Welcome And Spiritual Kickoff

Chris Grainger 0:57

Welcome to the Lion Within Us, a podcast serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders God intends you to be. I'm your host, Chris Granger. Let's jump in. All right, guys, spiritual kickoff. Let's get into it. Okay. So the scripture of the week this week is Acts 11, verses 23 and 24, two verses this week. Says then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced, okay, and began to encourage them with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord. For he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a considerable numbers were added to the Lord. So we're just going to take some time. We're going to unpack these verses and see we see how we can simplify and apply them to our life, guys. And again, we do this. You guys are enjoying the spiritual kickoff episode. We do it Monday through Friday at the Lion Within. It's free. It's our way to serve you, to encourage you. We even offer up a free gift now for everybody who joins the Daily SKO. You can get at starters today at thelionwithin.us. Jump into that. Monday through Friday, again, those videos are there for you. You can join me live when I do it. If you can't make them live, don't worry about it. The videos are there for your consumption. We don't put them anywhere else. And then it also gives you access to our prayer request space. If you have areas that you need prayer in your life and you just don't have it, we've built it. And this we're talking about, this is the most utilized part of The Lion Within Us. We got guys who are just laying out their prayer requests on a daily basis. And we even have a weekly prayer huddle. It's just a Google meet. It's open to everybody at the Lion, Daily SQL, Lions Den, Mastermind Guys, everybody's invited. We want to invite you to check it out. So it's the LionWithin.us to get started with that. Okay. All right, now for this, we're going to unpack this scripture. First of all, where is the book of Acts? So that's New Testament. You go past your gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Then you get to the to the book of Acts. Okay. So if you get to Romans, you went a little bit too far. But that's where we're at in the New Testament. And we're going to see the guy who said these words, who we're who we're who we're referencing here, is Barnabas. And he has some unflashy courage, I guess you could say. And we're going to see right here how this scripture, coupled with the power of quiet obedience, could be such a big deal for us. And from a context standpoint, the church at Antioch is where this was being shared at. This was not supposed to happen, at least not the way that we see here. Because Acts 11 starts recording something that's remarkable. So Stephen had just gotten martyred, and believers were scattered because of the persecution. And as they fled Jerusalem, they carried the gospel with them. And at first they were preaching to the Jews, right? But in Antioch, okay, which was a major city in that the Roman Empire power at the time, something new started happening. Some believers began preaching to the Greeks, to the Gentiles, to the outsiders, right? Like those who had not grown up in the Jewish covenantal system. And scripture says the hand of the Lord was on them, right? That's a big deal. And a great number turned to the Lord. And this matters because uh what we see here is Antioch would be the first major multi-ethnic church, right? This would be like a missionary sending hub, right, if you will. So we're it's the place where believers were, check this out, first called Christians. And in verse 26, if you keep reading in the acts, you'll see this is what they they were first called Christians, and that label is we were that's how we um connect today, right? We we were born, uh, we're Christians, but that was all born out of what God was doing right there in Antioch, okay? Uh, and Barnabas was used in a very specific way in that area, and and this is where we get these two verses. And and Barnabas was was sent into some pretty uncharted territory. Let's just be let's just kind of call it after what it was. This wasn't just another visit. No, this was Gentiles receiving the good news of the gospel, right? This was their traditions being stretched. Uh, this was this is like the old the old new wine stretching old wineskins, right? Uh uh he and think about Barnabas, he could have resisted this thing. He could have scrutinized it, he could have tried to control it himself. But what he said, what the text tells us, when he saw the grace of God, he was glad. So we can discern from this, Barnabas was spiritually mature. Okay, he didn't cling to what was comfortable, he didn't run from the unfamiliar, he recognized the grace of God and he fully embraced it. And that's some conviction worth hanging on to, worth thinking about. We're not talking about hyping it up or chasing a trend. We're talking about conviction. Barnabas knew what was happening from what that was 100% from God, he aligned to it. It's just simple obedience, man. That's all it is. And the obedience started really taking a taking shape and manifesting in the lives of other people that he was around. And Barnabas wasn't flashy, man. He was he was faithful in it. Because uh when we think about Barnabas, he isn't talked about the way that often the apostle Paul is. He's just not. You know, Paul gets so much of the spot, like undeservedly so. Paul is awesome. Timothy gets the whole mentorship narrative, like Timothy gets a lot. Peter gets all these bold moments, but Barnabas, he just shows up, man. He just encourages, he strengthens. Uh, then he fades into the background. And that's okay. And I'm telling you, man, the world that we live in idolizes platforms and likes and visibility. Barnabas, he chose another path, man. He just didn't, he chose something completely different. He focused on the needs of others always. That was his first priority. And he was resolute and encouraging the guys who needed encouragement, like Paul, right? People doubted Paul. Barnabas was right there. And he was seeking Paul and bringing him to Antioch, and he was strengthening these young believers. It wasn't flashy stuff, but it's foundational stuff. And the foundations, let's just be honest, guys, foundations don't get a lot of pause, right? They just don't. But think about this foundations hold up everything. They do. And encouragement requires listening because scripture tells us they exhorted them to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. Like encouragement in scripture is not vague positivity. No, it's not flattering and saying what you want to hear or just hyping you up, or it's not just saying you're crushing it without any substance. Barnabas encouraged others with truth. Okay? But but check out something that I noticed here. In order to exhort them meaningfully, he had to understand what they were facing. He had to. And how do you understand what somebody's facing? You gotta listen to them, man. You just gotta listen to them. All right, in the current pace of life that we live in, deep listening, it's almost extinct. It's not completely extinct, but it is a rarity because we talk past one another. We're scrolling instead of just sitting, right? We're responding instead of reflecting. And this has got to change. And Barnabas, we see, he saw, he understood, and he encouraged. And he did so with steadfast purpose. And that is resolute encouragement, guys. Not based on perception, but it's anchored in God's truth. But he took the time to care. He took the time. Maybe just think about like what your day looks like today. Do you have margin in your day-to-day to slow down if someone needs to genuinely talk to you? Are you going to even recognize it? Is your wife going to genuinely talk to you? Or does she know that she's competing with you for your attention with other stuff? Look, I'm not trying to step all over your toes. And if you're being convicted, trust me, that's the power of the Holy Spirit. I get convicted on this stuff myself. I recognize there's so many times I need to do a better job of talking to my wife and listening or talking with coworkers or whatever it may be, right? Versus just going on to the next thing that's on my plate. But we see right here in this scripture Barnabas was full of the Holy Spirit and faith. And he slowed down. And we think about being full of the Holy Spirit and faith, they have to be coupled together. Because faith without the spirit, what is that? That's self-powered. That's trying to do it on your own. The spirit without faith, that's just passive, man. But when you couple these together, you have courageous obedience. It takes faith to walk into something new and embrace it. It takes the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit to ensure that what you're doing is truly about Christ and not about you. And without without the Spirit, we risk serving ourselves. And without faith, we risk shrinking back. Barnabas had both. And that's why he could take the steps, the bold steps in Antioch that he was called to do. And the result, what? Great many people were added to the Lord. And I'm going to tell you what, that line matters. Pastor Jovi talks about this one. This is like one of his life verses, but this line matters. It doesn't say not add it to Barnabas or to his brand or to his movement. No, add it to the Lord. For me, the numbers aren't important at the lion. I want guys to know who they are in the Lord. Right? That's the most important thing to help them in their discipleship journey to be the man that God intends them to be. That's it. That's what the lion's all about. So whether we have a thousand guys or a million guys or five guys, it doesn't matter. I want the guys that are there to be knowing and growing and striving to be the man that God's called them to be. Because at the end of the day, guys, I don't get to take the lion with me to heaven. It just doesn't happen. Nope. I don't get to take any applause or any metrics. I'm not going to open any spreadsheets in heaven. What do you get to take? People and praises, baby. That's all. That's all. And these two verses remind us of what to lock into on our life, right? And then what should be the main thing? What is the primary goal? Staying full of the Spirit, walking in courageous faith, encouraging with truth, embracing what God's doing in our life, even when it stretches you to uncomfortable limits. I've been stretched so uncomfortably over the last couple of years, guys. But I can also tell you this: through that stretching of uncomfortability, I've grown. I've grown. And so much of the stuff that I do is unflashy work. It's just unflashy. Guys, or you maybe listen to the podcast, and that's great. But this is a snippet. A snippet. What is our podcast average? 20, 30 minutes, maybe a guess is an hour. That's what you see throughout the week. And this has been edited. We take time to write this stuff. Like there's a lot of work on the front end just to try to give you a good podcast experience. Outside of that, fellas, it's all and flashy. But it's stuff that matters. It's the stuff that makes a difference. It's taking time to talk with guys who are hurting. It's getting stood up by guys who said they want to talk to you and then they didn't ever tell you that they cancel and they just don't show up. And being okay and giving them grace when that happens. That happens every week, guys. There's hours that just happen for just hearing where the guys are and trying to walk with them. And when I see stuff like Barnabas here, like who was behind a part of the major movement in history, and he didn't get a ton of spotlight. But bro, in heaven, can you imagine the people that he impacted and he got to see? And I just, I don't know, I think that's more than enough. Man, let us be men who strive to be Acts, Acts 11, 24, men. Full of the Holy Spirit to bring a great number to the Lord. But and look, think something that's worth considering is how are you embracing what God is doing, particularly if it's unfamiliar in your life. And I'm gonna tell you how I embraced it for the longest time. I stiff armed that thing, man. I didn't want any part of it. Because I don't like doing things that I'm not familiar with. And why? Because I like control. And I've had to surrender so much of that. Have I got it all right? Absolutely not. Is it better than it was? Yes. And there's still work to do. But it starts with surrendering your life to Him and understanding who He is. And we're talking about this in dwelling power of the Holy Spirit. Look, if you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you just don't have the Holy Spirit. You may have a hunch, you may have a good idea, but you don't have the Holy Spirit. And I don't want you to miss out on the greatest gift that we have, and that's the gift of salvation. And it starts with a personal decision. Like there's nothing that anyone can do for you here. Okay. So when you start thinking about faith and being full of the Holy Spirit, recognize what Jesus did, He did for you. Yes, you're a sinner. Anything that separates us from God is a sin. And you need a savior because you can't work off your sin debt. You just can't. Like there's not enough good, quote unquote good, so that you can overcome the sin that's in your life. Guys, try. You know, I'm I mean I've I've had plenty of conversations with guys where they're just like, well, man, I like when we get to the question about like, well, how do you get to heaven? Well, I just gotta be a good dude, man. I think I've done enough good stuff in my life that, you know, God's gonna get me in. So I'm like, okay, so you think you're gonna get in on your own good favor? And they're like, well, yeah, man. I'm like, that's not what the Bible says. Sorry to be a bearer of bad news. That's not what the Bible says. You know, there's no such thing as works-based righteousness. You know, it would be nice if we could get in on our own behavior, but no, we all fall short, and the penalty of sin is death, and we can't do it. So that's what Jesus did for us. Like when I tell you guys all the time, like he came on a rescue mission, he came on a rescue because we were the ones who needed rescuing. Like we're the ones that were on the path of destruction. And Jesus needed to do for us what we can't do for ourselves. That's why he came, left heaven for us, born of a virgin, fulfilled all the prophecies, did all the teachings, the miracles, all the stuff that Jesus did. And then he went to the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. He did, died, and then rose. And the resurrection, between the virgin birth, I was just teaching on this this morning for the at the line, guys, between the virgin birth and the resurrection, that's the two hinge points. And that takes faith. Now look, I can't get you there. I can only expose it to you, and then the Holy Spirit's gonna do what he does. But I was implore you find out for yourself. Do the study, do the reading, whatever you need to do. Get into the apologetics, Jesus. Do your own um investigation. My prayer is that through that investigation, you are indeed gonna find and come to understand and know to be true the way that I do that Jesus is the Messiah. He wasn't faking, he wasn't pretending, he wasn't just some just good guy. He is God. And we have to confess him as Lord over our life. This is over every area of our life as well, fellas, not just on Sunday for an hour or sometime. Maybe you guys are super Christian goes on Wednesday nights or something like that, right? No, I'm talking about every area of our life. Right? From our finances to the bedroom, to the boardroom, uh, to the to the ball field. I'm not stepping on some toes yet. Wherever we're at, he is Lord. And that should be reflective in how we show up as men. And it starts with confessing him as Lord and Savior of our life. Like just admitting you're a sinner, believing he's the Son of God, and confessing him as Lord and Savior. It is that stinking simple. And look, if you've never done that before, this is why we take time on every spiritual kickoff episode to try to share the good news of the gospel, because I never know who's gonna be listening. You know, the lion's doing some great things, it's growing. And the last thing we want to do is grow for our own sake. This is all for his glory. I say it over and over and over because it's the truth. Without his guiding hand and and and direction, nothing matters. That's why the spiritual kickoff episodes, what do we what do we focus on? What I think? No. It's always grounded in God's word. And look, if you haven't had that personal relationship with Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and you're feeling a tug right now, you're just feeling a nudge right now, and you just feel like, okay, I gotta do something. Maybe it's God's calling you to make the most important decision that you'll ever make, and that's confessing Him as Lord over your life. And I'm willing to pray with you right now as you make that most important decision that will literally change everything for you moving forward. So, Father, that one listener, I don't know who they are, where they're at, or what they're doing. I just know they're hearing my voice, and maybe for some reason they're here, they've heard the gospel clearly for the first time. And they're making that decision right now to surrender their life to you. We give you praise in this moment, God. We love you. And I know that right now. Gates of hell are are shaking because this man is making a decision to follow you. I just pray it has protection over them. Because I know that they're not gonna go down without a fight. Pushback is coming, but greater are you, greater are you than he is who is in the world. So give this man encouragement, give him strength, give him resolve, and be with him as he begins his discipleship journey. We love you, Lord. We praise you in Christ's name. Amen. So look, if you just submitted your life to Christ, touch down. Like, let's go, bro, first and foremost. Can we just celebrate that for real? Like, that's a big, big deal. Okay, and I want to hear from you. Send me an email. I get tons of emails every day, but I want to I want to see this one. Chris at thelionwithin.us. Okay, send me an email. Let me know which podcast you listen to, the decisions that you made. We got some PDFs I want to send you away just to just to help you in your discipleship journey. And I want to pray for you. I'd love to just pray for you and just be an encouragement to you as you get started. Okay. So look, send me a note, love to connect with you. Uh, other than that, guys, hopefully you're gonna enjoy the next episode. Have a great conversation, lined up, thoroughly enjoyed it. It's uh it was it's it's one that uh I I didn't really have a high expectation going into it, but left pretty much blown away. I was I felt really encouraged by it. So hopefully you'll be encouraged by it as well. And it's just uh, you know, you you do do this long enough. They all at some point they run together at uh conversation. They're all great. They run together though, and this one just really charged me up. I left so encouraged, and hopefully you'll be encouraged as well. So, guys, the lionwithin.us is where you find all our resources. Go check it out there from the daily scripture kickoff to the lion's den. Jump into the lion's den, uh, as well as our leadership mastermind, or even our live events, you know, depending on what's when this is coming out. Uh, we have our live event coming up. It may have already passed at this point. But guys, we got lots of things happening. We're we're constantly adding events and activities and things like that, resources. The Bible app, obviously, we're huge presence on the Bible app. God has blessed that tremendously huge uh opportunity to serve just thousands and thousands of guys on a regular basis there. So open the Bible app, just search for the line within us, you'll find our page. And then from there, just hop in. Okay. All right, guys. We're gonna have to have a great day. Thanks so much. Give us a rating and review. That does matter. Anytime you do a rating and review, uh, that just helps the algorithm to keep pushing the podcast out to other people. Uh, share it. That's the biggest thing you could do, is just share the podcast with others. And other than that, guys, have a great day. We'll see you next time. Just keep unleashing the lion within. It's time to stop battling pornography, lust, and temptation alone. We're done sitting on the sidelines, seeing shame win, and hearing from guys that are fighting private. With no backup. So we decided it's time to fight back. We have our sexual integrity support group, which is a confidential space inside the lion's den for men who are ready to step into the light and pursue real freedom. This isn't just for guys in crisis, by the way. It's for any man who's tired of the cycle, who's tired of living in secret, who's tired of saying this is going to be the last time. 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