Review / Intro:
The Four Crucial Elements of the World-Changing Message:
- Jesus Christ had to die for my Sins. (Acts 17:3)
Romans 5:19 - For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.
Four Reasons Jesus Had to DIE for My Sin:
- To be my Sacrifice. (John 1:29)
- To be my Propitiation. (1 John 4:10)
- To bring Reconciliation. (Romans 5:10)
- To pay for my Redemption. (Mark 10:45)
- Jesus Christ had to rise from the dead to give me Life. (Acts 17:3)
Four Reasons Jesus Had to RISE from the Dead:
- Because He Said He would. (Luke 18:32-33)
- Because the Old Testament Promised the Christ would rise. (Psalm 16:10)
- Because that's how He gives His Righteousness. (Romans 4:25)
- Because that's how He gives His Eternal life. (1 Corinthians 15:17-18)
- Jesus Christ has to be my King. (Acts 17:7)
Luke 6:46 - Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you?
- There is a Cost to following Jesus. (Acts 17:6-9)
Matthew 16:24 - Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."
John 13:16, 15:20 – a servant is not greater than His master
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:00-00:13
Alright, Acts chapter 17, again we're going to be back in Acts for the next three weeks, but just as a quick review, we started our mission trip back in October in Acts chapters 13 and 14.
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And remember we talked about the Jerusalem council, where they were talking about does somebody have to be circumcised in order to be saved?
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What purpose does the law have in salvation?
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and it was back to mission work.
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We saw Paul and Barnabas have a falling out over taking Mark with them on the mission trip.
00:37-00:48
But Barnabas takes Mark with him to Cyprus, and Paul takes Silas to Syria and Cilicia, where they picked up Timothy and got a vision to go to Macedonia.
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Then in Philippi, the crew witnesses to a group of women, and one woman in particular named Lydia She receives Christ and invites the missionaries to stay with her.
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After driving out an evil spirit out of a fortune-telling slave girl, Paul and Silas are beaten and imprisoned.
01:10-01:12
God sends an earthquake to release them.
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The jailer attempts suicide, but is stopped by Paul.
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It has led to Christ.
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Paul and Silas are asked to leave and they did, after they got the magistrates to apologize.
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That's sort of an overview of where we've been in Acts so far this year.
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Now in Acts 17, it says, "Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia," that's easy for you to say, "they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.
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Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days, he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ." And some of them were persuaded of the devout Greeks, not a few of the leading women.
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But the Jews were jealous.
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Taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd.
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When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities shouting, "These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them." And they're all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.
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And the people in the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things, when they had taken money and security from Jason and the rest.
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They let them go.
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Their mission trip continues. Paul and company traveled southwest to Ampipholus, which was 30 miles.
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And to Apolonia. Is that how you say it?
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Apolonia?
03:44-03:45
Tomato, tomato.
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Apollonia.
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I kind of like that better.
03:50-03:50
You're right.
03:51-03:53
I know this one, Thessalonica.
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So 30 miles to Ampipolis.
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Apollonia, another 30 miles.
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Thessalonica was another 40 miles.
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This is a 100-mile total journey.
04:10-04:15
Notice here also it says "they." Did you see that? Third person.
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You've got to pay attention to this in Acts because when Luke's with the group, he says "we," and when he's not with the group, he says "they," so apparently, Luke must have stayed in Philippi.
04:27-04:30
He's still writing about what's happening with the missionaries.
04:31-04:36
It says they headed to Thessalonica, which was the capital of Macedonia.
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It was a port city.
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It had about 200,000 people.
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The Bible says they went straight to the synagogue.
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Verse 2 says, "On three Sabbath days." That means three weeks.
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You know, sometimes we can read through the Bible like we can go through Acts, and we can think that this stuff was just happening rapid fire, and we can kind of gloss over some of this stuff.
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But it wasn't like Paul just rolled into town and all of this happened in the course of a couple of minutes it took us to read the passage.
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happening over the course of weeks.
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Before we look at the actual message itself today, I want you to take note of how Paul shared the message.
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Look at these words in verse 2 and 3, jot them down.
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How did he share the message?
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First of all, it says he reasoned.
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Did you see that in verse 2?
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He reasoned with them.
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That means he had a dialogue.
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He didn't go in and say, "Ok, open up your Bibles, I'm going to preach at you for an hour." He had a dialogue with them.
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He reasoned.
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He explained.
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The Greek word for "explain" literally means to open that which is closed.
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And in this context, it means He opened their minds with a reasoned explanation.
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Explain.
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See, the Gospel is reasonable when you think about it.
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And I know it has to be spiritually appraised and the Holy Spirit has to open your heart.
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I know that, I get that, we preach that.
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But there is a sense in which the Gospel is reasonable, isn't it?
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Because every one of us have some things in common that we have to face the reality - things like sin.
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Every one of us know deep down that we're sinners by nature.
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You know that.
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As much as you want to mask it, or deny it, or put on a face, you know deep down that there is something messed up inside you.
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Another thing that we have to stare in the face is just the aspect of death.
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We're all going to die.
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Ecclesiastes says that the Lord has set eternity on the heart of man.
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We all know that we were made for something more What about death?
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What's on the other side?
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And how do we know what happens when we die?
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See, only the Gospel has the answers to those things.
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So when it says that all open their mind with reason, explanation, that's some of the persuasion that he would have been using.
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proving, proving, the reason explaining, proving.
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Some people think that if you're a religious person, if you believe in the Bible, then you're intellectually inferior.
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You're stupid.
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The Bible has satisfied some of the greatest minds in history.
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The Bible certainly doesn't encourage you to check your intellect at the door.
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Don't think about it.
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It's just blind faith in nothing.
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Proving. It engages your mind.
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And lastly, you see, it says, "This Jesus whom I proclaim..." Proclaim.
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Harvest Bible chapter - we have four pillars.
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And our first pillar is what?
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Proclaiming the authority of God's Word without apology.
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Proclaim. Not sugarcoating it.
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Not apologizing for it.
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without softening the blow.
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See, Paul didn't walk in and suggest that Jesus might be the Christ.
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Suggested it might possibly be a good idea for you to maybe rethink some things that you thought about Jesus.
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He just went right in there and he's like, Jesus is the Christ!
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And I'm going to prove it to you from God's book.
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Like, boom!
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In your face.
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Proclaiming.
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I think it's sad that God has said some things very clearly and preachers get up and want to dance around it.
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God's not apologizing for what He said.
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Why should we?
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Our job is just to echo.
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We don't make up the message, we just broadcast it, right?
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Proclaim it.
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Proclaim it.
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So not only do you have to have the bold persistence that we see that Paul had, You have to have the right message.
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You have to have the right message.
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That's why today we're going to look at four crucial elements of the world-changing message.
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Four crucial elements of the world-changing message.
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These are four elements of the Gospel that if you leave any of these out, you're going to have a lopsided message.
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years ago at an elders meeting we were talking about some preachers who most of their message is good, but there's maybe a little untruth gets sprinkled into their messages. I'll never forget this, one of the elders, a farmer, very quietly said, "Well, you know, rat poison is like 95% cornmeal.
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It's not the cornmeal that kills the rats, right?
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It's that 5%.
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It's not the cornmeal.
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It's the 5% that's poison, that's destructive.
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That's why when we preach the Gospel, we don't want to leave anything out.
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That's why when we preach, we go through the Bible.
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This is what God says, we exposit the passage.
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Or think about it this way.
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Think of your car.
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How many wheels do you need on your car?
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I go, I don't really know this, Pastor Jeff.
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I'm not exactly a mechanic.
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How many wheels do you need on your car?
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You need four, right?
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You need four.
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And I want you to think of each of these points as a wheel.
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that if you're missing one, your car's not going to go very well.
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Okay, so four crucial elements of the world-changing message.
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Number one, Jesus Christ had to die for my sins.
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Jesus Christ had to die for my sins.
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Look again at verse three.
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It says that Paul was explaining and proving that it was necessary.
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It was necessary for the Christ suffer. Necessary. Not just, "Oh, this is what happened." Paul said, "This is what had to happen." You see, something that's lost on us today is the Jews thought of the Messiah as being this political king.
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They thought the Messiah was going to come and restore Israel.
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and thought the Messiah was going to come in and defeat the enemies and usher in this earthly kingdom.
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The Jews were looking purely at this political Savior.
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I think in our day we can kind of identify with that, right?
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People looking to Washington for salvation.
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If only Clinton gets in, or if only Trump gets in, or if only Obama could stay in, and people are just looking for this politician to be the Savior.
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So, that mindset was what was held by many Jews in this day concerning the Christ.
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Christ is going to come and He's going to be our King, and He's going to restore Israel, and He's going to make us happy and healthy, and everything's going to be great.
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So this idea that the Messiah was going to come, and He was going to suffer, and He was going to die, they had none of it.
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In fact, the Bible tells you even the apostles struggled with this.
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Matthew 16.
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Remember Jesus told His apostles, "I'm going to suffer and die." Peter pulls Him aside.
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He's like, "Don't talk like that!" The Bible says that Peter rebuked Jesus.
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"Don't talk like that!
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We don't want to hear any of that kind of talk.
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You suffer and die.
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We're not going to let that happen.
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It's not going to happen to you." And Peter got called Satan to that.
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It's not a good day.
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So, Jesus Christ had to die for my sins.
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This idea that the Messiah is going to suffer.
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You know, even people today still struggle with that.
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I was sharing the Gospel with this one lady several years ago, and she got very sad.
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She said, "You know, the worst thing that's ever happened in history is they got Jesus." I'm like, "What are you talking about?" She said, "Well, Jesus was here, and He was healing, and He was teaching, He's doing so much good.
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And then they killed Him and they cut Him off and nothing's ever been the same since they got Jesus.
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What a horrible thing that they got Jesus.
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And I said, "What are you talking about?" And I said, "The very reason that Jesus came was to suffer and die for your sins." And she looked at me like she'd never heard that before.
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It's a hard pill to swallow for some people.
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You see, there are people that are saying, "Well, the Messiah's not going to suffer." Paul comes in with this message.
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He says, look, the Messiah had to suffer.
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Because man - Adam - brought sin into the world.
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So payment must be made by a man.
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Who the Bible calls the second Adam.
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Jesus Christ.
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Romans 5.19 says, "For as by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, by one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous.
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The man brought sin into the world, it had to be a man to make payment for sin.
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So jot these down on your outline.
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Four reasons Jesus had to die for our sin.
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He had to die.
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Not just appear, not just suffer, but to go all the way and die.
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Four reasons Jesus had to die for our sin.
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and he wrote this down.
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These are so important.
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First one, letter A, "to be our sacrifice." To be our sacrifice.
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All through the Old Testament, especially the law, you see the Old Testament sacrifices were a picture of our need for payment.
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You see, God says you can offer the blood of an animal to be atonement for your sin.
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But the problem with that The Old Testament was those animals atoned for sin.
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They didn't take sin away.
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There's a huge difference.
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You're like, what's the difference?
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Well, it's like this.
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The Old Testament sacrifices were like a credit card.
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You know, when you use a credit card, you know you're not really paying for it.
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Because you're going to get a bill that says you still owe the money.
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When you use the credit card, it's not like payment has been made.
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It just hunts the payment a little further down the line, but it doesn't make payment.
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You see, this is what the Old Testament sacrifices were like.
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This will cover your sin for now.
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This will cover your sin for now.
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Every swipe, every sacrifice.
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will cover your sin for now.
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But the bill's still going to come.
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Right? That invoice is still going to come.
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And you're still going to owe.
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That's what the Old Testament sacrifices were like.
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And Jesus - Jesus was this.
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Jesus was actual cash payment to say I'm not just covering your sin.
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I'm going to take it away.
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Huge difference.
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Huge difference.
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You're still not sure if there's a difference between covering sin and taking it away.
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Imagine if a possum crawled up on our front porch and died.
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And Aaron said, "I need you to do something about the possum." I take a tea towel and I go out and I cover the possum up.
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She's like, "What are you doing?" I'm like, "Well, I solved it.
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I covered it." Is that what she wanted?
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Take it away.
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There's a difference between covering and taking away.
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And you see, this is the glorious thing about Jesus Christ.
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He didn't just cover your sin.
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John 1.29, the next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Jesus doesn't just cover your sin.
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He takes it away.
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Did you notice what Jesus was called in John 1.29?
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The Lamb of God.
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Picturing that Old Testament sacrifice, Jesus being the fulfillment of that.
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The Lamb of God.
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had to die for our sin to be our sacrifice.
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Let her be to be our propitiation.
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Propitiation.
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That's a fancy word.
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What does that word mean?
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It means wrath bearer.
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And the reason I use that word is because it's in the Bible in a couple of places.
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Romans chapter 3 verse 25 I believe.
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1 John 4:10, "And this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." This might be a new concept to some of you, but it's so very important because I talk to so many guys that feel like God is still mad at them for their sin.
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I've talked to so many guys, I've sat across the table, and they're like, "Well, I know, Pastor Jeff, I know I'm forgiven in Jesus, but sometimes I just feel like I've done so many wrong things that God must still be mad at me." He is not!
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You see, when the Bible says Jesus is our propitiation, it means He bore the wrath of God on Himself, and God is satisfied.
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God is not some angry old man in the sky that's like, "I punish Jesus for your sin, "Darn it, I'm still mad, and I'm going to take it out on you too." You see, propitiation says, God says, "Because my Son was willing to bear my wrath, and I poured my wrath on Him, now I'm satisfied." There's no more wrath to be poured on the person who receives Jesus Christ.
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Now if you don't know Christ, you're going to taste every drop of God's wrath someday.
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And I can't say that without a tear and without shaking.
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But someday the dam is going to break.
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You're going to experience every drop.
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But when you turn to Jesus Christ, and you allow Him to be your propitiation, there is no wrath of God for you.
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Because Jesus took it all on Himself.
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reasons Jesus had to die.
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C. To bring reconciliation.
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To bring reconciliation.
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By nature, God is our enemy.
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And if you're here today and you don't know Christ, God is against you.
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God is, as we just said, poised to pour out His wrath on you.
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But here's the good news.
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which Christ's death totally healed the relationship.
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Look at Romans 5.10.
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"For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.
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Much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His light." We're reconciled.
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We're enemies of family of Jesus Christ and he had to die to make that happen.
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Did you see that?
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We were reconciled to God by the death of his son.
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Letter D to pay for our redemption.
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Pay for our redemption.
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Jesus Christ literally bought us back from slavery to sin.
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The cost was his own life.
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Jesus said, "For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." Salvation is free for you, but salvation wasn't free.
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It cost Jesus Christ everything.
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He willingly paid it to buy you back.
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Those are four reasons Jesus had to die.
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Number two in your outline, Jesus Christ had to rise from the dead to give you life.
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This is our second wheel.
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We've got to get these down.
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Not only was it necessary that Jesus died, it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead.
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This is often left out.
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This is crucial to the message is Jesus dying.
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A lot of people, we ask them what the Gospel is.
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They say the Gospel is Jesus died for my sins.
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That's half the Gospel.
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And you have to see, as we've gone through the book of Acts, the resurrection of Jesus Christ was central to every single sermon that we've seen in Acts.
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Did you notice that?
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Jot these down, you can go, look, Acts 2.32, Acts 3.15, Acts 4.10, Acts 5.30.
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Every time the Gospel is proclaimed, it gets right down to Jesus rose from the dead.
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This Jesus, God rose up.
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The grave couldn't hold Him.
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God resurrected Jesus Christ.
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Jesus Christ had to rise from the dead to give me life.
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Four reasons Jesus had to rise from the dead.
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Four reasons He had to.
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Four reasons that it wasn't enough that He died.
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He had to rise from the dead as well.
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Four reasons why.
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Letter A, because He said He would.
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Over and over and over and over and over in Jesus' ministry, He said things like in Luke 18, talking about Himself, "He will be delivered over to the Gentiles, be mocked and shamefully treated, and spit upon, and after flogging Him, they will kill Him, and on the third day He will rise." Jesus said this over and over and over.
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"I'm going to rise from the dead." He had to.
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He would have been a liar otherwise.
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He said that was so key to his ministry was to suffer and die, to rise from the dead.
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Let it be because the Old Testament promised that Christ would rise.
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Psalm 16.10 says, "You will not abandon my soul to shield or let your Holy One see corruption." The Old Testament promised that not only would the Messiah suffer, but the Messiah would rise from the dead.
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because that's how He gave us His righteousness.
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Romans 4.25 says, "Who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." You see, if Jesus just died for your sin and removed the sin penalty, we'd be like Adam and Eve in the garden before they fell into sin.
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But, Jesus did so much more than that.
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The Bible says that because Jesus resurrected, He gave you His righteousness.
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2 Corinthians 5:21 says that God took Jesus who knew no sin to become sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God.
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This to me is the most mind-blowing thing of the Gospel.
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You look at all these elements of the Gospel, this to me is the most mind-blowing aspect of all of it, is when you receive Jesus Christ, He gives you His righteousness.
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He puts it on your accounts.
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And God sees you as righteous as Himself.
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Now think about it.
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He doesn't see you as righteous as your dear sweet grandmama.
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What a saintly woman she is.
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He sees you not as righteous He sees you as righteous as Himself because He puts that on your account.
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Letter D, because that's how He gives us eternal life.
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1 Corinthians 15 says so much about the implications of Jesus resurrecting from the dead, and if He hadn't, how worthless our faith would be.
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In particular, He says, "And if Christ has not been crucified, Christ didn't raise from the dead, guess what?
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This is as good as it gets and you're wasting your time here today.
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You're just wasting your time.
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And that dear sweet grandmama of yours that died, who knows where she is?
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She's worm food.
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Because there's no hope of eternal life.
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She didn't have it. You don't have it.
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Life is meaningless.
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You don't have it.
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You don't have it.
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if Jesus didn't raise from the dead.
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But because He did, we have the hope of eternal life.
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Whether our life ends today, or tomorrow, or ten years, we have the hope of being in the world.
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Those are the first two wheels.
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Number three - we'll get through these last two quickly.
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Jesus Christ has to be my King.
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Jesus Christ has to be my King.
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I want you to get back to the text here.
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Because you see this person was introduced, and the Bible doesn't really say much about him.
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We don't really know much about him.
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Some people believed, verse 5 says, "But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble..." Who's that?
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Well, those would have been like guys who didn't have jobs.
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They just hung out in the marketplace all day.
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Do we have a name for people like that today?
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And you don't-- don't shout anything out.
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I'm afraid of what some of you might say, honestly.
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But you get the idea.
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They didn't have anything better to do.
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They didn't have jobs.
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They weren't productive.
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They just kind of hung out.
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They were lazy.
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I think the best term we could use is ne'er-do-wells.
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Do you remember that word?
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Ne'er-do-wells?
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I think that's-- no?
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No?
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One?
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OK.
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Wow.
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She's showing my age.
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That term was old when Charles Dickens used it.
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OK, it's going to sound politically incorrect, but they were worthless people.
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they contributed nothing, and they just hung out in the market.
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And you see the Jews saw them as primed toward, like, hey, you guys want to start a riot?
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And these guys were like, yeah, let's start a riot.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, let's get a mob going.
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Let's attack these people.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And it was like this big-- like, what?
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And it says that they attacked the house of Jason.
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Again, we don't know anything about them.
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They formed this mob.
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They got the city in an uproar.
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And they brought them out to the crowd.
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It says, verse 6, when they could not find them, meaning the missionaries, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers, some of the Christians, before the city authorities.
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And you see the charges.
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"These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar." Saying that there is another king, Jesus.
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See the charges?
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First of all, the first charge was, "These missionary troublemakers came into town, and Jason received them." Isn't it ironic? Who was causing the problems here?
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Was Paul the one causing problems?
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Was it Silas? Were they the ones causing problems?
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They were just sharing the gospel.
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These people were causing the very problems.
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They were accusing the missionaries.
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Did you see the other charge?
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This is the big one, folks.
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Saying that there is another king, Jesus.
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Okay, now it's a very serious charge, At least it wasn't a false charge.
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They actually killed Jesus for that charge, according to John 19.12.
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See, the Roman Empire took that very seriously for somebody to say that they're a king.
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So here's Jesus who people are proclaiming as the King of Kings.
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So we see one part of the message was received clear.
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there is another King.
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People want their ticket to heaven, but they don't want Jesus to be their King.
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And the idea that Jesus can be your Savior but not your Lord is completely foreign to the Gospel.
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Your faith hasn't changed you.
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Your faith hasn't saved you.
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Because nowhere, nowhere in God's Word He offers forgiveness without repentance.
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And the idea of the kingship of Jesus Christ is at the heart of repentance.
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Just picture, on your hearts sits this throne, and by nature, we think that we have the rightful place on that throne.
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I sit on the throne.
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Nobody tells me what to do.
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I call my own shots.
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I'm the boss.
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And repentance means you get off that throne.
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And you allow Jesus Christ, His rightful place on that throne.
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That's repentance.
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How much of your life is dictated by this worldview?
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Where you say, "I'm not my own.
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I was bought with a price.
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Jesus Christ is my Lord.
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There are things that I do just because of that fact.
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There are things that I won't do He says Jesus Christ is my King.
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Jesus said in Luke 6:46, "Why do you call Me, 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you?" Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord.
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You see, that's not multiple choice.
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That's a package deal.
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You have to receive Him for how He presents Himself.
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Like, yeah, I want the ticket to heaven thing, but I don't want you Lord over my life thing.
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Not an option.
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Not an option.
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Jesus Christ has to be your King.
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Do you know Him as your King?
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And finally, there is a cost to following Jesus.
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There is a cost to following Jesus.
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Look back in the text again with me quickly.
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It says, "And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things.
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When they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
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Again, Jason and some of the brothers were dragged out.
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It's crazy.
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The charge against them.
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Like, Jason really didn't do anything here.
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Do you see the charge against them was they might know some of the brothers?
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We think that the missionaries are staying with them.
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company weren't even with them at the time.
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The Bible says they took money as security.
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That was sort of like a bail bond.
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They took money from them and that money was going to be forfeited if there was more trouble.
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What I want to point out to you church is this.
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Jason, we know nothing about him other than what's in this passage.
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But what we do know about Him is plenty for us to apply today, and that's this.
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You don't have to be a missionary.
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You don't have to be a preacher to suffer loss for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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See, when we think of persecution, we read about these guys that are over in Turkey, or over in Saudi Arabia, or over in Afghanistan.
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We read about these preachers stateside, some of them I know, who have lost, experienced great cost for preaching the Gospel.
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When we think persecution, we think, well, that's the preachers and the missionaries.
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They've got to deal with that stuff.
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I'm just Joe Pucitor.
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And Jason reminds us, guess what?
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You're guilty by association.
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You mean to tell me if the government cracked down on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and they came in while we were having They think they'd let you go?
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I didn't even sing that much today.
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I didn't even give a full time.
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I was just passing.
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I thought we were having a dance recital here.
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I didn't know what was going on here.
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You think they're going to let you go?
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Jason did nothing.
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See, if you follow Christ, there's a cost.
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It's going to cost you.
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We leave that out.
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We think we're doing people a favor by leaving that out.
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Like yeah, you follow Jesus, it's going to be great.
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It's going to be great.
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Everybody's going to love you.
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I had that thought for about four seconds when I was called into ministry.
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I'm like, oh, this is great because the gospel changed my life and it's going to change other people's lives.
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And just as I was so happy to receive the gospel, everybody's going to be happy to receive the gospel.
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Yeah, that didn't work out so well because not everybody is so happy to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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It's going to cost. People want to leave that out.
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It's going to cost.
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There's only one demographic that it's socially acceptable to insult and revile.
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And that's Christ followers.
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And if you've been with us as we've been going through the book of Acts, did we have any message from Acts that didn't involve persecution in some way, shape, or form?
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It seems like every passage was some form of persecution.
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Jesus never promised that following Him would be easy.
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The opposite's true.
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He promised that following Him would be hard.
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And this is a whole other sermon.
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I just want to give you a couple of verses to go with this.
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Matthew 16.24, Jesus told His disciples, anyone would come after Me.
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Let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me." Take up his cross.
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That wasn't a metaphor.
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We use that as a metaphor today.
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"Well, you know, I've got asthma.
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That's my cross to bear." Or, "I've got a bad knee.
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That's my cross to bear." That wasn't a metaphor.
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These people would have seen people walking through the town carrying a cross.
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And they knew every time, "Well, that guy's going to die.
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This guy's heading to his death every time.
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So when Jesus said, "If you're going to follow Me, you've got to carry your cross." You know what that meant.
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It means I've got to be ready to die for Jesus.
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Luke 9, verse 62, Jesus said, "No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." Jesus said that.
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He didn't make it so easy.
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"Just bow your head, say this prayer, sign this card, come down the aisle." Jesus said if you put your hand to the plow, but you're still distracted, and you're still looking back, and you're still longing for the former things, you're not fit.
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You're not ready.
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Pardon.
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I'll remind you of a phrase Jesus used over and over.
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He said it in John 13, 16.
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He said it in John 15, 20.
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One of Jesus' apparently favorite sayings, because His servant is not greater than His Master.
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They persecuted Me, they're going to persecute you.
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The perfect sinless Son of God was going to come to the earth.
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He was going to be beaten and spit on and crucified because He stands for the things of God.
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What makes you think you're going to get off when you stand for the things of God?
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It's a great paradox, isn't it?
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Following Jesus costs you nothing, but it costs you everything.
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This is the Gospel.
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Four wheels.
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You can't take any of them off.
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No death of Christ.
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No payment for sin.
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No resurrection of Christ.
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No new life.
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No Jesus as King.
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No real repentance.
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No promise of suffering.
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No gospel rooted in reality.
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That's a prayer.
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Father in Heaven, thank You for Your glorious gospel.
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Father, it is not our intention to make it up, to alter it in any way.
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Father, we would never intentionally wish to twist Your Word or Your message for our own purposes.
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But let Your Word ring clear and pure and true and certain in our hearts.
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For those of us who know You today, Father, I pray this message is just a great encouragement for what You've done on our behalf.
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Father, I pray if there's anyone here today who doesn't know You, I pray that they would join the prayer team in the back.
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I pray that today would be the day of salvation, that they realize, Father, that there is an urgency in the Gospel.
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We don't have forever to make up our minds whether we want to get on board with you or not.
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Today's the day.
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Please, Father, let Your Spirit move through this room right now.
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Get us all where we need to be.
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I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 17:1-9
What would you say are the essentials of the Gospel? Do you agree with the four presented in this message? Why or why not? Would you add anything, or remove any of these four?
How do you think Paul kept from being discouraged, since it seems in every city he preached in the synagogue, he faced a serious backlash?
Acts 17:5 says the Jews were jealous. What do you think caused this jealousy?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another to be bold witnesses who KNOW the Gospel and SHARE the whole Gospel.