Book of Acts

THE BOOK OF ACTS – Chapter 3
Week 8
IN THE WAKE OF WHAT JESUS DOES
Alrighty, grab your Bible. We’re in Acts 3:11–26. Hope you guys are enjoying Acts. We’re looking at the issue of being empowered by the Spirit to be courageous.
As you’re finding your place in your Bible, here’s the story line and where we find ourselves. Jesus is God, comes into history, lived without sin, he died on the cross, rose from the dead, ascended back into heaven, sent the Spirit to indwell and empower his people to continue his mission.
This includes, a little earlier in chapter 3, the healing of a man who was lame from birth. We read the story that Peter and John, two of Jesus’ early ministry leaders, are going up to the temple around 3 o’clock, the time of prayer, and they see a man who’s been lame since birth. And he’s begging, trying to make some money to make ends meet, and they tell him, “Silver and gold we do not have, but in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, be healed.” This guy’s instantaneously healed—jumps up, dances, rejoices, and walks into the temple to praise God.
The question then is, What next?
 What happens after Jesus, who’s alive and well in heaven, ruling and reigning, shows up to do a healing here on the earth? We’re going to look at what happens in the wake of what Jesus does. 
Here we go. Acts 3:11, “While he clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded”—Wouldn’t you be astounded? Somebody lame from birth all of a sudden is on Dancing with the Stars. Wow, wow, wow. “All the people are utterly astounded, they ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s.” Some of your translations will call it Solomon’s porch. 12And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: So, he’s going to stand up and preach. You know why? It’s always a good time for a sermon. How many of us look for opportunities to bring up Jesus? Peter saw a divine appointment.
“Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? 13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, 
How did he begin his sermon in Acts 2 at Pentecost? “Men of Israel.” You keep reading the book of Acts, how are many sermons begun? “Men.” “Men!” “You men!” It’s a strong word to the men. Paul continues this, right? “Men of Athens!” “Men!”
God’s cry from Genesis 3 with the failure of our first father forward is, “Men!” “Men!” “Men!” “Adam, where are you?” “Men, where are you?”” That’s God’s cry. God speaks to men and women—and some of you women will be offended by this, don’t be. 
God created men and women equal in dignity, value, worth, but he lays an additional burden of responsibility on the men to love women, to love children, to serve women, to serve children, to protect women, to protect children. And in the world in which we live is what the world looks like when God is disobeyed and men are defiant.
Here’s the truth:
If a man worships Jesus, statistically, so does his wife and so do his children. If a woman worships Jesus, statistically, it is far less likely that her husband will worship Jesus or her children will worship Jesus, because in the family system, whether you love it or hate it, the truth is this: the husband and the father is dominant. 
Men, we can be a burden or a blessing. We can bring life or death. We can bring tears or rejoicing to our families. And it all depends on this: 
Do we open our ears to hear the call of God, “Men!” and then repent of sin and receive the Holy Spirit and walk with Jesus? And he says that Jesus is the servant “of the God of our fathers.” And then he goes on to talk about three fathers: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. These are three generations of men—a grandfather, a father, and a son, or a grandson.
Men, you and I need not just think about a good time but a good legacy. We are to have a covenant mindset, not a selfish mindset. You need to know, men, that if you worship Jesus, the odds are increasingly better that your sons and your grandsons will worship Jesus. If you worship Jesus, the odds are increasingly better that your daughters and granddaughters will marry men who worship Jesus. And the converse is true. And so men, much rises and falls with you and me. And so the beginning of the sermons in the book of Acts are calling out, calling to, men.
God’s men should think differently: We think Biblically. We think legacy. We have a covenant mindset. And some of you men are the first link in that chain, and it’s incumbent upon you that your children and grandchildren would come to know the Lord Jesus. 
The enemy is out to destroy men and here God is calling us to be men of God. 

glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. 14 But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, 15 and you killed the Author of life” 
Peter stands up in a section of the temple to preach and proclaim the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. And he does so to people who are murderers. He says, “You killed Jesus. You handed him over. You preferred the murderer Barabbas to the God-man Jesus. You. You.” He gets real personal. How many of you, if you were addressing a group of murderers, would talk about something other than their murder, right? Because you could be encouraging them to murder you. So, he’s being very courageous. He is calling murderers to repent of their murder, knowing that if they don’t, odds are they will murder him as well. Peter here is acting in a way that is very courageous. 

The Holy Spirit wants to empower you and me to be courageous in talking about Christ. 
And so as Peter gets up, he has this amazing sermon and he highlights eight things regarding Jesus Christ. So, I want to examine those with you in succession, because ultimately, it’s all about Jesus.
13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus…
JESUS IS THE SUFFERING SERVANT
The first thing that he, in fact, tells us about Jesus is that Jesus is the suffering “servant,” and he refers to Jesus as our servant and the servant of our fathers. Those who were Jewish in orientation would have been familiar with the Old Testament, and they would have harkened, most likely, back to the book of Isaiah, written seven hundred years before Jesus was born.
And in Isaiah Chapters 40–66—the story line is about someone called the servant. I mean, if you want to have a mind-blowing experience, go home and read the second half of Isaiah Chapters 52-53. It’s promising the coming of Jesus—his life, death, burial, resurrection, and salvation.
So, that’s right in the middle of this section, but chapters 40–66 are about one called the servant, that God would send a servant. And then Jesus comes, and he says things like this: 
Mark 10:45 English Standard Version
45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
So, Jesus’ service for us includes his death for us.
Let me submit to you that this is one of the ways I know that the God of the Bible was not constructed by men but was revealed by God: other religious concepts of God is that God exists to be served—God is a projection of the way we are.
 So, you and I live in a world where most of us, perhaps all of us, would rather have servants than be servants. Right? The goal in a company is to get as high up as we can so we can hand off as many responsibilities that we do not like to other people. The goal is to make enough money to employ people to serve you so that you don’t have to do certain things. 
All of us like this concept of someone serving us, someone taking orders from us, someone obeying us, someone looking up to us, someone being under us. We don’t look forward to being a servant, right? 
You can’t get a minor in college in how to be a humble servant, because no one would take that course of study. And Jesus comes as a humble servant. He leaves glory, comes in humility. He leaves luxury, comes in poverty. He leaves a place where he is served by the angels to serve his enemies. 
Romans 5:10 English Standard Version
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
That’s Jesus. He comes to serve.
And friends, there is not another concept of God like that. All the other concepts of God is that god exists for us to serve him; that God is a taker, not a giver; that God is proud, not humble. 
So Peter starts by telling us that Jesus is the suffering servant.
14 But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, 
JESUS IS THE HOLY AND RIGHTEOUS ONE
He goes on, then, to say that Jesus is the “Holy and Righteous One.” 
We live in a day when there is no conflict or controversy if Jesus is just one of many good teachers and good examples and good leaders. The proverbial Mt. Rushmore—Mohammed and Gandhi and Mother Theresa, and Jesus. 
 Peter says, “Holy and Righteous,” how many? “ONE.”
There’s none like Jesus. There’s no equal to Jesus. There’s none alongside of Jesus. There’s none in addition to Jesus. It’s just Jesus. It’s only Jesus. It’s always Jesus in a category unto himself. 
He’s in an entirely different category than rest of humanity. He’s not just a good man: he’s the God-man. He’s not just a good man: he alone is holy and righteous. There’s no sin in Jesus.
There are two categories: Jesus and everyone else, OK? 
He alone is holy. He has no sin. He alone is righteous. He is acceptable in the sight of the Father.
Now, because he’s also our Father, I have good news for you. You don’t have to be holy, and you don’t have to be righteous. In fact, you can’t be holy, and you can’t be righteous. 
Some of you say, “I’m going try really hard.” Well, it’s already too late. You’ve already been made unholy and unrighteous, so even if you never sin again from this day forward—which is impossible because even think that you could would be prideful and that’s the worst sin of all. 
TRUTH: Jesus is our holiness. Jesus is our righteousness.
Jesus is our report card. We’ll stand before the Father and he’ll say, “Explain your holiness.” “His name is Jesus.” 
“Where’s your righteousness?” “It’s right there with Jesus.” 
Jesus went to the cross to take our unholiness, to take our unrighteousness, and to trade places with us, to serve us, to give us his holiness, and to give us his righteousness.
Philippians 3:9 English Standard Version
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
Why is that good news? 
Because we work from Jesus’ righteousness, not for our own. We work from Jesus’ holiness, not for our own. He alone is holy and righteous. 
Acts 17:28 English Standard Version
28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being…
15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. 
JESUS IS THE AUTHOR OF LIFE
Peter goes on to say that “Jesus is the Author of life 
God is eternally existent; God is the Creator of all that is created; and that God brings creation into life because he is the Living God. And then we, foolishly, rebel against that God, and in choosing sin, we choose death.
Now, the Living God, the Author of life, he’s so gracious and patient toward us that He determined that He would humbly enter His creation and dwell among us and ULTIMATELY bring LIFE. And what do we do to him? We kill him. We murder the Author of life.
It’s an amazing revelation at the cross of Jesus, not of just the goodness of God but of the evil of the human heart, that God would make us to live and that we would choose death, and that God would come to bring us life and we kill him. It says a lot about us.
And then Jesus rises from death. You know why? 
He’s the Author of life.
Revelation 1:8 English Standard Version
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
 Death cannot hold Him, and he invites us to life in him—where our sins are forgiven and we’re reconciled to God, and eternal life, resurrected from the dead—physical, actual, eternal life—patterned after his own bodily resurrection. He’s the author of life.
Let me say this very clearly: if you’re here and you don’t know Jesus, you’re spiritually dead. And then you will physically die. And then you will eternally die, suffering forever, because there is no life—spiritual, physical, or eternal—apart from the Author of life. 
We are all in the process of dying. You know what happens after you unplug your phone, your iPad, and your laptop from its power source? It’s not dead, but it’s dying. And apart from being connected to a source of life, it will die and remain dead.
That’s how we are, spiritually. We’re dying and in the process of dying. We will die, and apart from a connection to the Author of life, all we will ever know is death—spiritual death—that culminates in physical death, that results in eternal death. But the good news is Jesus is the Author of life.
 “16 And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all. 
JESUS IS THE OBJECT OF OUR FAITH
Then Peter says that Jesus is the object of our faith and it literally says it this way: “By faith in his name.” 
Now, various religions will teach that we have some sort of problem that needs some sort of solution, and they will differ on the problem and the solution, but there’s one thing that is constant among them all. I’ll share it with you briefly.
In Buddhism, you save yourself by ceasing all desire.
In Confucianism, you save yourself through education, reflection, self-cultivation, and moral living.
In Hinduism, you save yourself by detaching from your separated ego and living in unity with the divine. 
In Islam, you save yourself by living a life of good deeds.
In Orthodox Judaism, you save yourself through repentance and prayer and by working hard to obey God’s laws and being a good person.
In the New Age, or Spirituality, you save yourself through seeing yourself as part of the divine oneness and seeking to live in harmony as part of the One.
In Daoism, you save yourself by aligning with the Dao to have peace in you and harmony around you. They will posit that the problem is different. It’s sin or it’s a lack of consciousness or inner-connectiveness.
So there are various solutions, but one thing remains constant—what’s the object of your faith? Might I say it this way: who is the object of your faith? You are. You save yourself. 
You learn something, you do something, you experience something, but ultimately, you are the object of your faith. You save yourself.
 In Christianity, “It’s not about what you do; it’s about what Jesus has done. It’s not about you saving yourself; it’s about you being saved by a Savior.”
Now in other religions their faith may be sincere, but the object of their faith cannot save.
I’ll use an illustration. 
Let’s say you’re a bad swimmer. It’s coming up to swim time, summer’s here. Let’s say you’re out swimming and it’s not going well. OK, so you yell at someone, “Throw me the anvil! Throw me the anvil!” And you have sincere faith in the anvil. You have devout faith in the anvil. You have a deep commitment to the belief that the anvil will save you.
And they throw you the anvil. And in an act of faith, you grab it, and you hold onto it with deep, devoted, sincere, religious-type commitment. How’s it going to go? 
You’re going to sink, because faith doesn’t save you. The object of faith saves you, and if you pick the wrong object, you’re not saved. You die. It’s like that.
So, he tells us, “By faith in his name,” that Jesus alone is our Savior. 
1 John 5:13 English Standard Version
13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
Philippians 2:8-11
8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

He goes on to say that Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecy. 
17 And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your rulers. 18 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.
You will see that Peter begins to talk about prophets here. Basically, he is saying that anyone can make predictions. Having those prophecies fulfilled is vastly different. In fact, the more statements made about the future, and the more the detail, the less likely the precise fulfillment will be.
 When the Bible was originally written—it’s a series of books written over several years—roughly 20 percent of the Bible was prophetic in nature. It was God, who knows the future, telling in advance what would happen in great detail.
And most of that prophecy surrounds the person and work of Jesus Christ. 
I’ll just give you some examples.
Like, in Genesis 3, the prophecy is given by God that Jesus would come as a male son born of a woman.
Go to Isaiah 7, that his mom would be a virgin. We’re really narrowing down the list of candidates, amen? OK? Really narrowing that.
Go to Isaiah 9 and it says that his name would be Immanuel, which means—“God with us.” 
You continue forward, the Bible says, in the latter prophets, that he would be born in Bethlehem, that he would be born and taken to the temple which was destroyed in A.D. 70. So, whenever this person was to come, it had to be before A.D. 70.
So, all of these prophecies, they all point to the coming of Jesus in painstaking detail because this is the book that God wrote, and he knows the future and he brings it to pass. What he’s saying is this: They are in a period of history that is very privileged. For hundreds and thousands of years, God’s people were leaning into the future and listening to the prophets. “When is Jesus coming?”

Side note: 
The science of probability attempts to determine the chance that a given event will occur. A professor at Westmont College, has calculated the probability of one man fulfilling the major prophecies made concerning the Messiah. The estimates were worked out by twelve different classes representing some 600 university students. The students carefully weighed all the factors, discussed each prophecy at length, and examined the various circumstances which might indicate that men had conspired together to fulfill a particular prophecy. They made their estimates conservative enough so that there was finally unanimous agreement even among the most skeptical students. However, the professor then took their estimates, and made them even more conservative. He also encouraged other skeptics or scientists to make their own estimates to see if his conclusions were more than fair.
Finally, he submitted his figures for review to a committee of the American Scientific Affiliation. Upon examination, they verified that his calculations were dependable and accurate in regard to the scientific material presented. 
For example, concerning Micah 5:2, where it states the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, the professor and his students determined the average population of BETHLEHEM from the time of Micah to the present; then they divided it by the average population of the earth during the same time period. They concluded that the chance of one man being born in Bethlehem was one in 300,000.
After examining only eight different prophecies, they conservatively estimated that the chance of one man fulfilling all eight prophecies was one in 10^17. To illustrate how large the number 10^17 is (a figure with 17 zeros), the professor gave this illustration
In financial terms, is there anyone who would not invest in a financial venture if the chance of failure were only one in 10^17? This is the kind of sure investment we’re offered by God for faith in His Messiah.
But, of course, there are many more than eight prophecies. In another calculation, the professor used 48 prophecies (even though he could have used Edersheim’s 456), and arrived at the extremely conservative estimate that the probability of 48 prophecies being fulfilled in one person is the incredible number 10^157. How large is 10^157? 10^157 contains 157 zeros!
As the professor concludes, “Any man who rejects Christ as the Son of God is rejecting a fact, proved perhaps more absolutely than any other fact in the world.”

I would submit this to you: We’re in an exceedingly privileged position. For hundreds and thousands of years, they were leaning and straining into the future. “When is Jesus coming, and what will it be like?” And then he came, he lived, he died, he rose, he ascended. We’re in a privileged place where we see the fulfillment of prophecy. We see the birth of the church. We see the closing of the canon of Scripture.
And the truth is that majority of the prophecies about Jesus were already fulfilled at his first coming, but we’re still anticipating some to be fulfilled his second coming. We’ve not yet had the second coming of Jesus. We’ve not yet had the resurrection of the dead. We’ve not yet had the judgment of the living and the dead. We’ve not yet had the sentencing to eternal heaven and hell.
So, the majority of the prophecies were fulfilled at Jesus’ first coming, but we’re in the time between the times, waiting, learning, yearning for the second coming of Jesus, and he is the fulfillment of prophesy. 
Let’s continue but as we read it you will notice more mentions of prophets, even some by name.  
19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, 21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.
JESUS IS THE CHRIST
I want to point out something he says that you may miss. “and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus”
This may be strange language for some of us, but his name is Jesus Christ. 
Jesus means “God saves.” Christ is actually a title. It means, “The Anointed One.” 
Jewish people will call this “Messiah,” that he is the special one, the unique one, the chosen one. He is the Christ. He is the Messiah.
Inferred in this is this concept of Savior, one who is chosen to come and to make a difference and to save a people and to cause a kingdom to come into existence. And here’s why this is so important: you and I have a deep longing for Messiah. 
OK, you don’t believe me? I’ll give you some examples. 
So, every election year, it’s messiah time. And here’s the narrative—just change the candidates’ names. Things are really bad. It kind of feels like hell. You want to live in heaven? Vote for the messiah. He’ll come and save us. He’s like us but better. He’ll put down our enemies, whoever they are, and he’ll cause us to have a kingdom of peace, and he’s going to take care of us. Vote for the messiah.
We vote for him—does it work? No, that’s why we keep having elections. And it’s going to be like that until Jesus comes back and he puts an end to all elections. We’ll just have a King. We don’t vote. 
There’s a deep groove in the human soul that wants a messiah, so deep that we keep making superhero movies and stories, where they’re like us but better than us and come to save us and give us a kingdom. 
Jesus, is our Messiah. He’s our Christ, amen? And so we don’t have myths; we have a Messiah. We don’t have fictious kingdoms; we have a kingdom of TRUTH.

22 Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. 23 And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people. 
JESUS IS A PROPHET LIKE MOSES
It also says that he is the prophet like Moses. Now, Moses was the first and greatest prophet. He gave us the first five books of the Old Testament
After Moses, there’s a succession of prophets all leading up to Jesus who is—He’s the prophet. He’s God become a man, but he’s also a preacher from God to men. And he’s preaching and preaching and preaching—and you need to see this: in our culture, it’s popular to see Jesus as humble, marginalized Galilean peasant in a dress with long hair, hanging out with children, feeding people, and petting lambs, OK? Everybody’s like, “Oh, I love that Jesus.”
How about the preacher Jesus? Because the preacher Jesus said some controversial things like, “I’m God. You’re a sinner. Repent, or I’ll send you to hell.” That’s why they killed him. 
Jesus rarely got in trouble for what he did. He often got in trouble for what he said and so Jesus would preach, and some would believe, and some would disbelieve, and some would repent, and some would rebel, and some would submit, and others refused. And there was a conflict between Jesus and those who were unwilling to listen. And so it is in our day.
But friends, I need you not to just look at the example of Jesus, I need you to listen to the words of Jesus and let him be a prophet who tells you the truth, because that’s what a prophet does. 
A prophet tells you the truth. But hear me in this: a prophet tells you the truth because they love you and they know that living a life guided by lies is no life at all. 
24 And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, who proclaimed these days. 25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring ‘shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’26 God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.”
JESUS IS THE OFFSPRING OF ABRAHAM
Peter goes on here to say that Jesus is the offspring of Abraham—all the way back to Abram in the Book of Genesis. 
Here’s a summary of the story: There’s an old man named Abram. His wife’s named Sarai. Their names are going to be changed to Abraham and Sarah. 
And then the Bible says that God picked one of these rebellious, undeserving, pagan people like me, and showed up to him and said, “Abram, here’s what we’re going to do: I’m going to give you a son. Through that son will come a nation. Through that nation will come offspring, or seed, who is a blessing to the nations of the earth.” 
Abraham didn’t seek God; God sought Abraham. 
Abraham didn’t call out to God; first God called out to Abraham. Abraham didn’t deserve what he was going to receive; it was a gift of God’s grace. This a great portrait of sovereign election.

God then allows them to have a child, all right? He’s already mentioned this earlier—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, talking about generations. Through that son comes the nation of Israel. Through that nation of Israel comes a very important Son, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and he is the blessing to the nations of the earth. So the promise given to Abram was: 

Genesis 12:2-3 English Standard Version
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
And this is super important for you and me to realize, because in that day, they tended to have national gods. So, there are these people and these people. And these people have their god, and these people have their god. And they pray to their god for power to crush these people while these people pray to their god for power to crush these people.
And the real God shows up and says, “You all need to repent. I’m the Lord and King over all the nations. I’m the King of kings, I’m the Lord of lords, and you don’t get to war with me. You don’t get to war with one another. We’re going to make this new group called the church. You’re going to love one another like family and it’s going to be people from every language, and tribe and tongue and nation and class and race and gender and socioeconomic background and style of people because a promise was made that one person would be the blessing for all the people.” Good news, right? That’s what he’s saying and that’s our Jesus. He’s the offspring of Abraham and he’s the blessing to the nations.
Here’s what we see in the example of Peter.
1. FAITH IS TO BE PUBLIC, NOT PRIVATE
Peter’s faith at this moment, is it public or private? Very public. 
We live in a day when everyone is OK with your Christian faith provided it is private, not public
2. BE PREPARED
You never know when you’re going to have an opportunity to talk to people about Jesus. 
See, there are opportunities all the time. Maybe you’re at work and somebody says, “I got diagnosed with cancer.” “Can I pray for you? Where are you at with God? How can I serve you? Do you know that we worship a God who suffered?” 
Friends, I would just encourage you, ministry opportunity is always there, prepared people aren’t. That’s when Jesus says that 
Matthew 9:35-38 English Standard Version
35 And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
3. THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL EMPOWER YOU
Hey, would you agree with me? Peter, at this point, is he acting in a way that is very courageous? He’s preaching publicly about Jesus at the temple to people who don’t agree with him, and some of them were there shouting, “Crucify him, crucify him,” complicit in the crucifixion of Jesus. Yes or no, courageous? Yes. Was Peter always courageous? Was he a guy, if you look at his life, you’re like, “Oh, of course Peter’s courageous. Look at him. His cape flies in the wind. He’s always ready for battle. He’s Peter the Courageous. He’s Peter the Lionhearted.”
No. For those of you who know the story of the Bible, he did not start courageous…
I believe even in the increasingly hostile culture in which we live, it’s more like the days of Peter, the Holy Spirit’s going to need to empower us to talk about Jesus. 
Here’s the truth: speak and then the courage comes. The courage comes as you speak, not before. It’s by faith.