Warren W. Wiersbe - Be Daring (Acts 13-28): Put Your Faith Where the Action Is (The BE Series Commentary)

To

DICK and MARGE WINCHELL and the missionary

family of The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM)

serving Jesus Christ around the world

BE DARING

Published by David C. Cook

4050 Lee Vance View

Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.

David C. Cook Distribution Canada

55 Woodslee Avenue, Paris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5

David C. Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications

Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England

David C. Cook and the graphic circle C logo

are registered trademarks of Cook Communications Ministries.

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,

no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

without written permission from the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version

of the Bible. (Public Domain.) Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New

American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by

permission; NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas

Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved; NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New

International Version. NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society.

Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved; and WUEST are taken from The New

Testament: An Expanded Translation by Kenneth S. Wuest, 1961 by Wm. B. Eerdmans

Publishing Company. Italics in Scripture have been added by the author for emphasis.

LCCN 2009923010

ISBN 978-1-4347-6742-4

eISBN 978-0-7814-0308-5

1988 Warren W. Wiersbe

First edition of Be Daring by Warren W. Wiersbe published by Victor Books

in 1988 Warren W. Wiersbe, ISBN 0-89693-447-0

The Team: Karen Lee-Thorp, Amy Kiechlin, Jack Campbell, and Susan Vannaman

Series Cover Design: John Hamilton Design

Cover Photo: Veer Images

Second Edition 2009

Contents

: An Introduction to Be Daring by Ken Baugh

1. (Acts 1314)

2. (Acts 15:135)

3. (Acts 15:3616:40)

4. (Acts 17)

5. (Acts 18:122)

6. (Acts 18:2319:41)

7. (Acts 20)

8. (Acts 21:122:29)

9. (Acts 22:3023:35)

10. (Acts 24)

11. (Acts 2526)

12. (Acts 2728)

The Big Idea

An Introduction to Be Daring
by Ken Baugh

Lambie is my daughter Jessys favorite stuffed animal. He is known by other names toolike Lambie Pie, the Lamb, and that dirty old thing. If you saw him up close, you would notice that Lambie isnt particularly attractive. In fact, he slouches now when you hold him, his ears are curled from being rubbed too much and are no longer lined with soft white satin, and his fleece has been worn off. His music box doesnt work anymore, and to anyone but Jessy, Lambie would be ready for the trash, or at least ready to be taken off the roster of active duty. Years ago, Jessy took this lamb everywhere. As time passed, Lambie started showing signs of dirt and wear to the point that I became more and more embarrassed that my beautiful little daughter was carrying around this filthy stuffed animal. So I bought her another Lambie. I went to the exact same store and bought the exact same one.

This new lambwell call him Lambie Jr.was identical to what Lambie Sr. had looked like when Jessy first brought him home. He was bright white, his fleece was soft, and he had a blue satin ribbon around his neck. The white satin that lined his ears was very nice to rub between little fingers. His music box worked perfectly, playing a delightful version of Mary Had a Little Lamb. And most of all, he was clean.

I naively thought Jessy would take to this new lamb so I could retire Lambie Sr. to the stuffed-animal hall of fame. I thought we could bronze him or something. Well, Jessy didnt like the new lamb as much as I had hoped. In fact, she totally ignored him. (Dont worry, weve had him in stuffed-animal therapy for years; those lamb whisperers can do amazing things.)

But why didnt Jessy want the new lamb? Simply because Lambie Sr. is family. And over the last twenty-one years, this dirty little stuffed animal has had many adventures. You could make a movie about him and call it The Excellent Adventures of Lambie Pie. Lambie has been found wandering in shopping malls after Jessy accidently forgot him. He has been left at peoples houses after sleepovers, and even left at restaurants, but no matter where hes misplaced, somehow he always finds his way back into Jessys bed before she goes to sleep at nightI have always seen to that!

The truth is, Jessy loves Lambie, and if you love Jessy, youll love her lamb, too. Its a package deal. And it doesnt matter what he looks like today, it doesnt matter that hes not as attractive as he was in his glory daysthe fact remains that Jessy loves Lambie with the kind of love that makes him precious to anyone who loves Jessy. Love Jessy, love her Lambie. She doesnt love Lambie because hes beautiful; she loves him with the kind of love that makes him beautiful, the kind of love with which God loves us, a love that is unconditional and sacrificial. And God wants us, His disciples, to love people in the same way.

But that takes an enormous amount of courage. It takes courage to love people the way that God loves us. Have you ever wondered why Barnabas and Paul were so effective during the days of the early church as recorded in Acts? Its because they loved people with courageous, unconditional, sacrificial love that put the eternal best interests of others above themselves. You see, the Big Idea that runs throughout Acts 1328 is courage to put your faith on the front lines. And this courage is motivated by a deep and sincere love for people. So I dare you to love people like Jesus loves youno, I double-dog dare you!

So what does it look like to love people the way Jesus loves us? First, we must give them love with no strings attached, because Jesus loves us unconditionally. Unconditional love doesnt say I love you if or Ill love you when or even, I love you because Unconditional love is a commitment that God makes to us that is grounded in His character. Paul says, God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8 NIV ). It is truly amazing to realize that even when I was in a state of total and complete rebellion against God, Jesus still loved me enough to die on a cross to pay the price for my sins. The best news a person will ever hear is that God loves sinnerssinners like you and me.

In 1868, a very young Dwight L. Moody, who later became the greatest evangelist of the nineteenth century, let a man named Henry Moorhouse fill the pulpit for him at his church in Chicago while he was out of town. When Moody returned, he asked his wife how Moorhouse did. She said, I liked him very much, but he preaches a little differently than you do.

How is that? asked Moody.

Well, his wife said, he tells the worst sinners that God loves them.

Moody replied, Well, then, he is wrong.

The following Sunday, Moody let Moorhouse preach again so that he could hear him himself. Here is what Moody said of the sermon:

Moorhouse turned to John 3:16 and preached the most extraordinary sermon from that verse. He went through the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation, proving that, in all ages, God loved the world. Up until that time, I never knew that God loves us so much. This old heart of mine began to thaw out; I could not keep back the tears. He beat that truth down into my heart and I have never doubted it since. I used to preach that God was behind the sinner with a double-edged sword, ready to hack him down. But I now realize that God is behind the sinner with his eternal love, and what that man is running away from is the love of God. (John Pollock, D. L. Moody: Moody Without Sankey [Fearn, Scotland, UK: Christian Focus, 1995], 92)