Discover the Jesus pattern and how to apply it to your life part 9

Welcome to episode 138. Consistency in your Christian walk is a key.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 138. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to continue to talk about the Jesus Pattern, and I want to go now to the New Testament in Acts. It's the early church, begins with Jesus ascending to heaven to sit at the right hand of Father making intercession for us. He Jesus told his disciples to wait until they were endued with power, and I think I had that as step— probably, it's probably step 3. I'm going to summarize this at the end of this lesson, or not this lesson, but at the end of this teaching. I'm going to have one episode that's just going to be a summary of like the 5 steps or 6 steps or whatever, however many steps we've gotten to. I lose count, and again, math is not an exact science, so we don't have to have the exact number yet, but we'll have it in the final episode. I do wanna remind us, without counting it, I wanna remind us what the steps are. And the first one is to be about the Father's business. And I think we could argue, if you go to Acts, that the disciples were all sitting together, they were in one accord, and I think they were all trying, they were waiting and praying and fellowshipping and talking about Jesus. They were talking about doing the Father's business and what all this means. You know, I wasn't there, But I do believe to be in one accord, they were all worshiping and praying to Jesus, Father God, the Holy Spirit. They were, they were praying to God, and they were doing what Jesus told them to do. They were waiting for the promise. So they're sitting up there, you know, and nobody told them that the Pentecost was going to be 10 days after the Ascension. So they're sitting there, they're walking around, they're living their life, they're going to and fro, you know. I don't believe they just sat in the upper room for those 10 days without eating anything, without drinking, without going and interacting with people. I think they were up in that upper room when they were meeting together and they were talking about it, but they were still living their lives. Now, they may not have been doing their jobs. I, you know, again, I wasn't there. They were waiting and they were in one accord. They were sitting, waiting on the promise, and then the promise came. The Holy Spirit came and sat on them with tongues. And I'm not going to go into all of that, but what I want to do is I want to take us to Acts 3, where Peter and John went together to the temple. Remember step 2? I don't know, I'll put it all in order again. I'm sorry, Jesus did not tell them to go ministering alone. And I want you to notice that John and Peter were together. They were going into the temple. So they're going back and forth into the temple, and they see a lame man from birth sitting at the Gate Beautiful. And I just want to I want to read that because it's such a cool story. It's Acts 3:1. Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple. Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked for alms. And fixing his eyes on him with John, Peter said, look at us. So he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. Then Peter said, 'Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.' And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he, leaping up, stood and walked, and entered the temple with them, walking, leaping, and praising God. Now isn't that a cool story? Peter and John just walk into church. They're going to church together, the two of them, and they're going to pray. They're just going. They have no idea what's going to happen there. I mean, they didn't set out— I don't believe they set out and said, hey, if we see that guy begging, you know, that guy that hadn't walked, if we see that guy begging, let's grab him. What do you say? I mean, I don't see that anywhere. I see that they have been endued with power. And it talks about the church growing, how they're getting together, how they're all praying together, how they're still with one accord, but they're walking— they're staying inside this house setting, or the upper— I don't know if they're still in the upper room, but the church is probably— it's gotten a lot bigger because they've added 3,000 at the day of Pentecost. So there's people being added to the church, so the church is getting bigger. They're going house to house. They've got this house fellowship, or they're just breaking bread and they're visiting and they're having a relationship and they're talking about the day, probably talking about what's going on, how the Holy Spirit is, you know, all of this stuff. They're talking about God. They're still got their eyes on Jesus. The Holy Spirit is fresh in them and they are in love with God. And that's another key, is that you have to be all about, all sold out, all about Jesus and God. You know, remember that the pearl of great price where that guy, the merchant, was going out and he found this pearl and he sold everything he had to go all in on this pearl of great value. And it's just an analogy that these guys right here went all in on the kingdom of God. So they are all in. And I know it's probably not appropriate to bring a poker analogy into a Bible study, but that— I've told you, for 30 years of my life I was not saved. So the poker analogy, if you know anything about poker and you see these people go all in, that means, look, I'm fixing to either win or I'm gonna die. And again, I go back to Revelation 12:11, and they overcame him, which is the punk, by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Part of what we need to do is go all in, and that doesn't mean that you set your life aside. You know, these guys were going back and forth, they were breaking bread, they were having a relationship. They were probably having to go work. They were probably fishermen. They were still having to fish, but they were coming together. And when they came together, they came together with a purpose, and they came together to have fellowship. I'm sure they were encouraging one another, and I'm sure they were kind of digging into the word, because that was one thing they had in common. And they were looking to what God was going to do next. And remember, they're building God's kingdom. But I want to take— I've talked a long time about this, but prayer is very important, and it's going to be a step But I want to go to what I believe this healing teaches us. This healing is more— and I believe if you look at how when Jesus healed and when John and Peter healed and how I believe the church, when, when we go out and we heal in the name of Jesus, that is not salvation and that is not getting people into the kingdom of God. That to me is like— have you ever seen those dinner bells? You know, the little triangles where you ring that bell. I believe that's really what healing is. Healing is healing the body. Now I understand that all of our bodies are dying. We're not getting out of this thing. I've talked multiple times— in fact, that's one of the keys to this whole podcast— is that we're not getting out of this thing alive. And Jesus is one day closer to his return. Whether we make his return alive or dead It doesn't matter. And the reason I say that is because if you have died to self, you've already died one time. So it doesn't matter if you die the second time and you're in the ground when Jesus returns, or that you are changed in the twinkling of an eye when Jesus returns. You're gonna go with him if you have died to self here. If you've been the knee, if you've repented and you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you know that you have that salvation moment, and you know that you are living towards God, and you're this one accord. And that's kind of what I want to teach about, is these people, these disciples, they were with one accord and they were getting after it. If you look and see what Peter and John did after the healing, they started preaching and they started teaching about Jesus Christ, and they started saying, hey, this wasn't us, we didn't do anything, this was the name of Jesus that caused this man to start walking. And my wife is a physical therapist, and she says the fact that this man could leap and jump and walk and not stumble, and it was even a bigger, or as big a miracle as actually his ankle bones and legs being strengthened. Because you don't come out of the womb, or you don't come out of never walking ever, and walking and having balance and all, much less leaping and dancing. And what it was, it is a wonderful wonderful miracle, but the miracle was just to get the people's attention. And that's the key that I want you to see, is that the miracles are not what gets you saved. The miracles is, is like that dinner bell. It's to get your attention and get you to come in to listen, or to come in and eat, or whatever. But the disciples then started— Peter started talking about Jesus and started preaching the good news. He started preaching the good news and then teaching, and And the reason that I know that they preached and taught is we go to Acts 4. Now as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captains of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. Just to anchor this thought home, I need us to go back to Matthew 4:23. And Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. And then he said, remember that I'm— it's better if I leave. That was in John 16:7. You know, it's to your benefit if I go, because if I don't depart, I won't send the Helper. He's departed. The Helper has been sent. That was Pentecost. So the Holy Spirit is here. And oh, by the way, the Holy Spirit is here to stay. And Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So the Holy Spirit is here, and Jesus said, wait. And so they waited. Then they were endued with power. Jesus was endued with power. Remember, we talked about him was led into the wilderness by the Spirit, and he came out in the power of the Holy Spirit. So Jesus was endued with power, the disciples were endued with power, and they healed and then they preached and they taught, and then they got arrested. So that's not a good thing. They also got the people's attention and people were saved. And you've got to take a stand. And Jesus didn't say, hey, it's all going to be peaches and cream and there's not going to be any kind of confrontation and there's not going to be any kind of pushback, because Satan is a punk and the world system is a punk and all your flesh is a punk. You're going to get some pushback when you start the work of the Holy Spirit and you start doing God's work, when you start telling people about Jesus or about God and whom Jesus sent, when you start doing the kingdom of God's work, you're gonna get pushback. But you don't have to quit doing what you're doing. Like, if you're a plumber or if you're a gardener or if you're a real estate agent, you don't have to quit doing what you're doing. I, I just want to remind you that God is has done extraordinary things with ordinary people throughout the Bible. I, I mean, he's famous. God is famous for doing extraordinary things with ordinary people. So I just want to encourage you, and I want to remind you one more time before I sign off on this episode, I want to remind you of 1 Corinthians 1:26-29. And that's the whole reason I'm here. And I— that goes way back. Paul said, you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty, and the base things and the things that are despised he has chosen, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. I might have chopped that one up a little bit, but you get the basics. God is going to use— if you are just an ordinary guy or girl listening to this, then get ready because God is going to use you. God uses ordinary things. He's famous for that. And that's why I continue on in this podcast, is that God is going to use ordinary. And hey, they don't get much more ordinary than me. I'm just a regular guy. I don't have a flashy life. I just go to work, I come home, sometimes I work at home. But what I am doing is I am trying to do the work of God. And I want to encourage you right now. Let's pray. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for this pattern, Lord. I hope and pray in Jesus' name that the person listening to this will start seeing this pattern played out in the Acts and then the whole New Testament on how that we don't have to be anything special or we don't have to have any kind of title to be able to do your work. In fact, Lord, you call people without titles. You call people that are just ordinary. And Lord, I thank you that you've made me ordinary. But God, you are an extraordinary God and that you will use the ordinary to give you glory. God, I thank you. I love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.

Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.