor for a long time. And years and years ago, I heard a podcast. Somebody asked him on the podcast, just never forgot it. He said, Where do you get courage? And he pointed to Paul's testimony right here. And the book ends of it to say, This is where you get courage. And his answer was, courage isn't found inside your heart. It's found by looking outside of yourself to Christ. Let me just show you how he got there. Look at verse 3 and verse 16. It says in verse 3, it says, I'm a Jew, brought up in the city, educated, I'm strict manner, zealous, all the things of his climbing. He starts there, but notice in verse 16, he says, Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins. So what you find is a man who's really good at climbing, but he had a problem with his sin. He was unclean before the Lord. Proving that all of this did not matter as an entry point to get to heaven, to have a relationship with God. Now we know as Christians that water in baptism represents the cleansing that we receive from Jesus Christ. We trust Christ, He forgives us of a sin by His blood, and then He tells us to be baptized with water in order to representatively identify with Christ in a public way by saying, Let me tell you what He did in my life. And interestingly, the Jews believed the same thing in the first century. They believed that water represented cleansing, but interestingly, they didn't typically baptize Jewish people, and never did they baptize Pharisees. Because they were assumed that they didn't need it. Who did they baptize? They baptized Gentiles who wanted to come and worship the God of the Bible because Gentiles were unclean. But what he's saying here in front of all of these Jewish people was not only was I a Jew, but I was a Pharisee, and I was outpacing all the Pharisees, and I needed to be baptized, and I needed to call on Jesus' name for forgiveness, and then show other people what he did. This would have been dumbfounding to the people who were listening to this former Pharisee say that he needed something to cleanse him from sin. In other words, what Paul was saying was this the only way was to look out of myself and to Christ to be saved. And what you need to understand, this is the point, is that looking away from ourself and looking to Christ is the pathway to every Christian virtue, including courage. So how are we taught to be courageous people? Right? Most people, what we try to do is we muster up courage by talking ourselves into an emotional frenzy, an emotional confidence. And so you're about to play in the game, or you're about to give some presentation, or you're about to go to war, or you're about to do something that makes you nervous. And so you stand in front of the bathroom mirror and you say, You're good enough, and you're strong enough, and people like you, and you're gonna crush this, and this is gonna be amazing. I think you're gonna be amazing in this. And you know what happens? It works. It creates adrenaline within you that literally causes you to feel energy, and you're like, all right, let's go do this. And it can work, but let me tell you why it doesn't work like you need it to work, and that is because you run out of energy. There comes a day in your life when you are literally gonna be on a bed and you cannot look at a mirror to work yourself into a courageous frenzy because you're staring death in the face. Now, where do you find courage then? Where is real courage, enduring courage, found? It is found by looking at Jesus Christ, who is the only hero of any religion as God, who has as one of his attributes courage. He's in the garden, he's afraid. He says, Let the cup pass. Courage is not the absence of fear, it's doing what's hard when we are afraid. But then he shows his courage and he says, Not my will, but your will be done. And then he goes to the cross and he dies for us in courage. And what does the Bible then say after he rises from the dead is the source of courage for those of us who believe. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 3. Look at this. Consider him, Christ, who endured from sinners such hostility against them, so that you, that's us as Christians, we as Christians, may not grow weary or faint-hearted. Fainthearted is the opposite of courage. He's saying, literally, how do you as a Christian find courage? You look at the man who hung on a cross for you. So let me encourage you to fortify your courage by looking at his. You see, when we get into these frightening moments, if you can remember Jesus' courage and you can remember the outcome of his courage, that when he rose from the dead, he has authority over heaven and earth, then you understand this that his authority extends all the way to include what makes you frightened today. And if you know that not only you look at his Courage, but the outcome of his courage that is authority over what makes you frightened. You too can find courage when you are frightened. Now let me close with one thing, and that is this whole message has been directed at believers in Christ, but some of you have never put your faith in Christ. And very similar to Paul and me and everyone in this room, everyone in the whole world, before we put our faith in Christ, every one of us has a picture of God in our imagination. And what I want you to know about your picture is it's only a projection of your heart. And a projection of your heart cannot change your heart, it can only endorse your desires. It cannot create a collision that knocks you to the ground. Only the real God, only the real God, Jesus Christ, can create a collision that knocks you to the ground, that humbles your heart like this. The Bible tells us that we've all sinned against God. And this is not a small thing, it's not trivial. And the reason is because the seriousness of any insult rises in proportion to the dignity of the one that we insult. God is just and he says the wage of sin is death. But God is also love. And in love he sent Christ not only to pay that wage, but also to rescue and redeem us. He lived without sin, he died on a cross, he was buried, and he rose again, extending to us an invitation that if we would put our trust in him, that we would be forgiven of our sin. Friends, God did not send Christ to save strong people who climb well. He sent Christ who was so strong that he gave his life to save people who are just strong enough to acknowledge their need. So I urge you to put your trust in Christ today. Let me pray. Father in heaven, we bow before you. Thank you for your kindness and your love for us. We acknowledge that you are the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus. We believe that is true. And I pray for those who are considering these things, that you would use this to draw them to yourself, create that collision, that they could be saved and forgiven. Be given peace. I pray, Father, for those who are tired of climbing, that you would help them to see that the hope of their heart is not to climb harder, but is to trust in the one who descended down the ladder to save us. Help us now to sing as people who believe what we've heard. We love you, and we're grateful, and we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.