Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon January 25, 2009
Lately, one of the things that I see God doing in my heart is to awaken inside of me the heart of warrior who will fight for what matter. Give me the cause to live and to die for, give me the courage, the boldness to live out the right cause, and that is what I am made for, for the greater cause beyond me that can explain my purpose in life. The natural out flow has been framing everything in terms of fighting, contending for things that really matter. So, I ask these days these questions; how can I fight for my marriage, how can I fight for my girls, how can I fight for the God given purpose, how can I fight for purity and integrity, how can I fight to become the kind of shepherd God has called me to be, how can I fight for you? These are the questions that I’ve been asking a lot these days. And, I can honestly tell you that as I frame my life in terms of fighting for the greater cause that is worth giving my life for, I feel alive. And, that greater cause to live and to die for is none other than the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.
So, when I prepared for a message from Acts 28, it only makes sense that God highlighted word “boldly” from Acts 28:31; “Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Boldly” parrhsia means to possess freedom to say all in the face of oppositions at times requiring fearlessness and frankness… It also speaks to confidence and joyfulness.[1]
Am I going to be led by this boldness to stand for the greater cause even though it may mean risking greatly? Or, am I going to hide behind my fears in a safe buffer zone with no risk cowardly? I choose to fight for boldness. How about you? I pray that you too will want fight with me for boldness to live out all encompassing cause of Jesus Christ, to live out his good news, his gospel and to declare it boldly.
1. Fight for boldness for you are born into a world at war.
I always knew that Paul was about preaching the kingdom of God and teaching others about Jesus Christ. That is the one cause that Paul was willing to gladly lay down his life. It is this passion, zeal that consumed him to travel all across Asia, and all the way to Rome to battle against the hostile crowds who wanted nothing but to put him to death, to endure shipwrecks, prisons, hunger… to endure them all because he viewed his life in the context of war, as a man with the mission, to rescue people from ferocious and even silent fire that unless he acted would kill them. Paul understood that unless the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ reigns, the devil would remain as the slave-master of the world. 1 Peter 5:8 says, “the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” Paul knew that unless he acted boldly to advance God’s kingdom through sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, the devil would devour people. So, what you see in Paul is the sense of urgency to share the gospel because he knew he was born into a world at war.
John Eldredge says in his book, Wild At Heart, this about man. “Man is not born into a sitcom or a soap opera; he is born into a world at war. This is not Home Improvement; it’s Saving Private Ryan.”[2] The difference between them is that only one lives and dies for the cause that is greater than him in the context of war. It is in times of war that you find out who is bold or coward, who is wired to choose life of sacrifice for the greater cause or wired to live for himself and herself in self-engrossment.
To frame it with words from Jude 23, to “snatch others from the fire and save them,” to understand the context of life as fire that rages to destroy everything in its path, but to understand my calling as the one who is equipped to go into the raging fire to rescue those who would otherwise perish.
“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms: it means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die"[3] said G. K. Chesterton. The only time such courage, boldness that can propel you to readiness to die is when you are fighting for the cause that is greater than yourself. It is when you come to understand that you are made to engage in war, in fire that seeks to destroy people that you realize your need for boldness.
It is when I understood that my marriage was under fire, at a war that I began to understand that my calling was to fight for marriage with the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, I’ve been fighting for my marriage; Lyn’s been fighting for our marriage; we’ve been fighting for our marriage with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We’ve been fighting for our marriage with some of your help in babysitting so that we can go out for weekly dates to fuel our love. The good news that saves me and saves Lyn can save our marriage as well. When I came to the realization that my marriage was under attack from within and from outside, God gave me this heart not to give up, but to fight for marriage as he intends. So, Lyn and I have been seeking godly counsel to fight for our marriage. We’ve been fortified by some of your prayers and practical helps.
When I heard my Mikayla telling me, “I don’t like you. You scare me,” because I yelled at her demanding obedience, I knew that I was engaged in a war. Am I going to discipline with anger that would crush the spirit of my girl and harden her heart or am I going to discipline with firm love that would touch her heart for change? It is much harder to cultivate joyful obedience in tender hearts than to demand obedience from my girls. That’s what the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ does for me and for you; it cultivates joyful obedience to God our Father out of love for him for we know we are loved by God; God sent his One and only Son to die for us, to forgive us, to give us new life, to live no longer in disconnection from our Creator, but to live as his sons and daughters in Jesus Christ. So, the line of engagement is clear now. I know that I am at war to cultivate tender hearts that would yield to joyful obedience in my girls. My fight is not only to be a good father to my girls, but to reflect the Fatherhood of our God, it is to reflect the love of God so they would yield their lives to God and live in joyful obedience to him.
The world wants us to shut us up, keep it quite, to keep it to ourselves, the gospel of Jesus Christ that has changed us so radically. We are at war with ourselves for wanting to keep it quite in fears of being known, being identified with Jesus Christ in the public, wanting not to offend the political correctness that is intolerant to the message of the absolute, Jesus Christ who is the way, the life and the truth.
Do you know you are born into a world at war? Do you know that you are called to go into fire to deliver the gospel so to rescue your friends, your classmates, your co-workers, your neighbors? And, if you are married, do you know that you are called to fight for your marriage, for your children with the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ? And, if you are dating, do you know that you are called to fight for purity?
It is when you and I understand that we are born into a world at war we realize that we need the heart of the Lion of Judah, our Lord Jesus Christ, the heart of boldness that will enable you and me to live and to die for his good news.
2. Fight for boldness born out of prayer.
Through the scripture, one thing that comes very clear to me is that boldness is something that I need to ask God to supply me constantly.
As I learn to recognize that I live in a world at war and that unless I fight to bring the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to all aspects of my life that I am going to loose the war, I realize I need boldness that will trump fears within me, fears of men and fears of unknown inherent in taking risks. And, I realize that boldness isn’t something I acquire it for good, but I require constant supply of fresh boldness from the Lord.
In Acts 4, you read a story about Peter and John how they were harassed by the Jews for preaching that salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under have given to men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). When Peter and John were released from these Jews who opposed them, the believers got together with them and prayed. Acts 4:31 says, “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” Here is that same word used in Acts 28, “boldly.”
When Paul wrote his letter to the Christians in Ephesus, he asked for their prayer. Ephesians 6:19-20 reads, “Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make know the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.”
For two years, Paul was chained up on his wrist to Romans guards, who rotated every four hours go guard him. Being chained to Roman guards for the unsubstantiated and false charges against him by the zealous Jews of Jerusalem, he could’ve gone down the road of self-pity, “woe-me” type of resentment.
Instead of giving into this destructive mindset about his circumstance, he identified himself as a privileged and important ambassador working to represent Jesus Christ. His chain, his Roman guards didn’t define him as a criminal. His identity was defined as an ambassador of Jesus Christ. And, being secured in this identity in Jesus Christ, he could speak boldly, or translated here as fearlessly.
And, where did he get his boldness from? Paul didn’t think boldness, fearlessness as something he acquired for good, instead of in need of fresh supply of boldness. So, was his prayer request to the Ephesians to be able to open his mouth and to fearlessly make known the gospel with words given to him by God.
Acts 9:7, you read about Barnabas vouching for Paul for having preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. Acts 13:46, you see Paul and Barnabas answering the Jews of Pisidian Antioch boldly. Acts 14:3, you read Paul and Barnabas speaking boldly for the Lord in Iconium. Acts 18:26, you see Paul’s speaking boldly in the synagogue where Priscilla and Aquila heard him and also speaking boldly in the synagogue in Ephesus (Acts 19:8). Acts 26:26, you see Paul speaking to Agrippa freely.
Fearlessly, boldly, freely they are all the same word that speaks to “strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die” because they were backed by prayers of saints.
3. Fight for boldness begins with boldness to come to God
Ephesians 3:12 says, “In him and through faint in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.” Here freedom translates the same Greek word translated as boldly in other passage. Paul is saying this to us today. To be bold to fight for the cause that is greater than you, the gospel of cause of Jesus Christ, you must possess the boldness to come to God and talk to him freely. When you are able to talk to God boldly, freely about your heart, then you gain confidence and this confidence then gives birth to the boldness to speak about what God has done for you, what God is doing for you now and what God will do for you in the future. If you don’t have the freedom to speak to God, to tell him all that’s in your heart, you can forget about being bold for Jesus’ cause.[4]
And, the way you are going to experience the freedom, boldness to talk to God about everything is when you find yourself in Jesus Christ, through faith in him. If you don’t know Jesus Christ as your King, your Savior, your Lord, the one died for you and raised from the dead to save you from the power of sin, from the power of death, from the power of the devil, you will not be able to have the boldness to talk to God.
As believers, we have boldness and freedom to talk to God because Jesus covers us with his blood over our sins, our guilty conscious. In Christ, we are God’s children. And, as children, we are given the privilege to approach God.
A same thought is expressed in Hebrews 4:16, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Here boldness is translated as confidence. This is echoed again in Hebrews 10:19, “brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body…”
The same thought runs through in 1 John 3:21, “Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.” Here, confidence, boldness is directly linked to having clear conscience, without being guilt-ridden or conscience-stricken. Without clear conscience, we will flee from the presence of the Lord. So, again if you don’t know Jesus as your King who died for you and raised from the dead, you will not be able to come to have freedom to talk to God. Through Jesus Christ, you can have relationship with God. And, when you have relationship with God, you can talk freely. And, with this freedom to talk to God, you are also given the freedom to ask anything of him. Of course, you cannot miss the qualification that you are to ask anything of your Father in Jesus Christ, meaning you ask in one accord with what Jesus wants to accomplish in your life.
4. Conclusion.
Hebrews 10:35, “So do not throw away your confidence (that is boldness); it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.” Hebrew 10:32-34 says in the past, Christians stood their ground in a great contest in the face of suffering, publicly being exposed to insult and persecution, standing by those who were being persecuted and in prison, even thought it meant accepting confiscation of their property because they had better and lasting possessions.
Yet, in spite of the public oppositions, they continued to gather publicly not giving up meeting together to encourage one another (Hebrews 10:25). This sums up the attitude of confidence, boldness God desires to give us, to publicly identify ourselves to the body of Christ, to the truth of the gospel, to bear witness to the reality of Jesus Christ in our lives even though it might mean facing oppositions, persecutions and even death.
But, if you know that you live in a world at war, and acquire boldness through prayer because you know you can boldly and freely talk to God in Jesus, it only makes sense not to throw away your confidence.
Let’s fight for boldness!
[1] The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology: Volume 2. 735. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1967, 1969, 1971.
[2] John Eldredge, Wild at Heart, Nelson, 2001, p. 51.
[3] Gilbert K. Chesterton, Gilbert K. Chesterton. Qtd. in Instant Quotation Dictionary, p. 73.
[4] Wood, Skevington A. “E. Grace and Apostleship (3:1-13)” In The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Volume 11. 48. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1978.
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