Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:10] Today's probably going to be a little bit shorter. Okay, so here's. Here's what I want to talk to you about today. I'm going to start with a story, and then I'm going to give you kind of the theme of the morning, and then we're going to walk Through Acts, chapter 10. So here's the story. In the 1920s, a man named Lord Writhe, I think is how you pronounce his name. A Scottish man, about 6 foot 6 inches in stature. So really tall, big, brooding man, was the general director of a corporation that many of you have heard of called the BBC, the British Broadcasting Network. British Broadcasting Corporation, General director of the British Broadcasting Corporation. That began in the 1920s. As time goes on, when you get into the 1960s, secularism begins to kind of infiltrate all of society, which bleeds into the media. And so one day, the story goes, Lord Reith is in a meeting with his team, and they're talking about different networks and shows and different things like that that they want to broadcast on air. And a young producer who was really good at his job at the time, but a young producer stands up in the middle of a meeting and he tells Lord Reith, we need to discontinue religious broadcasting because it's no longer popular.
[00:01:26] And Lord Reith, 6 foot 6 inches, big man in stature, stands up in the middle of the meeting and he looks the young man in the eyes, and in a big brooding voice, he says, son, the church of Jesus Christ will stand on the grave of the BBC.
[00:01:44] I share that story with you to pose this question this morning.
[00:01:49] Do. Do you Christian, if you're a follower of Jesus, do you consider yourself to be on the winning team?
[00:01:58] When you look out at society and you look at the world and you look at the news, or maybe you look at your own life and you look at your. Your very real struggle with sin and suffering and hardship. When you look out across the landscape of these things, do you consider yourself to be on the winning team?
[00:02:18] Because what we talked about last week in this power of the gospel, the good news. The gospel is the good news of Jesus, the life, death, resurrection of Jesus. The Gospel can be summarized like this. It's the good news of God, reconciling all things through the person and work of his son.
[00:02:35] That doesn't just mean your individual salvation. If you're a Christian, restoration to God, that means, and if you can imagine this with me for a moment, the restoration of the cosmos.
[00:02:46] That's what God's doing. And he's doing it all through the person of Jesus Christ, the God man.
[00:02:56] And the Bible says in Romans, chapter eight, for those of us who are in Christ, you are more than a conqueror. You're not just a conqueror. You're more than a conqueror through him who loved us. And so we talked last week about wanting to be this church, that the God of the universe manifests his power, that God would actually display his strength and his holiness and his grandeur and his grace and his power in and through us. That amazing things would happen in the lives of the people in this room by God. So much so that the people on the outside of the room would be like, what in the world is happening in that little place?
[00:03:37] It's the kind of church that we desire to be, because it's the kind of church that you see in the Book of Acts.
[00:03:43] God was performing amazing things, incomprehensible things, healing bodies, raising dead people to life, saving sinners, reconciling relationships, restoring marriages. He's doing all of these things by a demonstration of his power. And it says that more and more and more people are turning to the Lord, which is what the world needs, by the way, isn't it?
[00:04:05] The world is dark because they're alienated from God.
[00:04:10] And so, yes, and amen to new legislation. But more than that, people need to be reconciled to God.
[00:04:17] This is why things are so bad, because people are alienated from God. And so we want to be the kind of church that says, God, demonstrate your power and your grace in our lives. That through these things, stories would go out, and more and more people in the city of Fort Worth, Worth, would turn to the Lord.
[00:04:36] And so, as we get into Acts chapter 10, we transition into one of the most pivotal, amazing realities in the history of the church.
[00:04:47] In many regards, friends, it is the reason that you and I are here today.
[00:04:52] I don't think there's a Jewish person in the room.
[00:04:55] Right. Any Jew. Jew. Any Jewish people in the room? No, no Jewish. We're all Gentiles. So that means Acts chapter 10 has amazing significance for you and I today.
[00:05:06] And so, as we think about this idea of the Lord. I'm sorry, the Lord will. The church will stand at the grave of the BBC, will stand at the grave of CNN and Fox News and MSNBC and any other world authority or power. The church will stand at the grave of those things. I do want you to consider this morning delive, as if you're on the winning team.
[00:05:28] And what does Cornelius have to do with all of that? So let's look at the passage together. Acts, chapter 10, and I'm going to start in verse one, and I'm just going to read through the eight verses, and then if you would, go ahead and find second kings, chapter six.
[00:05:43] So hold your place in Acts chapter 10 and then find your place.
[00:05:48] Put a thumbnail in two kings, chapter six as well. We'll get to that in just a moment.
[00:05:54] But I just want to highlight a few things From Acts chapter 10 in light of this question. Do you and I know, friends, for those who are in Christ by faith in Jesus, that you're on the winning team? And so I just want this morning to be an encouragement for you, if that's you.
[00:06:12] Acts chapter 10, starting in verse one, this is what the Holy Spirit says through the author. Luke says, at Caesarea, there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day, he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, cornelius.
[00:06:48] And he stared at him in terror and said, what is it, Lord?
[00:06:53] And he said to him, your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.
[00:07:01] And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon, who is called Peter.
[00:07:07] He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.
[00:07:12] When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and devout soldier from among those who attended him, and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. So I just want to highlight three things for you from this story. Okay? Number one is this, that God pursues individual persons.
[00:07:33] God pursues individual persons. It's not an insignificant thing, friends, that Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, mentions this centurion's name.
[00:07:45] I think we. We can have this tendency. And I had a. I had a. A dear fellow church member tell me this last Sunday about Tabitha, and I thought, man, that's really encouraging that I did not mention in my sermon. But, you know, we always think about God using people in the Bible, and he certainly does that, right? So God raises Tabitha to life, which is what we talked about in Acts chapter 9. He raises Tabitha to life, and many people turn to the Lord, right? He heals the paralytic man right before that. And many people turn to the Lord, they see these acts of God, and in amazement they turn to God. They turn to Jesus and put their faith and trust in Jesus and are saved. That's amazing. But we can't gloss over the reality that he also heals these people because he loves them.
[00:08:31] God healed Tabitha because he loved her.
[00:08:36] He healed the paralytic man because he loved him.
[00:08:41] And in the same way, God, the creator of everyone and everything, pursues a centurion, a Roman centurion named Cornelius because he loves him.
[00:08:53] So here are a few significant things about the context of our passage. Number one, Caesarea. Not Caesarea Philippi. This is called. Many people call this Palestinian Caesarea. So this is a port city about 25 miles north of Joppa, where Peter is.
[00:09:08] So we'll come to this at the end to see what. What's God doing behind the scenes? And all of it. It's amazing. Peter's in Joppa, 25 miles south of Caesarea, port city by the Mediterranean Sea, where Cornelius is. For Cornelius to be a centurion, that means he led at least 100 men.
[00:09:26] So this is a solid leader, a leader of men.
[00:09:32] And centurions, by the way, in the New Testament, have a pretty solid reputation.
[00:09:37] Okay, so think about Matthew, chapter eight and the story of when the centurion sends his men. He hears about Jesus. Jesus going around healing and doing many good things. And so he sends his men to get Jesus and come back because one of his servants is ill to the point of death. And so Jesus, because Jesus is amazing and he's not, he's the most interruptible being in the universe. It's never too busy for individual people.
[00:10:03] Jesus follows the centurion servants back to the centurion.
[00:10:07] And when he gets there, the text says that Jesus is amazed at the centurion's faith.
[00:10:15] Centurion says, I'm not worthy to have you come under my roof and do these things. I'm not worthy of that. The centurion, by all accounts of the men who followed him and worked for him, was worthy of these things. And yet the centurion tells Jesus, I'm not worthy to have you come under my house. And Jesus says, what amazing faith, right? Or you think about the end of the book of Luke at the foot of the cross, as Jesus breathes his last to forgive the sins of his people. As he breathes his last, there's an earthquake across the land and the curtain is torn from top to bottom, thereby symbolizing that now anybody, Jew or gentile, can come to God through faith in Jesus. And the skies darken and all these things happen. And it says that there's a Roman centurion that looks upon Christ and says, truly, this man was the Son of God.
[00:11:06] And so you have these stories of centurions being portrayed as noble men throughout the New Testament. And then you get to our centurion and listen to what the text has to say about, about him.
[00:11:18] He was a devout man, means he was dedicated, he was devotional, he was a devout man.
[00:11:26] He feared God.
[00:11:28] And he didn't just fear God personally, he feared God with all of his household.
[00:11:32] So he wasn't just a leader of men, he was a leader of his family, which is what men, by the grace of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit are called to be.
[00:11:44] He didn't just fear God, he led his family to fear God.
[00:11:48] Says he gave alms generously to the people and prayed continually to God. So this was a devout man.
[00:11:58] And yet, and this is really important, this man's devoutness did not reconcile him to God.
[00:12:09] He was devout, he prayed continually, he led his family well, he led his men well. He did. He did all of these things. And yet he was still alienated from God.
[00:12:20] And we hear that and we're like, how could that be? He's such a good man.
[00:12:25] And here's where I think our struggle comes in, friends. If this is you and you're hearing me say this, like, how could a good man like that still be separated from God?
[00:12:33] Well, that question is preceded by the reality that you and I measure our own goodness with other people's goodness or badness.
[00:12:43] And so when we do that, it doesn't make any sense.
[00:12:46] How could a man like that be alienated from God still?
[00:12:50] Well, what the Bible calls us to do, and this is kids for you as well, what the Bible calls us into is not to compare ourselves with other people, but to compare ourselves to the holiness of God.
[00:13:01] And so in Isaiah chapter 6 in the Old Testament, you get this amazing scene where the prophet Isaiah, a good man by all accounts, gets this heavenly vision where he's transported into, into the, into the spiritual realm of God's throne room.
[00:13:20] And while there, he looks upon Christ, pre incarnate Christ sitting on his throne, where angels and angelic beings are surrounding the throne singing one song, holy, holy, holy.
[00:13:36] And as Isaiah looks upon Jesus and all of his divinity and holiness and set apartness, his only words were, woe is me, for I'm a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips. He had nowhere to go and nowhere to turn. He couldn't turn in on himself and say, look at all the good things I've done. Look at the good way I've lived my life. He wasn't faced with that option because he's in the presence of God who is holy. And when you and I are in the presence of God, when we recognize the holiness of God, we have nowhere to go but to God for mercy.
[00:14:09] Does this make sense?
[00:14:11] So the devoutness, the prayer, the God fearing, the leading, his family, all good and necessary things, but not things in and of themselves enough to reconcile us to a holy God.
[00:14:24] So Romans chapter three says.
[00:14:27] Romans chapter six. I'm sorry for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. When we compare ourselves to the holiness of God, we have nowhere to go but to the place of rescue.
[00:14:46] And so this was a good, decent man by all accounts, and yet God is still pursuing him in order to reconcile him to himself through faith in Christ, which is our only hope.
[00:15:00] The only means of reconciliation to God is through faith in Christ. There's one mediator between God and man, the man, the God man, Jesus Christ. And so we see in the story, the first point to be made is that God, God pursues individual people.
[00:15:17] God pursues individual people. This will be the last thing I'll say about this point. Then we'll move on to the next point. Okay, so the last thing to say is this.
[00:15:28] If you're here and you're not yet a Christian, I want you to reckon with this reality. Lee Strobel says this, and I think it's a helpful framework to think about believing in Jesus. We talk about that all the time. Believe in Jesus, put your faith in Jesus. And I think if we're honest, many of us are like, what does that mean? How do I know?
[00:15:45] And this is. This is what Strobel says. He gives a little equation that I think is really helpful. So, kids, you can get this, too. He says we have to believe and then receive in order to become.
[00:15:58] We believe that Jesus Christ lived, that he died on the cross for our sins, and that he rose from the grave victorious over sin, death, Satan.
[00:16:08] But it's not enough to just know these things. James says that the demons believe in God and they shudder.
[00:16:16] So that kind of belief doesn't necessarily mean that you become a child of God. You have to receive Him.
[00:16:24] Friends, have you received Him?
[00:16:27] Do you believe that he lived? Do you believe he died? Do you believe that he rose? And more than that, have you received him?
[00:16:34] You're invited this morning to receive him, to trust him, not just for the salvation of the world. But for your personal salvation, because God pursues individual sinners. And for you who are Christians, in the room for those who are Christians, how might your perspective of your suffering change? If you knew that the greatest aim in life was to know God, that what God's doing in all things, through all of your suffering and all your circumstances and all your difficulties, what he's doing in the midst of all that, ultimately is leading you and I into greener pastures, that you and I might know him more.
[00:17:16] God seminary professor told me this while I was at Southwestern, and it was worth all of the thousands of dollars I spent in seminary.
[00:17:23] This is what he said.
[00:17:24] God does not exist for you.
[00:17:27] You exist for Him.
[00:17:30] God doesn't exist for you.
[00:17:32] You and I are created to exist for Him.
[00:17:38] God is personally pursuing you, friend.
[00:17:42] He's called you by name, just as he called Cornelius by name in love. He's calling you, and he's calling me. If you're not a Christian, to become a Christian, and if you are a Christian, that you, through all things, might come to know and treasure him more intimately. So that's the first point to be made.
[00:17:58] God pursues individual persons.
[00:18:03] The second point to be made is this that we see in the text. In verses three and four, it says that an angel appears to Cornelius. That's astounding.
[00:18:11] So we're just going to stop there for a moment. We're going to try to transport ourselves into this room with Cornelius. You're sitting there, and all of a sudden an angel appears to Cornelius. And it testifies to this reality, friends, that you and I live in the midst of a spiritual war.
[00:18:29] We live in the midst of a spiritual war. That means that every single morning you wake up and you rise from your bed and you go throughout the day, and you're living in the midst of a spiritual reality that you and I cannot see. But exists.
[00:18:44] It exists as real as when you walk out of these doors in an hour or so, and you look up at the sky and you see the clouds and you see the sun, though you're not going to stare directly at that. And you see all of the other things around that are tangible things that you can see and touch and smell, et cetera. There's a spiritual realm all around us right now that you and I can't see. But it doesn't mean that it's not real.
[00:19:08] We exist in the midst of a spiritual reality. So I told you to thumb with me to Second Kings, chapter six. So go ahead and look at two Kings, chapter six. If you would.
[00:19:21] Second Kings, chapter six.
[00:19:29] I'm going to start in verse 14, and I'm just going to read several verses, all right? Kids, can you hear me?
[00:19:34] All right, I want you guys to repeat after me, okay? I want you to do it slow, and I want you to do it loud, okay? God pursues individual persons.
[00:19:47] God pursues individual persons. Are you an individual? Are you a person?
[00:19:52] Yes. That means God pursues you.
[00:19:56] God pursues individual persons. Now look at 2 Kings, chapter 6. Good job, kids. Second Kings 6, starting in verse 14, says, this says, so he sent their horses and chariots and a great army, and they came by night and surrounded the city. This is the king of Syria coming against the people of Israel.
[00:20:17] Says, when the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, alas, my master, what shall we do?
[00:20:28] Okay, so the Syrian armies are coming against the people of Israel. A servant tells Elisha, the prophet, as he's looking out at all of these surrounding armies, what are we going to do? And this is what the prophet Elisha has to say. Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.
[00:20:49] Then Elisha prayed and said, o Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.
[00:20:56] So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. Now, I want you to consider this. If the Holy Spirit of God right now, in this seemingly mundane moment, were to open our eyes and we were able to see with our eyes the reality of what's going on all around us right now. What would that do to your anxiety?
[00:21:26] What would it do to your fear?
[00:21:29] Hebrews 1 says, Angels are ministering spirits sent out by God to serve and to help those who are to inherit salvation.
[00:21:41] Angels.
[00:21:43] Angelic beings.
[00:21:46] The angelic beings that surround the throne of Jesus in heaven. We don't know what kinds of angelic beings, and I'm not going to get into that today. But the reality is angels and demons. Demons exist and they're all around us again.
[00:22:02] It's so easy to look out at the darkness of the world and listen. People are culpable and responsible for the evil things they do. That is absolutely true.
[00:22:15] It's true.
[00:22:16] Every person will be held accountable on the Day of Judgment when Christ returns for their sins. And every single person, those who have not put their trust and faith in Christ will be condemned forever.
[00:22:29] Alienated and separated from God forever. That's hell.
[00:22:32] That's true. It's real.
[00:22:35] And that's going to be just and right for God to do that because he's holy.
[00:22:40] But for those who, by the grace of God have put their faith in Jesus will be welcomed into the kingdom of God forever. So there is coming a day of judgment for all evil in the world. But I do want us to consider for a moment what's underneath the evil that we see in the world. What's underneath what's behind the scenes and all of that. And it's this reality that Paul says in Ephesians chapter 6. For we do not wage war against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and the principalities of this evil age. Underneath the evil that we see in the culture is a much more nefarious force.
[00:23:13] And so, friends, Christians like you and I have to recognize when we wake up in the morning that you're not waking up in peace time.
[00:23:23] You're not waking up in this just neutral reality by which there aren't actual forces existing behind the scenes that you can't see that are at work all around you. And that's not to make you fearful of demons, because if you're in Christ, and I'll nod to last week, you have authority existing in you through the person of the Holy Spirit. That's a greater authority than even angels and demons.
[00:23:46] Greater is he who lives in you than the one who lives in the world.
[00:23:51] So Christians in this amazing reality have been filled with the spirit of God himself. You and I have a higher authority living and existing within us than even the angels and the demons.
[00:24:04] And so demons can't. Evil spirits can't possess Christians because Christians are possessed by the Holy Spirit.
[00:24:11] We're filled with the Spirit, but they can knock on the doors like we talked about last week.
[00:24:15] We can give them a foothold. Paul says in Ephesians 5, he says, do not let the sun go down on your anger, meaning don't let anger rule and control your life and let it go unrepentant, because in doing so, we actually give the devil a footstool into our life.
[00:24:32] So these realities are true. When you and I wake up in the morning and everything's crazy and the kids are crazy and you and your wife or husband are frustrated. Or maybe you wake up and you go to work and your co. Like all there, there's spiritual forces at work all around us all the time.
[00:24:49] When you weren't a Christian, you had one enemy. Do you know who it was God.
[00:24:55] He was your enemy when you were not a Christian, but that enemy loved you and he saved you.
[00:25:01] Now, for those of us who are in Christ, we have three enemies. The flesh, the world and the devil. And all three of them hate your guts and mine.
[00:25:13] Satan wants nothing more than to destroy and divide your family. He wants your kids. He wants you and your spouse to separate. He wants you to stay in depression. He wants all of these kinds of things. Satan and demons are always at work around us. But praise God, Satan doesn't get the final say. He sends an angel to Cornelius.
[00:25:35] And so the angel comes to Cornelius and he calls him by name.
[00:25:40] And it says that Cornelius is terrified because what else would we do if we saw one of these angelic beings in person?
[00:25:48] Says he stared at him in terror and said, what is it, Lord? And he said to him, your prayers in your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. God hears your prayers.
[00:26:00] And now he says, send men to Joppa and bring one Simon, who is called Peter. He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner whose house is by the sea. When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him, and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. So how does the Bible instruct Christians to fight in the midst of this spiritual warfare? And then I'm going to get to my final point from the text. In here is Ephesians, chapter 6. Paul gives three things. He says that we're to persevere, we're to pray and we're to proclaim. We're to put on the full armor of God. That's the means by which we fight against spiritual forces that are coming around us all the time. You're more than a conqueror. Through him who loved us, you have power living and existing within you by the person of the Holy Spirit. So we don't fight spiritual battles by physical means, but by the means God has laid out in his word the full armor of God. This is how we are. This is how we're to conduct ourselves on the day to day as we live in the midst of this spiritual battle. And the final point that I want to make is this.
[00:27:06] And it's not explicitly in the text, but it's implied.
[00:27:10] It's explicitly stated in many places around the Bible, but it's implied all throughout the Book of Acts.
[00:27:16] And it's simply this, that for us as Christians, the mission belongs to God.
[00:27:24] So for every person in the room who's a Christian, God has personally pursued you.
[00:27:28] He's personally loved you. He's granted you the gift of repentance and faith in Jesus. That's why you're here today, because God has personally pursued you.
[00:27:36] You and I do live in the midst of a spiritual battle with angelic forces that are living and moving and acting all around us all the time. But he's given us the Holy Spirit, who is a higher authority than these spiritual forces. And he sends angels as ministering spirits to help those who are to inherit salvation. And then the final point to be made is simply this. Like, what is God doing in the life of Cornelius?
[00:28:00] Kids are doing great.
[00:28:03] What. What's God doing in the life of Cornelius in this?
[00:28:07] Well, as we're going to see in the weeks to come, underneath all of what's happening, God gives Cornelius a vision. He sends the angel to Cornelius to tell Cornelius to send two men to go get Peter. And all the while this is happening, God. As Pastor Sean's going to preach next week, God is going to show up to Peter, and he's going to tell Peter something, and then God's going to produce all of these amazing results that come as a result of that. And so, all throughout the book of Acts, what we see is God executing and fulfilling his mission.
[00:28:39] It's his mission. That's why our memory, verse Acts, chapter one, verse eight, doesn't call us.
[00:28:48] This isn't our mission.
[00:28:51] Hey, Redemption Hill Church doesn't have any sort of specific mission that's void of the mission of God. Our mission is to live on God's mission.
[00:29:01] Our purpose is to live in God's purpose. We are to be witnesses.
[00:29:07] You know what witnesses can't do, friends?
[00:29:10] Witnesses can't bring salvation to anybody.
[00:29:14] Witnesses can't change a human heart.
[00:29:17] What can witnesses do? We can proclaim.
[00:29:21] We can proclaim.
[00:29:23] So I think you see something amazing in Cornelius that's happening in our culture today.
[00:29:28] I heard a missiologist talk about this how he said, back in, like, the 1950s, he said, we lived in what many called positive world. Positive world meant that the culture, by and large, was sympathetic to the church.
[00:29:41] Well, as time moved on, positive world became negative world, where now, by and large, the culture is against the church. We don't trust the church.
[00:29:51] But he said, now we live in this interesting space that he calls the polarized world.
[00:29:59] And in the polarized world, you have people.
[00:30:03] Satan's still the prince of the power of the air. He's underneath all of this. But you have people who hate God.
[00:30:10] They hate God, they hate the church. They hate the Bible.
[00:30:15] We're to witness to them, too. And I'll get to that in just a moment.
[00:30:18] But then you have a whole swath of people that are going to church for the first time.
[00:30:25] You can get online and look at these stories. People are like, I don't even know what to wear to church. And they're throwing on suits and they're going. And they're like, I don't know what to. And they're nervous about it, but. But they look out at the world and they say, there's something beyond what we can see.
[00:30:37] There's something bigger than just this material world. Things are crazy.
[00:30:42] Right is wrong and wrong is right. And we can't define anything anymore. We can't define gender. We can't define marriage. We can't. We can't. We don't. And so people. They're a swath of people that are looking out across the landscape of things, and they're just saying, like, there's got to be something more to this. And they're coming to church for the first time. And he identifies these people as God fearers.
[00:31:05] They're not Christians yet, but there's a little bit of a recognition, like Cornelius, that there has to be something beyond what I can see.
[00:31:14] And so the antidote to both friends and what you and I must do as the people of God is witness.
[00:31:21] What do you witness to?
[00:31:23] You don't witness your truth.
[00:31:27] Your truth and my truth are totally irrelevant.
[00:31:31] We're witnesses, and we're called to be witnesses to the truth.
[00:31:35] Jesus, I am the way and the truth and the life.
[00:31:41] No one comes to the Father except through me. So, friends, you are a part of the church of Jesus Christ. If you're a Christian, you've been filled with the spirit of God in Christ. You're a son and daughter of God. You've been redeemed and reconciled to God. You've been clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. In Christ, you are more than a conqueror through him who loved us. And in light of all of these things, by the power of the Spirit, we ought to go out and witness truthfully.
[00:32:09] And not everybody's gonna like what you have to say. And that's okay.
[00:32:13] Heard a speaker say this last night, you and I are not nicer than God.
[00:32:18] And so if our. If our. If our perspective is, I wanna go out and keep as many of my lost friends as I can. You're missing out on what you're called to do and be.
[00:32:29] You're called to witness to the truth.
[00:32:31] And it's the truth that's going to set them free.
[00:32:35] Does this make sense?
[00:32:37] God pursues individual persons. He's pursued you. If you're a follower of Jesus, you and I live in the midst of a spiritual battle. But you've been filled with the spirit of God, and you have a power living in you that's higher than even the angels and the demons that exist around you. And you're called to be a witness. You're called to be a witness to the best news in the world, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to call people to repent. Because what the world needs is a church that testifies to the truth unashamedly, joyfully, confidently testifies to the truth, that more and more people would be reconciled to God. Amen.
[00:33:10] Amen. Let's pray.
