Review:
Read: Eccl 1:2-11
God Has a Plan:
- For History: It's all about Jesus. (Acts 13:16-25)
- For Salvation: It's all about Jesus. (Acts 13:26-37)
- And you have a Choice: It's all about Jesus. (Acts 13:38-41)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Open up your Bibles with me please to the book of Acts 13.
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Acts 13.
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While you're turning, doesn't it seem like sometimes life is just an endless cycle of the same stuff?
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Doesn't it feel like that sometimes?
00:18-00:22
Like for example, I think of the dishes in our house.
00:22-00:26
There are times that I see dishes piled up in the sink, and I ask Aaron, how many people live here?
00:28-00:31
At what point did this become like an Eaton Park franchise?
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Like, where did all these dishes come from?
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I ate once today.
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Like, who is it that's using all these dishes?
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Or laundry?
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Laundry.
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You know, it just seems like you just get caught up on laundry, and you turn your head, and again, how many people live here?
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Or mowing the grass?
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Didn't I just mow this a couple days ago, and it needs mowed again?
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What about your job?
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Does your job feel like that sometimes?
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I don't know how it is where you work, but mine feels like that sometimes.
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A big part of my job is working all week studying a passage of Scripture and trying to understand it and present it in a clear way.
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And whether that goes well, or whether it does not go well, Sunday night, I have to start all over again.
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So much of life sometimes seems like a cycle.
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Life and death.
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Births and funerals.
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And some people look at all of history like that.
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We're not going to turn there, but just write down this reference.
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Ecclesiastes 1:2-11.
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Solomon says life seems like that.
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Sun goes up, sun goes down.
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The waters flow, the wind blows.
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It just seems like constant cycle, never-ending.
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Solomon says a lot of life seems like we're the hamster on the wheel, right?
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And we make fun of the hamster on the wheel.
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Look at him going, look at him going.
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And then what do we do?
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We go get on a treadmill.
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Right?
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Same thing.
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But much of life seems like that.
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Like just a lot of stuff happening, but nothing's really happening.
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It's a cycle.
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But you see, when Solomon talks about that cycle, he's presenting a view of life without God.
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That's what life looks like when you don't think about your Creator.
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Life seems meaningless without God because it is meaningless without God.
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But before we look at this passage today, understand that the Bible doesn't present life as a cycle.
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The Bible doesn't look at history as this constant cycle.
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The Bible looks at history as a timeline.
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not just random events that happen here and there, but a timeline that is being governed and taken care of and administrated by God Himself.
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Life is a timeline.
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And the message of the Bible is clear.
03:15-03:16
And this is on your outline.
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This is the one thing you have to catch today.
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God has a plan.
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God has a plan.
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So much in our lives.
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I've been guilty of this.
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Like, Pastor Jeff, what are you going to do?
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I don't know. We'll figure it out when we get there.
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I'm not sure what we're going to do.
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I'm going to have to think about it.
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God is not like that.
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God has a plan.
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God had a plan from the very beginning.
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And this plan is being played out throughout history.
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In Acts 13, we've already seen Paul and Barnabas and John Mark.
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They left Antioch and went to Cyprus.
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And we saw last week how the Holy Spirit was at work.
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He was empowering ministry.
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He was fighting spiritual battles.
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And He was saving souls.
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Let's pick up where we left off last week.
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We're going to be in verse 13.
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It says, "Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and they came to Perga and Pamphylia." That's a great verse for alliteration there, isn't it?
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"And John left them and returned to Jerusalem." Hang on, what's going on here?
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Well, this trip from Paphos to Perga was a 200-mile journey by boat.
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Okay, so this is quite a hike.
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But your Bible says that John left them to go back home, He went back to Antioch where they took Him previously.
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He went home-home.
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He went back to Jerusalem.
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And why did John leave?
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John Mark. This isn't John the Apostle.
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This is John Mark.
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The question is why did he leave?
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And the biblical answer is we don't know.
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I've read a lot of commentaries this week.
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What made him leave?
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Was he scared of the journey?
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Was he not wanting the Gospel to go to the Gentiles?
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There's a lot of reasons that people give why he might have left, explicitly say and there's a whole lot I want to say about that but that's going to come up later because you're going to see that there's a bit of a fallout that happens because of this desertion we'll get to that verse 14 it says but they went on from purgah and came to Antioch and Pisidia now this is a different Antioch this isn't the Antioch where they came from this is a different one it was actually a hundred mile journey from Perga to this Antioch a hundred mile extremely dangerous journey again some people say well that's why Mark abandoned him he didn't want to take the trip I don't know but it was a dangerous journey and in verse 15 it says I'm sorry rest of verse 14 it says on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down after the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogues sent a message to them saying, "Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.
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I understand the synagogues and that those are the little Jewish houses of worship." And it was a common practice.
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If there was a rabbi that was traveling, and he was kind of coming through town, and he's visiting the local synagogue, they'd be like, "Hey, do you have something to say that you want to say?" It'd be sort of like if we had somebody from another Harvest Bible Chapel, another pastor was coming through, like Pastor Luke Ahrens, who spoke here before.
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He was just passenger visiting.
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We might say, "Hey Luke, you've got something you want to say to the congregation?" And he gets up and says a few words.
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That's kind of what was happening here with Paul.
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They knew he was a rabbi.
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A well-trained one.
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And they said, "Do you have any word of encouragement for our people?" Knowing what we've studied about Paul so far, what are the chances he's going to take them up Pretty good.
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The Bible says, "So Paul stood up, and motioning with his hands, said..." What we're going to see here is the longest recorded sermon that we have from the Apostle Paul.
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He wrote like half the New Testament. He writes all these epistles.
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But as far as actual sermon content recorded, this is the longest sermon from the second greatest preacher in the history of preaching behind Jesus Christ Himself.
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So do us well to pay attention.
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And here's the thesis of his sermon.
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Okay?
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When you prepare a message, when you prepare a sermon, it has to center around a theme.
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What's the theme of the text?
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What's the theme of the passage?
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And here's the theme of the passage that Paul was preaching to the people.
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I'm going to give it to you ahead of time because then we're going to see it as we go through it.
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God has a plan.
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God has a plan.
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God has a plan for what?
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Jot this down first of all.
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God has a plan for history.
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It's all about Jesus.
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Let's look at the first part of this sermon.
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It's an extended passage, so I'm going to be making some comments as we go through just to clarify some things.
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Paul says, "Men of Israel And you who fear God - listen.
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Now, men of Israel, those were Jewish people.
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"You who fear God" refers to Gentiles who converted to Judaism - the proselytes, ok?
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The God of this people, Israel, chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt.
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Ok, so he's covering a lot of Old Testament history here.
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We're talking about the promise that God made Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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He chose them.
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Remember His promise to Abraham.
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He said Abraham, you're going to receive a special land - a chunk of land.
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That's the geographic site of Israel.
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You're going to have descendants that will be as numerous as the stars in the sky, as the sand on the seashore.
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And that's the Jewish people, the Israelites, the nation of Israel.
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And the third part of that is God promised Abraham that through him would be a blessing that would be world and that was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
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Recall because of a famine initially, they had gone to Egypt and because of their rapid multiplication let's say, the Egyptians started to fear them and they enslaved the Israelites in Egypt.
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Again, made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt and with uplifted arm he led them out of it that's the book of Exodus God led the Israelites out of Egypt under who was the leader then who was the leader Moses all right I didn't know there was going to be a test and for about 40 years he put up with them in the wilderness it's I got an interject this that phrase he put up with them people are like that can be interpreted one of two ways some people say no that literally is he cared for them or he carried them and other people say no no that Greek means he put up with them and you're like does it matter well if you have kids you know that both of those are true right because sometimes you carry them oh my little lamb precious let's be honest sometimes we just put up with them right and if you read the story of Israel okay I see kids looking at their moms right now.
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"Is that true?" It's true.
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Your mom's smiling at you because you're in church right now.
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I'm telling you, son, there are times your parents just have to put up with you.
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Amen?
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Okay, did you see that?
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Amen.
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Okay, so if you study the Exodus and the Bible, you see that there were times that God provided for them perfectly.
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And there were a lot of times God was putting up with them.
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Interesting phrase.
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And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan - that was the promised land.
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What's the seven nations?
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Well, Deuteronomy 7:1 tells you.
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You can look that up later.
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After destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, He gave them their land as an inheritance.
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All this took about 450 years.
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Here's where the number came from.
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450 years - they spent 400 years in Egypt.
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They spent 40 years in the wilderness.
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And it took 10 years from the crossing of the Jordan into the Promised Land until they divided up the land among the tribes.
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400 plus 40 plus 10.
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That's where Paul got that math.
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And after that, he gave them judges.
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Do you know what book Paul gave them?
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In the Old Testament, you read about the judges.
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Judges - ok, I'm just saying, if you're listening, I didn't say they were hard questions.
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The book of Judges - when we think of judges, we think of Judge Judy, right?
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With the black robe and the little doily and the gavel or whatever.
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But judges were like military leaders.
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They were deliverers.
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He gave them judges until Samuel the prophet.
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Remember Samuel?
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Samuel was a judge, he was a prophet, he was the king, a pointer, eventually.
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It says then, verse 21, "Then they asked for a king." And understand, if you read that passage, that was not a good thing.
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Israel said, "We want to have a king like all the other nations have a king." And God reminded them, "You have a king.
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It's me.
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I'm your king." And Israel, the Bible says Israel rejected God in order to have a king.
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And they were warned, look, if you have a king, he's going to enlist your children into military, he's going to impose taxes, and they said, we don't care, we want to be like everybody else.
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Trying to be like everybody else is never a good plan.
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And God gave them exactly what they wanted.
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Which sometimes, that could be the worst thing for you, is if you persist in wanting something that God doesn't want you to have, sometimes God gives you what you want.
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Not always a good thing.
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Look at the text, it says, "And God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years." Okay, so those of you that have read this account in the Old Testament, Saul as a king - thumbs up or thumbs down?
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What kind of a king was he?
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Yeah, thumbs down, right?
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Disobedient, disobedient, disobedient, Persistent and hard-hearted disobedience.
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And 40 years they dealt with that.
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Verse 22 says, "And when God had removed Saul, He raised up David to be their king, of whom He testified and said, 'I have found in David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, "I will do all My will." You know, David was a man who - you read 2 Samuel 11 - he did some horrible things.
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He was not a perfect man at all.
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But you see, God knew David's heart.
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Even though he did the wrong thing, he repented.
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He said this is wrong, and he turned from his sin.
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And he had a heart that was seeking after the Lord.
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He had a heart that craved righteousness even though in the flesh, didn't always perform it.
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We see a lot of grace.
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Verse 23, "Of this man's offspring, of David's offspring, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as He promised." That's 2 Samuel 7.
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God promised David that one of His descendants would reign on the throne forever.
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is a descendant of David in the flesh. Before his coming, John, this is John the Baptist, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel and as John was finishing his course he said, "What do you suppose that I am? I am not he." Meaning people thought John the Baptist was the Messiah and he's like, "No, no, no. I'm not him." The Old Testament actually prophesied in Isaiah chapter 40 in Malachi chapter 3, the Old Testament prophesied that the Messiah would have a forerunner.
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What's a forerunner?
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A forerunner was like if the king's traveling and coming to town, the forerunner would go ahead of the king just to make sure that the path was clear, everything was safe, coast is clear, so the king wasn't held up with any obstacles in the road.
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And John the Baptist was the forerunner of Christ.
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He came to prepare the way for Jesus.
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"What do you suppose that I am? I am not He. I am not the Messiah." He says, "No, but behold, after me one is coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie." John says, "I am not the Messiah. Let me tell you about the Messiah. He is coming.
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I am not even worthy to carry that guy's shoes, okay, because he is awesome and I am nothing." So, we'll pause there for a second. Here's the point of this history lesson.
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It's a very broad sweep of the Old Testament.
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But the point of the history lesson is this.
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All of Old Testament history, all the way up to John the Baptist, brings us to Jesus.
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That it wasn't some random events that God was like in the Old Testament, like constantly going, "Damage control!
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Oh no, I told Abraham he was going to have descendants, but they can't have any kids.
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What am I going to do?" He had a plan.
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He already had that prepared.
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"Oh, no, the Israelites are in Egypt and they're slaves.
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What am I going to do? How am I going to get them out?" God had a plan.
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"And they're not listening to me.
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And they want a king now, and I'm their king.
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Why won't they listen?" God had a plan.
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And that's the point that Paul's making here.
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As you look throughout the history of Israel, God always had this plan.
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It wasn't random events.
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Let me illustrate it this way in kind of a modern sense.
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A week and a day ago at our house, we had a ministry team meeting talking about finances.
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And when we have these meetings at our house, Aaron, my wife, will clean and rearrange the furniture, and she'll have food and drink ready, she'll have the kids ready, she'll have the overly friendly dog put away.
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And while she's getting the house ready for this meeting, even when the kids or the husband makes a mess, it doesn't stop her.
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She takes care of it.
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Even when the sweeper breaks, it doesn't stop her.
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Even when the dog gets sick, it doesn't stop her.
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You see, she has this plan, and when she's getting the house ready for this meeting, all she's thinking about is, "Okay, I'm getting everything ready for this one event.
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We have this meeting, and I'm going to make sure that everything is ready for this meeting." But I want you to imagine with me for a second.
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Just imagine that you came over to our house, and you didn't know that we were having a meeting.
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You're just kind of sitting on our couch.
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You didn't know a meeting was coming up in a few hours.
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You're sitting on the couch and you're watching Aaron working.
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You might start to ask some questions like, "Wait a minute, why did Aaron arrange the table like that?
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"Why did Aaron put so much food out?
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"There's only four people in the family.
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Why would Aaron put 13 chairs in a circle?
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There's not that many people here.
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It doesn't make any sense.
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Why is she making your husband get a bath?
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I don't understand why she's doing all these things.
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She's working, but it doesn't look like.
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She's doing anything that really makes sense.
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But then as you sat there, you saw the ministry leaders come and have the meeting and everybody says their goodbyes and leave.
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And after the meeting, you would look back earlier and say, "Now that makes sense. I understand why she did all that.
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Now I see why she had so much food out.
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Now I see why she had all those chairs out.
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It makes sense now." Now, we have a sovereign and all-powerful God who was doing exactly that.
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But he wasn't putting a house in order.
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understand what God was doing, was He was putting history in order.
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So just as Aaron's sweeping and mopping and dishes and doing - God was doing those kinds of things throughout history.
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I'm putting this all in order.
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Because He was preparing for a big event too.
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And the big event that God was preparing the entire world for was the single greatest event in history.
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And that's the Incarnation.
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This one God Almighty Himself took on flesh and blood and walked among us.
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God wasn't arranging a living space, He was arranging an entire timeline.
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Scale of 1 to 10, how awesome is God?
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Well, that's a conservative answer.
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So God was preparing for Jesus coming throughout history.
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And you read the Old Testament history, these prophets who lived in the history timeline, foretold the Messiah.
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They said exactly the details concerning His incarnation, concerning His sacrifice, concerning His resurrection, concerning His second coming, concerning His millennial reign on the earth, concerning His eternal rule.
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All of history.
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From creation, to the law, to the incarnation, to today.
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October 9, 2016.
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To the future.
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See that God is circling all of this, He's arranging all of this around Jesus Christ.
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God has a plan.
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He has a plan for history.
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It's all about Jesus.
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Secondly, write this down.
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He has a plan for salvation.
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It's all about Jesus.
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Verse 26.
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"Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham and those among you who fear God.
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To us has been sent the message of this salvation.
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For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize Him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning Him.
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And though they found in Him He was so guilt-worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have Him executed.
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And when they had carried out all that was written of Him, they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb." We'll stop there for a second.
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God has a plan for salvation.
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It's all about Jesus.
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Did you see that in verse 26?
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To us has been sent the message of this salvation.
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This is the purpose of the plan.
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Even despite everything that happened, Paul recounts this history, despite all of this arranging that God made for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus shows up and He's rejected by His own people.
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You're like, well, why did they reject Him?
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Well, the answer's right here in the text.
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I need you to sit up and pay really close attention to this because this hits you where you are here and now.
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Why was Jesus Christ rejected?
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Look at verse 27.
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because they did not recognize Him." Look at this next phrase.
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"Nor understand the utterances of the prophets." Jesus was rejected for the same reason then that He is now.
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You're going to want to write this down.
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If you reject the written Word, you're going to reject the living Word.
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If you reject the written Word, you're going to reject the living Word.
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You see, there's a glorious connection in Harvest Bible Chapel.
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We believe that God wrote a book.
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We believe the Bible is the Word of God.
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That's why we proclaim it without apology.
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But you see, there's a glorious connection that while we don't worship the Bible, we give the Bible the reverence God calls us to, because this reveals to us the God that we worship.
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So you need to dispense of the idea today that the Bible is irrelevant, because the truth is the Bible is the only relevant thing on the planet right now.
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You know that. We live in a world that is constantly bombarding us with lies from hell, and the only thing that's relevant is the Word of God. So you see, See, when people reject the written Word of God, they are going to reject the living Word of God because He is the One who is being testified about in this book.
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Romans 1 says people suppress the truth.
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They don't want to hear God's truth.
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They suppress the truth and unrighteousness and what happens?
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They start worshiping stuff.
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They start embracing ungodly sexual relationships.
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They start approving of people who embrace ungodly sexual relationships.
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It's stuff that's happening right in front of our eyes.
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And where does it start?
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It starts when you suppress the truth in unrighteousness.
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You say no to God's Word, that means you're saying no to the living Word, and it means you're opening yourself up to the garbage dump of sin.
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That's the connection.
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In verse 30, "But God..." That's like the greatest phrase in the Bible.
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All this stuff happens, and it's like, "But God..." And then you know everything's about to change.
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"But God raised Him from the dead.
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And for many days He appeared to those who had come up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem.
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We who are now His witnesses to people, witnesses, that sounds familiar.
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Seems like we just talked about that for a year, right?
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And we bring you the good news that what God has promised to the fathers, this He has fulfilled to us, their children, by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second psalm.
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"For my son, today I have begotten you." That's Psalm 2:7.
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And as for the fact that He raised Him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, He has spoken in this way.
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This is from Isaiah 55.
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"I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David." See, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul says that was a proof that Christ would raise from the dead.
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How could the Messiah have all the promises of David right David has this eternal promise given to him to his descendants but it's not going to do him any good if he's in the grave too right the the Messiah so he says that's proof just by virtue of receiving the promise of God verse 35 therefore he says also in another Psalm this is Psalm 1610 this is big proof text in the Old Testament for the resurrection you will not let your holy one. Seek corruption. That's a fancy way of saying you were not going to let the Messiah rot. He's not going to rot. Jesus didn't rot. He was put in the grave and instead of staying there and decaying, he rose from the dead. For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption. He says David's in his grave and he's rotting.
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But he whom God raised up did not see corruption.
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Do you notice how many times there?
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We saw it in verse 30, verse 33, verse 34, verse 37.
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God raised up. God raised up.
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God raised up.
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Key point.
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That even the death of Jesus Christ was part of God's plan.
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the death of Jesus didn't take God by surprise. God wasn't in heaven like they did what to my son? Like he knew ahead of time because ahead of time he was prophesying that he would raise from the dead. In order to raise from the dead he had to first die so God knew that was going to happen.
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Paul here says he rose from the dead we saw him and it was a fulfillment of the Scriptures. You see all this history all this prophecy this isn't just FYI it's about the plan of saving man from sin that's why again verse 26 this message of this salvation you see everything that God was doing it had this purpose of saving us from our sin.
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This plan revolves around a person, and the key event of the person is the resurrection.
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That leads us to part three.
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God has a plan for history.
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It's all about Jesus.
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God has a plan for salvation.
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It's all about Jesus.
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Let's bring it home, shall we?
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God has a plan, and you have a choice.
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And that's how Paul concludes this message.
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You have a choice.
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You see, we're not preparing you to be on Jeopardy.
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If I'm ever on Jeopardy, and the Bible's one of the categories, give me some factoids, give me some nuggets, show me a chart or a graph or something that will help me get this information so I know some stuff about the Bible.
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If that's what you leave with, then you've wasted your time and I've failed.
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You have to do something with this information.
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You can't just walk out of here today and say, "Oh, interesting." Because according to the Bible, your eternity hinges on what you do with this message.
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So I want you to look very closely here at verses 38 and 39.
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Paul brings it home.
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He says, "Let it be known to you, therefore, brothers." You see, that's Paul saying, "You've got to do something with this.
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You've got to know this, that through this man, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.
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And by him, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be You cannot be freed by the law of Moses.
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Stop there for a second.
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Freed from everything from which you cannot be freed by the law of Moses.
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What does that mean?
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Well, if you read the Old Testament, the Old Testament law like Leviticus and Deuteronomy, if you read the Old Testament law for Israel, you realize that God was showing us the standard of righteousness, standard of morality.
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And when we study the Old Testament law, what we see about ourselves is that none of us can be good enough to earn a spot in Heaven.
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Like, someday I'm going to stand before God and He's going to say, "You did a good job." None of us can keep the rules in such a way that we've earned righteousness.
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Trying to keep the rules won't work Because you can't keep the rules.
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And you haven't been.
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It can't save you.
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Once in a while I meet somebody that's not convinced of that.
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I don't want anybody in here convinced that, yeah, I keep the rules, so we'll just do a little test.
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We'll reduce the law down to its simplest form.
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That's the Ten Commandments.
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I want you to take your, you have your little half-sheet outline.
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I'm going to go through the 10 commandments very quickly.
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And every commandment that you've broken at some point in your life, I just want you to give yourself a checkmark.
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And then we're going to see how many commandments out of 10 that you've broken.
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Are you ready?
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Okay, first commandment.
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God says, "You shall have no other gods before me." So the question for you is, has the Lord God always been the priority in your life every time?
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You've never had anything in your life that was more important at the time, in the moment, than God?
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If at any point in your life anything was more important to you than God, then you have broken that commandment, and you need to give yourself a mark.
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The second commandment ties into that.
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You shall not make for yourself any idols, any graven images.
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Has there ever been something on the earth that you've worshipped that has had a higher priority in your life than God?
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Maybe it's a person, maybe it's a vehicle, maybe it's a, I don't know, a PlayStation.
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Something in your life that has consumed your energy, and quite frankly, your worship?
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If so, then you've broken that commandment.
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How are we doing so far?
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The third commandment.
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The third commandment - "You shall not use the Lord God's name in vain." What that literally means is misrepresenting God.
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It doesn't just mean swearing and attaching God's name to it.
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It means that you're misrepresenting God.
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Have you ever spoken in a way that misrepresents or dishonors God?
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And you're guilty.
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The fourth commandment.
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The fourth commandment is about the Sabbath.
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Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
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God says you're to set a day aside a week.
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No work.
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Just focus on worship and your relationship.
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Have you always done that?
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Do you always deliberately set time aside to worship God?
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If not, then you're guilty of that one too.
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The Fifth Commandment is honor your father and mother.
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Have you always honored your parents?
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Every time?
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Yes sir, no sir, yes ma'am, no ma'am.
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Have you always done that?
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I already told you kids, your parents put up with you.
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How are you doing there?
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The Sixth Commandment is do not murder.
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"Oh, finally. Finally!
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I have never murdered anyone to death, ever." But hang on.
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Jesus said if you hate somebody, you've committed murder in your heart.
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Jesus said the attitude is the root of the action, and that's just as sinful.
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The question is when we talk about murder, have you ever hated someone?
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Like, well, how do you define that?
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Well, is there somebody in your life you just wish wasn't there anymore.
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I don't care if I ever see that person again.
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See, in your heart, you wish they were dead.
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You don't ever want to have any interaction with them.
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You hate them.
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You don't want them in your sphere at all.
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Guilty, if you've ever felt that.
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The seventh commandment is do not commit adultery.
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God has this awesome gift of marriage and this awesome gift of a sexuality to be solely in the context of marriage.
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If you've ever misused that gift in any way, then you are guilty of committing adultery.
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Are you still writing?
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The 8th Commandment is do not steal.
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Have you ever taken something that doesn't belong to you?
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Even if it's a paper clip from work, have you ever taken something that you know is not yours, but you take it?
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The 9th Commandment is do not bear false witness.
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Have you ever told a lie?
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time have you ever at any point you knew the truth but you deliberately said something else then the tenth commandment is do not covet what that means is God says look I provide you everything you need be satisfied with what I give you we say no no I wish I had what somebody else had all of a sudden we're not satisfied in God's provision for us we start coveting what God's given somebody else that's a sinful attitude have you ever done that Have you ever wished that you had what somebody else had?
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Their car, their house, their kids, their wife?
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Alright, sinless people, raise your hands.
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How many people scored yourselves a 10 out of 10 perfect sinner?
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That's me. That's me.
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So you see the point is we can't keep the law.
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So this idea that, okay, those are the rules, I'm gonna try to keep the rules.
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Guess what?
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You already broke them.
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You can't keep them.
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That's the whole purpose of the Old Testament law was to show us we're guilty, we're guilty.
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There's a holy God that's going to judge us and I stand before Him, a 10 out of 10 sinner.
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What are my chances that God's gonna be like, oh, that's okay.
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You spit in the face of the holy almighty, that's okay.
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I am guilty.
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You see, that's what Paul is saying here, is we can't free ourselves from that.
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From now on, I'm going to... it doesn't matter from now on, because I have this 41-year track record of doing the wrong thing.
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I'm guilty. You're guilty.
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But, look again, this is the good news.
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But, in Christ, verse 38, "Forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you." Your 10 out of 10 can be taken to a zero out of 10 and stay at a zero out of 10.
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That's forgiveness of sins proclaimed to you.
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And by Him, everyone who believes, everyone.
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Like I've done some terrible things.
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Are you an everyone?
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Are you an everyone?
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If you fall under the category of an everyone, then this applies to you.
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No matter what you've done, who you are, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
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You're trapped under the law, and here comes Jesus Christ with the keys of grace and opens up the cell door and says, "You're free." Like, "But I've done all these wrong things." You're forgiven.
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You're restored.
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You're free.
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Freed from sin.
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Freed from the penalty of sin.
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Freed from judgment.
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Freed from condemnation.
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Freed from guilt. Freed from shame.
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You have literally everything to gain by receiving Jesus Christ.
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The only thing that you have to lose is God's wrath.
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But, if you're sitting here today and you choose not to receive Christ, you literally have everything to lose in this life and in the next.
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Let's look at the last two verses for today.
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"Beware therefore lest what is said in the prophets should come about." This quote is from Habakkuk 1:5.
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"Look, you scoffers!
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Be astounded and perish!
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For I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe even if one tells it to you." That passage - we walked through it back a couple of years ago.
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And that passage is about God's judgment.
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And Paul is using that warning as an application concerning the Gospel of Jesus Christ, saying this, "You still want to reject God?
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You still want to turn your back on God's grace?
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You're in for an astounding death.
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That's the description of hell.
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Even if hypothetically, if I went to hell for a day, and I saw the horrors, I saw the Bible describes the weeping, the gnashing of teeth, and Revelation says the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever.
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If I went to hell for a day, and I saw and heard the horrors of this existence apart from God because of rejecting this glorious gift of His grace, even if I went there and saw all of that, I couldn't adequately describe it to you.
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That's why he says I'm doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe tells you. It's worse than I can tell you. I could spend the next six hours up here doing a Bible study about hell and trying to paint the picture of how horrible of a destination it is. I would not even be scratching the surface because it's infinitely worse than that. To reject your Creator, to choose instead of enjoying His presence eternally, instead to choose to be apart from His presence This point is not receiving Jesus Christ is the worst decision that you will ever make.
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Now when we talk about rejecting Jesus, there might be somebody here saying, "I've never rejected." And we think of rejection as like this spiteful thing.
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Like somebody shared the gospel with you, and you like swear in their face.
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You're like, "No way!
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I don't want anything to do with that bum!" It's not like this spiteful rejection.
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Christ is also things like apathy. You just don't care. You say, "Oh yeah, he's talking about Jesus again. Yeah, he's talking about Jesus. Okay, what's for lunch?" Just apathy. You just don't care. You're hearing the message, you just don't really care. Indifference. Huh, interesting. Interesting points he made today. Went a little long, but... Or even a half-hearted attitude. Jesus calls that being lukewarm. He said that makes him want to vomit, literally. Half-hearted attitude.
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Like, Jesus is just alright with me, but I'm not one of those, like, radical born-again witnessing, like, reading the Bible Christians. Well, then you're not a Christian at all. If the life of Christ isn't in you, and Christ hasn't changed your appetites, and you have this desire to pursue God and the things of God, then you're not a Christian. You don't have to spitefully reject God to reject God.
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You can smile and say no thank you. You can smile and say maybe someday I'll get to. That's still rejection. Jesus doesn't offer light options. Okay? There's not like this gluten-free menu that he has to say oh you don't want to be a you don't want my Holy Spirit in you you don't want to be like one of those Those radical church people?
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Oh, okay, well, take a look at our brochure here because we might have a package that would better suit your lifestyle.
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Jesus doesn't have that.
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Believing in Jesus Christ means this - I'm all in.
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I receive Jesus Christ by faith.
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I am opening my heart to the transformation that His Holy Spirit brings.
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I am going to change by His power.
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I am going to repent. I am going to actively and intentionally turn from my sin.
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I'm done forever with my old life. I'm pursuing God with every cell in my body.
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Anything less than that is nothing.
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At the end of the day, you have a choice.
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It's not about the church that you attended.
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It's not about how many small group outreaches you were a part of.
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It's not about how good of a Christian your mother was.
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Paul makes it very clear here what matters is what you do with Jesus Christ.
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What you do with Him.
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We know His desire.
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His desire is that all men should be saved.
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He's willing that none should perish.
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His gift of salvation is being extended to you.
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Have you received it?
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You have a choice.
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It's all about Jesus.
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I'd like you to bow your heads with me, please, as our worship team comes up.
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I'm going to lead us in a prayer.
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Maybe there's somebody here today that says, "You know what? I've been playing church games.
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I need to receive Christ." You need to go back and tell one of the members of the prayer team, "Hey, we need to pray.
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We need to pray about my walk with Christ." Maybe you're sitting here today and you need to pray for somebody else.
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Maybe you have a family member or a friend or a co-worker does not know the Lord. Maybe you need to pray for them. Somebody from our prayer team back at the sign would love to pray for that person with you. Please take this moment. The Lord invites you and the Lord moves when we pray. Father in heaven, I thank you for your glorious gospel. And none of us are surprised that when today we read the longest sermon in the Bible given by the Apostle Paul, we're not surprised that the whole sermon circles around the person of Jesus Christ.
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Paul doesn't, he doesn't waste time talking about lesser things.
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It's right to the heart of the matter that God, you've had this plan throughout history.
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Even when Adam and Eve fell into sin, You made this promise of the offspring of Eve crushing the head of the enemy.
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You've had this plan that circles around Jesus.
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You've brought us this salvation that circles around Jesus.
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And it's not about our works.
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It's not about what we try to do or what we, the rules we make of things that we refuse to do.
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It's not about us trying to keep the rules because Father, we've seen this morning that we cannot.
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We need freed by the one who died on the cross in our place.
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By the one who rose from the dead so that the life that we forfeited in the Garden of Eden could be restored.
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The relationship with you, the shameless, guiltless walk, the pronouncement that you've given us.
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We are not guilty of sin anymore.
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We go from being your enemies to being your children.
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It all circles around Jesus.
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Father, I pray for those today who need to make a choice.
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Those who maybe think that they're in good standing with you because their mom brought them to church.
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That doesn't do it.
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Those who think they're in good standing with you because they've never intentionally really hurt somebody too bad.
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That doesn't matter.
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What matters is receiving this gift of grace by faith.
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Father, I pray that You would open hearts here.
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Those of us who do know You, I pray that You would give us Your compassion for those who don't.
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Father, we praise your name for this plan.
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We praise your name for this person.
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We find that in Jesus Christ, you saved us from your own wrath.
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Father, for our last couple of minutes here today, let this be a place of worship and prayer.
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We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 13:13-41
Why did Paul start the Gospel message in the Old Testament? What was his point with the history of Israel recap?
To reject the written Word (the Bible), is to reject the Living Word (Jesus), Acts 13:27. Explain what this means and how it plays out in lives today.
Explain Acts 13:39. What does Christ free us from that you "could not be freed by the law of Moses"?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for:
One another
Our church
Our nation