The Non-Anxious Church:
Failure of Heart or Failure of Nerve

To follow the way of Jesus in today’s age will often put us at odds with those around us. Our convictions and beliefs are seen as archaic at best, and dangerous at worst. Like the early church, the world around us will pressure us to cave to its own ideals, and then blame us when things go wrong. And more often than not, when faced with this blame, we react poorly. Most of us will fall into two temptations; some of us will give into a failure of heart. We’ll lose our connectedness and love for those around us, especially those who resist us. Or we’ll give in to a failure of nerve. We’ll cave to the pressure and anxiety around us, and bypass the calling God has for us. To counter these temptations, we can learn from Peter and the apostles in Acts 5. After being miraculously freed from prison for preaching and demonstrating the gospel, the apostles resist a failure of heart and nerve by moving in proximity to those they’re called to serve, staying true to their message, and relying on God to continue saving them.

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 If you have a Bible, open it up to Acts 5. We’re continuing our series on being a non anxious church, and we’re going to move through most of this passage. So we’re going to start there. Pastor Trey wanted me to let you know he and Jordan are out of town.

He got invited to preach at a conference. in Florida. Uh, and so they’re traveling on their way back. Uh, he’s excited to be here next week. Um, but until then you’re stuck with me. So, uh, Oh, that wasn’t even funny. You guys are, is it early? What’s the deal? I feel like our vibe is off. I feel like this is a weird, it’s okay.

You know what? Why don’t we pray? And then we’ll, we’ll get going.

Uh, God, we thank you for, um, for the joy that it is to gather when it feels like a joy and when it doesn’t feel like a joy. God, we thank you for, um, just the fellowship that we can look forward to every week. We thank you for the gift that you’ve given us in this community. And we ask that for the next few minutes as we turn our attention together towards your word that you would teach us as you’ve always done that you would, um, Just engage with our minds that we might learn a new idea that would be helpful to us.

But also that you’d engage with our hearts that we would have our affections stirred for you and for each other. And then that you would engage our hands that you would give us, um, the courage, the willingness, um, and the discernment to take next steps in our apprenticeship, our discipleship to you. Um, father asked that you’d speak through me.

Um, that I would be helpful, um, to this church. We ask that you would challenge us, comfort us and convict us. We pray all this in your name. Amen. Well, I’m not much of an outdoors person, which, if you know me, is not that shocking. Um, last time I tried the outdoors thing, my wife Shelby and I, uh, we went camping.

And I ended up on a dusty plateau just north of Heber, uh, throwing up on the outside of our tent at one in the morning. Um, because I was convinced that I was gonna have to fight off a bobcat and there’s a lot to unpack there. Um, but, and there’s no time. I wish I had time. We don’t, I can’t go through the whole thing.

And actually there’s not really anything to unpack. That’s what happened. I, we were camping, uh, and, uh, we were in the middle of a tent on a dusty plateau. And if you’ve been to Heber, Heber is pretty nice, right? We were driving through Heber and we kept driving. So the pine trees and all the greenery just kept leaving us.

And I was like, let’s just go back to heat. Why are we still going? And we entered into this desert sort of dry high plateau land. And they said, no, this is actually where we’re camping. And I was like, great. And this is going to be awesome. So we pitched our tent out in the middle of the desert and, and. We did nothing for a day.

We just sat there and like drink water and there was nothing else to do. It was super windy. My allergies were acting up, uh, and it was awful that night for dinner. I accidentally ate a bay leaf. Um, which you’re not, does anyone know you’re not supposed to eat those? Okay, good. Now this is my warning to you.

Don’t eat bay leaves. They’re theoretically poisonous. I don’t know if you know that. Your body has a hard time digesting them for some reason. And so it gets really rough, uh, and I didn’t mean to eat it, but I ate it and I was already frustrated with how the day had gone, that we were wasting our day just on this dusty plateau, North of Heber.

I went to bed, uh, my stomach was pretty nauseous and then the wind started to howl and it was beating up against the side of our tent and I, I didn’t know, in my mind it made sense that it was either the wind or a bobcat and I didn’t know what, what kept like pushing into me as the tent was hitting my face and I was starting to feel nauseous, but I was convinced that I was gonna have to fight off a bobcat while my body was going to fight off this bay leaf and that paranoia, that just uncertainty of what was going to happen to me.

Got the best of me and I had to like a, a man climb over my wife cause I made my wife sleep near the entrance of the tent. I’m just now realizing. So I had to climb over her, unzip the tent and she was just the coziest. She had, she said she had the best sleep of her night of her life that night and I had to climb over her and just get rid of the bay leaf.

Um, and there was no Bobcat and that’s okay. Uh, that’s, that’s kind of what anxiety feels like. Um, here’s the best definition. I’ll just, so here’s the best. Okay, we’re talking about anxiety. As a church, we’re talking about what it means to be anxious in a culture that is chronically anxious. What do I mean by that?

Because all of us, when I say the word anxiety, we have different ideas in mind. Some of us have panic attack ideas. Some of us imagine finding a bobcat in a dusty plateau north of Heber. Others of us know, really, anxiety, this culture of anxiety, you feel it in the air around you. Here’s the best definition of anxiety that I’ve found.

This is from a guy named Murray Bowen, who’s the father of family systems theory, coined all of these phrases that we’re going to look at today. Uh, here’s what he says. Anxiety is our response to a threat, whether real or imagined. So our age, the world that we’re in today is, is an age of chronic anxiety.

Uh, and there’s, there’s different kinds of anxiety, but, but anxiety comes from this fear that we have, uh, that there’s going to be something threatening us. Uh, or that something is actually threatening us and we don’t know how to respond. And for most of you, you know what that’s like. You’ve been in a situation where there’s, there’s real danger in front of you.

They call this, um, acute anxiety. Let’s say you’re, um, Walking outside in a rattlesnake or something, I don’t know, a bobcat. Let’s say a bobcat comes at you. You’re going to feel a little bit anxious. Like you’re going to feel like I’m gonna have to fight a bobcat right now. And that’s perfectly normal.

That’s a normal type of anxiety. But then there’s chronic anxiety where it’s not the fear of the bobcat itself. It’s a fear that there might be a bobcat. And our anxious and culture is so worried about what may or may not happen. We’ve talked about this for a few weeks now that we’re just riddled with paranoia.

We’re riddled with fear, worry, conflict, war, literal war happening. That’s feeding our anxiety. What’s going to happen? I read this morning, Post Malone, uh, is convinced the world is going to end. So I don’t know if that, if you know, anybody know who Post Malone is? Okay. That’s all right. I have one more music illustration later and we’ll see how that lands.

And this happens both inside and outside the church, we know that. So outside the church it’s really easy to look around. There’s just growing distrust. People are, um, not trusting people in authority. The elites, the powerful, there’s a fear that we’re gonna, uh, regress culturally or that, uh, we’re gonna be oppressed or something like that.

But even inside the church, we’re afraid of a lot of things as well. We’re afraid of, uh, Christian, uh, America becoming less of a Christian nation. Um Um, we’re afraid of, uh, Trey mentioned last week. I think he said people are going to brainwash our kids. Um, Which is a good fear to have. You should be afraid of people brainwashing your kids.

Um, we’re afraid of our, our world being more secular. Honestly, that brings a lot of worry to us and we don’t know how to handle that. We’re afraid of Christians losing influence. And really we’re afraid of Christians losing power in the public square. And so we’re in week two of this series of how, so what do we do with that as a church?

What, how do we respond to that? How do we live our lives in the face of that? of anxiety, both as individuals, but also collectively, because here’s the reality. Uh, the church, us, we are going to continue facing resistance. And you can argue how much resistance we faced so far or not, whether you call it persecution or not, I don’t really know.

Uh, but here’s what I do know. At some point, following Jesus is going to put you at odds with those around you. And a lot of, you know, this already, this has happened to you already. Uh, our convictions and our beliefs, are seen as archaic at best or dangerous at worst. And the world around us is increasing to, um, pressure us to cave to its own ideals and give up our own beliefs.

And then when things go wrong, we’re the ones that get blamed. And, and honestly, I’m okay with that because that’s been happening since the beginning of time. We’re going to see in our passage this morning, that’s been happening since What I’m not okay with is being a church that doesn’t know how to deal with that.

And honestly, I think the church has done really well in the past and also really not so well in handling that anxiety. How do we deal with persecution? How do we deal with, um, how do we deal with, uh, what some people call sabotage, with resistance? When we’re in conflict with others, what do we do? What’s our initial reaction?

So, if you have a Bible Go ahead and turn with me to Acts 5 if you’re not there already. And we’re going to do this, um, Jeremy, I think it’s out of order and that’s my fault. Um, we’re going to start in verse 12, Acts chapter 12, or Acts chapter 5, verse 12. And I’m going to read this entire story, uh, so it’s a long passage, but just sit tight with me for a little bit.

I’m going to read it and then we’ll talk. Um, so let’s start in verse 12. Now many signs and wonders were being done among the people through the hands of the apostles. They were all together in Solomon’s colonnade. No one else dared to join them, but the people spoke well of them. I think that’s so funny, by the way.

No one else dared join them, but they liked them. It’s like, like, uh, It’s like, Hey, these guys are great. They’re doing miracles and they’re healing and doing all sorts of stuff. And they’re like, Oh, that’s great. Are you going to go join them? Like, no, I’m not going to join them, but are you crazy? Are you nuts?

No, but they’re great. You should go check them out. I thought that was funny. Um, just a funny little. Detail. Believers were added to the Lord in increasing numbers, multitudes of both men and women. That’s significant. As a result, they would carry the sick out into the streets and lay them on cots and mats, so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them.

In addition, a multitude came together from the towns surrounding Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed. Then the high priest rose up. He and all who were with him, who belonged to the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. So they arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail.

But an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail during the night, brought them out, and said, Go and stand in the temple and tell the people all about this life. Hearing this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach. When the high priest and those who were with him arrived, they convened the Sanhedrin, the full council of Israelites, and sent orders to the jail to have them brought.

But when the servants got there, they did not find them in the jail, so they returned and reported, We found the jail securely locked with the guards standing in front of the doors, but when we opened them we found no one inside. As the captain of the temple police and chief priest heard these things, they were baffled about them, wondering what would come of this.

Someone came and reported them. Look, the men you put in jail are standing in the temple and they’re teaching the people. Then the commander went to the servants, went with the servants and brought them in without force because they were afraid the people might stone them. Meaning they were afraid that they might get stoned for trying to bring these wandering healing apostles back in.

After they brought them in, they had them stand before the Sanhedrin and the high priest and asked, didn’t we strictly order you not to teach in this name? Look, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us look guilty of this man’s blood. This man being Jesus. Nine times out of 10.

That’s the answer. So just remember that Peter and the apostles replied, we must obey God rather than people. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had murdered by hanging him on a tree. God exalted this man to his right hand as ruler and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who Now, uh, if you were here last week, this passage should sound really familiar, um, because it’s basically the same structure as, as last week’s story, Acts 4, uh, which, which makes it really hard to preach. Um, Here’s basically what happens in both of these passages.

Peter and the apostles do a bunch of miracles. Remember last week and the week before Peter heals the lame man. Uh, the Jewish leaders get angry at this because as they’re healing, they’re proclaiming about Jesus and saying, Hey, Jesus died and he’s risen again. He’s actually the one ruling the cosmos. The Jewish leaders don’t like that.

So they get angry. They arrest them. Uh, they let them go. The apostles then make a bold proclamation of the gospel. It’s the exact same thing. Now, in this story, we all want to be Peter, right? Honestly, like that’s such a killer line. We must obey God rather than people. If, if you, if you were in that situation, we, we want to be the type of people who would, who would have that kind of courage, who make these decisions to follow Jesus.

And it doesn’t matter how weird it feels and the kind of opposition you get from others and the kind of conflict you find yourselves in to be able to boldly with a spine saying, I’m obeying God rather than people. Some of us, that comes really easily. But I think for a lot of us, if we’re honest, putting ourselves in Peter’s shoes, uh, we can’t, I mean, there’s, there are certain situations where we just can’t find ourselves reacting to opposition that way.

Again, historically, the church has done really great at this in the past and also really, really poorly. Uh, usually we fight back. With more oppression and with more anger and vying for as much power as people are around us as well. Now I believe this passage is a perfect illustration of what an anxious culture looks like.

And so if we’re going to learn how to be non anxious, if we’re going to get to that point where we can see how we can become like Peter, and honestly, truthfully say, we want to obey God rather than people. We have to recognize what anxiety looks like around us. And so, um, I honestly, it’s gonna get a little nerdy for a few minutes.

So just bear with me if that’s okay. This is something that I found really helpful. And I think you see all of this in this passage here. Excuse me. Edward Freeman was a Jewish rabbi. And he was a leadership consultant, uh, brilliant man, brilliant thinker in terms of recognizing what it takes to be a strong leader in the face of anxiety.

Uh, and he coined, um, this idea that you can actually recognize an anxious culture, uh, by noting five key markers. So I’m gonna work through these five and then we’ll move on. So the very first thing is, uh, an anxious culture is reactive. So when faced with external anxiety, when there’s something that happens to you, when you face conflict, uh, your immediate reaction is part of an anxious culture is fear, is jealousy, is anger, paranoia, um, sadness, despair.

All of those feelings come up within you when something happens to you that kind of, um, disrupts your status quo. And those initial feelings aren’t bad at all. Usually those initial feelings are good and you can recognize those things. But usually what happens is, uh, in an anxious culture, they often become the sole thing that motivates you to make other decisions.

So think social media. Or the news everything that you see read or watch is designed to get a reaction out of you a click a like a share a Read tweet tweeters Twitter’s not a thing anymore a read, you know, whatever They’re trying to get a rise out of you when you see social Commentary or political ads or things news stories Cycles come up, they’re feeding off of this reactivity in you.

They want to get you to respond out of anger, usually distrusting others around you, tribalism. They want you to play into this partisan sort of thing that we have going on and pit us versus them and all of that. This is what a reactive culture looks like. Um, this is also what children do, uh, if we’re being honest and all of us do this as well.

Right now with Eden, my daughter, she’s two and a half. We’re really working on like not hitting, um, which is not. It’s not too much of a struggle, but it’s still a little bit of a struggle. Uh, the other day, Abel, my son, he’s one, uh, took a, he had a snack that she also wanted, and she didn’t like that he had it.

Um, even though she had the exact same snack, she wanted his as well. Um, and I had to kind of explain, no, Abel has his and you have yours. It’s the same thing. Just eat yours and be happy. And obviously you can’t reason with a toddler, um, as I’m learning. Uh, and, and I, I kind of turned around and I glanced to see how they were getting along and I just see Eden.

Smack Abel’s snack out of his hand. And I was like, why did you do that? I started getting mad at her. I was like, no, man, we don’t do that. We don’t snack, smack food out of people’s hands. We don’t hit people. And she said, no, I’m giving him a high five. I was like, oh, okay. You’re so smart. I had nothing to say.

I was like, I don’t think you were. I think you’re lying. But she doesn’t understand lying yet. She’s like, no, I’m giving him a high five. You weren’t. That’s a reactive culture. We do this all the time. Think about the last time you were hurt, that someone, um, disrupted you, you felt persecuted, you felt opposed.

Usually there’s an initial reaction that rises up in you that’s hard to get past. And if we’re not careful, we can immediately, uh, just base all of our reactions on those emotions. Now, in this story in Acts, how do we see this play out? The Sadducees, notice in verse 17, why do they put the disciples in prison?

They were filled with jealousy. Which is a silly reason, but it’s a reason. They’re jealous that their status quo is being disrupted, that their authority is being put into question, as is their character, and they react out of that jealousy. Every decision they make is a reaction to that anxiety. Now the second, uh, mark of an anxious culture is, uh, what Friedman calls hurting instinct.

Now, uh, for all the, as much as we like to, to believe that we’re individuals and, and express our individualism and all of that, we are still communal creatures, and so all of us have this innate desire to kind of go with the flow of the crowd, and so when the crowd is moving in one direction, we want to go in that direction as well, and so as anxiety increases around us, we feel a pressure.

Not to disrupt the status quo. We don’t want to give in to the fear and the anxiety of the people around us, but we also don’t want to like call them into question or stand against the current of culture, stand against the grain. We want to be liked, we want to be approved of, and we want to be accepted in the general population.

This is true of all of us. Notice in verse 26 a little bit later after the disciples are freed from prison, the Jewish leaders, uh, they need to go get them. They need to find out. We just, we put you guys in prison. How did you guys get out? But they’re afraid of the herd. They’re afraid of the crowd. They, they have authority.

They can arrest these people. And they can probably handle getting stoned or whatever. I mean, they have, they have people with them. They’re servants and commanders and. But they still, rather than walking in their authority, they play to the anxiety of the crowd. They’re afraid of how the crowd is going to treat them, that they’re going to get hurt stone, that their, their, their authority is going to continue to be put into question by those around them.

If they confront the disciples right away. A third quality is what, uh, he calls blame displacement. So here’s what happens when instead of facing your own responsibility, When you’re faced with conflict or resistance or a problem of any kind, you immediately look to blame those around you. Uh, this is, I mean, I don’t need to, I have a million illustrations.

I can use this tribalism. This is politics. This is all of that. This is also again, my two kids, like whenever they’re in trouble, I just blame the other, even Abel’s learning how to do that. Like he just points it. Eden whenever, that’s how he points. He just goes, ah, when I’m, when someone there’s a mess or something like that, when, whenever he makes a mess, he knows that I’m gonna be a little upset, which I shouldn’t be ’cause they’re kids.

But he’ll just point to Eden. And Eden does the same thing. She points to him, and again, the Jewish leaders demonstrate this. Well, I love verse 26. When they actually call them back in, they’re confronting them. Uh, they said, um, didn’t we strictly order you not to teach in his name? Sorry, verse 28. Didn’t we strictly order you not to teach in his name?

Look, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us look guilty of this man’s blood. Uh, here’s the million dollar question. Were they guilty of this man’s blood? Yeah, they were. What are they trying to do? We’re trying to push the blame on the disciple. No, you’re the one.

You’re the ones spreading these false lies about us being guilty. It’s like, that’s not true. You were guilty. Their immediate reaction is to blame those around them. It’s a master class in gaslighting.

Fourth thing is a quick fix mentality. So after all of this, uh, we’re, we’re so conditioned for instant gratification and immediate results that we just, we want to seek whatever we can to relieve our pain and put a bandaid on this problem. So when we’re faced with anxiety and fear and paranoia and all of those things, we can numb all of those things by feeding an addiction.

We deal with conflict by cutting people off or we just try any sort of quick fix solution that’ll make us feel better. And again, just put like a bandaid on the problem. Uh, Sadducees do this by actually just throwing their enemies in jail. It didn’t work in chapter four, it doesn’t work this time, but it’s all they know how to do.

Lastly, you get, uh, poorly defined leadership. All of this adds up to create a leader who goes with the status quo, who reacts along with the herd, and who has no differentiation between their role as a leader, and that perpetuate the anxiety around them. And honestly, for a while, this is what many thought the modern church in America should look like.

So rather than stand distinct as a separate institution in society, the church should look like the world around them to attract the people in those. And the less feathers that we ruffle, the more people will like us. And the more that people like us, the more they’ll be interested in Jesus. And the more that they’re interested in Jesus, the more that they’ll become followers of him.

And obviously that hasn’t really worked because, again, we, we have this, this rupture in the church. We don’t know how to handle anxiety when people aren’t interested in joining the church. When people throw stones at us and we don’t respond well, I would argue it’s because we’ve, we’ve given into this, these five markers, excuse me, of an anxious culture.

Now, do you, do you see any of these markers in our society today? Okay. Are you depressed yet? Right? This is not a great way to start your week. Now, how, the question now, how do we respond to this then? What’s the actual solution in this passage, Peter has three options and I would argue you and I do as well.

Um, Friedman argues that the only way that you can disrupt this, uh, this cycle of anxiety is, uh, to become, uh, What others have called a non anxious presence is what we’re kind of basing this idea on that there needs to be a stability in the midst of this anxious culture around us. And, and as small as that stability, whether it’s a person or a church or a group or an idea or whatever it is, as strong or as small as that is, that’s the actual thing that has the influence to change the anxiety around us for the better.

It’s not about gaining control. It’s about being stable. So how do we do that? Uh, there’s three options. Two of them are bad and one of them is good. Just up front, that’s how this works. Uh, so the first bad one is, uh, what some people call a failure of heart. For some of us, this is a huge temptation, but here’s what a failure of heart is.

Giving up on those around you. So when faced with persecution, with opposition or resistance, followers of Jesus can immediately be tempted to give up on loving and serving the very people we’ve been called to love and serve. Some of us find it too easy to detach ourselves from others when we’re in conflict with them.

And obviously there’s a time and a place and there’s a lot of nuance here, people, you shouldn’t just go back and forth with people, I’m not saying you should just argue with people all day, sometimes there’s people you need to just say, hey, for the sake of my family and my health and things like that, I need to put an end to this relationship, and that’s okay, but too many of us are, I think, quick to jump to that as a solution.

As leaders, those of us who are in leadership positions, which I think is all of us, we all have influence over some people in our lives. When we make decisions that people don’t like, uh, it’s really easy for some of us to just cut ourselves off from them. Now here’s what Peter and the apostles could have done if, if they’d given into failure of nerve, this is what it would have looked like rather than going back to the temple to continue healing and teaching like they were doing, they would have just moved on to another town.

Sorry, I forget you guys. You guys aren’t joining us anyways. You’re just taking my healing. You just want to walk in my shadow and you don’t want to join us. We’re going to go with people who actually want to give, uh, to what we’re doing. And here’s why this is so dangerous for the church, because I believe that greater than the threat of persecution against the church is the threat of self righteousness within the church.

Because persecution has always happened and the church will always bounce back from it. But if the church dies from the inside because of our self righteousness, because we cut people off that hurt us, um, that don’t agree with our decisions, then we, that, that’s where we lose our potency. When we find ourselves growing more and more cold towards those who don’t follow Jesus, we’ve given into a failure of heart.

When we make enemies out of those who persecute us, uh, we’ve given into a failure of heart. When we don’t practice hospitality because we just don’t want to. We’ve given into a failure of heart. And that’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay, but this is, I’m speaking, like, we’re wrestling with this too. I’m wrestling with this as well.

I’m not saying, like, do hospitality, and if you don’t, you’re a terrible person. Um, because honestly, we don’t always want to, because there’s just people in our lives that God has called us to love and serve that, for whatever reason, we find it easier just to detach ourselves. We don’t, we’re not interested in them.

This is a failure of heart. And this is why we push proximity so much. We’ve started out with a series how to make friends and love other people because we wanted to get near people. And proximity isn’t just about saving the lost. It’s about rekindling our love for them. It’s as much for you as it is for them.

When we get near people that we don’t like, who hurt us, who oppose us, not only do we give them a chance to experience the loving grace of God, we give ourselves a chance to also experience the loving grace of God. But for others of us, we don’t have that problem at all. We have, um, the opposite problem.

We give into what Edwin Friedman called a failure of nerve. And this isn’t giving up on those around you. This is giving in to those around you. So rather than cutting yourself off and detaching, you actually give into the anxiety around you and you back down from your beliefs. Here’s a silly example. I actually, I’m gonna ask a question and I think I know the answer to this question.

Is anyone following the J Cole Kendrick Lamar beef happening? One Calvin. We’ll talk later. All right. One person. This is not going to land at all. Let me just, okay. For you, non hip hop headed heathens. Let me explain, uh, what’s happening. And also let me just step aside. This is not a pastoral, uh, recommendation that you should listen to either of these artists.

As far as I know, they’re not Christians and they use suggestive language. That’s okay. Whatever. I find this situation fascinating because here’s what happened. Kendrick Lamar is, uh, maybe one of the greatest lyricists I would say, you know, of our generation, at least. Um, He can kind of do whatever he wants.

He’s put out album after album. His discography is amazing. One of the only hip hop artists, as far as I know, to win a Pulitzer prize, uh, just for his lyrics. And he was featured on a dish track a couple of weeks ago, uh, where he dissed J Cole and Drake, which are two really easy people to take shots at. I think if I’m being completely honest.

And, um, Jay Cole responded by putting out a surprise album last week where the last track is all just devoted to, to dissing Kendrick. And it is the most mediocre dish track you’ve ever heard in your life. Don’t listen to it, but I’m just saying, I’m telling you it’s not good. He, he criticizes him for things that don’t even make sense and, and everybody responded.

The culture around them. It was all over social media. Everyone’s like, this is crazy. Why did Jay Cole respond to this? And why did he respond so poorly? Like he could have said so many other things, but he didn’t say anything. And Kendrick didn’t respond either. Nothing happened. Three days later, Jay Cole was at a live show and he at his live show said, you know what, um, I actually take back that diss track.

I shouldn’t have done it. It was silly. It was stupid. It was corny. It was dumb. I shouldn’t have done it. You, I heard you guys. It’s all good. Everything’s fine. I love Kendrick. You’re the greatest. I’m so sorry. And so this isn’t landing. I know it’s okay. Even cornier than the diss track itself is apologizing for said diss track, like in the hip hop community.

This is not, you don’t do this. It’s the most bizarre beef that I’ve ever heard of that you’ve ever seen. Anyways. Okay. Moving on. Here’s, here’s, here’s why this matters. That’s a prime example of a failure of nerve. You make a decision, and you know it’s right, well, not if you’re J. Cole, but you make a decision, and you feel like you know what you’re supposed to do, but the pressure of the world around you, the ridicule that you get, the opposition, forces you to go back into your shell, and you say, never mind, I don’t actually want to do this.

I don’t actually want to follow Jesus this way. I take back what I said about your sin. I take back what I said about my sin. That’s a failure of nerve. And when the church does this, we lose our potency. We don’t stand firm on what we believe to be true about the world, humanity, or the character and nature of God.

And so here’s what it would have looked like for Peter and the apostles to give in to a failure of nerve. They would have taken the beatings in the jail time, and they would have listened to the Jewish leaders. They would have said, you know what, you’re right. We’re going to go back to the temple. We’re going to apologize.

We’re never going to teach again. We won’t bother you anymore. We’re so sorry. We want to be free. compelling to the culture around us. We don’t want to ruffle any feathers. So, um, we want to make sure that, uh, you guys like us so that people like Jesus as well, but instead Peter and the apostles don’t do that.

Peter and the apostles embody again, this idea of what it means to be a non anxious, And part of Peter’s ability to do this comes from the command of the angel while they’re in prison. And I want to just point out how brilliant this is. Look what the angel tells him in verse 20. Angel miraculously sets them free.

So they’re in jail. They’re thinking, well, great. This is where following Jesus has gotten us. And angel opens the gates and he says, no, you guys are free to go. But number one, go stand in the temple. Resist a failure of heart by going back to the very center of the chaos and anxiety that you’ve just escaped from.

This is like when you’re in a, maybe you’re in a fight with your spouse. Or like a roommate or something, and you go to different rooms, but then you forgot, like you left your phone in that room or something, and you got to go back. And it’s like awkward. Does anybody know? Is this just me? Please. Anybody feel this?

This happened to you? You got to go back into that space. And you’re like, I got to just get my, it’s okay. I just got to get my phone and I’ll be, I’ll go back. I’m okay. I’m sorry. It’s okay. I’ll go back. Being in that physical space again is weird. It’s that brings us anxiety. And this is exactly what the angel tells them to do.

Part of the command is this call to proximity. Go back to the people that you’re serving. Don’t let your heart grow cold towards them. They weren’t joining you, but that’s okay. Go serve them and love them anyways. And number two, tell them about this life, resist a failure of nerve. So don’t just go to them and make amends, go to them and keep doing what you were doing before.

Keep on demonstrating and proclaiming the gospel. And that’s what Peter does. Now, if you are as cynical and as skeptical as me, here’s what you’re thinking. Of course they, they obeyed the angel. Of course they went back and they preached and they did all the miracles again. Peter’s writing a high. Like, he just saw his resurrected rabbi ascend to the right hand of the father to rule the cosmos.

He just healed a mass group of people with his shadow and his cloak. He made a lame man walk. He was put in prison and an angel just let him out. What’s gonna stop him now? Of course he’s not anxious. To which I would say, you’re right. Peter is writing a high. And he did experience all of those things. But Peter’s seen stuff like that before.

He’d seen his rabbi walk on water. He’d seen his rabbi feed multitudes with bread and fish. He’s seen his rabbi cast out demons. He’s seen his rabbi save his own life on the middle of a Galilean lake, in an ocean, in a storm. And still, A couple months before this, Peter gives into his own anxiety when he denies that rabbi three times.

So what’s changed?

In verse 29, Peter gives again, it’s a killer line. We got to obey God more than people. And I’ve always read that pretty stoically, like he’s Spock or something. Just like we have to obey God rather than people. And it’s like, I got to go do my duty. And that’s it. It’s like, man, I just wish I could be that cold and emotionless and stoic.

And some of you were like, you are, um, but the more I think about it, I don’t think that’s where Peter’s response is coming from. I believe Peter’s response isn’t one of duty. I think it’s one of devotion. I don’t think this is Peter putting his head down and obeying his master out of obligation because God saved him so he has to return the favor.

I think this is Peter remembering exactly what Jesus has saved him from. This is Peter remembering exactly what it is that he’s endured. And this is Peter remembering exactly what it is that he’s promised. This is Peter joyfully and defiantly saying, I have no choice but to obey Jesus. So how do we really become non anxious people?

What’s the real root of our anxiety? Mark Sayers, who’s an Australian author and pastor, writes this. The root of our anxiety is our disconnection from God. This means we cannot be a non anxious presence without God’s presence. And honestly, if I’m being honest, I wish there, I wish there was like a sexier answer than this.

Like, I wish there was like a three step process of like a, Hey, okay, wake up in the morning, say this prayer, do this when someone slaps you in the face, turn the other cheek and do this. And then all of a sudden your anxiety is gone, but there isn’t, or maybe there is, I don’t know. Trade’s back next week.

He might have a three point thing. I don’t know. Um, but here, here’s, here’s what I have. And here’s, here’s what I do know. So we can put all the tools in place. As a church and as a community, we can do all the practices. We can invite everybody into our home. We can put as many ping pong balls as we want in that display over there and still be anxious people.

The only hope we have, I’m convinced of this. The only way that we can, we can, we can like Peter say, I have to obey God because I want to obey God is because of our proximity, not to others, but to Jesus. That any duty that we feel that we’re lacking in our life, any lack of desire we have to fulfill the calling God has put on our life comes from a coldness in our heart towards, towards God.

And that’s remedied not by trying harder, but by trying harder. By putting tools in place, and I’m all for tools and processes. I, I, I love that stuff. I love being practical and giving you tips and honestly in your guide, um, in your groups this week to get, you’ll, you’ll go through some practical ways to, uh, proximity and hospitality and, and fight against failure of nerve and heart and, and all of that, and I’m for that.

But before we even get there, we need to understand that our capacity to love others well, to resist anxiety and to resist a failure of heart and nerve is. Entirely dependent on our connectedness to God. Nothing else matters. Everything else comes from that. And so if you’re anxious, and I don’t know what this looks like for you, I don’t know what it looks like for you to rework your schedules for you to draw near to God.

This is written all throughout the storyline of Scripture. God, all God wants is our, our nearness to him. And this starts in the garden. It goes all throughout the Old Testament. God wants his people devoted to him living out his way because of their love for him. This is Jesus in John 15 when he says, Abide in me, remain connected to me, and then you will produce much fruit.

We stay connected to Jesus. We develop the intimacy with him. We’re able to resist the anxiety around us. Why don’t we stand and respond?