Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] A couple of years ago, a dear friend of mine from back in West Texas, my age, him and his wife both my age, I'm encroaching 40 by the way, if you're wondering, were watching a Christmas movie together and she had an aneurysm and died.
[00:00:31] Two little kids, Christian family, love the Lord.
[00:00:38] And so we hear this news and we go back and we attend the funeral.
[00:00:42] And at the very end of the funeral, unsure what he's going to do, but at the very end of the funeral, he gets up on the stage and he stands in front of everybody and with tears in his eyes but joy in his voice, he proclaims the good news of Jesus, the life, death, resurrection of Jesus, and talks about how in the face of death, Jesus Christ really is the only hope.
[00:01:04] And for anybody in the room, if there's anybody in the room who have yet to repent of their sins and believe upon Jesus, they ought to do it now at this funeral. And I'm sitting in the pew and I'm watching him and I'm thinking like, I don't know that I could do that.
[00:01:22] And then it led me to ask this follow up question. What kind of person does something like that?
[00:01:31] I've been a pastor for 12 ish years in different capacities. I've had the opportunity and the honor of sitting in a hospital room with parents who've just lost their baby, of sitting with a couple in our living room on the verge of divorce and by the grace of God, choosing to stay the, you know, parents who have just lost their baby, continuing to worship Jesus through that darkest night of the soul time. I've seen a mother who's desperately sick child, while being in the ER boldly proclaim the good news of Jesus to the doctors and nurses who are ministering to, who are administering to the child.
[00:02:14] All of these kinds of things lead me to ask what kind of people do this? And here's the answer. Friends, Christians, Christians.
[00:02:25] That, that watered down word that really in our context in the south in 2026 doesn't mean a whole lot to us.
[00:02:35] If you vote this way, you're a Christian. If you're not, this, you're a Christian. Like that word for millennia has carried significant value.
[00:02:47] What does it mean to be a Christian?
[00:02:51] I assume you're here today in part because you're curious as to what it means to be a Christian.
[00:02:58] Maybe you are, you identify as a Christian, maybe you don't.
[00:03:04] Verse 26 is really our anchor text because we come to a very pivotal moment in Redemptive history. And if you're unfamiliar with that phrase, just want to make sure I'm defining my terms. Remember, redemptive history is just the history of all things.
[00:03:19] The storyline of the Bible, which is one storyline, by the way, not 66 different stories. One storyline is about redemption.
[00:03:28] God the creator. God is a God of redemption.
[00:03:34] He's bent to redeem.
[00:03:37] He longs, he desires, he works toward, not. Not the abolition of all things, but the redemption of all things.
[00:03:45] This is the ark of the Bible. And so when we talk about redemptive history, we're talking about just the history of all things. And we come to one of the most pivotal moments in the history of all things. Verse 26. It was in Antioch that they were first called Christians.
[00:04:03] What a significant moment in the history of the world. It's the first time that term was ever used.
[00:04:08] It was never used before. That isn't that crazy to think about.
[00:04:13] For thousands and thousands of years, followers of God were not referred to in this way until this moment. So I'd just like to talk with you about this moment for a little bit. And then for US Today, in 2026, I want us to think about what does it actually mean to be a Christian?
[00:04:30] Because as a pastor, the thing that makes my heart beat faster when I think about the privilege of what I get to do for a living is amazing, is that I have the opportunity to get up and share with you this message.
[00:04:43] This is what it means to be a Christian. And listen, friends, and this is how we're going to end. It is a wonderful thing to be a Christian.
[00:04:51] Whatever you do for a living, whatever you're going to do for a living, if you're in seminary, especially if you're in seminary, because I've been there and I've seen the pitfalls of what can happen when this becomes academia to you.
[00:05:03] It is a wonderful thing to be a Christian.
[00:05:07] There's nothing higher. There's nothing more joyful.
[00:05:11] So what does it mean? What does it mean to be a Christian? Let's look at the text together.
[00:05:14] Is everybody with me so far?
[00:05:17] All right, let's wake up. It's Sunday morning. This is a good day. Okay, four observations from the passage about what it means to be a Christian. Let's just look at it together. Let's start with verse 19.
[00:05:29] Verse 19 says, and I'm going to read through verse 21.
[00:05:33] Now, those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch speaking the Word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who, on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, also preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them. And a great number who believed, turning returned to the Lord. So the first observation I want to make in verses 19 to 21 about what it means to be a Christian is to be a Christian means to be a witness.
[00:06:13] To be a Christian means to be a witness. Here's where we at. Here's. Here's where we at. Here's where we're at.
[00:06:22] Don't take yourself too seriously. All right, here's where we're at.
[00:06:26] In the context of Acts, chapter 11, Stephen, one of the first deacons of the church, has died. He's died at the hands of an angry mob who stoned him to death because he was preaching Jesus.
[00:06:37] And as Stephen dies, Jews who had by the grace of God been converted to Christ, who had put their faith in Christ as the Messiah, were scattered. Okay, this again. God is a faithful God who always keeps his word and always keeps his promises. Jesus promised in Acts, chapter one, verse eight. This was our memory verse for a long time that those apostles would be his witnesses. Where?
[00:07:01] Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And you and I are here today sitting in these pews because of this reality, because this continues to happen. Jesus always keeps his word. And so we see the word of Jesus, the promise of Jesus, being fulfilled through the Book of Acts. The book of Acts, again, is about Jesus ruling and reigning from on high. It's not primarily about the apostles, but not primarily about the person of the Holy Spirit. The Book of Acts is about the rule and reign of King Jesus and the continuation of his kingdom advancing throughout the Mediterranean world and to the ends of the earth. Does this make sense?
[00:07:34] All right, so this is what he tells them in Acts, chapter one. You will be my witnesses. Witnessing wasn't just going to be something they did. It was going to be a part, intrinsically, of who they were.
[00:07:47] They were witnesses. What were they witnesses of? The resurrected Christ.
[00:07:53] I was talking to a friend yesterday on my back porch, and he asked this question. It's a good, good, honest question. He was like, you ever just think in the back of your mind, like, what if all this is fake?
[00:08:05] And I was like, yeah, that. That thought. That thought crosses my mind sometimes.
[00:08:10] Sometimes it'll cross my mind. And then I referenced something a pastor friend of mine says a lot, which has been very, very helpful in Moments like this. He says Christians are haunted by doubt and non Christians are haunted by belief.
[00:08:26] Everybody's haunted in some way.
[00:08:28] Christians are haunted by the thought, gosh, what if this isn't real?
[00:08:33] That's terrifying.
[00:08:34] Non Christians, however, and I had this conversation several months ago with a non Christian who articulated to me like, yeah, sometimes I think, like, gosh, what if it's true?
[00:08:44] Right? Everybody's haunted by faith or doubt.
[00:08:49] And so we have these moments. But this is what I encouraged my friend with, is what a wonderful thing that you and I have, a faith that's grounded in historical reliability.
[00:09:00] Hundreds and hundreds of 1st century normal people like you and I, not seminary students. Nothing against that. Seminary students are great, not scholars, not all of these kinds of things. Normal people, normal men and women saw the body of Jesus Christ resurrected from the dead. They saw him alive. They ate with him. They talked with him. They sat with him. They heard his teaching. This went on for days and days and days. Can you believe this?
[00:09:27] They were witnesses of the resurrected Christ. And so they went about their daily lives telling everybody, Jesus is alive.
[00:09:35] This is the good news. The Messiah has come. He died at the hands of Romans and he's alive again. This is truly the Messiah, truly the one mediator between God and man, who is sent by God to reconcile humans to God. This is. This is the answer. This is the solution. It's him. He's alive. There were witnesses to his resurrection. As they were scattered because of this, it says that they came to Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch. All of these were towns and cities north of Jerusalem. Antioch was about 300 miles north of Jerusalem. That's a long way for this message to travel.
[00:10:12] Hey, they didn't have cars back in the day in the first century. They traveled by foot. That's a long way for the message to travel from Jerusalem to Antioch.
[00:10:20] And it says as they went their way, they were preaching Jesus. Some, because they were still in the headspace of thinking that this was for the Jews only, only preached to Jews. But there were some men of Cyprus and Cyrene who preached to Jews and to Greeks also as they went along.
[00:10:41] I read a story recently of For Martyn Lloyd Jones. He tells a story of a speech that was given, two speeches that were given at St Andrew's hall in Glasgow.
[00:10:55] A reporter writing of the two speeches, and it doesn't say what the speech was about, it was a political speech, says both men got up on the stage and they were both very eloquent speakers. They were well learned. They were Articulate, they were concise, they were compelling. They were all of these things.
[00:11:10] He said the difference between the two men was this. One man spoke like an advocate and one spoke like a witness.
[00:11:18] One spoke like an advocate and one spoke like a witness. What was the difference? Lloyd Jones says this. The thing that makes a real witness is assurance. And you can be a Christian without this.
[00:11:34] It is possible to be a Christian, to be born again, to be saved, to be forgiven of your sin, reconciled to God, and still not have the kind of assurance of God's love for you in Christ that you fail to be a witness.
[00:11:48] You can articulate the faith, you can do apologetics, you can convince, you can do all of these kinds of things. And yet you're not speaking as one who's experienced what it feels like to be wrapped up into the arms of the Father.
[00:12:02] Does this make sense?
[00:12:05] And so, friend, you ought to pray for that.
[00:12:08] If you're a Christian today, a follower of Jesus, and you feel that your affections are cold, you ought to pray for a filling of the Holy Spirit.
[00:12:17] I'm not being charismatic. This is a biblical thing. You ought to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who testifies to our hearts that we are children of God. He's the one who, by his grace and by his power, causes our hearts to cry. Romans, chapter 8. Abba Father.
[00:12:36] One can't cry Abba Father. If they. If they're struggling to know whether or not the Father even loves them.
[00:12:43] And Lloyd Jones's point is valid. He's saying, hey, by a growing assurance, you and I will grow as witnesses.
[00:12:50] You're going to begin to talk to people about the love that is found in Christ, the salvation to be found in Christ. When you begin to experience the reality that you have it, that the Father loves you, you become more convinced by the grace of God that the Father loves you. You're going to go tell people about the Father's love in Christ.
[00:13:10] So the first thing to be said is, to be a Christian is to be a witness. This is not just something, friends, that we are to do as Christians. This is a part of who we are.
[00:13:21] Witnessing isn't just for pastors and preachers. It's not just for ministry leaders, elders.
[00:13:28] Witnessing is intrinsic to who you are. If you're a child of God, you are to be a witness.
[00:13:33] And if you want to know, how can I grow? How can I grow at being a witness? Pray that the Holy Spirit would give you assurance of the love of God for you. And Watch it grow.
[00:13:44] So to be a Christian is to be a witness.
[00:13:47] Number two. Let's look at verses 22 to 24.
[00:13:52] He says, the report of this came to the ears of the Church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.
[00:13:59] When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad. And he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. So the second observation to be made is, to be a Christian is to be a displayer of God's grace.
[00:14:22] To be a Christian is to be a displayer of God's grace. And here's the verse that I really want to lock in, that I want to. I want you to consider.
[00:14:31] Says, when Barnabas came to Antioch, he saw the grace of God and he was glad.
[00:14:39] What do you think that looks like?
[00:14:42] And I know if you're a believer in the room.
[00:14:45] What does it look like to look upon a group of Christians and see the grace of God?
[00:14:51] What do you think that looked like?
[00:14:56] What do you think it looked like to look upon a group of people in Antioch?
[00:15:00] Not just a group of people, but a group of Gentiles, non Jews.
[00:15:05] And to see.
[00:15:07] To see the grace of God. What does the grace of God look like in a person?
[00:15:14] How do we identify that? How do we identify that in others? How do we identify that in ourselves? And I want to propose two things.
[00:15:24] Doesn't say it in the text, but we see this when we zoom out of this immediate text and look across the scope of the Bible.
[00:15:30] Two things that highlight the grace of God in the life of a person.
[00:15:35] Number one is their face.
[00:15:38] Their face.
[00:15:39] Ezekiel. Sorry. Exodus 34, 29.
[00:15:43] When Moses went and met with God on top of Mount Sinai, it says, moses face shone because he was speaking with God.
[00:15:54] Acts, chapter 6, verse 15. Stephen, the one whom they saw, persecuted and killed, his face was like the face of an angel.
[00:16:08] What story? And I'm going to give a pastoral caveat to this in a moment.
[00:16:12] What story does your countenance tell to other people?
[00:16:18] What story does it tell to other people?
[00:16:21] And here's my pastoral caveat. I'm not talking about shining, happy people, right? People who don't get sad about sad things.
[00:16:33] If you're a Christian, you and I ought to get sad about sad things.
[00:16:37] Sad things are sad. We should be sad. There's a place for that. It's called lament. And it's a third of the Psalms, Christian life. There is. There isn't just a place in the Christian life for grief and lament.
[00:16:49] It's a godly thing. It is a faithful thing to grieve and lament sad, tragic things when they happen.
[00:16:56] To weep with those who weep, to mourn with those who mourn. It's not what I'm talking about, but what I am talking about is a deep rooted disposition of gratitude and joy because of all that you've been given in Christ.
[00:17:13] It is a possible thing again to be saved, to be forgiven, to be cleansed of your sin, to belong to God and to walk around with a countenance that communicates to people.
[00:17:25] You know, I just don't really like you a whole lot.
[00:17:28] I just don't really like life a whole lot.
[00:17:33] I don't suspect that's what Barnabas saw when he went to Antioch.
[00:17:38] I think he went to Antioch and he saw the countenance of people who had been brought from death to life through faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:17:45] I think he saw a countenance of people who were filled with joy that couldn't be explained by the world because they had heard the good news of the gospel, they had been reconciled to God, they were Gentiles, they were far from God, they couldn't approach God, they couldn't go near the holiness of God. And now God was their Father in Christ and their countenance was filled with joy. Don't you imagine this might have been what it was like?
[00:18:06] That to see the grace of God is to see, though imperfectly, the fruit of the Spirit in a person's life.
[00:18:13] Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. This is what the grace of God looks like. And listen, you and I live in a day and age.
[00:18:26] Everybody's angry. Angry is easy.
[00:18:29] It's the easy thing to be angry all the time.
[00:18:33] That's not difficult to do. Just go drive down 35 for five minutes.
[00:18:39] Everybody is really mad.
[00:18:41] Everybody's really grumpy all the time.
[00:18:45] So again, I'm not talking about shining, happy people, but I am saying to us as a body, when people, when guests step into the room, if they're not Christians, they ought to see the grace of God in us.
[00:18:55] They ought to see and feel something different in this room. In the way that we interact with one another, in the way that we love one another, in the way that we forgive one another, in the way that we hold on to joy in the face of tragedy and darkness.
[00:19:09] And they ought to see the grace of God in us. And the grace of God is manifest most evidently in the fruit of the Spirit. Barnabas came to Antioch and he saw the grace of God and he was glad.
[00:19:22] What a glorious thing to see the grace of God in the lives of other Christians.
[00:19:27] He was glad.
[00:19:29] What story does your countenance tell?
[00:19:33] And you're like, well, I do feel grumpy, Brad, and you don't even know me. You don't know my life. You don't know my circumstances. I don't know your circumstances.
[00:19:43] This would be my encouragement to you. My encouragement would be to practice gratitude.
[00:19:48] Make it a point when you wake up in the morning and when you go to bed at night to think about the good things in your life and then be reminded of this. Every good and perfect gift in your life comes down from the Father with no variation or shadow due to change. Every single good thing that you'll experience today is from the hand of the Father.
[00:20:05] Praise God. Thank you, Ben. Guys, listen.
[00:20:09] The meal on your table is a gift from God.
[00:20:14] You're like, no, I earned that. No, you didn't.
[00:20:17] The job you have is a gift from God.
[00:20:21] The dollars you have are gifts from God. The breath you breathe is a gift from God. And he could take it away any moment and still be utterly good.
[00:20:33] You're not owed your life.
[00:20:37] Neither am I.
[00:20:39] You don't deserve your spouse.
[00:20:42] You don't deserve your kids.
[00:20:46] You don't deserve salvation.
[00:20:50] Salvation's been given to you in Christ fully and then some.
[00:20:54] And he gave you food, and he's given you breath, and he's given you life, and he's given you friends, and he's given you a church. He's given you a spouse, he's given you kids. What an amazing God he is.
[00:21:07] We don't practice gratitude. And so our countenance falls.
[00:21:14] Let the world be grumpy.
[00:21:17] You don't be. And give them something to not be grumpy about.
[00:21:22] Christ has come.
[00:21:24] Repent and believe upon him and be saved.
[00:21:27] Christians.
[00:21:29] You got it. We got to get to work.
[00:21:33] There's not a ton of time you got. We gotta get to work.
[00:21:39] And when I say get to work, I'm not communicating. Go do more. I'm saying let's start with gratitude.
[00:21:47] Let's start with our own hearts.
[00:21:50] Holy Spirit, would you raise my countenance as you turn my eyes to Jesus, that I might be reminded of all the good that you are and all the good that you've done, that they might see the grace of God and be glad so that's the second, that to be a Christian is to be a displayer of God's grace.
[00:22:13] The third, let's look at verse 25 and 26, verse 25. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So now we get into the partnership of Barnabas and Saul or Paul. It's going to be an amazing shift in the Book of Acts.
[00:22:33] For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians.
[00:22:45] So observation number three. To be a Christian, and this is the most important thing, to be a Christian is to belong to Jesus Christ.
[00:22:57] Let me tell you why that is significant.
[00:23:00] You know, this is the first time in the New Testament that people from outside of the church create a name for the people inside the church.
[00:23:13] Lots of other names were used of followers of Jesus at this time.
[00:23:19] They were called disciples.
[00:23:21] To be a disciple just means to be a learner or a student of Jesus. They were called believers.
[00:23:28] Believers are those who trust in Jesus by faith.
[00:23:32] They were called saints.
[00:23:34] Saints just means holy ones who are set apart for God. All of these are true, by the way. They were called the Way, followers of Jesus. They were people who followed Jesus way of life.
[00:23:48] So they're called the Way.
[00:23:49] And they were called brothers and sisters, which is true of us, by the way. For those who are in Christ, we are a family, we're a faith family. But that's not what the people of Antioch, which Antioch by the way, was a very pagan city. Antioch was the third largest city in the Mediterranean world, only behind Rome and Alexandria. Okay, so third largest city in the world filled with pagan rituals and practices. It was a dark cosmopolitan city. This was Antioch. And so the people who were living in this city look upon this little group of Jews, Gentile Christians, of Christians, and they call them this name. They don't call them the way. They don't call them disciples, they don't call them followers, they don't call them believers. They call them Christians.
[00:24:29] What does that word mean? What does it mean to be a Christian? Well, the word Christian is a Greek word with a Latin suffix that just means to belong to Jesus.
[00:24:40] They belong to Jesus and they belong to Jesus.
[00:24:44] They belong to Jesus by means of allegiance.
[00:24:51] Allegiance.
[00:24:54] Herodians was a phrase used to describe those who had allegiance to Herod.
[00:25:02] Caesarean described those who had an allegiance to Caesar in the first century Christian.
[00:25:11] Their allegiance is to Jesus.
[00:25:15] Friend, is your allegiance to Jesus or is Jesus merely an Idea that you adhere to.
[00:25:25] And here, I think is one of the best illustrations I've heard in terms of what allegiance looks like.
[00:25:30] Jesus.
[00:25:31] Jesus didn't come, friends, to merely have a seat at the table of your heart.
[00:25:38] So if you think about your heart like a boardroom of advisors, some good, some not so good.
[00:25:46] Jesus didn't come to take a seat around the table with that board of advisors.
[00:25:52] What did Jesus come to do?
[00:25:54] Came to get rid of the board of advisors so that he could take the preeminent seat of your heart.
[00:26:00] This is what it means to say, my allegiance is to Jesus.
[00:26:07] My allegiance is not to a person. My allegiance is not to a party. My allegiance is to King Jesus. He holds the seat of my heart.
[00:26:19] They were.
[00:26:20] They were called Christians.
[00:26:23] They were identified by the outside world as Christians. Oh, they. They don't belong to Caesar.
[00:26:31] They don't belong to Herod.
[00:26:33] They don't belong to this way or that, that way. They belong to this Jewish man who claimed himself to be the Messiah.
[00:26:41] They belong to Jesus.
[00:26:44] So to be a Christian is to belong to Jesus. This is the final observation, observation number four. Look at verses 27 through 30.
[00:26:54] It says. Now in these days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them, named Agabus, stood up and foretold by the spir that there would be a great famine over all the world. This took place in the days of Claudius. So the disciples determined everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. So the final observation is this, that Christians are those who live generously.
[00:27:25] Christians are those who live generously. We'll get into in the weeks to come.
[00:27:30] Agabus the prophet is an interesting guy. I'm not going to get into him today, but we will get into Agabus. But for today. The principle to take note of in the final three verses of the passage is that these men and women and children, for all that we know in Antioch, had been changed by the grace of God.
[00:27:52] The Holy Spirit of God had fallen on them. They had put their faith and trust in Jesus as the Savior, as the Messiah. Their lives were transformed. They committed together as the church. They were gathering together as the church. The grace of God in them was so palpable and observant that Barnabas came and saw it and was glad that this is what's going on. And then one of the first things that we see them do as a church is to give out of the overflow of the heart.
[00:28:20] They were a. They were a generous people. And I mean this more broadly, but I'm going to bring it home specifically for us as we come to our final few minutes together. Okay. More broadly, this just means that the Christian is one who. And this is 2nd Corinthians 5:14. This is 1 of my favorite passages. It says this.
[00:28:40] Christ died. This is the good news. Christ died and was raised for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. That's the gospel. That's the good news. That we might be reconciled to God through faith in him. Christ died. Why?
[00:28:53] He says so that we would no longer live for ourselves, but for him who, for our sake, died and was raised.
[00:29:04] So to live generously, then, friends, means that the Christian's life is one that's not primarily turned inward, but turned outward.
[00:29:14] My life, your life, is no longer about you.
[00:29:22] He died.
[00:29:24] He rose so that I would be liberated from my worst foe, which is myself.
[00:29:33] So that I would no longer live for myself. That claustrophobic, sad, depressing state of existence where everything revolves around me, the universe revive every. All of my relationships are about me. All marriage is about me. Kids are about me. Right? That's our natural bent. And for the rest of our life, by the grace of God, we're going to wage war against that. That's going to be a struggle and a tension that we all have to deal with until Christ takes us home or until he returns. This is why our hope is not in our sanctification. Our hope is in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
[00:30:05] But this is what the Holy Spirit's doing. He's constantly turning you and I outward, that we would live not for ourself, but for him who, for our sake, died and was raised. So that's the general idea behind what it looks like to live generously. And specifically, what it looks like is to live generously with our money.
[00:30:23] Okay, now listen, I. I say that word, and it's like I say the word sex. Everybody just kind of. Everybody gets quiet. It gets really tense and awkward. But here, here's. Here's the reality. This is what we see in the text. They gave generously.
[00:30:39] What did they give generously to?
[00:30:41] They gave generously to the church.
[00:30:45] Why?
[00:30:47] You know, I have conversations all the time with. With people who have had terrible church experiences with money and giving and pastors pressuring and doing all these kinds of. All. All of that's legit. I've experienced some of those things as well.
[00:31:01] But just because there are abuses in a particular area of the church, friends, doesn't mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.
[00:31:08] Generosity. Giving is embedded within the ethos of the New Testament Church.
[00:31:13] We are to be a generous people. They get. Why? Why did they give to the church? Why. Why do they not just give to random things? Well, Agabus comes and he prophesies about this famine that's going to happen in Jerusalem. The church in Jerusalem is going to be in great need. And so these new Christians in Antioch just being discipled for the first time, learning about the basics of the faith, learning what it means to follow Jesus, to be steadfast to Jesus and all of these things. It says that they deliberately gave for the needs of the saints, for the church in Jerusalem. The church, friends, not the parachurch, though the parachurch is wildly important and necessary. But it's the church that is the means by which God's going to use to redeem and reconcile all things to himself.
[00:31:53] So they. They give to the church out of the overflow of.
[00:31:59] Of their heart.
[00:32:02] Final note, for those in the room who are not yet Christians, you cannot purchase salvation through money.
[00:32:11] There are false teachers out there who preach a message saying, if you'll give this amount of money to me normally, is what they say, or to my ministry, then God will give you this, this and this. That's a damnable lie.
[00:32:24] That is untrue. And it's going to be judged. And all who propagate that message are going to be judged unless they repent.
[00:32:32] That's a lie.
[00:32:33] We don't adhere to that. It's not true.
[00:32:37] The grace of God comes free by God's grace and is to be received only by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:32:45] Listen, if you are a covenant member of Redemption Hill, friends, all of us, myself included, we all ought to give.
[00:32:53] Generosity. Giving is a part of our discipleship. This is just. This is embedded within who we are. As Christians, we give generously to the church because God uses the church to advance his kingdom.
[00:33:04] This is how, by the grace of God, we get to do what we get to do because of your generosity. And so we praise God for that. And as Christians, as followers of Jesus, we ought to always be praying, lord, make me more generous. Why? Because God is generous.
[00:33:20] Final verse. I want to read to you.
[00:33:23] Second Corinthians 8, 9 says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.
[00:33:40] This is the reason that you and I as followers of Jesus. Give Jesus, who is rich, became poor, so that in him, through faith in him, we might have all of the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. So it's not a matter of how much you give. It's not a matter of percentages. It's a matter of our heart.
[00:33:58] We belong to Jesus now.
[00:34:01] We belong to Jesus by His grace, because of his finished work, and because of that, by the grace of God, our entire life ought to be turned outward for the sake of building up to the church, to the glory of Christ among the nations. Does this make sense? Praise God for that. Let me pray for us, and then we'll respond.
