Non-Anxious Church:
Sharing Christ in a Post-Christian Culture

You can take interactive notes here. At the end of the message, you can email the notes to yourself.

Open your Bibles again to Acts chapter four. For all of 2024, we’ve been, we’ve been trying to trace every teaching in every series. Back to one simple goal, and it’s right behind me. It’s how to make friends and love other people. And we are learning this is a lot more difficult than it sounds.

And one reason in particular is because the modern society that we live in is not built for friendship. In fact, it’s built for loneliness. Uh, the data is in. It says the percentage of Americans who say they have zero close friends has quadrupled since 1990. Gen Z is the loneliest generation in human history, and we’ve been saying often, friendship, we all agree, is common sense, but sadly it has not become common practice.

But I’m really proud of our church. If you’ve been here for any length of time, I think you’ve really done an incredible job really moving your schedule around and doing different things so that you can make friendship a common practice. And one way we’re really focusing on that as a faith community right now is practicing hospitality.

So it’s been a gift to hear stories. It’s been a gift to be invited by you to your home. We’ve been extending hospitality with the saint, the stranger, and the sinner to experience. the loving grace of God. And that’s what this ping pong display is over here. And so if you’ve host anybody throughout the week, we encourage you, grab a ping pong ball, put your initials or whatever you want to put on there and drop it in.

I think we’re a little bit less than halfway. Our goal is 734 mils. And so I just love that. And I think it’s to me, it’s a visual reminder. We’re doing all that we can to be friendly, to make friends and to love other people. But let’s be realistic. Most of us have, have just been hosting a bunch of other saints because hosting strangers is really hard.

And beyond that, hosting sinners, those who are against the way of Jesus, feels like it’s been harder than ever before. We are in a moment where, uh, our neighbors, I have some, I won’t say by name because I hope they’ll come one day, but some of them, they’re fine with me being Christian, they just want me to keep it private.

So when we get together, hey, we’ll talk about anything. But religion and politics, which is usually for a better night, amen? Typically, uh, because that can get quite fun. Others though, and this is a growing group, uh, it’s minority, but I think it’s growing, especially in certain areas of America. They don’t want just to keep our faith private.

They view it as hostile. They don’t want you to just share it. They want you to not follow it yourself. And so that’s making us anxious. This is it’s been hard to be gospel centered people in a culture that doesn’t necessarily want us to share the gospel to them. And that’s why many describe our moment as a post christian culture.

Post Christian. There was a moment where Christianity was the majority, but now, it’s certainly not. What Christians consider liberating, society now deems oppressive. What Christians would believe is true, society now would say, no, that’s a lie. And it’s vice versa. And so I think, as a result, maybe you feel this.

We are more fearful and distressing of each other and systems around us. You have non believers who are afraid of Christians because they think that we have an agenda and it’s filled with greed and with hatred. But then Christians are really fearful of non Christians or non believers because we fear they have an agenda to either brainwash our children or, you Take our faith out of the public square.

And to reference last week, friends, we are in a world that’s pretty paranoid. And for some reason, the church at large, I never want to be a guy who bashes the church. So this is just a part of the church. But some churches believe the only way we should fight this paranoia is with more paranoia. To fight anxiety with even more anxiety.

To fight yelling with even more yelling. And I just want to ask the simple question: how is that going for us? How is that going for our children? So John Tyson, he has this great book called Creative Minority. He’s a pastor in New York City. He gives us this chilling warning, and I want us to really focus on this as we engage with this new series.

He says, quote, the further out of the public square we are pushed, the angrier and more frantic our rhetoric becomes. It is as though out of fear of being forgotten, we seek to span our growing distance from the center with volume and intensity rather than engaging with intimacy. But if we’re not careful, we will not be seen as bearers of good news, but rather as ideological warriors seeking to force a Christian theocracy on a resistant nation.

Anybody else feel that in the room? Good times. Good times to be alive. For the next four weeks, I want us to really zero in on Acts four through seven. And my prayer, I don’t think this will happen in a moment, although the Holy Spirit can certainly do that. Our hope is that we really begin to focus on becoming a non anxious church.

In my mind, what that means, especially in the middle of an election season as we are stepping into, I want us to be a compelling community that fights fear with hope, that fights anger with peace, right? That fights hatred. With love. And this is the way of Jesus. And by the power of the Spirit, we can do that.

And we’ll see examples of that all throughout the book of Acts. Let’s pray as we’re about to dive into this morning’s scripture. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thank you so much for your goodness and for your grace. God, thank you for our children who are in the room this morning. God, I pray, Lord, that even they would get a word today that would be good for their soul.

God, we are in a, in a hard moment culturally. God, we feel pressed between being truthful people and being loving people, and God, give us the wisdom to see we never have to sacrifice one over the other. God, preach this passage. Use this passage the same way you’ve used it the last 2, 000 years and that’s drawing people to yourself in Jesus name I pray everybody says amen.

Amen. Y’all listen. This is our second ever to service Sunday 11 a. m. It was a little bit louder. I’m just saying so 915 the prayer Pressures on. All right. Come on morning people were supposed to already be here and ready. All right. Up to this point, the early church has like experienced success after success.

It’s been so fun to preach, right? Uh, revival comes, fire comes down. Uh, 2000 people are added on one day. This lame man is now healed. It’s been amazing. Lots of signs and wonders, lots of giving of land to help other people meet their needs. And now though, acts chapter four takes a shift. They’re now experiencing real persecution.

And we’re going to debate that over the next four weeks. Are we experiencing persecution today? I think there’s varying levels, but we can certainly say the book of Acts is facing actual persecution. What I think it’s telling is how the disciples of Jesus react to such persecution and I pray that we would resemble them.

Verse one, Acts chapter four, while they, this is still the story by the way of the lame man getting healed and Peter and John are now experiencing the result of them sharing this gospel message. While they were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple police, uh, imagine that, temple police, okay, and the Sadducees.

Confronted them because they were annoyed this word annoyed. Maybe in your translation says disturbed. Another way to say it is deeply grieved and troubled or offended. They’re super angry. It’s all the things that we see quite often here in 2024 because they were annoyed that they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.

What bothers people more than anything? The resurrection hope. And there’s a reason why, which we’ll talk about. Verse three: So they seized them, being Peter and John, and took them into custody until the next day, since it was already evening. But many of those who heard the message believed. And the number of men came to about 5, 000, which many believe that means it’s roughly about 20, 000 people.

How many people are in the upper room in Acts chapter one? 120. Now it’s up to 20, 000. Verse 5. The next day, their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem with Annas, the high priest. Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and all the members of the high priestly family. After they had Peter and John stand before them, they began to question them: by what power or in what name have you done this?

What’s the this? Healing a man. They’re upset about the healing of a lame man, which shows where their priorities are. What’s happening here is what the, the gathering place is, it’s called the Sanhedrin. So, the Sanhedrin was a council of 70 elders plus the high priests. This was like, um, this was the council before like what we would call Supreme Court.

You would go through the Sanhedrin first, and if they couldn’t agree, it would go up higher to the Supreme Court. Most decisions were settled. among the Sanhedrin. But here’s what’s so fascinating about the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin didn’t always get along. It was mainly composed of Pharisees and Sadducees.

Let me explain both of those people, because I think we see those people today. The Sadducees, they believed in morality. They were fine with using the Torah to a certain extent to make sure that there was civic order, right? But they weren’t very religious. They barely knew their Torah. They, They didn’t actually believe in the resurrection.

They didn’t believe in angels. They didn’t believe in miracles. They didn’t even believe in afterlife. Today, if we were to encounter a Sadducee, we would call them secular. Kind of like non believers, but still operating within this function of religion. And again, they didn’t even believe in the resurrection or angels.

And that’s why they were sad, you see. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I’m here all day. Uh, I’ll let you know how the 11 felt about that one, but listen, they were happy to do Rome’s bidding. They were happy to give up a lot of their religion because Rome realized. These people are power hungry. I’m gonna give them riches and positions in order for them to betray their people.

That’s exactly what the Sadducees did. So now you have the Pharisees. The Pharisees are the polar opposite of the Sadducees. The Pharisees were fundamentalists. They were very religious. They had the whole Torah memorized, front and back. They believed in the resurrection. Just not the resurrection of Jesus.

But they believed in miracles. They believed in angels, all the things. And this is what the, what the, Pharisees were driven by. This is fascinating to me. They were driven by this idea that if all of the people of God in Jerusalem would just follow all the commandments, which they added some, by the way, in the Mishnah.

So it’s thousands of commandments. If everyone was just perfect for 24 hours, that’s all they needed. Jesus, the Messiah, which they don’t believe is Jesus, but that we say is Jesus, the Messiah would come, conquer the world, and Jerusalem will be on top. So, can you imagine the angst the Pharisees felt any time somebody was sinning?

Ah, the clock just restarted because of you! Jeffrey! Come on, Jeff! Right? Let the cow die. It’s Sabbath. You’re not supposed to save him. They would have all these rules because they just wanted God to come back and no longer be under the oppressive rule of Rome. But here’s what’s fascinating. The Pharisees and Sadducees, they had to learn to get together because it was called the Sanhedrin where they would make decisions.

It’s kind of like politics today. How well did they get along? Just as good as they do today. All right? But here’s what they deter, but here’s what you’ll see. The Pharisees and Sadducees know this. The enemy of my enemy is me. is my friend. And the one person that was ruining the whole structure of all of Jerusalem was Jesus, right?

So the Pharisees and Sadducees, the one thing they can find they can agree upon was that they did not like Jesus, nor his way or his followers. And so I want you to notice this, they’re going to team up to try to squelch, to try to threaten, the way of Jesus. And as they’re doing that, I want us to notice how anxious these religious elites are.

You can tell somebody’s anxious if they’re obsessed with controlling other people. And the Sanhedrin is doing all they can to control this way of Jesus. And now I also want, as we’re about to read verse 8, I want us to also notice how Peter is not anxious. He’s not trying to control the Sanhedrin. He’s just trying to live his life the way Jesus has called him to live.

Look at verse 8 with me. Then Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit. By the way, we believe, um, the filling of the Spirit, right, happens at, at conversion, right? And we celebrate that with baptism. But there are moments where the Spirit of God just kind of like comes through you. And, and have you ever had those conversations where it’s like, I don’t even know what happened, but I really felt compelled by the Spirit.

And I said things, I quoted scripture I didn’t even remember. This is what we believe this is. It’s happening. We’re talking a lot about the Spirit in our groups, and it’s so fun to debate that. And uh, so glad I’m not in all those groups. Uh, it’s fun. All right. Verse eight. No, I’m just kidding. But he was filled with the Holy Spirit instead of them, rulers of the people and elders.

So notice the respect. If we were being examined today about a good deed done to a disabled man, by what means he was healed, let it be known to all of you, to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead. Notice, who were the people that voted to get Jesus crucified?

The Sanhedrin, right? So Peter is facing the very people who killed Jesus. Right? By Him, this man is standing here before you healthy. Now verse 11, Peter quotes Psalm 118, which shows the legitimacy of the Old Testament. We still believe it’s the Word of God, not just the New. This Jesus is, quote, the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the stone.

The cornerstone. For years, I didn’t quite understand the significance of that phrase cornerstone. Cornerstone just determines the stability of a whole house. You can mess a lot of things up, but if you get the cornerstone wrong, the house just will not stand. Everything will collapse or stay, depending on the cornerstone that you chose.

And friends, in all of life, Every single one of us has a cornerstone. It’s an ultimate anchor that keeps us steady in the storms and circumstances of life. And we typically recognize the strength or weakness of our cornerstone if we collapse when bad things come our way. A cornerstone, how would you know what is your cornerstone?

It’s essentially, you’d be able to say this, as long as I have insert blank, I’m going to make it through. And I think our culture, we have a lot of different ways we can insert the blank. A lot of different answers, hopes that we think will keep us surviving through any storm. So my question I want to ask is, what is the cornerstone of hope, first of all, for the Sanhedrin?

Well, for the Sadducees, their cornerstone was built on what they owned. They actually gave up a lot of their beliefs in order to make Rome happy. Why? Rome gave them a huge percentage of the taxes so they can live in riches and power. They were willing to sacrifice popularity. They were willing for the fellow Jews to not like them in order for them to make sure they have the new brand new Mercedes donkey.

That was just like really nice, you know, uh, to make sure that those wheels were just nice and clean and shiny. This is who they were. They worship. They did anything to get more money and more possessions. We may not have any Sadducees today, but do we have people who are building all of their life and schedule and family all around owning more possessions?

I think we certainly have that today. What about the Pharisees? For the Pharisees, their cornerstone was built on what they did. Here’s what’s really hard. This is what a lot of us would term as religious, which I don’t think is a bad word, religion, because James uses it in a very positive light, but I get some of us use religion in the negative term, and I think this is what that means.

Religious is to say God loves me because of what I do. What I do for God. Here’s what’s really hard about living a religious life. You’re only as good as your worst day. You can have a may a lot of amazing days, but you’re always living under the weight, the condemnation of that one day that you know that you feel like can’t be forgiven.

And these were the Pharisees. So they had a lot of guilt, and what they would do is instead heap guilt and shame on other people in order to make them feel better. Now, Pharisees, the name isn’t really here today, but are religious elites, people who are forcing guilt down other people to make them feel better, is that alive and well today?

This is when you say, yes, okay, I’m gonna ask the eleven, I’m just saying, I’m not saying it’s competition, but you know. Now, they were anxious people. I believe because their cornerstone was not sufficient. Can you imagine how anxious you are if your life is all built on what you do? What happens if you can’t do certain things anymore?

Can you imagine the pressure if your life is all about what you own, but what happens when the economy falls? See, if your cornerstone is about beauty, you’re always going to struggle feeling ugly. If your cornerstone is riches, you’re always going to struggle feeling poor. If it’s intelligence, you’re always going to be worried about being the dumbest person in the room.

If it’s about popularity, you’re always going to be worried that somebody left you out. This is what cornerstones do when they’re not sufficient. This week, all right, this is where I need your grace. I became very anxious because I think I think it’s safe to say I made the biggest mistake as an adult in my life.

Uh, and so what I was doing, I was on the phone, actually talking theology, I promise, with a friend of mine in Florida, and we were just fully engaged, and so I pull up to the gas station in my diesel truck, do you know where this is going? Pulled up to my gas station, talk, chatting, this, that, the other, and I’m like, yeah, yeah, yeah, well what about this theological presupposition, you know, whatever I was saying, and I grab the black handle, and I click it into the diesel, and I’m talking, and thankfully by the grace of God, I hear a click.

And at the moment, you know, cause you’re supposed to do the thing, right? And thankfully the black handle was like, I’m not supposed to be here. Click, you know? And so the moment that clicked, my brain clicked and I lied to my pastor friend. Somebody else is calling me, turned it off. Nobody was calling me except panic.

And uh, so I was freaking out. I look at it, I look, it says 0. 7 gallons. So I’m trying to do math. How bad is 0. 7 gallons of unleaded gas in a diesel truck? And I do it any. Not smart person would do. I just pick up the green handle, fill the rest up with diesel. I’m Googling. What do I do? Did I just lose my truck?

You know, and just like the rest of my life, some people said I was fine. Other people said, you’re done that you might as well sell your home, go live in another country. This is embarrassing. And so I’m here trying to figure out what to do. So somebody says it might not turn on if it turns on, maybe that’s a good sign.

And so fill it all the way up. I get in, I’m shaking like, Oh, this is the worst decision of my life. I turned it on and it works and I’m only about a mile away from the house. So what do I do? I drive home and This is where I need your grace. It was the neighborhood. No, but no kids were around his middle school day.

I was reading on my phone while driving to see like, how bad is this? And slight again, barely reading it was, I was mainly driving. Um, and it says, just be careful. Cause unleaded and diesel is like making a small bomb. And so the whole drive home. I’m driving like this, just like, ah, like, you know, just ready for the bomb to go off.

And literally a guy, a guy had a trash can and he slammed it like in the neighborhood. I went, ah, like I thought the whole truck blew up. And so the whole drive home, like, please Lord, please Lord. And I thought, I’m not calling my dad. There was no way. I’ll feel like I’m 16 all over again. He doesn’t need to know.

I called him two hours later and gave me a whole, well, you need to pay attention. Dad. I know I’m 32. Like I just, what do I, anyways, It died on me once, but it’s been fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I think. All right. So all that to say, I actually think a lot of people live life kind of stressed out that this thing’s about to explode.

They’re cornerstone. They know that they’re kind of, they’re, they’re operating off of the wrong fuel. And so you’re just waiting for the rest of it to implode. And I think that’s why so many of us, we live in an anxious culture because we know deep down we’re created to live for God and we’re living for so many other things and that foundation is crumbling and we are just waiting to implode.

And why should Christians be any different? Why should we actually have kind of a non anxious presence? Well, first of all, since Christ is my cornerstone, my life isn’t built around my possessions. Philippians 4, 12 through 13 says, I’ve learned to live with a lot and with a little because when Christ is my hope and my glory, I can put up with any circumstance because he’ll never leave me nor forsake me.

Amen. So my possessions, praise the Lord when I have a lot and praise the Lord when I don’t have a lot. That’s okay. This is the hope that the gospel brings. But also, maybe that’s not your thing. You’re okay being poor and you’re fine. But here’s the other one. Since Christ is my cornerstone, my life isn’t built around my performance.

The Pharisees needed to hear this good news as well. Christ, hear, hear me. Christ loves you on your worst day just as much as he loves you on your best. That’s the good news of the gospel right there. Because it’s not on your performance. The beauty of the gospel is Christ performed on my behalf. He lived the perfect life already.

He died the death I was supposed to live. He fully performed. He beat sin, Satan, and death. And I get to live from his victory. And this is why we should not be driving around waiting for the small bomb to go off. We have hope. We have security. And Peter clearly has that security. Look at me with me at verse 12.

There is salvation, we looked at this last week, saving, healing, and no one else, for there is no other name under heaven which is given to people by which we must be saved. This statement invites persecution, by the way. Jesus’s words are clear. Like in John 14, six, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me. So I wanna make sure you’re clear. We’re clear here at this church. We believe in the sufficiency of Christ and Christ alone. He is the only way to heaven. And so guess what works? They’ll never save you possessions. They’ll never comfort you the way that Christ alone can do.

The sufficient work on the of of work, the sufficient work of Christ on the cross is what saves us and hear me. That is exclusive. It’s Christ alone. But what I love about Christianity, it’s the most exclusive and yet the most inclusive. You know why? It’s not about your past yo,ur pedigree, or your performance.

It’s everybody’s and everybody’s invited in. You just have to humbly admit you need a savior. And so a lot of persecution happens because the main debate, especially during Peter’s day, is, yes, we need saving, but the question is, who is the Savior? And people got angry when they claimed Jesus was the Savior, and that makes people angry today.

But I think an added moment to, to our cultural moment, an added layer, is not just who is the Savior, but now we’re all asking the question, what do we need saving from? There used to be a cultural moment where we all agreed we’re pretty messed up, but now we’re trying to sanctify it, baptize it, and say, no, we’re fine.

We don’t need a savior. I am who I am. And this is what’s dividing most of us today. I hate this. I have, I know neighbors and loved ones that call me a bigot because they asked me about certain sins and they ask, is this a sin? And I say, yes, but his grace is sufficient. I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to offer you this new life, but I still care about you.

But that doesn’t seem to be enough, right? How dare we say someone needs to be saved? from the very thing that person loves the most. Well, because the cornerstone, we’re trying to say your cornerstone is fragile. I know you think it feels good, but it’s not going to be good for you in the end. Here’s why we’re in a difficult moment and why we need to become a non anxious church.

Write this down. We are in a difficult cultural moment because authenticity to inner feelings has become transcendent truths. I know that’s a lot to like take in. What does that mean? Sure, the Bible says a lot about my identity, but you don’t know how I have felt about my identity since I was a child. So I know the Bible says to do something, but I feel like it should be something else and my feelings should trump over whatever the Word of God says.

That’s the moment that we’re in. And it’s hard. I don’t love being rude. I don’t love having to be honest. It’s since the Bible says a certain sin is wrong. We say, well, when I partake in it, I never feel more fulfilled. So obviously then this sin is not sin because I love when I partake in this. And this is our logic.

I had a whole list of different sins and different ideologies we have today that our cultural moment has said is good and this feeling trumps over biblical truth. And then I realized it’s family Sunday and I want you to have a not awkward lunch today. So in your groups this week, if you’re a part of groups, we’re going to mention some of those and you’re going to wrestle with what are some sins today that we now say is okay because it feels right even though the Bible says otherwise.

Is that all right? All right. But look, I don’t want to just harp on nonbelievers here. I think we have to be honest that we all struggle with this. Specifically, we all face the temptation to have a spirituality that feels like transcendence, but never demands transformation. I think that’s why it’s totally fine for people to mention praying to a universe.

Everybody feels good about that. Oh, just the universe. I just, we’re all aligned today. This is a nice day universe, you know. And I think it’s because the universe never demands anything from you. You always stay in control. The universe is just this cosmic genie, and when I want it, it’s going to be there for me, but it’s never going to want anything from me.

And, um, that’s just not how life works. As a church, we’re a practice based community, and so we like to focus on one practice over a serious length of time. So right now, we’re doing hospitality. And, and honestly, becoming a practice based community over the last few years has been met with resistance because we’ve been confronting this idol of ours.

That we want to serve God as long as it serves us. But sometimes there’s things in the biblical text that we need to serve and do, even when we don’t feel like it’s what we should serve and do. Because we have to remember, even we as Christians, we tend to believe our feelings are correct. They’re not always.

I think they eventually follow you. I think if you do the right thing long enough, you begin to love and experience those wonderful joys. But we wait too often to feel right about it before we commit to doing it. So when Peter says there’s salvation in no one else, we have to see this Jesus. We have to fully surrender to Him and all that He demands from us.

Hospitality is a wonderful idea. It’s annoying cleaning your house every week and having hard conversations with people who don’t want to hear about Jesus But you promise you’re gonna try doing it this week for the first time But if you want to experience transformation, you’re gonna have to do some hard things.

I love the idea of Sabbath rest. It’s beautiful. I just imagine 24 hours Just stop working stop wanting stop worrying and then Sabbath comes and I think do I need to do it this week, right? I just have more things to do. I need to be a little more productive. It’s because we fall for this lie. We want to be transcendent.

We want to experience holiness, but not do the hard work of holiness. Now, of course, don’t hear me wrong. It’s empowered by grace. It’s not earning God’s love. It’s turning to the love that’s already yours. Make sure you hear me. But I want to be clear. The gospel of Jesus is confronting. It’s good. It’s beautiful.

It’s true. And it calls you to die to yourself. But when you die to yourself, you get this boldness, you get this courage. Look at verse 13. When they observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus.

That’s the life of a disciple that we’re all seeking to live here at Passion Creek. And since they saw the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in opposition, right? Proof is in the pudding. But verse 15, after they ordered them to leave the Sanhedrin, they conferred among themselves, saying, What should we do with these men?

For an obvious sign has been done through them, clear to everyone living in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But so that this does not spread any further among the people, let’s threaten them against speaking to anyone in this name again. Do we have these kind of threats? Maybe they’re unspoken, right?

But we kind of know what these threats are in modern day. Verse 18: So they called for them and ordered them. Not to speak or teach it all in the name of Jesus. How do you think that’s going to work out for them? It’s not going to go well. Verse 19, Peter and John answered them, whether it’s right in the sight of God for us to listen to you, rather than to God, you decide.

For we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. Peter’s already tried that before, denying Jesus, not mentioning. He said, no, no, no, no, no, I’m not going to do that again. After threatening them further, they released them. They found no way to punish them because the people were all giving glory to God over what had been done, for this sign of healing had been performed on a man over 40 years old.

What was, quickly, what was Peter and John’s response? Hey, I fear God way more than I fear you. You know that only God can judge me, which I believe is true? That’s also terrifying. I would rather receive anybody else’s judgment because God’s judgment actually brings some weight. And He knows all that I’ve done.

But we can say that with assurance because only God can judge me. And in Christ Jesus, I am righteous. Amen. But check this out. The fear of the Lord is what they’re having. And the Proverbs say the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That word beginning in Proverbs 7 actually means the cornerstone.

The cornerstone of wisdom is fearing the Lord. What is wisdom? Wisdom is visualizing the pain and consequences of sinning against God before actually sinning against God. Have you ever felt that? Where it’s like, man, I did something so dumb and now that I realize how dumb it was and the consequences, I would have never done this in the first place, right?

Like we had to experience the consequence first and then go, wow, if I can do anything in life, I would just not do that. Wisdom says, I already feel that consequence before actually committing it. So now I’m not going to commit it because I know what the consequence is going to be. It’s, it’s, it’s counting the cost of sin before actually sinning, not after sinning.

And, and this is the wisdom that Peter’s operating from. And it’s really the wisdom that I hope you and I begin to continue to add upon in these coming days as we look through this non anxious church series. But I want to, I want to close with this is, wisdom is what produces courage. The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to rise above our anxious culture.

We have a culture, let’s be honest, that threatens us. You do you, but keep it private. Don’t talk about Jesus to your friends or your neighbors. Don’t stand up for the poor. Don’t stand up for the unborn. Don’t stand up for X, Y, and Z. And so we need courage. And over the coming weeks, we’re gonna address, I think, different ways we fall into anxiety, and I think Pastor Caleb’s gonna start with that next week, with fear of heart, uh, failure of heart versus failure of nerve.

But for now, I just wanna encourage you, I really believe, us as a church, we were born for such a moment as this. I often wish I had my grandfather’s era of church, where like, I can mention right away I was a pastor, and it was like, I was getting to free something, and now it’s, just ask me any other question but what I do for a living, right?

But I think we’re born for this moment. I don’t think God gets the address wrong. I think you’re in your neighborhood for a specific reason and purpose. I think their theology is so important. And I think us sharing it with our neighbors, we need to do so with clarity, but also with courage. And that’s what we’re hoping to do as a church family.

And so just to practice that this week, we’re going to challenge you yet again to practice hospitality. In your group guide, we’re going to look at a base practice and a reach practice. A base practice means it should be easier, we hope everybody makes an attempt, and it’s just to simply have a conversation with somebody who doesn’t follow Jesus, and just ask about their beliefs and their views.

And so we hope that goes well for you. Just get in proximity with those far from God. But then we have a reach practice, which again, look into your group guide. It’s a bit more challenging. My prayer is that some of you actually share the gospel this week, that you have somebody over at your house and you share about the hope that you identify with Peter.

In verse 20, we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen. And maybe some of you today, we have to open up this offer. You’ve never seen or heard Christ. You’ve never seen him as your cornerstone. You’ve been relying. You’ve been driving around like this, just knowing something’s about to explode.

And I’m here to tell you, Jesus comes to bring life and life in abundance. And I love our rabbi’s promise when he says, my yoke is easy. My burden is light. Will you take up his offer to find Christ alone? He has saved you, is saving you, and will save you to the end. Let’s pray.