Intro / Review:
Death to "Status Quo": Four Reasons You’'d Better Be Urgent in Ministry!
- Because people need Encouraged (Acts 20:1-2)
- Because enemies need Avoided (Acts 20:3-6)
- Because the youth need Engaged to your financial goals. (Acts 20:7-12)
- Because the plans need Made to your financial goals. (Acts 20:13-16)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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So are we ready to get into God's Word together?
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Father in Heaven, we are about to turn to Your Word.
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God, right now, You are listening to what we say about You.
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And that is no small thing.
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Let Your Word be represented clearly and accurately, because Your Word itself clearly and accurately represents you.
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And might we be transformed as your Holy Spirit is at work with the Word in ways that your Bible talks about it, and I don't know if I fully understand how all that works, but somehow the Word goes forth and your Holy Spirit at the same time works with the Word.
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You transform lives that way.
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Eliminate distractions, Father.
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Help us all to tune in.
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We pray in Jesus' name.
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Open up your Bibles with me, please, to Acts chapter 20.
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Acts chapter 20.
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While you're turning there, I'm going to tell you this story In the old church up in Butler, there was a man who - an elderly gentleman - taught Sunday school.
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Sort of one of the pillars of the church.
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And he's with the Lord now.
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And loved this man.
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And he loved me.
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But he always got on my case about it.
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Sort of like the father figure thing, right?
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One time, it was like during meet and greet time and the church was before the sermon.
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turned around, got right in my face, and he said, "Jeff, this is going to offend you, but when I was an elder in the church, and I got to tell you at the time, I was wearing like a dress shirt with a tie, but no coat." Okay, so get that picture in your head.
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He said, "Jeff, this is going to offend you, but I'm going to tell you, when I was an elder in this church, you wore a shirt, you wore a tie, and you wore a suit coat.
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Every Sunday, no exceptions.
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And I'm like, oh, okay.
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But he was one of those people that would harp on things, right, part of, I guess, the preacher in him.
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He goes, I know you're probably offended by that, but I'm telling you, this wouldn't have worked.
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Shirt, tie, suit coat, every Sunday.
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And I know what he was getting at.
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Where's your suit coat at, Jeff?
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Shirt, tie, suit coat.
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And he read us the riot act in the air for a couple minutes.
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He was on us pretty good.
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Even in Greek, yeah, he knew Greek, so he would chew me out in Greek sometimes.
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And true story.
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So we all sat down and it was sermon time.
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And as soon as he sat down, I mean as soon as he sat down, he put his arm on the back of the pew and (snoring) like snoring during the entire sermon.
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And if you know my wife at all, I know that she does not like me receiving unsolicited, unjust criticism.
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She doesn't like that at all.
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And Aaron gets really defensive and I love her to death for that.
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I remember at the time, as soon as he fell asleep and slept through the whole sermon Aaron leaned over and she goes, "When he was an elder, I wonder what they said about sleeping during the whole sermon." I never asked them.
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I love that about Aaron.
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But let's be honest.
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How many of us have ever fallen asleep in church?
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Let's be honest. I have. I have.
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Come on. Come on.
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I have.
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Usually not when I'm preaching, but I have.
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Well, if you've ever fallen asleep in church, this is a good passage for you today.
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will bring some refreshment for your soul.
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So we're following the apostle Paul and his missionary journey as we go verse by verse through Acts.
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Right now we're on his third trip where he went back to Ephesus where he stayed for two or three years.
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Remember last week we saw that this riot breaks out because the idol makers were mad that people were coming to Christ and the idolatry was stopping and that meant they weren't buying their little trinkets.
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This riot breaks out.
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Paul was protected by his pagan friends and the church.
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And the riot was actually stopped by the mayor.
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Now look at chapter 20, verse 1.
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Just the first phrase I want you to look at.
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It says, "After the uproar ceased." After the uproar ceased.
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Before we look at the text, we can sort of imagine what we might expect the Bible to say.
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Okay, there was this riot, and Christians were being dragged out, There was chaos and things settled down, the dust cleared.
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What happens next?
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Maybe the apostle Paul says, "You know what, I'm going on sabbatical.
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It's been a long, rough season.
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Or, you know, I'm going on vacation.
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I'm just going to settle down for a little bit." But the title of today's message is "Unstoppable Urgency." And the word of the day, the word of the week, and hopefully the word that typifies who we are as a church, is the word "urgency." Because church, hear me, my biggest fear - when I say "the church," I mean the church in general, but I'm talking specifically about Harvest Bible Chapel.
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This church.
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My biggest fear for our church is not persecution.
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Persecution is actually very good for the church.
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My biggest fear for the church is not false teachers, even though that's a problem.
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God's teachers have always existed.
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My biggest fear for the church isn't even demonic activity, and we deal with that.
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My biggest fear for the church, honestly, by far, number one, my biggest fear for this church is complacency.
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Meaning we're just content to stay where we are, to maintain status quo.
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We'll get the jobs done, There's no need to think about growth or think about next steps.
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As we talk about contentment, let's make a distinction.
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First of all, we are content in Christ. Amen?
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Yes, we are content in our salvation. Amen?
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Yes, we are content in God's provision. Amen?
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Absolutely, 100%.
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But there are some things we should never be content with.
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There are some things we should never be content with.
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is where we are in our personal growth.
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We should never be content with that.
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We always have room to grow.
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Watch out for the guy that's like, "I am absolutely 100% totally done growing in Christ." I've never met that guy.
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I've met people that thought they were there.
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We should never be content.
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We should always be seeking the Lord and seeking to allow Christ.
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Romans 8.29, "Being conformed into the image of His Son." That's God's goal for us, and the image of Christ.
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So not only should we never be content with where we are in our personal growth, we should never be content with where we are in the life of our church.
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There's always more to do.
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There's always work to be done.
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We should always be evaluating what we are doing.
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We should always be retooling.
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We should always be changing things.
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We should always be rethinking some things.
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So again, at this point in Acts, you think, okay, the riot's over, the dust's settled, Let's just get back to normal church routine, but we're going to see in this passage, like Paul, we should always carry with us the sense of urgency.
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So if you're taking notes on your outline, and I encourage you to do so, the heading is "Death to Status Quo." Four reasons you'd better be urgent in your ministry.
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And a lot of this message, honestly, I'm speaking specifically to leaders in this church.
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I'm talking about our ministry leaders, I'm talking about our elders.
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I'm talking about our small group leader and participants.
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I'm talking to the people who work in hospitality under Corrine.
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I'm talking about our children's workers, nursery.
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That's most of our church.
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Death to status quo.
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Four reasons you better be urgent in ministry.
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Here's number one.
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Because people need encouraged.
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Because people need encouraged.
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Look at verses 1 and 2 here.
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After the uproaries, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed to Macedonia.
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And when he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece.
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Let's stop there. You see right there, the first two verses, we saw the word a couple of times.
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Encouragement. Encouragement was Paul's priority, not just there, Also, in his travels, everywhere he went, home church, churches he planted, we see that over and over in Acts right here two more times.
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What did Paul do when he traveled to these churches? He encouraged them.
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In church, when we get into a status quo mindset, we have a tendency to not be encouragers.
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And I don't mean we become discouragers, I just mean we aren't actively encouraging.
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When we get in status quo mindset, we just assume that everyone is okay because no one is complaining.
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Right?
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That's status quo mindset.
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That would be like if I said to one of our ministry leaders, like we'll pick on Corinne for example, "How's your hospitality team?" "Well, nobody's complaining, so I guess everybody's okay." That's status quo.
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That's not good.
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You can't just assume that people are going to call me if they need encouragement.
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"If they need encouragement, they'll call me." It doesn't really work that way.
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Encouragement has to be initiated.
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You, as the encourager, have to go after them.
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Otherwise, it just gets a little weird, like Jay.
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I want you to stand up right now and ask me to encourage you.
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Ask me to encourage you.
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Jeff, please encourage me.
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Jay, you're doing a great job as an elder on the worship team.
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You're doing a fantastic job.
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Now, did that feel very authentic because you had to ask me?
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Absolutely not.
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Okay, now it's your turn to encourage me, Jay.
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I want you to say some really encouraging things to me now.
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I've got to tell you, though, Jay, little weird that I had to ask you, but you see my point. It has to be natural, and it has to be initiated by you. That's why Paul traveled around.
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That's why he went to these churches, and that was his goal. I have to encourage them so they don't get... well how does that keep them out of status quo?
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Because you know how it is. When people are not encouraged, people get into a rut.
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true or false. No one's noticing, good or bad. It doesn't matter how I do, so I just need to get the job done, right? Like if, for example, let's talk about children's ministry. If we never encouraged Mandy and our nursery workers and our children's workers, it would be so easy for that ministry to get into a rut.
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Nobody notices what we do anyway. They just think we're babysitters. They don't really care. So we'll just do what we got to do and, you know, we know the routine.
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and encouragement.
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We've got to be urgent in initiating.
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Encouragement.
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And I thought this would be a great place in the message right now to encourage you as a church.
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I want to give you a couple words of encouragement right now.
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First of all, I want to encourage you that God loves you.
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I want to encourage you and remind you that it doesn't matter what you've done.
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Because some people think, "I've messed up my life so bad.
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I've screwed up, Pastor Jeff, and I don't know if God will ever forgive me." Your sin is not greater than the grace of God.
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He loves you so much that He sent His Son to die on the cross to pay for your sin.
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He loves you so much that His Son came out of that grave in three days so that you can have a resurrection, so you can be born again.
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That's how much God loves you.
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So if you're feeling defeated right now, understand that Christ has already won the victory.
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God loves you.
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That is not in question.
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Be encouraged by that.
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I want to encourage some people right now who are struggling with different things.
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I want to encourage you that better days are ahead.
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The Bible says that the whole world is under a curse.
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And that right now pain and suffering are actually considered normal.
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For now.
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But Jesus promised someday, my favorite verse in the Bible, Revelation 21.5, Jesus said, "Behold, I am making all things new." That day is coming.
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He is going to make everything new!
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So whatever you're struggling with right now, It is temporary.
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Whether it's a health issue, whether it's a relationship issue, maybe for some people you're just struggling financially.
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But for the things like a health issue that we can't get better because of making different choices, Jesus is making all things new.
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The day's coming.
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It's going to happen real soon.
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I want to encourage the people that have worked so hard.
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the past month in this church has seen people working literally to the point of exhaustion. I want to encourage you to remind you that the Bible says in the first Corinthians 15 verse 58 that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
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Therefore be steadfast and movable always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. The things you do for Christ matter, they matter eternally and even if you don't see it immediately, you know It's like planting a garden, right?
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You don't plant the seed and go out in five minutes and say, "Where's my tomatoes?" Right?
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You're like, "I don't say tomatoes at all." It takes time, doesn't it, Matt? It takes time.
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Your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
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I want to encourage you on that.
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This church has done an incredible job turning this room into a church.
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I've heard so many compliments from friends and family who have visited Just this past Friday, I ran into a couple that were here our first day.
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They attend another church, very faithful in that church, but they came as a support.
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They said, "I could not believe the way that room looked, how beautiful it was." And I said, "We have people that were so dedicated and working.
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You've done a great job.
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Now, we're going to seek the Lord on how He's going to use this place." But when we talk about encouragement and the urgency of encouragement, Someone that you know in your life right now just needs a word of encouragement.
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I heard a preacher say one time that somebody is one step away from bailing on their marriage.
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One step.
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Somebody is one step away from complete financial collapse.
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Somebody is one step away from making a decision that will ruin the rest of their life.
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So one encouraging word from you can be something that God uses to turn that around.
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So Paul was urgent.
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"Riot's over, let's settle down." He goes, "No, riot's over, that means I can be busy." Encouraging the churches. Urgency.
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People need encouragement.
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Number two, he dropped this down, because enemies need avoided.
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I'm just going to talk about this quickly.
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Luke 3-6.
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It says, "There," this is Greece, which is technically Corinth, which is in Achaia.
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"There he spent three months..." By the way, that's probably where he wrote the epistle to the Romans.
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Make note in your Bible.
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"There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews, as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia.
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Sopater, the Berean, the son of Hyrus, and accompanied him.
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And of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secondus, and Gaius of Derbe and Timothy.
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We all know Timothy, right?
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And the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus.
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These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas, but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread.
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in the Passover.
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And in five days we came to the metroas where we stayed for seven days.
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Enemies need avoided.
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Notice in verses 5 and 6, the pronouns change to "us" and "we." That's because through the travels, Luke who was left at Philippi picked up with the group.
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You notice that through Acts, when Luke is recording what was happening when he wasn't there.
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It's "they" and "them." Luke is with the group. It's all us and we.
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You notice that there were some enemies that needed to be avoided.
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It said that there were some Jews, verse 3, that were plotting against Paul.
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Just a quick word. We've been talking about enemies of the Gospel for the last two years as we've been going through Acts.
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But I just want to remind you, of course, church, we love our enemies.
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Of course, we bless those who hate us.
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But there comes a time where discernment says, "When someone's trying to harm me, I'm going to avoid them." Notice that Paul wasn't presumptuous to say, "Well, God's going to protect me.
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I'm bulletproof until it's my time, so I don't need to be careful." This is a reminder in the text and a reminder for us as a church that there is a real, literal war going on in the spiritual realm and it flows over to our physical realm.
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And you will be a casualty of the war if you pretend that there isn't one going on.
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So wake up.
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Urgency calls me to be on my guard, or as Jesus said, be shrewd as snakes, innocent as doves.
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So you better be urgent.
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There are real enemies out there.
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Number three, It's part of the passage that's probably most famous, this chunk of Scripture here.
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Death to status quo, four reasons you better be urgent in ministry.
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This is a big one here, church, because the youth need engaged.
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Because the youth need engaged.
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Look at verses 7-12.
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It says, "On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, and Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day.
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And he prolonged his speech until midnight.
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So if you're going to complain about the length of the sermon, I have never kept you here until midnight.
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And that's biblical.
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There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered.
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And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window.
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Pause for a second.
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Notice he talks about the length of Paul's speech.
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He talks about the lambs, meaning it was stuffy.
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Now, a young man, actually, Eutychus was probably between 7 and 14 years old.
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Okay, when you study the Greek and how words were used in different contexts, the word here for young man or later youth often describes somebody between 7 and 14.
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In other words, you know, think of kids Evan's age, and Owen and Cade's age.
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And that's the age group that we're looking at here.
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Eutychus was in that age group.
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But don't think of like dude sitting on the windowsill.
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This was a youth, kid.
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By the way, ironically, the word Eutychus means lucky.
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That was what that word meant.
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And OK, so he's sitting at the window.
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sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer.
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And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead." Can you imagine? In church.
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They were in an upper room, three floors up apparently, and this kid's sitting on the windowsill, and Paul's preaching and preaching and preaching and preaching, and he falls backwards out the window, taken up dead.
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It says, "But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, 'Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.' And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed.
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And they took the youth away alive, I read a lot of commentators and articles and things about the topic of the week, and there were some commentators that were like, "Was Eutychus really dead?" And I thought about that question, "Was Eutychus really dead?" You know, I've told this story before, I'm not going to go through the whole story now, but I've told this story before about how we were living true to our faith.
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treasures as a family with our good friend Nathaniel Geiser.
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And we were in the enclosure where you go in and feed the birds.
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And the birds so lovingly and trustingly come and fly in your hand and eat out of your hand.
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And Cade wasn't paying attention.
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And he just spun around and stomped on a cockatiel.
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And the cockatiel fluttered around.
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And all of a sudden, we saw blood.
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And it stopped fluttering around.
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And like me, you know, I'm just like in shock.
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I'm like, is he dead?
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Oh, my friend Nathaniel Geiser is a veterinarian.
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And he's like, he's dead.
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So anyways, I had to go tell the lady like working the little zoo here.
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I'm like, I had to go tell her that we're killing the animals.
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And so that was the first question.
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She, yeah, I said, my son accidentally killed one of your cockatiels.
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I stepped on it and it's dead. I'm so sorry." And that was the first question she asked.
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She said, "Are you sure it's dead?" And my answer was, "Well, my friend's a veterinarian, and he says it's dead, so I'm kind of going to go with his expert opinion." "Why are you telling us this horrible story again, Pastor Jeff?" "Because the guy that wrote this passage, Luke, what did he do for a living again?
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Wasn't he a doctor?" So if he said Eutychus was dead, do you think he was dead?
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I think he was dead, and I think he was resurrected in this passage.
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And again, I'm reading these things, and there's all this controversy around this passage.
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Here's the controversy, and it's so funny because it's such the American way.
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Here's the question, whose fault was this?
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Whose fault was this?
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I read some articles that are like, "The youth not paying attention!" "And Eutychus wasn't paying attention!" "And people aren't paying attention in sermons!" "And shame on people for not paying attention in sermons!" I'm like, "He who has not fallen asleep in church cast the first stone!" But then, honestly, you read the text with me here, doesn't the text seem to emphasize how long Paul's sermon was? Did you get that?
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Luke was like, Paul kept preaching, and he preached longer, and he preached longer, and he, you know, all night until midnight, and the text seems to indicate the lamps, meaning it was hot, it was stuffy, Paul wouldn't stop talking, did I mention he wouldn't stop, and he just kept going on and on.
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It's just the American way to say, whose fault is it?
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But we do know that he was resurrected, and I love the Apostle Paul.
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Nothing was gonna stop his church service.
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He's like, "Okay, kids alive, back to church.
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"I'm only on point two." Here's something else that bothered me when I read all these commentaries and articles and such, that I had read several people say, "What a funny scene this was in the book of Acts." They're like, "You know, this is sort of a comedic interlude." I'm like, "This is funny?
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"You think Eutychus' parents thought this was funny?" No, we went through a similar incident where we thought one of our kids was dead.
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Maybe he was for a while.
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I'm not a doctor.
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But I'll tell you, the scene wasn't funny.
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And the scene also is not so funny if you're a pastor.
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Because this passage of Scripture stands as the most often repeated scene in churches worldwide.
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What do you mean by that?
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In churches, you have the kids sitting on the outskirts, disengaged.
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In church, I'm saying that we've got to be urgent.
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Like Paul, we've got to be urgent about going after them.
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That's why I love in our church, the Thompsons, Dan and Alicia, I love them so much, in their heart for youth.
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They love youth.
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And they don't love youth because teenagers are funny and interesting and athletic, and we like to play games.
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They love to disciple youth.
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They love to teach the youth what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
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With retreats, with mission trips.
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What does it mean to serve?
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What does it mean to love each other?
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That's intentional discipleship.
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As I said on the outset, and specifically talking about youth ministry, it is a bigger danger than demons.
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Apathy.
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It's bigger than peer influence.
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It's bigger than dangers on the Internet.
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It's bigger than anger issues with teenagers and young people.
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It's bigger than any issue of rebellion.
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Because a young person who's apathetic towards Jesus Christ as not even going to be on their guard against these other things.
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But here's where this passage is really convicting to me.
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Because do you know the difference between us and the Apostle Paul?
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As metaphorically speaking, in our churches, typically when a kid falls away, instead of rushing to rescue them, You're more apt to make excuses for it.
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You know how teenagers are.
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You know how teenagers are.
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Teenagers just go through that phase.
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And somehow, church, we have got it in our minds that from ages 12 to 20, just forget about these people because we've created this third category.
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There's kids, and then there's teenagers, and there's adults.
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That is completely unbiblical.
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According to the Bible, there's two categories of people.
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And it's children and adults. Right?
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You're a child or you're an adult.
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Again, that's one of the things I love about Dan and Elisha is because they treat our young people like adults.
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They don't treat them like children.
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"I'll put your straw in your Capri Sun for you because you can't do it." No, they treat them like adults.
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as they should be, treated like young adults.
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But we make excuses.
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"Oh, they're just going through a phase." "Oh, it happens." "Oh, get ready for a heartbreak during the teenage years." "You know, they're just kids and they're irresponsible and they're stupid." And no, they are not.
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No, they are not.
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Young people, I don't mean to be talking about you like you're not in the room.
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But I want you to know that I don't see you as children.
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So you know, as a church, we make plans and we pray and we give and we work and we go to other countries.
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I just want to encourage this church, we need to have urgency for the mission field that's right here, with our kids.
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Urgency.
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Urgency, like Paul, let's run out after them.
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We see them disengaged and falling away, let's run out after them.
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And finally, we need to have a sense of urgency.
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Because plans need made.
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Because plans need made for reasons...
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You better be urgent ministry, we've got to make plans.
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Look at the last couple of verses here.
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"But going ahead to the ship, we sent Syl for Assos, intending to take Paul aboard there, for so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land.
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When he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went to Mytilene.
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And sailing from there, we came the following day opposite Chios.
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The next day we touched at Samos.
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And the day after that we went to Miletus.
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For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost." Plans need made.
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I'd like to remind you again, church, the most important things in life are intentional.
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I don't wake up in the morning and say, "Gosh, you know what? I hope I get a chance to eat today.
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I'm sure at some point I'm going to be hungry, so I hope somehow food finds its way into my mouth." If you're not intentional, it's not going to happen.
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Gosh, if I But I want you to see the main thing I want to point out to you in this passage, verse 16, you notice it says, "Paul decided to sail past Ephesus." Why? Do you think Paul did that because he hated Ephesus?
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There were people there at Ephesus he didn't like?
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That's not the case at all.
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In fact, it was because Paul had so much love for Ephesus that he chose not to go there.
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Because he was trying to get to Jerusalem, and he knew if I stop in Ephesus, it's not going to be a "how do you do," five minutes, let's have a cup of coffee and I'm on my way.
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It's going to be a lot of hugs and handshakes and let's catch up and let's pray together and teach us something, and I'm going to end up being there for a very long time.
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Because of the great affection that he had for this particular church.
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So what's the point?
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Here it is. Mark this down.
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I see some things, and some of you have no idea how this works.
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I want you to write this down.
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Urgency means saying no to some things.
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And before you think I'm being overly critical towards you, understand that I am the biggest offender of this.
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I am the biggest.
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And this was convicting to me.
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But Paul said no.
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Paul said no to going to Ephesus.
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It would have been good to go to Ephesus, but it would have hindered his main objective if he went to Ephesus So we to church have to learn to say no to good but lesser things You need to learn to say no You see we need to make plans to reach more people We need to make plans to better help those in our church And we can't do that if all of our time and energy is taken up by lesser things. I am the biggest offender and And by grace, I am learning and I am growing in this area, and I would commend you, especially the leaders in our church, to grow with me in this area, that we need to say no to lesser things.
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You don't have to do everything.
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It's okay to say no if these things that you're being asked to do are going to take away your time and energy from the main thing that you're trying to get done.
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In the early days of our church, I was killing myself because I wouldn't say no to anything.
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"Pastor Jeff, we're going to need you to print up water bottles." water bottle labels and we're gonna have to have you hand them out we're gonna have to have you set up a booth at you know this community fest in this convention and things not mandated by leadership in the church but just all these things that people will ask for Jeff you have to do this you have to do that I'm gonna need you to do this and okay so I'm not spending the amount of time in prayer that I need to and I'm I'm not spending any amount of time in sermon prep that I need to because I spent six hours trying to figure out how to get my computer to print labels for a water bottle.
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You see the problem.
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The elders made it very clear my responsibility is prayer and preparing the message.
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So it's a fault of mine when I'm spending six hours doing these other things.
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You need to learn to say no to some things.
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I wonder as a culture why we seem so busy, and we feel like despite our busyness, nothing gets done.
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Does anybody else feel like that?
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Every second of my day is spoken for, and at the end of the day, I feel like nothing got done?
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How does that happen?
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Urgency means we need to say no to some things, in light of the more important things.
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I want to encourage you to learn the art of tactfully and respectfully saying no to some things while keeping focus on the main thing.
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That's why I write those words down tactfully and respectfully.
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If somebody says, "Hey, you know, I'm going to need you to do this." "No, Pastor Jeff said no." You know what, you just say it like this.
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"That sounds like a great thing, man.
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That sounds like a great thing, but I'm going to tell you right now, and we're so focused on this other thing that we're working on, I'm just not going to be able to devote the time that that's going to need.
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Because I need to devote the time to this other thing.
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And if people can't appreciate or respect that, that's on them.
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But you see, Paul had to make a very hard decision.
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I'm going to not visit my favorite church because it's going to interfere with the greater objective.
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of the day is urgency.
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This is a very timely message for us because as we're in week three in this new facility, it's easy to look around at this place and sort of see it as a big finish line.
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But this place is not a finish line, this place is a starting block, this is a launching pad.
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We have to be urgently intentional moving forward.
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I want you to think of what the Lord's going to do.
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If like Paul, we don't allow status quo, but we're going to continue in urgency.
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Because church, there are people who need encouraged.
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There are young people that need to be reached.
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So let's avoid the enemies.
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And let's be intentional about planning ahead and allow God to use us right here, in this place, with urgency.
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Are you with me?
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Alright, let's pray.
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Father in heaven, I pray against right now, I just pray against complacency, because we don't see that in Your Word.
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But Father, yes, we are content with who we are in Christ.
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We are content with the work of our salvation being done.
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we must never be content with the work that needs done.
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Say, "We've done enough. We don't need to reach more.
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We don't need to invite people.
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We don't need to extend the love of God to others, because we're good. We're a good size, and bills are getting paid." We need to be urgent about this mission, because you have chosen the church as the place for your son shall be exalted and lifted high, when your message will be proclaimed.
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Father, I pray against complacency, and instead, Father, for my brothers and sisters here, I pray for a spirit of urgency in our church.
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Father, I pray that we would be a church known for encouraging people, that we go after people, and let them know that You love them and that we love them.
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Father, give us discernment when there's enemies, when people plot against us, and they will.
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Give us discernment on how to engage or on how to avoid.
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Father, I pray for the youth of this church, and I thank You for our youth workers.
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I thank You for what You're doing in the youth.
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And Father, I pray for them, that they don't feel on the outskirts.
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They don't feel detached.
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They don't feel as if they're stuck in some middle phase of life where it's okay to just be off to the side.
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This is the time in their lives You're going to be building character in them.
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You're going to be building a foundation for them to be the kind of people that they will be.
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Help us, Father, as a church, to love, to engage the youth.
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Father, help us to be intentional about moving forward.
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God, I thank You again for this facility that You've given us, but we are not sitting back saying we're good now.
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I thank You for things like this Financial Peace University coming up.
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Father, I pray that we have more opportunities and we're going to be able to invite people and engage our community.
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Show us, Father, what doors You're opening so that we can get out and share the love of Your Son and the good news of Your Son.
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Always keep us urgent, Father, by the power of Your Spirit.
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Keep us urgent.
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We pray in Jesus' name.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 20:1-16
Why did Paul spend so much time encouraging churches? What would have happened to these churches if he hadn't? What does this say about the way WE should encourage others in the church?
In Acts 20:3, we see that Paul changed his plans so he could avoid the enemies who were after him. How do YOU know who you need to avoid and when? Can we know? If the Bible says to love our enemies, why would we ever avoid them?
Who do YOU think takes the blame for Eutychus falling asleep (Acts 20:7-12)? Eutychus or Paul? Another option?
What are ways the church can keep youth from disengaging? How can you help?
Breakout Questions:
Who do you know from our church that needs encouraged right now? Name that person to your breakout group, pray for them, and then you have 24 hours to encourage that person in some way (text, email, call, letter, card, your choice!).