Living on the Edge

Chip Ingram: Where are you most afraid today? What has you uptight inside? What causes you to have great concern about the future? Fear is a very powerful emotion that can paralyze your soul. Want to know how to break out of it? Stay with me. That's today on Living on the Edge.

Dave Druey: A lion's roar can be heard for five miles. According to Chip Ingram, that's exactly the picture the Holy Spirit chose when describing our enemy: a roaring lion. I'm Dave Druey, and today on Living on the Edge, Chip moves us into Acts chapter eight where Stephen has just been martyred. Saul is dragging believers out of their homes, and the church is scattered. By every measure, it looks like defeat, and yet the gospel advances.

Chip will unpack exactly how, and later he'll share details about the midyear match happening this month, so stay tuned. Here's Chip with today's lesson, Intimidate and Isolate.

Chip Ingram: The roar of a lion can be heard for over five miles. That same roar thirty yards from your car or truck will rattle the metal. There are three reasons that lions roar. Number one, it's territorial proclamation. They roar over what they rule. Second is to communicate with other lions, and third, they roar when they're angry.

In my research, I found a person who had done studies on lions in Africa and he said his roar is an awesome message of power, that he is lord and master of all that he surveys. And so it seems fitting that the Holy Spirit would lead Peter to describe our enemy, the devil, Satan, as a roaring lion.

Lions don't roar when they attack. They roar to create fear. No matter how weak or how strong a Christian, the attack will come when you're alone and when you're vulnerable. His roar is fearful and certain. His attack is predictable. The only question is, how do you respond? What's God's answer to the tactic of intimidation and isolation?

The answer is in Acts chapter eight. Open your Bibles if you will to Acts chapter eight or open up your mobile device. Remember, it started out subtle. They tried to divide the church in chapter six. In chapter seven, they were wrapped in this tradition. Well, now, in chapter seven at the end, it ends with the martyring of Stephen. They stone him.

And if you're a follower of Jesus now, it is a bad person to be. They're fleeing for their lives. They're leaving their homes. They're leaving their businesses. They're fleeing to Samaria. Some are hunkered down in Jerusalem. And we pick up the story in the beginning of chapter eight.

"On that day, a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem. All except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned for him deeply. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged them off and put them in jail. Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Remember one of the seven, Philip, went down to a city in Samaria and he proclaimed Christ there."

When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs that he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. And then notice the results. With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. So there was great joy in that city.

Now, to get the context to really get what's going on, you need to understand that Jews hate Samaritans. It goes back hundreds of years. The Samaritans were in mixed marriages, so they're part Jewish and part other people. The Jews in Jerusalem were 100% Jewish, not only in culture but in genetics. These were the half-breeds.

But now they're running for their lives. As they're running for their lives, all of a sudden, they are people being rejected. The Samaritans say, "What do you need?" "Well, I've lost my home, I've lost this, I've lost that. I'm running for my life." In the midst of their worst time, they begin to share with them, "I've found life and the story of Jesus and the love of Christ."

Philip says, "There's power here and we don't have to be afraid of death anymore." He begins to preach and God begins to work. Miracles occur and people are healed, and all of a sudden amazing things are happening. The year of Acts chapter two is about AD 33. Acts chapter eight is two years later, AD 35.

All the Christians that you're reading about are two years old in the Lord. Now, if you look at your notes, let's summarize. Satan's strategy is to destroy through intimidation and isolation. You see that in the first eight verses. Notice, however, God's purpose is to deploy through suffering and proclamation. You're not immune to suffering, and I'm not immune to suffering. It's a fallen world. He never promised peace. In fact, he said, "In the world, you will have tribulation or suffering."

But he takes the suffering, and as we suffer, he can use it to do really, really great things. It's not a wasted suffering. Here's the application: fear not, preach the word. What difficult situation do you have in your life right now that makes you just want to get focused and isolated and fearful that could be the greatest opportunity that God ever gives you to preach the word?

And I don't mean just with your life. We've got to get beyond that. Hebrews 4:12, I've put it in your notes, it says, "The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as the far division of soul and spirit and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart."

God calls us, regular normal people, to preach the word—not judgmentally, not like we're better than, but winsomely, lovingly sharing our lives, our testimonies, and inviting them to explore what it says.

Now, this revival occurs. After this, now there's sort of a battle between good and evil because these Samaritans had been hoodwinked by some demonic activity. We pick up the story in verse nine. In verse nine, it says, "Now for some time, a man named Simon practiced sorcery in this city and he amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, 'This man is the divine power known as the Great Power.'"

He actually was claiming deity. They followed him because he amazed them for a long time with his magic. The word magic and the word sorcery are the same root words. It has the idea of the manifestation of supernatural things through demonic power.

And then look at verse 12. "But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized and he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles that he saw."

When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon them. They had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

Now, this big confrontation of good and evil—if you summarized it—Simon is intimidating through demonic sorcery. People were scared. We experienced a lot of this in Santa Cruz. I've seen it in Haiti. When I was in India, parts of Africa.

I mean, there are people all around the world, and we kind of think we're a little more sophisticated. I've seen people in South Africa pull up in Mercedes who have great jobs, who live in a first-world country, and with the demonic issues they have, put money and food on an open grave so the demons representing their dead parents don't terrify them at home.

The world is in the lap of the evil one. This is real stuff. But Philip liberates. How? Through the word of God. And so what you need to understand is the gospel goes from the Jews, then it goes to the Samaritans, and then it goes to the Gentiles. Every time that happens, the spirit of God and the wisdom of God the Father and Jesus is that he wants to make sure these groups stay unified.

Remember when they were just all Jews but they spoke two different languages? Remember the division: the Greek-speaking Jews and the Hebrew-speaking? That was a problem. Well, now you've got Samaritans. What are most of the people in Jerusalem going to think if you say, "The Samaritans are now Christ-followers"? "No way."

And so God doesn't baptize them in the Holy Spirit—in other words, that external manifestation. It doesn't say it here, but I would assume, because it's visible and you can see it, it's probably the same as Acts two where they spoke in other languages. There was a manifestation of God's power and God's spirit when Peter and John came.

And so what they did is they wanted to authenticate to keep the unity of the church. It happens different ways throughout Acts. And so they go and they say, "It's for real. They've received the word." All of Peter's and John's prejudices are going out the window. They pray for them and then, boom, now they're brought into the body of Christ. You'll see the same thing happen in Acts 10 a little later.

And so God keeps the preservation of the unity. But the real issue going on here is between evil and good. Are people following after Simon, or now is it the truth of the word of God? Here's the truth that I want you to get: the power is in the message, not in the messenger. The power is in the message, not in the messenger.

These people have only been Christians two years. Philip has only been a Christian two years or less. If you would go through, it'd be interesting; in my Bible, every time "preach" or "proclaim" occurred, I highlighted it. These are normal, ordinary, regular people running for their lives, and every time you see the yellow, what it is is the word of God is going out.

It's not that you don't know enough. It's not that you're not bold enough. It's not that no one would ever believe you. It's not that they're going to ask questions you can't respond to. The power is in the message, not in us messengers.

But here's the deal: when you begin to share that message, Satan's tactics will go from division and subtlety to often frontal. We saw that in Santa Cruz. It was crazy. The first couple of years there, we experienced things that I thought only happened in books.

But we saw hundreds of people come to Christ, and there were all these Satan worshippers and all this weird stuff, and it got frontal. And what I want you to know is you don't have to be afraid. You don't have to be afraid. But I will tell you, there's all kinds of Christians that as you start growing, you start sharing, and you start living, as you press against things, you'll experience some frontal attack. And the goal is to get you to isolate and say, "That's for someone else."

Dave Druey: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Before we continue, a quick word about something happening right now with this ministry. June is midyear match month, and for a limited time, every dollar given to Living on the Edge is being matched dollar for dollar by a generous group of partners. That means your gift works twice as hard and reaches twice as far. You can learn more about it at livingontheedge.org and Chip will tell you more after the message. Right now, let's get back to it.

Chip Ingram: Here's the application: fear not. Greater is he that is in you than he that's in the world. But you see, we say that and it's up here, but it's not in here. There's not a boldness, there's not a power. These people had conviction. They knew that there's nothing more powerful than the gospel of Jesus Christ. Just let it loose. God works through his word. But we know that "greater is he that is in me," but down deep, I don't think we believe it a lot.

Theresa and I were walking downtown many, many years ago in Santa Cruz. It is weird, weird, and weirder. We love Santa Cruz, but we've seen things that make us go, "Eh, Santa Cruz." The musicians are out, the crazy stuff is going on, and there's this big ruckus. It's outside of a bar area, and people are starting to gather.

And there's this guy. You could tell he's the bouncer—the black t-shirt, and he's about this wide. When he turns this way, have you ever seen those guys whose chests are this thick? At six months old they start lifting weights. I don't know how they do it. Big arms like this. And there are like two drunk guys, and this guy can't handle them. Someone has called the police, a crowd is gathering, and a police car comes.

This police car comes out, and I'm kind of like, "Honey, get back," but I don't want to miss out on what's going to happen. It pulls up on the curb just a little bit. I wonder what's going to happen. The door opens, and now ladies, what I'm about to say, this is not a pejorative comment. Listen to the entire story before you think I'm down on women. I'm not down on women.

But I'm thinking, there's this huge strong bouncer that can't handle these two guys that are just sauced. The car pulls up, the door opens, and out steps like a four-foot-eleven-inch woman police officer. And I'm going, "This is going to be good." And what I saw there became a picture in my mind about spiritual warfare I've never forgotten.

That young woman got out and got behind them about twenty feet. "Gentlemen, stand down." And all of a sudden, three heads went around. She's got her hand on her hip and she's unclipping her gun, and they got sober instantly. And then she said, "Gentlemen, right now, hands on the front of the car hood. Do you understand?"

And I'm thinking, the bouncer couldn't do it, but a little five-foot woman can. You know why she can? Because she's got a badge right here that says the full authority of the State of California is behind her. For us, we're in Christ. The full authority of the God in heaven and his resurrected son and his shed blood—we are in Christ.

Second, she had a weapon that they didn't. You can be big, you can be strong, kung fu, karate—a .45 relieves all of that. And you don't have to be very big to shoot it. And the Bible says that we have the sword of the spirit, which is the spoken word of God. And when you understand who you are and how to use that, God's going to mobilize us, thousands and thousands of people, into people who share and who are not ashamed to say, "I love Jesus."

I'm not anti-intellectual, I'm not a bigot, I'm not politically correct—I love Jesus. It is the name above every name in heaven and on earth and his word is true. I live in one of the most politically correct places in all the world, and I'm unashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God to salvation.

And the issue is you won't have to be weird. It will often happen in your suffering and in your pain, in the mate that left you, in the upside-down house, in the child who's having a struggle, in your loneliness, and in your cancer biopsy. And they will watch your life, and they will watch the power of Jesus in you.

And you know what'll happen? They're open. Your neighbors are open, your coworkers are open, the people where you work out are open, the people at the coffee shop are open, where you get your dry cleaning done are open. 87% of all the people in America pray, Christian or not. They're looking for hope—not from weird, zealous, better-than Christians, but real people handling real problems, where you just love them.

That's what God's going to do. But he's not going to do it through some big program. There is no big formula. There are no superstars we're shipping in. It's going to be us. Notice what happens after this big good versus evil event. There is a warning. The warning occurs in this man named Simon. The warning is going to have to do with genuine versus counterfeit faith.

And here we pick up the story in verse 18. "When Simon saw that the spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money and said, 'Give me this ability so that everyone whom I lay my hands on may receive the Holy Spirit.' Peter answered, 'May your money perish with you because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money. You have no part or share in this ministry because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he'll forgive you for having such a thought in your heart.'"

And it's not that God would be unforgiving. Peter is saying, "Man, you've got to come clean from the heart for real." "For I see that you are full of bitterness and you're captive to sin." Then Simon answered, "Pray to the Lord so that nothing that you've said will happen to me." And then when Peter and John had testified and proclaimed the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, and notice what they're doing. They're preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.

There's a breakthrough. But it's very interesting. This is like there's a story and there's a parenthesis, "By the way, Simon." Everyone who quote "believed" through intellectual ascent and goes through some external ritual—baptism, communion, raising a hand, walking forward—here's the truth: intellectual ascent and external ritual do not constitute saving faith.

Simon sought to use God. In the paragraph before, it said, "And Simon believed." The same word is used in James chapter two, verses 19 and 20. It doesn't always mean saving faith. It says the demons also believe and shudder. The demons believe that Jesus is the Son of God. The demons believe he's the savior of the world. The demons believe in his deity.

But they don't have personal saving relationship. They intellectually agree with those truths. Second thing, there's a lot of people that have ritual. Everyone else was getting baptized, and Simon says, "Hey man, I had this kind of power, they got more power, I want that power."

Simon tried to use God. There wasn't a change of heart, we learn later. He wants the benefits of the power for his own personal use. He intellectually agrees with what's happening. But there has been no internal transformation of heart.

Now, I want to say something and you need to just ask God to give you real ears to hear right now. For the last probably fifteen to thirty-some years, there's been sort of a new gospel, and it's made it into the church and it's gone all around the world. And the new gospel goes something like this: you may have tried Buddhism, self-help books, or seminars. You may have worked at this job or tried that, and somewhere along the line, someone said, "Why don't you try Jesus?"

Jesus came and paid for your sin. He wants to make you healthy. He wants to make you wealthy. He wants to make everything work out. Just believe in Jesus, you'll be upwardly mobile, and your kids will all turn out right.

And basically, Jesus has very subtly become your personal self-help genie to fulfill your agenda. And what you really want to do is use him to get what you want, what you think will make you happy and fulfilled. That's a big word now, fulfilled. Now when things get kind of hard, or when the hard side of following this Jesus appears, it's like, "I'm really not interested in that."

It's "What can he do for me?" It's a consumer mentality; it's a Simon mentality. A lot of what is very clear about what it means to follow him is disregarded. Christians, about eight out of ten in America, just disregard very clear teaching about morality, clear teaching about relationships, clear teaching about commitment. For about eight out of ten, their lifestyle, their priorities, their speech, their love or lack of love—it doesn't line up with Jesus.

Dave Druey: That's Chip Ingram on Living on the Edge and a message titled Intimidate and Isolate. Chip has some exciting details about our midyear match in just a little bit, so keep listening. And to make sure you don't miss a message in this series, subscribe to the Living on the Edge podcast and take the Jesus Revolution with you wherever you go. And for Chip's full-length sermons, find the Chip Ingram Sermon Podcast on your favorite platform.

A four-foot-eleven-inch female police officer steps out of her patrol car. A massive bouncer couldn't handle two men, but she could, because she carried an authority those men had no answer for. Not her own authority—the full weight of the State of California behind a badge. That's the picture. In Christ, the full authority of the God in heaven and his resurrected son stands behind every believer who opens their mouth.

The power isn't in the messenger; it's in the message. And the reason so many who call themselves Christians live lives indistinguishable from everyone else isn't lack of knowledge; it's a lack of belief that goes all the way down. The revolution begins when we stop saying we believe it and start living like we actually do. And right now, here's a fantastic opportunity to do just that. Here's Chip Ingram with more about this special moment here at Living on the Edge.

Chip Ingram: Philip wasn't one of the original twelve. He was just a faithful man who said yes when God said go. In Acts chapter eight, Philip is sent by the spirit to a desert road—not exactly the most promising evangelism venue. But he went.

And on that road, he met an Ethiopian official reading Isaiah, led him to faith in Christ, and changed the course of Christianity on an entire continent. The lesson? God doesn't ask us to see the whole plan. He asks us to take the next step.

I'm teaching right now in the Jesus Revolution, and the call is clear: stop waiting for perfect conditions. Join the movement where you are, with what you have, and trust God with the results. Philip didn't know what was waiting on the desert road; he just went.

I don't know how or what God will choose to accomplish with the gifts that come in this June, but I know he will. I know that he can do more than we could ever ask or imagine. And this is what I know: I know he called me to take the next step, to teach God's word with love and uncompromising truth.

I know he wants me and our team to help pastors that are struggling all around the world and help them to develop disciples—Christians who live like Christians. We don't have to know what's coming next. We just have to say yes to right now.

So here's my question: will you take the next step with us? Will you give today, even if we don't know what the future looks like? You don't have to see the whole plan, just take the next step. Don't wait. Join the Jesus Revolution today.

You can easily give online at livingontheedge.org or by calling us at 888-333-6003. You can also send your gift through the mail by writing to us at Living on the Edge, P.O. Box 3007, Atlanta, Georgia, 30302.

I'm Dave Druey, and we'll see you next time when we pick up with part two of Chip's message, Intimidate and Isolate, right here on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.