Fresh Courage Take!

Well, I want to say good morning to all. I've been encouraged already and then challenged by our service so far. For a text this morning, you can turn to Acts chapter 4. We're going to take a little detour from Isaiah.

And I'm going to begin reading, sort of jumping in the middle of Acts chapter 4, beginning reading at verse 13 to verse 30, 31.

It says, "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled, and they realized that they had been with Jesus. And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it. But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves, saying, 'What shall we do to these men? For indeed that notable miracle has been done that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.

But so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them, and from now on that from now on they speak to no man in his name.' So they called them and commanded them not to speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, 'Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.' So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way of punishing them because of the people, since they all glorified God for what had been done.

For the man was over forty years old on whom this miracle of healing had been performed. And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. So when they heard that, they raised their voices to God and with one accord and said, 'Lord, You are God who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them, who by the mouth of Your servant David has said, 'Why did the nations rage and the people plot vain things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.

For truly against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose has determined before to be done.

Now, Lord, look at their threats and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.' And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness."

Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank You for Your word. And Lord, I just pray as we consider Your word today that You would speak to our hearts, that You would open up Your truth, that we could see it clearly. And so, Lord, I just pray that You would be with us as we study together. In Your name we pray. Amen.

I don't know if there was anything that stood out to you in that passage that I read. Is there a particular word that jumped out? Does anyone want to take a guess? Boldness. Boldness. You know, this passage takes place in the context. So we had the day of Pentecost, and we had the great infilling of the Holy Spirit. Peter preaches that sermon, and we have this great we have this great revival, and many people came to know Christ for the first time.

And the church was begun, and Peter and John were on their way to the temple, and they met this lame man. This lame man was a fixture, you might say, sort of like there are certain places I remember when I used to travel to DC, I'd get off at a certain exit, and it almost seemed like no matter the weather—wind, rain, heat, cold—there was always a particular lady there with a sign that said she needed help.

I have a feeling this man was even more of a fixture because it says that he had been like this from birth. He was forty years old, and people just he was expected to be seen there in his condition. And so we know the story. Peter and John go there, and he looks at them expectantly. And Peter said, "I don't have any alms. I don't have any gold or silver. But the thing that I do have, I'm going to give to you." And he said, "Rise up and walk." And the man immediately stood up, and he walked, and he leaped.

And it says that it says in the passage that we read here that they could not say anything against it because it was undeniable. This transformation was undeniable.

And so it gave an opportunity for Peter to preach another sermon. So when people saw this great thing that happened, this undeniable thing that happened, and it says that this man was clinging to them. So I have the idea that, I mean, they were trying to continue on to the way to the temple, and this guy's just clinging to them. "I can walk!" And he's jumping around, and he's leaping, and the people are looking on and saying, "What does this all mean? What does this all mean?" And so Peter preaches another sermon.

And it says that there was a great response. It says up to five thousand souls were convinced. In verse in chapter 4, verse 4 it says, "However, many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of men came to about five thousand." But the Sanhedrin didn't like it. And this is where we find the first basically the first recorded instance of opposition or persecution against the church.

But the thing that stood out to me as I read this was the response to the opposition that Peter had, Peter and John, boldness to speak in the face of opposition. And I feel like that's a need I have in my own life: boldness, the courage to speak the truth, the gospel, in the face of opposition. And I wonder, is that perhaps the great need of our day?

To speak the truth with boldness. You know, in our society today, it's already been mentioned, but it feels like one of those watershed moments in a way in history where we look on and we see sort of a I mean, we've had these before in history, but we look on and we see it sort of a we could call it a low point, but things are really accelerating kind of in a wrong way. And we see a lot of opposition to Christ in our society. Right is wrong, wrong is right. And anyone who dares stand up against that faces a lot of ridicule, just a lot of ridicule. And so what should our response be?

I guess that's the question that I would like to ask this morning. What should our response be in this kind of a world that we live in? More protests? Some people were saying the thing to do is get politically involved, change the government, change so on.

Or is what we really need is the need of the hour, boldness, to speak the truth? And so I would like to in order to do that, I think we need to do two things. We need to first of all, we need to identify the opposition, and we need to identify the message. What is this message that we're supposed to speak with boldness?

I think it's really important for us to understand that the opposition that we face is not people, per se. But Paul says in Ephesians that "We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places." And I think we if we're honest, we can see that. We feel that in our society today. So it's the battle lines are between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of God.

That's the opposition. And what is our message? What is the message that we're supposed to proclaim with boldness?

It's the good news. It's the gospel. Is it come to Jesus, pray a prayer, get saved, which is a lot of what we hear in modern-day Christianity?

But I'd like to take a step back this morning. You know, God's when we look at history, it's God's story. It's His story dealing with His people. And those two disciples on the road to Emmaus after Christ was crucified, and they were very discouraged.

Of course, we know that Christ Himself met them there. They didn't know who He was. But one of the things that they did that I would have loved to have been a part of, it says, "Beginning at Moses and the prophets, He expounded in Scripture all the things that pointed to Him." And I was I've been listening to a series of messages on 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel. And the speaker is a Scottish preacher.

He keeps making the point that he said, "Why would you study the Old Testament? Why look into Samuel? Why look at all those stories?" The story of David and Goliath. He said, "You know, if obviously you can look at the story of David and Goliath, and you see that right prevailing over evil, and it sort of gives us an encouragement." But he makes a point that really stood out to me, and that is the fact that we the Old Testament is a continual revelation pointing forward to Jesus.

And it's those disciples, when Jesus explained to them Himself what happened, it says their hearts burned within them. It lit a fire. They turned around and shhhhhhhhhhh back to their companions. It gave them boldness. And so let's just step back this morning and just a little bit think about think about the king. You know, we had the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords.

He created He created this world in Genesis 1. And after He created it, He said, "It's very good. Very good." And then we know the story. This is God's story. He gave man the ability to choose. He gave them free will. And we have this beginning of this conflict happening where Satan comes to Eve, and he tempts her. She and her husband Adam give in to that temptation.

And from that point on, mankind is enslaved to sin. Just when we're born, we're enslaved to sin. And we had and I mentioned this a couple times in our study in Isaiah, but that promise at the very beginning that there's going to be someone come who's going to crush Satan's head. That first hint that we there's going to be a remedy for this problem.

Time goes on, and we have Noah.

There's an interesting verse that I never noticed before in Genesis chapter 5.

Genesis 5, verse 28.

It says, "Lamek lived one hundred and eighty-two years and had a son. And he called his name Noah, saying, 'This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands because of the ground which the Lord has cursed.'" So Noah comes along, and there's been there's a little bit of a promise given that this person's going to come. And so we know this story. Noah build an ark to the saving of his house.

And they come out of the ark, sort of a fresh start. And we see hints of the ark and all that. Paul talks about that in connection to salvation. But Noah died.

And it wasn't long, we had the Tower of Babel, where man said, "I'm going to build this tower that reaches heaven." And God looked down and said, "Well, if I don't do something, they are indeed going to get themselves in trouble." So He confounded their languages.

And they could no longer communicate. So mankind was dispersed throughout the earth. And incidentally, again, on the day of Pentecost, God reversed that. Did you ever think about that? Man could not they couldn't communicate. And on the day of Pentecost, it says they hurt each other in their own language. So the languages that were confused, God has the power to bring that back.

And then God called Abram. Man and he called him he was a heathen man, from a heathen nation. And he said, "I want you to get out of your country and go to a place I'm going to tell you." And it says, "Abraham believed God." And God made a promise to Abraham. He said, "In you, all nations are going to be blessed."

And you know, he was put to the test.

God told him he was going to have a son, and this promise that He gave, and then it didn't happen, and it didn't happen. And we know this story. In his old age, he had a son. And then God said, "You take that son to Mount Moriah, and you sacrifice him." And Abraham did that. And he took Isaac along. It says, "Isaac bore the wood." They went to there, and then Isaac asked that question, "We have the wood. We have everything. But where's the sacrifice?" And he said, "God's going to provide."

And of course, there was a lamb caught in the thicket. Again, are we starting to see some hints? Looking forward, there was also another son, the Son of God, who walked up a hill

bearing the wood. But you know, Abram Abraham died.

And then there was a famine in the land, and the children of Israel through Joseph ended up in Egypt. And Joseph was next to the Pharaoh himself. Maybe Joseph is in the one where we're going to be delivered.

But it says a time came when Joseph died, and then a Pharaoh came along that didn't know, didn't remember Joseph, was hostile. Of course, we have the bondage of the children of Israel. And then one day, God called a man named Moses.

Of course, we know this story. Moses was raised in the king's house, had a lot of hopes, and then he ended up out in the desert watching sheep. God said, "Moses, I want you to go back and deliver your people."

And so Moses did that. God spoke to him through Moses, gave him the law. What did the law do? It only revealed how sinful we are and how much we need something. That's all what's with the law. That's the purpose that the law did. They couldn't keep it.

You know, Moses was an imperfect deliverer. He didn't even wasn't even able to enter into the promised land.

And then we had the time of the judges. And what did it say? In the time of the judges, there was no king in Israel, and everybody did what was right in their own eyes. No king. And so the people said, "We want a king. If we could just have a king like the other nations, things would be great."

And so God gave them Saul, very promising, very promising man, head and shoulders above all the other people. And we know how Saul ended up. And then finally, we have we were replaced by David, the man after God's own heart.

And I would say that in Israel's history, this would be the height. But even David failed when you think about it. David failed. He got caught up in adultery with Bathsheba. His family ended up a disaster. And David died. Where are the hopes? How's Israel how's God's people ever going to be redeemed? Then we had Solomon come along. And from there on, it was just a downhill spiral.

People got into idolatry. They were taken into captivity. And in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah keeps saying there was a promise given, and the promise is out of the root of Jesse, out of the stem of David, there's going to come a king who's going to be like no other king. "He shall save the people from their sins."

And that's how the Old Testament ends there, with that sort of that promise hanging. And then there's 400 years, 400 years of silence. And then miracle of miracles, we had two ladies became pregnant. We had Elizabeth and Mary.

Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, who came with a message and said, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand."

And we know this story. There was a king born in Bethlehem. This king was unlike any other king that ever came.

It broke he broke all the stereotypes. This king was born in a manger to lowly people. He grew up in a carpenter shop. At the age of 30, he gathered about him a ragtag bunch of 12 men, fishermen, rough people. And he rode into Jerusalem, not on a white horse, but on a donkey.

And so this hope of a king who's going to be able to save people from that curse, the curse that happened in the garden, seemed a little bit sketchy. And then they took Jesus, and they crucified Him, and He died.

But He rose again on the third day. And He's the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

And His kingdom will never fail, will never end. And I'd like to propose to you this morning that that is the message.

That is the message we have to share this morning. It's the message of the kingdom.

And it's the message that goes through the entirety of the New Testament, from Mark 1:15 to Revelation 11:15. Mark 1:15, he says, "The kingdom of God," Jesus came and said, "The kingdom of God is at hand." That means it's right here.

You can and He was inviting people to be a part of that. Revelation 11:15, you can draw a line from there to Revelation 11:15, and it says,

"Then the seventh angel sounded, and there was loud voice in heaven saying, 'The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.'" That's how it ends, the New Testament. The kingdom of God, He's going to reign forever and ever.

And this is the message that we're called to proclaim with boldness. And it's a message, I believe, that resonates with people who are really sincerely seeking. Not only is it salvation from our sins, but it's a return to the way God wanted us to live in the first place. And He gives us the power and the ability to be able to do that. "He was wounded for our transgressions; by His stripes we are healed."

And that was part of the message that Peter gave on this day. He said, "You put Him to death, but He rose again victorious." And that's why I think all these other kings, all these other redeemers that gave us little hints, they all died. But Jesus rose again, and He's living today.

His kingdom is forever. And that's the reason why the resurrection needs to be such a big part of what we live and preach today.

And so what I'd like to do then is to turn the spotlight onto our own lives then. If we're to speak boldly of this kingdom, then there's some things that have to be a reality in our own lives if we're going to be part of that.

And so the first one is that I thought about is we need to be converted, first and foremost. If we're we cannot proclaim the kingdom of God unless you're part of it. So we must be converted. And John 3:3-5, I'm just going to read that. It's very, very familiar.

But Jesus makes a very important statement there.

John 3:3-5, this is His encounter with Nicodemus. He says in verse 3, "Jesus answered and said unto him, 'Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' Nicodemus said to Him, 'How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?' Jesus answered, 'Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born of water and of Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'" And Jesus makes it very clear that number one, you can't see the kingdom; number two, you can't be a part of it unless you're converted.

And to be converted means you turn. It means a turning. We go a different direction. Luke 22, Jesus made this proclamation to to Peter.

Luke 22:31-32, "And the Lord said, 'Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to me, when you've been converted, strengthen your brother.'" And what a change, what a difference the conversion made in Peter's life. I mean, all it took was a young girl to say to Peter, "You were with Him, weren't you? You were part of Him." And he said, "Absolutely not." And he cursed and swore and says, "I never knew Him."

And today in our passage, He says, "I can only say and proclaim the things that are true and right and holy and good that God has said." I mean, what courage! And Jesus said here, "When you've been converted, you're going to strengthen your brother. You're going to proclaim the word of God with boldness."

We need to be converted. We also need to be convinced. You know, there's nothing worse than a salesman who's not convinced of the product that he's trying to sell.

I don't know if you've ever run onto one of those, but come along, demonstrate your product, say, "Well, it's really not that great."

There's better stuff out there. I mean, he wouldn't last but two days on the job. Peter made that great confession. He said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 2 Timothy 1:12, "I know whom I've believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed to Him against that day."

Hebrews 4 calls us to come boldly to the throne of grace because He's able to help us in times of trouble.

Are we convinced this morning that the kingdom of God is the answer? That Jesus is the answer? The kingdom of God is the answer to the ills of our world today and the ills of our own heart? Are we convinced of that?

And I'm afraid too often, a lot of people approach their Christian life like a salesman who's unconvinced. And the world sees right through it, and they're not convinced either.

Not only converted, not only convinced, but we need to be conformed to Christ. And this is where it gets really practical. This is where our talk meets our walk. And the question we need to answer or ask ourselves is, "What do people..." This was already mentioned this morning. "What do people see when they see me?"

That's the maybe the accurate way. There was a little boy once who had a dog, and it was obvious that this dog was of the Heinz 57 variety, of dubious ancestry. And so a man came up to him and said, "What kind of dog do you have?" And the boy said, "It's a police dog."

Well, the man was kind of surprised, and he said, "It doesn't really look like a police dog." He said, "Are you sure?" And he said, "Yeah, he's undercover."

And I'm wondering, how often does the world look at us and say, "What I'm seeing and what you're saying, there's a great disconnect here. There's a great disconnect." And I think there's a lot of undercover Christians, so-called undercover Christians today.

Romans 8:29 talks about being conformed to the image of His Son. And then Romans 12, I'm going to read just a few verses there.

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God."

You know, as the world gets worse and worse, the gap between Christ and Christ, the followers of Christ, and the world should be getting greater and greater as well.

Someone wanted to get an idea of how skeptics, people that are skeptical of the gospel, how they think about how they think about Christians. And so there was a young man who got together a group of skeptics on a university campus, and he just wanted to have an honest dialogue with them, sit down and say, "I really want to know what you all think." And the biggest thing that came out was the disconnect between their words and what they promote and what they say and what they actually do.

And one of the examples was speaking out strongly against homosexuality at the same time accepting divorce and remarriage as perfectly normal. That disconnect, and people see that, and they're not impressed.

There was a man in Chile that lived with us in our basement when we lived at Dave's for a while. And I would call him an agnostic, a skeptic. And I had a lot of conversations with him, very intelligent man, very well-read, very well-read in church history.

He was very impressed with Gandhi and some of those philosophies. And one of the things that came out again and again is he could not reconcile some of the teachings that Jesus had, the clear teachings of Jesus, such as let's not go to war, let's not fight, let's not kill each other, let's not... any the non-resistant.

And then he looked on Christianity, and he saw that that's been part of their part of their lives for many years in most Christianity. And English reading material was kind of scarce there, so the World Magazine came down, and then Dave's would pass it on, and he read that. And there were certain aspects of that that just really turned him off because it was very pro-government, pro-war. And he's looking and said, "Something doesn't jive.

Something doesn't jive between what you folks say." And I tried to explain to him, and I felt like I had an open ear, that not all Christians are the same and that we do believe that Jesus taught differently.

And tried to explain to him a better way. But he could no longer live in Chile because of some things. And he came up to us the day he left with tears in his eyes and then walked away. And I think at this point he's living on Guam.

But that disconnect... And this story in Acts here, it says, "The thing that happened to that man that was lame was beyond a doubt." They could not question that. And the authorities did. They were in a predicament because they said, "We can't say anything about this because it's irrefutable.

And would to God that our lives..." We live our life in such a way that they can say what they want, but they have no grounds that they can say, "It's irrefutable." The conformity to Christ. And by that means that we're going to be non-conformed or not conformed to the world.

It comes closer to home than what we might want to think. It really comes down to what do people see when they look at us? They see what we wear? They see where we go? They see what we do? They see what we drive? And the question is, to what does that conform? Let them make the decision. Let them look on and make that. Let's not make that in our own minds. But what do they see when they see us? When they look on it, do they actually say, without a doubt, without question, "I can't dispute that this looks like Jesus. This looks like His kingdom"?

Or are they left confused? Someone has said, "We speak with less boldness today because we have become more like the things we are to be separated from." And I thought that was an interesting... that's an interesting connection. We're wimpy Christians because we've compromised with the world.

The world will not be impressed with your message if it is not lived out in reality. And I sometimes hear this... feel this pushback when someone says, "Well, that's a worldly thing." And there's a pushback, "Wow, we can't say that." Yes, we can say it because Jesus said, "Friendship with the world is enmity with God."

He says, "Let's not be pushed into that mold. And if it looks and smells and the world looking on says, 'It's part of that,' then it's worldly." And then we should make no apologies about calling it that. And I'm calling us this morning and calling myself, "Let's be conformed to the image of Christ, irrefutably, undoubtedly, so that no one can doubt that." There's a phrase in the song, "I'm My Soldier of the Cross": "Are there no foes for me to face, must I not stem the flood? Is this vile world a friend of grace to help me on to God?" How can we... how can we speak with boldness? How can we proclaim the kingdom of God if we're a friend of this vile world? "Sure, I must fight if I would reign.

Increase my courage, Lord."

We need to be converted. We need to be convinced. We need to be conformed to Christ. And we need a clear conscience.

You know, our motives... sometimes our motives can be impure. And Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 2...

if I can find it here... 1 Thessalonians 2, verses 1 to 6, he talks about speaking boldly: "For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain. But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict. For our exhortation did not come from error or uncleanness, nor was it in deceit. But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, who tests our hearts. For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness; God is witness.

Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, that we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children." So what Paul is saying here is our motives in speaking to you were pure. They were pure. And because they were pure, we could come to you and speak to you with great boldness about the kingdom of God, the gospel.

We need a clear conscience, and then we need the community of the saints. And this was already mentioned this morning. We need each other. If we're going to speak boldly, we need each other. 1 Peter 2:19...

That must be in the... Anyway, the idea is...

"Behold, coming to Him is a..." verse 4: "Coming to Him is a living stone, rejected indeed by God, but chosen by God and precious. You also, as living stones, are being built up in a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."

And so in verse 9, he says, "You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praise of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, who once were not a people but are now the people of God who have obtained mercy, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy." So he says that we're a chosen generation and that we're part of the building. And then he says in Hebrews 10...

Hebrews 10, verses 19 to 25:

"Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He consecrated for us through the veil, that is His flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. For He who promised is faithful, and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking us the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another so much the more as you see the day approaching."

So here he says, we come boldly to enter the holiest, and then he connects it with our brothers and sisters. And he said, "Let's not neglect the assembling of ourselves together. But let's encourage one another." And you know, it's interesting that Peter and John, where did they go after they were brought before the authorities? And the authorities, they faced that opposition. They went back to their brethren, and they were encouraged in that. In Acts 4, they went back to their brethren, and you know, they weren't surprised at the opposition that they... that they felt.

It says that they basically... they said they recognized that this is what David was talking about: "The kings of the earth rise up; rulers took counsel together." So that part didn't surprise them. But what was their prayer? God, work in the hearts of these people so that they don't... they see it a different way.

Was their prayer, "Lord, keep us from persecution. Let's... give us a clear path." Now their prayer was, "Lord, give us boldness. Give us boldness to speak. Give us boldness to live." And I guess the question is, how far am I willing to go? A couple of years ago, ISIS executed a bunch of... they were Christian aid workers, not the Christian aid we're familiar with, but there was another organization, Christian aid: two women and a 12-year-old boy and a bunch of men. And as they were standing there ready to execute them, the question they asked was... they asked them are, "Are you willing to renounce Christ?"

And they refused, and they lost their life. Maybe a little closer home, a couple of years ago also in Oregon, at a community college, there was a shooter who went in. And he seemed to have an agenda against Christians.

And he went into a classroom and he asked the question: "Who among you are Christians, claim to be a Christian?" And I thought about, what would I do in a situation like that? Would I be bold? Would I have the boldness to proclaim and say, "Yes, that's my kingdom"?

Some people did. And he sort of sought them out and shot them in the head.

There's a sobering statement by Jesus that says in Luke 9:26: "For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of Him, the Son of Man, will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory and in His Father's and of the holy angels."

Paul said in Romans 1:16, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ." It's the power of God for salvation. And do we believe that? Are we convinced of that this morning? Are we convinced that the kingdom of God is the answer?

Thankfully, most of us are not into rock and roll. But there's... one of those movements that happened back right about the time I was born was the hippie movement. And probably the defining moment of that movement was the Woodstock Festival in New York. It took place on August 15th through the 18th, 1969, on Max Yasger's dairy farm.

Supposedly three days of peace, art, and music. They were expecting about 50,000 people to show up, and almost a half a million, 400 and some thousand people showed up.

There was a singer who wrote a song about that experience. And it's become the anthem of Woodstock. And it's called Woodstock. And apparently, I'm not familiar with the song, but it's popular even today. And it's... it starts out: "I came upon a child of God. He was walking along the road, and I asked Him, 'Where are you going?' And He told me, 'I'm going down to Yasger's farm. I'm going to join a rock and roll band. I'm going to camp out on the land. I'm going to try and get my soul free.'" And then the chorus says, "We are stardust. We are golden. And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden."

And you know, I thought about... as I thought about that, you know, unwittingly, she is expressing the desire of most people's heart. They feel that emptiness. "Got to get back to the garden." He goes along and she says... it was... this was during the height of the Cold War: "And I dreamed I saw the bombers riding shotgun in the sky.

And they were turning into butterflies above our nation." So in her mind, this whole thing... all these bombers, the things that you would think of are turning into butterflies.

Three days of peace, art, and music turned into three days of immorality, drugs.

There were 742 drug overdoses during those three days. It rained. It was muddy. There was no sanitation. And this great thing that even today people sort of look on this with nostalgia wasn't so great.

She closes the song by saying, "We are stardust, billion-year-old carbon. We are golden, caught in the devil's bargain. And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden."

I guess the challenge that I have is we have that answer to that question. You want to get back to the garden. You want to get back in right relationship with God. It's all about Jesus and the kingdom of God.

And we should be able to proclaim that with boldness this morning. Because they're right. They're wrong. And we're right. And so I just really felt the need in my own life for this encouragement to be bold. And if you want a title for the message this morning, it would be "Fresh Courage Take." And you can put an exclamation point after that. That comes from the song, "Come, come, ye saints."

And there's a phrase in that song that says, "Gird up your loins. Fresh Courage Take." And that's what I would like to encourage us this morning. Let's take fresh courage. "Come, come, ye saints. No toil or labor fear. But with joy wend your way. Though hard to you the journey may appear, grace shall be as your day. We have a living Lord to guide, and we can trust Him to provide. Do this and joy your hearts will swell. All is well. All is well." "The world of care is with us every day. Let it not this obscure. Here we can serve the Master on the way, and in Him be secure. Gird up your loins.

Fresh Courage Take. Our God will never us forsake." And so our song, "No fear can quell. All is well. All is well." "We'll find the rest which God for us prepared, when at last He will call, where none will come to hurt or make afraid. He will reign over all forever and ever. King of kings, Lord of lords. We will make the air with music ring. Shall praise to God, our God, our Lord and King. Oh, how we'll make the chorus swell. All is well. All is well." May God grant us boldness.