Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 36 from your hardbacked hymnal, hymn number
36. Let's all stand together. The mighty fortress is our God,
The bold work never failing. Our helper He amid the flood,
The mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe, Love
seemed to work us low, His craft and power are great, And armed
with cruel fate, On earth is not His feet. ? Did we in our own strength confide
? Our striving would be losing ? Were not the right man on our
side ? The man of God's own choosing Thus it is he, Lord Samoath his
name, From age to age the same, with devil's filth should fret
up to undo us. We will not fear, for God hath
willed His truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness, We
tremble not for Him, His rage we can endure, For lo, His tomb
is sure. were not of all earthly powers,
no thanks to them I am. The Spirit and the gifts are
ours, through Him who with us signed. Let woods and kindred ? This mortal life also ? The body
they may kill ? God's truth abideth still ? His kingdom is forever
Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to be in First Thessalonians
chapter 2 this morning, this first hour. First Thessalonians
chapter 2, and we'll try to concentrate our attention on the first two
verses, and I've titled this message, Bold in Our God. Bold in Our God. What does the
scripture mean by being bold? I hope that it will be an encouragement,
especially to those who may not have the personality of being
forward because that's generally how boldness is interpreted in
the world. It's interpreted as being confident
in oneself and being confrontational. That is not what God says boldness
is. So I hope that this passage of
scripture will be and encouragement to all of us that desire to be
bold in Christ. I had mentioned that the pastor
over in Clearwater, Billy Agaropoulos, wants me to baptize him. And
I think we're going to work it out so that they can all come
here. And so he's talking to his congregation this morning.
And that's kind of the plan, that maybe the end of August,
they will all come over here. And he'll preach for us. And
then I'll have an opportunity to baptize. We'll have an opportunity
to baptize him here. We'll know more about that after
today. All right, let's ask the Lord's
blessings on our time together. Our merciful heavenly Father, we thank you for the testimony
of the saints to whom you gave boldness to stand for the truth
of the gospel Lord, we're reminded of that in the hymn that we just
sang and the troubles that believers experienced some 500 years ago. And though the body they may
kill, God's truth abideth still. Lord, we pray that you would
give to us that type of boldness that you would make us confident
and uncompromising in the gospel and in Christ. Lord, pray for
the church in Clearwater and ask Lord for your blessings on
the gospel there that you would encourage your children and that
you would call out your lost sheep or that you would do a
work of grace there that would be a testimony of your glory
in that part of our state. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. First Thessalonians chapter two,
beginning of verse one, yourselves brethren know our entrance in
unto you that it was not in vain but even after the we had suffered
before and were shamefully entreated as you know at Philippi we were
bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much
contention. You remember from the account
that the Lord has given us in the book of Acts that the Apostle
Paul had taken the gospel to Philippi and was run out of town
in Philippi and came south just a little bit to Thessalonica
and there only was able to stay in town for three weeks before
they ran him out of Thessalonica. And so he's reminding these believers
of the boldness that God had given to them in the face of
persecution and contention and even in the threat of their own
life that the Lord had enabled them to be faithful to the gospel. What is boldness? It is a work of grace in the
heart. A work of grace in the heart
that God does in giving his children confidence in Christ. Confidence in Christ. It is not confidence in self. It is the Lord enabling us to
rejoice in Christ Jesus, to worship God in the spirit and to have
no confidence in our flesh. And so if there's any thought
that this idea of boldness somehow is to be seen as brashness or
arrogance or self-confidence, that is the furthest thing from
the truth. It's not what it is at all. It is God giving peace, comfort,
assurance, and confidence in the heart. There's nothing so
freeing and so liberating as to knowing that without a doubt,
you're standing on the right side of something. And And that's
what the Spirit of God does when he teaches us the gospel. We know that it's of God. And we're confident that regardless
of what happens or regardless of what might be said, we know
the truth. We know the truth as it is revealed
in Christ. Proverbs chapter 28 verse 1 says,
the wicked fleeth when no man pursueth. The wicked fleeth when
no man pursueth. Now that's the opposite of boldness. It is this sense of intimidation,
this sense of, you know, I'm not really sure what I know to
be true and the least amount of challenge to me or to what
I think is true would cause me to flee even if no one's pursuing
me. And the rest of that verse says,
but the wicked fleeth when no man pursueth, but The righteous
are bold as a lion, are bold as a lion. So you see the contrast
there. One man who doesn't know exactly what the truth might
be could be very easily swayed and very easily turned, very
easily intimidated, very easily threatened and challenged by
what he might think is true, but the righteous are bold as
a lion. They know what God has taught
them, and they know that if God be for me, who can be against
me? This matter of boldness from
the scriptures is confidence. It's not condescending. It's
not some sort of forceful personality that seeks to intimidate men. It is confidence and that confidence
is not in self, it is in one outside of ourselves. It is confidence
in Christ, complete confidence in another while at the same
time holding oneself suspect. Let me say that again. Boldness
is complete confidence in one outside of yourself while at
the same time holding yourself suspect. Not confident in yourself,
but confident in him. Personality has nothing to do
with this. We all have different personalities.
Some people's personalities are very strong. Some people find
it very easy to interact with other people. Some people, on
the other hand, might be very quiet and shy and timid. This
boldness, as God defines it, has absolutely nothing to do
with personality. We are so thoroughly confident
in the person and work of Christ, regardless of our personality,
that nothing can tempt us to change our mind. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel. For it is the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that believeth." You know, we sometimes in error
might think of the Apostle Paul as being some sort of very forward
man, a man who would be very intimidating to be around, a
man that would be of a very strong personality. Here's what they
said about the Apostle Paul. His bodily presence is weak and
his speech is contemptible. That's what his enemies said
about him. They looked at, look at this
guy. Look at his bodily presence. I mean, he was obviously, he
was small in stature. He was probably mostly blind. He didn't come with oratory skills. Listen to what Paul says about
himself. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 2. Now, connect what Paul says about
himself here. I want to be bold. I want to have this kind of confidence. And I don't want to interpret
boldness as something fleshly. It's a spiritual work of grace
in the heart. But it gives such assurance. It gives such confidence, it
gives such hope and the righteous, as I've already quoted from the
Proverbs, are bold as a lion. What is this boldness? Connect
what Paul says about himself here in 1 Corinthians chapter
2 to what happened when he went from Philippi to Thessalonica
and what he's saying to the people of Thessalonia, of Thessalonica. He's saying to them, you remember
that even after we were treated and beaten and thrown out of
town in Philippi, we came and with much boldness we declared
unto you the gospel. with much contention, so confident
that this gospel was of God that nothing could sway us from it. Now look what he says about himself
when he went to Corinth and the people of Corinth would have
been much the Corinthians were kind of Athenian wannabes. They
were, you know, they thought very highly of themselves and
they were, you know, somewhat intellectual and highly educated
and they would have expected a preacher to be that way. That's why Paul said, Christ
is not, he said this to the church at Corinth, he said Christ is
not divided, he said some of you say that you are after Paul,
some of you say you're after Cephas, some of you say that
you're after, who's the other preacher that was so articulate,
and so, Apollos, and of course there's the spiritual group that
said no, we're after Christ, but you know, So there was some
division in the church over their favored preachers. Look what
Paul says about himself in chapter 2 of 1 Corinthians, verse 1.
And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency
of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus
Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness
and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the spirit of power. that your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. I did not come
to you. Like I said, the Corinthians
and the Athenians, the Greek philosophy was very vogue at
the time. Oratory skills were very highly
esteemed. And Paul said, I didn't come
to you that way. Came to you with fear and trembling.
And yet with boldness. And yet with boldness. So you
see from here that boldness has nothing to do with delivery. It has nothing to do with forceful
personality. It has everything to do with
the confidence that God gives in the heart when he teaches
us the gospel. And our confidence is not in
ourselves, it's in Christ. Now if there's anything that
defines this kind of boldness, it is what the scripture tells
us about how it is that we come to God. Boldness in coming to God. Ephesians
chapter 3 verse 12 says of Christ, in whom We have boldness and
access with confidence by the faith of Him. So who would ever
think of coming into the presence of God with some sort of self-assurant,
cocky attitude? That's the furthest thought from
our minds. But the Lord calls coming into
the presence of God with boldness. He said in another place in Hebrews
chapter 4, we have not a high priest that cannot be touched
with the feelings of our infirmities but was in all ways tempted as
we are yet without sin. Therefore we come boldly before
the throne of grace. We come into the very presence
of God with this boldness. So this boldness can't have anything
to do with some sort of outward expression of strength. It's confidence in another. It's
confidence in Christ. So Paul said, when we came to
you, we came to you sure that this gospel was of God and it
was true and that that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the
living God, and we made no compromises and no exceptions about it. Our
speech may not have been very eloquent. Our arguments may not
have been very persuasive, as men might see them. The world would not consider
the way in which we came to you as being bold. And yet, as God
sees boldness, we were bold because our confidence was in Christ.
It wasn't in us, it was in Him. We have boldness and access before
God, in Him, through the faith of Christ. 1 John 4, verse 17
says, Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in
the day of judgment. Now that means that when you
stand before God in the day of judgment, when he separates the
sheep from the goats, that we're gonna have boldness before God.
That kind of boldness can't have anything to do with what men
call boldness. And the rest of the verse defines
what that boldness is when he says, for as he is, so are we
in this world. There's our boldness. Our confidence
before God is that we're found in him. Not having our own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that righteousness which is by the
faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our confidence is not in ourselves,
it's in him. Any confidence that we put in
ourselves is a false assurance. Matter of fact, I can say by
my own personal experience that older I get, the less confidence
I have in myself. And young people are very self-assured
and very confident, got the world by the tail, I guarantee you. If you have any wisdom at all,
the older you get, the less of that you're going to have. And
the more dependent you're going to become upon him. That's what
boldness is. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
10. Like I said, I hope this is an
encouragement because we read so much about boldness in the
Bible. And I know some believers think, well, I could never be
that way. It's just not my personality. This has nothing to do with personality. What God's calling boldness is
an uncompromising dependence and confidence in Christ. for all your salvation, all your
righteousness, all your justification, all of the truth is bound up
in him. And anything that you might think
or anything that the world might present that's contrary to that,
boldness identifies it for what it is and rejects it. Does that
make sense? Boldness identifies all error
for what it is and refuses to be swayed by it. Hebrews chapter 10, and we'll
begin reading at verse 17. And their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Here's my boldness. Here's my
boldness in the day of judgment. For as he is, so are we in this
world. My sins and iniquities, God remembers
no more. He's put them away. What confidence,
what peace, what hope, what comfort. I have no hope or comfort outside
of that. And if I place my confidence
in anything else, I'm only fooling myself. That's what the world
does. The world lies to itself. The
religious world says peace, peace when there is no peace. And the
irreligious world thinks that, you know, thinks that intimidation
and arrogance is the way to succeed. Now where remission of these
is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren,
boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Now, the Holy of Holies is where
the Ark of the Covenant was. That's where the mercy seat was.
And for 1,500 years, it was the most protected place in all of
Israel. It was shielded by a thick veil. It was guarded by priests that
were ready to put you to death if you got close to it. And even
once a year on the Day of Atonement when the high priest, only the
high priest could go in one time a year and make a blood offering
on the mercy seat. He went in with fear and trembling. He went in with a rope tied around
his ankle. and bells on his garment so they
could hear him while he was in there. If the bells quit ringing,
they knew that God had killed him and they were going to have
to drag him out. They couldn't go in there and get him. They
had to drag him out. So that's how the holies of holies
was treated throughout the entire Old Testament. Who would have
thought of going into the holies of holies boldly? And yet, When the Lord Jesus
Christ bowed his mighty head on Calvary's cross and he cried,
it is finished, the veil was rent by the very hand of God
from top to bottom. And no longer did the priest
say, stay away, stay away, be afraid, don't come near. Now the spirit and the bride
say, come. Our high priest has gone in and
he's put his blood on the mercy seat. And now our boldness and
our confidence is in him and his accomplished work of redemption.
And we can enter into the very presence of God with confidence. Having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new
and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the
veil, that is to say, his flesh. And having a high priest over
the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full
assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, Let us hold
fast the profession of our faith without wavering for he is faithful
that promised." There's our boldness. Our boldness is in him and in
his faithfulness all that he promised he fulfilled. We can
enter into the very presence of God Almighty with boldness. That's how God defines boldness. Humbly, yes. But with confidence,
yes. You see, boldness is not the
tone in which we speak. It's the tenor. It's the content. The Bible says that Moses was
very meek. above all the men which were
upon the face of the earth." When God spoke to him at the
burning bush, he was 80 years old. Now, the way the Lord describes
Moses was after that experience. Because before that, when he
was 40 years old, he took matters into his own hands and he thought,
you know, I can do this. And he was very bold. I mean,
for 40 years, he'd been raised as the son of Pharaoh. He had
power and influence. And he walked around and men
were intimidated by him. And he used that intimidation
to try to get things done. And God had to send him, as the
Bible says, to the backside of the desert for 40 years. And now at 80 years old, he's
very meek. He's very meek, he's very humble. And I don't suppose that when
he stood before Pharaoh, he stuck out his finger and spoke with
great authority and power when he said, let my people go. And yet he said it boldly, without
compromise. He said exactly what God told
him to say. And of course a better example
of that than that is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Take my
yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart. Learn of me. Learn of me. Boldness is speaking and standing
for the truth without compromising. And it's not how you stand, it
is that you stand. Scripture says that we're to
speak the truth In love, in love. When you read Revelation chapter
2, the Lord commends the church at Ephesus for their conviction
of the truth. He commends them for having identified
those who call themselves apostles but are not. He commends them
for standing for the gospel and being uncompromising in their
convictions. And then he says to them, yet
I have somewhat against you, for you have left your first
love. What is the Lord telling us? That boldness without grace
and without love and without humility If I have not love,
I'm a sounding brass, 1 Corinthians 13, a tinkling cymbal. You see,
a lot of what's being interpreted as boldness today is just sounding
brass and tinkling cymbal. It's just men promoting themselves
with the strength of their own personality. And I want to be
an encouragement because, you know, I realize most believers
feel like, you know, I can't, I can't really defend the gospel.
I can't really, I know when I hear it, I believe it. But preacher,
don't ask me to go out there and be a forceful witness to
people. The other day we were driving
somewhere and there's some guy in the street corner with a microphone
and a big loudspeaker preaching in the street corner. And I'm
sure he went home thinking, I've been bold today. That's not boldness. That's not boldness. Boldness
is confidence in Christ. Boldness is coming before the
throne of grace knowing that the veil's been rent, that he
has paved the way, that he's put his blood on the mercy seat.
And regardless of what opposition might come, boldness is unwilling
to and unable, it's unwilling and it's unable to change. It's a work of grace in the heart
that God gives to his people when he teaches them the gospel
and puts them in Christ. Hebrews chapter 13 says, Be content
with such things as you have, for he hath said, I will never
leave thee nor forsake thee. And I don't want you to think
about You know, we ought to be content with the material things
that the Lord provides for us. I hope the Lord gives us contentment,
that we're not greedy and covetous, but be content with Christ. Be content with Him as all of
your righteousness before God. Be content with what He did on
Calvary's cross for all the payment for your sin. Don't try to add
to or take away from Him. Be content with such things as
you have in Christ for he has said I will never leave thee
nor forsake thee so that we may boldly say the Lord is my helper
I will not fear what men shall do to me you see if we're content
in Christ we're content with what he has provided and who
he is for our salvation then we can boldly say We can boldly
say to all opposition to the gospel, I do not, the Lord is
my helper. I do not fear what men might
do to me. That's boldness. Just a couple quick points. How
do we get this boldness? Well, in Acts chapter four, the
apostles were threatened with their lives not to preach the
gospel in Jerusalem. And in verse 29 of Acts chapter
4, they go before the Lord in prayer and they say, and now
Lord behold their threatenings and grant unto thy servants that
with all boldness we may speak thy word. Fast forward. A man can receive nothing except
to be given to him from heaven. Lord, convince me in my heart
so thoroughly and so fully and so surely that Christ is all
in my salvation that I would not be tempted to question that
or to deviate from Him. Give me that boldness. Ask God
for it. And when they had prayed, The
place was shaken and they were filled with the Holy Ghost and
they spake the word of God with boldness. With boldness, with
clarity, with simplicity, without compromise. So we ask God for
it. It's a work of grace given to
us by the Spirit of God. Let me show you, turn with me
to Zachariah. Next to the last book in the
Old Testament, Zechariah chapter 4. This is a glorious prophecy.
In verse 1, and the angel that talked with me came again and
waked me as a man that is waked out of his sleep. That's what
you and I need. We are. We are slow of heart
to believe. We sleep and we slumber. We're like those apostles in
the Garden of Gethsemane. Our spirit is willing, but our
flesh is weak. Lord, I need the angel of the
Lord to wake me from my sleep. And he said unto me, What seest
thou? He showed him a vision. And I said, I have looked, and
behold, a candlestick all of gold. and a bowl upon the top
of it and his seven lamps thereon and the seven pipes of the seven
lamps which are at the top thereof. So here's a golden candlestick
with seven candles with a bowl of oil on top and there's tubes
coming out of the oil going to olive trees and the two Verse
three, and two olive trees by it, one on the right side of
the bowl and the other on the left side thereof. And I answered
and spake unto the angel that, and spake unto the angel that
talked with me, saying, what are these, my Lord? What is this? I don't understand this vision.
Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me,
knowest thou not what these be? And I said, no, my Lord. And
he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the
Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but
by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Who art thou, O great
mountain, before Zerubbabel? Thou shalt become a plain, and
shalt bring forth the headstone thereof, with shoutings crying,
Grace, grace, unto it. Now in the book of Revelation,
these two olive trees are spoken of as the two witnesses. It is
the word of God and the spirit of God. Those are the two olive
trees that provide the oil for the lamp. The spirit of God and
the word of God. And what God is saying to Zachariah,
it's not by power, it's not by might, it's by my spirit. That the lamp is lit. The golden
candlestick is Christ. The lamp is Christ. It's the
gospel. He's the light of the world. He's the truth in whom we have our life. And
these things are fueled through the oil that comes from these
two olive trees. so that we're able to say to
those mountains that would separate us from our God, that sin and
unbelief that would hinder our faith, be ye cast into the sea,
who art thou, O mountain undeservable? Be the cast into the sea for
it's not by my power, it's not by my might, it's by God's spirit
and by God's word that he gives boldness. And it's by grace,
grace, grace, it's not by works. This is how God defines boldness. The disciples in Acts chapter
4, again, before they were threatened, the Sanhedrin got together after
they had questioned them, and they said, what are we going
to do? These men are ignorant and uneducated. They don't have our degrees.
They've not been to our school. But they took notice of them
that they had been with Jesus. Now there's where boldness comes.
We spend time in God's Word and by His Spirit with Christ. I hope that right now the Spirit
of God and the Word of God is enabling the people of God in
our hearts to spend time with the Lord and to ask the Spirit
of God to give us this confidence in Christ. That we not doubt
and we not fear and we have assurance that the Lord is everything in
our salvation because there's not only going to be challenges
from the world and challenges from the unbeliever, there's
going to be challenges from your own sin and from your flesh and
from the accuser of the brethren and all these things are coming
against us. Oh, Lord, I need to be bold. I need this confidence. So in private prayer and private
devotion and public worship, May God give us boldness. I wanna show you two more verses
of scripture real quick. Turn with me to Acts 13, Acts
13. And this will be your experience.
I know it has been mine, that when the truth is challenged,
whether it be by your own sin driving you back to Christ, whether
it be by the accuser of the brethren putting you under the law, whether
it be by the gainsayers of the world who challenge the gospel
when these things that God has shown you are true are called
into question. It doesn't cause you to cower
or compromise, but rather God uses these experiences as confirmation,
confirmation of the truth. And you become more sure, more
sure of who Christ is and what he has done. Let me show you
that in the scriptures. You have your Bibles open to
Acts chapter 13. Look at verse, Verse 45, and
when the Jews saw the multitude, they were filled with envy and
spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting
and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed
bold and said it was necessary that the word of God should first
have been spoken unto you. But seeing you put it far from
you, you judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life. Lo, we turn
to the Gentiles." The opposition of the Jews only
served to confirm to the hearts of Paul and Barnabas even more.
In the next verse, he goes on to quoting a passage from Isaiah
where the Lord told him that there were going to be witnesses
unto the Gentiles. And this opposition to the gospel
only convinced them. It only confirmed to them the
promises of God and made them more bold and more sure. The
second thing, or third thing, or fourth thing, whatever it
is now, beyond prayer and being with Christ and experiencing
the opposition of the gospel in your own heart and life that
increase boldness is the example of boldness in your brethren. When you see a brother or a sister who are being challenged in the
gospel and God brings them through that and gives them more confidence
and more boldness, it becomes an encouragement to you. I know
it does to me. Let me show you that. Turn with
me to Philippians chapter 1 and this will be our last passage.
Philippians chapter 1. Look at verse 12. Philippians 1 verse 12, but I
would that you should understand brethren that the things which
happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance
of the gospel so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all
the palaces and in all other places and many of the brethren
in the Lord waxing confident by my bonds are much more bold
to speak the word without fear. When I see a brother or sister
being challenged in the gospel and God in His grace confirms
to them and enables them to come through that boldly, it causes
me to want to be more bold. It gives me confidence. We were bold in our God. That's what Paul said,
1 Thessalonians 2.1, 2.2. We were bold in our God. What assurance, what grace, what
comfort, what hope. The wicked flee when no man pursueth,
but the righteous are bold as a lion. God give us that spirit
of grace. All right, let's take a break.