Review / Intro:
How Do You Witness to Greeks? (Acts 17:16-34)
- Meet them where they Are. (Acts 17:22-23)
- Just share the Basics. (Acts 17:24-29)
Who is God? (101):
- God Created you. (Acts 17:24)
- God Provides for you. (Acts 17:25)
- God Cares about you. (Acts 17:26)
- God wants a Relationship with you. (Acts 17:27-28)
- Rethink how you View God. (Acts 17:29)
- Encourage a Decision. (Acts 17:30-31)
- Leave the Results to God. (Acts:17-32-34)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Alright, open up your Bibles to Acts chapter 17.
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Acts chapter 17.
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As you're turning there, by way of review, just to sort of cap this off, since this will be our last message in Acts for a while.
00:15-00:18
This year we've been talking about the unstoppable church.
00:18-00:23
Jesus promised that He would build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against His church.
00:24-00:26
And that's exactly what we see in the book of Acts.
00:26-00:40
We saw in chapters 13 and 14, on their first missionary journey, back in time for the Jerusalem Council, where there was this whole discussion, "What place does the law have in salvation?" And it was back to mission work.
00:42-00:45
We saw them in Thessalonica presenting a clear gospel.
00:46-00:49
And we saw the jealous Jews inciting a mob to riot.
00:50-01:00
Remember, we saw Jason and some of the brothers who were guilty by association just because they were Christians and the missionaries, they were persecuted.
01:01-01:07
Paul and company went to Berea to find people eager to receive the Word, and they examined it daily.
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And I encourage you to be a Berean.
01:10-01:14
Whether it's me speaking, or John MacArthur, or John Piper, or whoever you listen to.
01:15-01:17
Examine everything through God's Word.
01:19-01:25
But the enemies of the Gospel came from Thessalonica to Berea and chased Paul out.
01:26-01:28
all the way to Athens.
01:28-01:39
And when Paul got there, the people that escorted him down, Paul said, "Hey, when you get back, tell Silas and Timothy to get down here as soon as possible." Okay, so that's where we're at.
01:39-01:39
Everybody there?
01:40-01:46
Paul's in Athens, he just fled, and he's kind of like hanging out, waiting for Silas and Timothy to show up.
01:48-02:01
Verse 16, "Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, His spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.
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Athens was the greatest city in the world centuries before Christ.
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It was the home of culture, of art, of philosophy.
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All these people that you've read about in school came from Athens.
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like Socrates and Plato and Aristotle.
02:25-02:31
But Athens was also known, not just for the philosophy and the art, Athens was known as a place of idolatry.
02:31-02:32
There were idols everywhere.
02:33-02:35
The buildings were dedicated to gods.
02:35-02:38
And there were statues everywhere dedicated to gods.
02:39-02:46
And one ancient writer named Petronius had this famous quote talking about ancient Athens.
02:47-02:54
He said, "It's easier to find a God in Athens than a man." That's how prevalent idolatry was.
02:56-02:58
But I want you to see Paul's attitude.
02:59-03:14
It says, "Now while Paul was waiting for them, Silas and Timothy, my Bible says," and your Bible says something similar, "his spirit was provoked within him." We're going to see what that did.
03:17-03:21
We're going to be talking about how to share the Gospel and some of the elements.
03:21-03:22
And I can teach you that.
03:22-03:24
I can teach that to a four-year-old.
03:26-03:30
Something I can't teach is this.
03:32-03:33
Being provoked in your spirit.
03:35-03:40
Because sometimes, church, let's be honest, we see people who don't yet know the Lord.
03:42-03:47
worldly people living in a worldly way, and we look at them with disgust.
03:49-03:50
Shame on those people.
03:50-03:53
How stupid, how foolish, how irresponsible.
03:54-03:57
And we'll be disgusted, or we want nothing to do with them.
03:59-04:03
Paul saw the idolatry around him.
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It says his spirit was provoked.
04:06-04:13
He had to do something about it, but it wasn't criticized, It wasn't to judge or condemn.
04:14-04:17
It was, these people need to know Jesus Christ.
04:17-04:21
I just want to ask you, when was the last time that you felt so provoked?
04:21-04:23
When was the last time that's happened to you?
04:24-04:44
That you had that co-worker or that other student that you know is going through the worst season of their life, and they're hurting, or they're rebellious, and you're looking at them, not with disgust, not with, "What a loser!" And you're looking at them like, "They need to know the Lord.
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And I've got to say something.
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I have to say something to them about Jesus Christ.
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I have to say something." When was the last time you were there?
04:55-05:01
For some of us - and I'm not condemning you, I'm just challenging us, because for some of us it's been a long time.
05:03-05:10
Some of us have adopted the attitude, "To hell with the world." But when was the last time you saw the world through the eyes of Christ.
05:11-05:15
What they need is to know God.
05:18-05:19
Provoked in spirits.
05:21-05:22
Provoked in spirits.
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If you're not there, I encourage you this, you need to pray for that.
05:29-05:30
For yourself.
05:31-05:32
I pray that for myself.
05:33-05:35
You need to pray that for yourself too.
05:38-05:45
So, he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons.
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What does that mean? Those were Gentiles who were sort of into Judaism.
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They were Gentiles who feared the Lord.
05:55-05:59
And in the marketplace, every day with those who happened to be there.
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I love that.
06:01-06:07
Like, "What's your mission, Paul?" He's like, "I'm just going to get out into the mall and whoever's there, I'm going to tell him about Jesus. That was it.
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No real like, you know, here's my strategy.
06:12-06:18
He's like, "Here's my plan. I'm just going to show up and I'm going to see somebody and I'm going to tell him about Jesus." That was his plan. I love that. I love that.
06:18-06:20
That's simple. I can do that.
06:21-06:29
Look at verse 18. It says, "Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him." Who are these guys?
06:29-06:34
Well, the Epicureans, their philosophy was anything you can do to avoid pain.
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anything you can do to avoid pain.
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I'm on board with that a little bit.
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Not to the degree they were.
06:42-06:43
And what about the Stoics?
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The Stoics, their philosophy was you shouldn't feel anything.
06:49-06:50
Don't be happy, don't be sad.
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Stoic.
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Feel nothing.
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Stay on neutral all the time.
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These are the people that Ball was dealing with.
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And some said, what does this babbler wish to say?
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This guy obviously had the gift of encouragement.
07:08-07:30
Others said, "He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities, because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection." Verse 19, "And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, 'May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?
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For you bring some strange things to our ears.
07:34-07:37
We wish to know therefore what these things mean.
07:39-07:41
Now the Areopagus, that was the court.
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And understand, so many times in Acts we saw the apostles on trial, like a criminal trial.
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This really wasn't like that.
07:52-07:58
This was sort of a, we want to hear you out, but we want to give you sort of an official format to do that.
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He wasn't on trial like he was going to go to jail or anything.
08:04-08:09
The word was getting around that he was preaching something that was unique to them.
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And they're like, "We've got to hear this.
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Get this guy down to the courthouse and we'll get a crowd together.
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We want to hear what this weird thing is he's talking.
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This Jesus, this resurrection.
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We've got to hear more about this." Why did they want to hear him out?
08:25-08:25
Look at verse 21.
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It says, "And all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing "Hey, did you hear about this religion?" "No, I never heard about that." "Well, this religion teaches this." They were just constantly looking for the next newest thing when it came to religion or philosophy.
08:52-09:01
We're going to stop here for a second, because we see that there's a stark contrast in the two audiences that are here.
09:01-09:03
that Paul had in Athens.
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Verse 17, he was in the synagogue with the Jews, and he was in the marketplace with the Greeks, the non-Jews.
09:14-09:16
There's a huge contrast between these two audiences.
09:18-09:28
In the synagogue, when you're dealing with the Jews, these were people who already acknowledged the Scriptures.
09:30-09:33
These are people that already had a reverence for the God of Israel.
09:34-09:37
These are people who already believed in one God.
09:38-09:39
They believed in creation.
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They believed in the Ten Commandments.
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Everything in your Old Testament, they sort of had that as a backdrop.
09:46-09:55
That's why Paul could go to people like that and say, "Hey, you know what the Scriptures say about the Messiah?" Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, and he could just run it down, Zechariah 12.
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He could just list these Scriptures.
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You know what the Old Testament says about the Messiah?
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Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled that.
10:01-10:02
They had the backdrop.
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And they're like, "Oh yeah, we're familiar with these Scriptures, and we see how you're connecting the dots here." But I want you to see that the people in the marketplace were a much different audience.
10:15-10:18
They would have been much looser in their beliefs.
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Unfamiliar with the Bible, but somehow, for some reason, antagonistic towards Jesus and the resurrection.
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I just want to pause here and ask.
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Multiple choice. You've got two choices.
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Which one of these sounds more like our culture today?
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People that already have a background in understanding the Bible, people that have accepted creation and the Ten Commandments and some of those things, or people who are much looser in their beliefs, They don't really know much about the Bible, but they're antagonistic towards it anyways.
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Okay? So, inform a poll here.
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A) Bible creation and Ten Commandments have the backdrop.
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B) Don't know much about the Bible, but sort of antagonistic to it, but open to any other silly doctrine that comes down the pipe.
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Which one sounds more like our culture, A or B?
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That's what I thought too.
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That's what I thought.
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I think a generation ago - and there's some people here that lived through that - I think a generation ago, there were more A's.
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There were more people like, hey, even if I'm not a Christian, I believe the Ten Commandments, and I try to be a good person, and I believe that someone created us, and there was that general backdrop.
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I think more and more we're becoming to people in the marketplace, our culture, loose in beliefs unfamiliar with the Bible, but antagonistic towards Jesus and the resurrection.
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The reason it's important to see the distinction between the A's and the B's, between the Jews and the Greeks, is because it makes a difference in how we share the Gospel.
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You have to know your audience.
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The question is how do we engage people who don't know the Bible?
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How do we witness to people who have no real fear of the Lord, or understanding that there's one living God?
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Where do we even start?
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Another question on your outline.
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We're just going to say it this way.
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How do you witness to Greeks?
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Okay, that's Greeks with an "r." Okay? Not geeks.
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What did you learn in church today?
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Pastor Jeff taught us how to share the Bible with geeks.
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How do you witness to Greeks?
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I love this passage, but I so did not want to preach on it because I could preach like eight sermons on this passage and we're going to try to do it in one, so we're going to go through some things rather quickly today.
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Because I need you to see the whole picture.
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Okay, how do you witness to Greeks?
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Number one, meet them where they are.
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Meet them where they are.
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Look at verses 22-23.
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Again, they didn't have this Bible backdrop Paul's like, "You know the Messiah in Isaiah 53? That's Jesus!" Clueless. Clueless. He couldn't start there.
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Look at what he said. This is awesome.
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So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.
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For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription.
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To the unknown God.
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What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
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Meet them where they are.
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Notice that Paul, yeah, he was provoked in his spirit, but he wasn't a jerk about it.
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He identified with the people, and he found a point where they could meet.
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Did you see that?
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He says, "I perceive in every way that you are very religious." And I was doing some reading this week, I was studying, some people were like, "Well, he was complimenting them." And other people were like, "He was insulting them." Like, what do you think, Pastor Jeff?
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I think he was identifying with them.
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I don't think he meant to compliment them, and I certainly don't think he meant to insult them either.
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I think he was just saying very matter-of-fact.
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"You people are religious. You guys like to worship." That's all he was saying.
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"You guys like to worship, don't you? You love to worship." Like, how do you know that we love to worship?
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Because you have idols everywhere.
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He was just meeting them where they were, and then he honed down to an unknown God.
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He said, "I even saw an idol that here was the inscription.
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The inscription said to the unknown God." Now, here's the mindset behind that.
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Like I said, they had an idol for everything.
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And, you know, there was a god of the rain, so we better make an idol for the god of the rain.
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But there's a, well, the sun, so we better make an idol for the god of the sun.
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And well, it gets windy sometimes, so we better make a god for the god of the wind.
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And they even had like, they even had like a goddess of their sewer system.
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Like they had a god for everything.
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And eventually when you do that, you get to the point that you think, what if we forgot Maybe there's a God out there that we didn't make a statue to worship in honor of this God.
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What if this God's out there and this God is ripping mad because we haven't acknowledged Him or Her or Them or It or whatever?
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What if there's a God out there that we didn't acknowledge?
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So somebody had this brilliant idea.
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Well, I've got an idea. We'll make an idol and we'll just put, to the unknown God, we'll put that right on the idol.
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So that way, if that God ever gets mad at us, we'll be like, "No, no, no, this one was for you, we just didn't know your name.
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But this is totally you." And so Paul saw that, he goes, "Hey, you guys are religious.
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You know what, I even saw a statue that said, 'To the unknown God.'" What Paul didn't see was anything that had to do with worshipping Jehovah, the God of Israel.
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Paul's like, "Ah, I know the God that you don't know." And that's what I'm going to tell you.
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Paul was saying, "You acknowledge yourselves that there's a God that you don't know." But here's some good news.
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He can be made known.
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Because He's revealed Himself.
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I just want to encourage you to look for ways.
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Look for ways to make a connection with people.
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Look for ways.
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I know a guy that came to the Lord because it was a Friday during Lent and somebody asked him about having pizza or something, and he goes, "Oh no, no, no, I can only eat fish on Friday." And that opened up a whole conversation that ended up leading this guy to the Lord.
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And this guy laughs about it today.
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The person led to the Lord over a fish sandwich.
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But you see, the person who led him to the Lord used that as the point of contact to say, "Why do you only eat fish on Friday?" And got to the heart of that.
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But he found a point of connection, and that sounds silly, but we have a guy that was saved because of a fish sandwich.
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Another one that I've shared with you many times in the past, looking for a point of connection, ask people, "Do you have a church home?" "Do you have a church home?" And then their answer says a lot.
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And they say, "No, no, no, I don't go to church." "Oh. Can I ask why?" People like to talk about themselves. They'll be glad to open up. "Well, I went to church when I was a kid and you know, they were mean or the preacher was always chewing us out." That opens up the conversation.
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What do you think about?
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I just want to encourage you like Paul.
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Find a connection point. Meet them where they are.
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Paul didn't just walk in and say, "Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Mosaic Law." Like, what?
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That's true.
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He didn't start there.
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He started where they were.
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He identified with them.
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Ask them where they are.
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Number two, I'm going to go through these things very quickly.
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Number two, just share the basics.
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When you're dealing with somebody that doesn't know the Lord, and doesn't know the Bible, okay, first of all, that's why we're doing the Bible 101 thing, because we want you to bring people to know and understand and learn about God's Word.
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But you're going to encounter people that have never cracked the spine of a Bible in their life.
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They never have.
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They're like, "Well, what do I share with them?" Here's what you share.
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I share the basics.
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Keep it simple.
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Talking about the deep things of the Lord is going to be senseless.
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You know, you're like trying to witness to somebody.
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Like, "Can I tell you about Jesus?" And they're like, "Yeah, I'd love to hear about Jesus." You're like, "Well, let me tell you something about Jesus." You know, the Bible says Jesus is a high priest in the order of Melchizedek.
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You know why it says that?
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Because the Old Testament Levitical priests, they couldn't beat priest and king at the same time.
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It wasn't allowed.
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He came before, he was in Abraham's time, he was a priest and a king at the same time.
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And Jesus, priest and a king, just like Mephizedek.
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And they're like, "What was in your coffee, dude?" But is that gonna... that stuff's all true, and it's a fascinating study, and those are some of the deeper things.
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That's like 102, right, man?
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That's 102 stuff.
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You don't want to start there.
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But look at where Paul starts.
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Just start with the basics, right?
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So in your outline, this is kind of a preview to Bible 101.
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We're just calling this "Who is God 101?" Okay?
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Oh, that's very creative of you, Pastor Jeff.
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Everything is 101.
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Who is God 101?
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Here it is.
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First of all, just look at the elements here.
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We're going to go through this quickly.
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The first one is this, "God created you." Paul says in verse 24, "The God who made the world and everything in it, The being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man.
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That was the first thing.
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First of all, this unknown God, you've got to know something about the unknown God.
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He's a Creator. He created you.
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See, the Epicureans, they believed that matter is eternal.
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There are some people who still believe that.
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That matter has always existed.
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The Stoics, they were more pantheists.
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They believed that everything was a part of God.
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You see, this is where Paul started.
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He goes, "You get all these gods, all these idols for all these different things.
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Let me tell you about the unknowing God. He's over all of it.
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You have a God of the rain, a God of the wind, a God of the sun, a God of the snow, a God of the sewer system or whatever.
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The real God is God over all of those things.
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He doesn't specialize.
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It's not like, "Well, I'm really good at one thing, and that's it.
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Don't bother me about nothing else." No, no, no, no, no.
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Let me tell you about this God.
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He's the God over everything.
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He created the sun, He brings the wind, He brings the rain.
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He is the God who is over every single thing because He created all of it.
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There is not a message in our day that is more attacked than this one.
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God created.
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I'm going to say this very quickly because in two weeks the whole message is about creation.
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But you have been living under a rock if you haven't noticed this.
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The idea that God is a personal creator.
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That message is attacked more than anything else.
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With the damnable lie of evolution.
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The most pervasive and accepted lie in our day that's disguised as intellectualism and science.
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It's nothing more than a fairy tale for adults.
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Evolution.
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Given enough time, a cell turns into a fish, turns into an amphibian, turns into a lizard, turns into a bird, turns into a monkey, turns into you.
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Given enough time, that happens.
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If you say you don't believe that, then you're unintellectual.
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You're out of touch.
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you don't understand science.
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Like I said, we're going to talk all about creation in a couple of weeks.
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Don't get me started.
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I want to say this, though.
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You might say, "You know what?
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I'm not really prepared.
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I'm not really equipped to have these discussions with people." Do you know there are entire ministries designed to equip you to be able to discuss these things intelligently?
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They built an entire museum in Kentucky, the Creation Museum.
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And the whole purpose is to equip us to be able to share with this lost world that's denying the truth of creation.
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Look, it's not unintellectual. It's biblical fact.
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Verified by science.
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Genesis 1-1 to Revelation 14-7.
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Over and over and over and over.
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God is constantly talking about this key truth.
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God created you.
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You see, I think people deep down know that.
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I think people deep down know.
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Even people that say they believe in evolution, they don't believe in evolution for intellectual reasons.
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They just don't want to be held accountable.
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I don't want to think that there's a God that I have to answer to. Nobody's my boss.
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So I'm going to embrace this idea that we came from nowhere and we're going nowhere.
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Listen, I promise you, deep down, people know that God created them.
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Deep down they know.
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We'll talk more about that in a couple of weeks.
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God created you.
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2nd Corinthians 1. Look at verse 25.
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Paul says, "Nor is He served by human hands, because He doesn't need anything, He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
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The second thing He says, not only does God create you, listen, God provides for you.
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How foolish to think that divinity would need something for me.
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That's one of the really foolish things about idolatry.
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The gods need me for something.
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Right?
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They're up in their heavens or wherever, and they need something for me.
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How foolish is that?
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Let me tell you something about the real God.
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He doesn't need anything from anybody.
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He doesn't need anything.
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He's all-sufficient.
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Guess what? He was all-sufficient before we were created.
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And 100 trillion years into the future, He's going to be all-sufficient still.
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He's never lacking anything.
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This God provides.
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Deep down, we know everything in life comes from God.
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Deep down we know that we should be thankful.
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That was a point of contact.
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He goes, "Listen people, God created you.
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God provides for you." Thirdly, letter C, God cares about you.
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God cares about you.
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Look at verse 26.
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He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and boundaries of their dwelling place." First of all, I want to say parenthetically, He made from one man every nation.
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That's why racism is so stupid.
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Because we're all technically related.
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We all came from Adam and Eve, right?
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If the Bible's true.
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came from Adam and Eve, right?
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That means we're all people of one blood.
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So the same blood is going through the blacks, the whites, Latinos, Asians, all the same blood.
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Yeah, there's different shades of skin color and hair texture or whatever, but it's all the same blood.
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That's why racism is so stupid.
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Like, we're the same.
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We all came from the same.
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He said here's the level of God's care.
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He determined times and places.
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That it's no accident when and where you are in history.
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It blows my mind.
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It should blow your mind too.
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It's no accident that you were born when you were born.
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It's no accident You're living in this geographic area now.
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So wherever you go a year, five years, whatever down the road, that's not going to be an accident.
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God has appointed your time and your place.
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Because He cares about you.
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Like how do you know that?
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Look at the next thing He says, verse 27, letter D, God wants a relationship with you.
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So God determined your time and place in history.
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Why did He do that?
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We're talking about it on a national level, and I believe it goes all the way down to the individual level.
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I believe God's sovereignty is much deeper than we'll ever be able to guess.
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Verse 27, "That they should seek God in the hope that they might feel their way toward Him and find Him, yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being." even some of your own poets have said, we are indeed His offspring.
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He says God wants a relationship with you.
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"Pointing your time and place so that you would seek after Him." Do you see the common thread?
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God created you, God provides for you, God cares about you, God wants a relationship with you.
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Do you see the common thread in those things?
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Paul was saying was, "Listen, people, you matter to God." You matter to God.
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Paul didn't walk in and say, "You hellbound, foolish, pagan idol worshippers." He didn't take that approach.
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He goes, "Look, I see you're religious, and I see you don't know God.
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I'll tell you about Him.
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I'll tell you one thing about Him.
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He loves you.
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You matter to Him.
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You know how I know you matter to Him?
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He created you.
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And He provides you.
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And He's determined your time and place.
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And He wants a relationship with you.
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He's not far from you.
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He is one prayer away.
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And I would encourage you to take these elements that when you're sharing with people, and make that the focal point.
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People that don't know God, God's mad at them.
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Maybe they've heard bits and pieces of, "Yeah, I know what the Bible says, because I've done wrong things, God wants to send me to hell, right?" No, no, no.
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God doesn't want you to go to hell.
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That's the thing.
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God wishes that none should perish.
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God wants you to be with Him in heaven so much that He sent His Son to die for you.
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I wouldn't do that.
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God did. He loves you.
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That needs to be the point of conversation with people.
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God loves you.
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He cares about you.
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You matter to God.
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The final thing, if you do nothing else in your witnessing, you have to do this.
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Look at verse 29.
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Oh, by the way, verse 28, he's quoting a couple of their poets.
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It would be sort of like us, you know, witnessing in a secular environment and quoting some lines from a heavy metal song.
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Like, these are things that you already know because you sing about them and you understand them.
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I'm going to tell you the reality of this.
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The last one, letter E.
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You've got to get people here.
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If you can do this and nothing else, wow.
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Rethink how you view God.
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Look at verse 29.
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He says, "Being then God's offspring..." You guys already acknowledge that.
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Your own poets have said that.
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than God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
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Here what Paul was saying is, "Look, you guys need to rethink. You guys are always talking about gods and gods for this and gods for that. I want you to think about something.
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If, as your poets say, we're God's offspring, and if that's true, if we're God's offspring, then it doesn't make sense that a hunk of metal is God.
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I mean, let's think about that.
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So we craft this idol, we take this hunk of gold or silver or stone or whatever, we take it and we craft it, and we shape it, and we put it up on a pedestal, and then we call I was like, why would we think that way?
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If we are the offspring of God, why would you think the rock is that God?
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I just want to say this to you, if you can just get people to re-evaluate their concept of God, what a huge step that is.
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Re-evaluate their concept of God.
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Like I said, the people that grew up, "Yeah, God wants to send me to hell, because I had a bad thought. No, no, no. You need to rethink. That's not who God is.
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Yeah, God wants me to keep the rules. If I keep the rules, God's happy with me. No, no, no, no.
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You know that's not true? You need to rethink your concept of God.
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That's what Paul did with these men in the area.
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Two more quickly. Number three, encourage a decision.
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Encourage a decision.
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Look at verse 30.
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He says, "The times of ignorance God overlooked." What's that mean?
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That means God didn't always intervene with special judgment when a nation didn't know Him.
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That's what that means.
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Like you can look through history, just because this particular nation didn't worship God, God wasn't like, well, okay, tick, tick, they had their five minutes and I'm going to judge them.
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Sometimes, in God's grace, nations that didn't know Him, God would say, "You know what?
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I'm going to overlook that." Not saying they were saved, saying He didn't swoop in and burn them off the globe.
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He was willing to put up with their rebellion, in a sense, for a time.
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That's all He's saying.
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Look at His next line.
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Now, but now, He commands all people everywhere to repent.
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This is for everybody.
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This is all-inclusive.
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That's why I don't really get hung up on the whole Calvinism thing when I preach, because of this verse.
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I know that God knows who's going to pick Him.
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I know all that.
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I understand the doctrine.
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I'm just saying that when you look at this verse, it's pretty straightforward.
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God commands all people everywhere to repent.
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How exhaustive is that?
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That's everybody, right?
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That's everybody.
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I know some people are and some people aren't, but that doesn't change the command.
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God commands all men everywhere to repent.
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See, what Paul was doing here was he was bringing it to a point of decision.
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There's a sense of urgency.
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Here's verse 31, here's the urgency.
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"Because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed.
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And of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead." Here's the urgency.
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Paul says, you know, God has a calendar on His wall and He's got a date circled on it.
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And on that day, He's appointed somebody who's going to come to judge the world based on this message.
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That's why this "He now commands all men everywhere to repent" thing is so vitally important that we get on this immediately.
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Like, well, how do you really know?
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How do you really know Jesus is coming back?
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Well, here's the proof right here.
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It's right in the text.
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He says that of this, he's given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead.
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Like, how do I know Jesus is coming back?
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Because He rose from the dead.
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That's how I know.
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Can I suggest to you that that be our measuring line?
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If somebody says they're going to raise from the dead, and they raise from the dead, let's believe everything else that guy says.
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All in favor?
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Okay, yeah.
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I'm gonna believe everything that guy says.
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He's like, "I'm gonna die, and in three days, "I'm gonna come out of the grave," and he does.
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Like, boom.
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You get a ticket for the rest of your life.
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I'll believe everything you say.
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That's what Paul's saying here.
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This guy rose from the dead.
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this judge, this man, this Messiah.
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He rose from the dead.
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God gave us the assurance that because of that, He's going to come back.
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That's why He was communicating urgency here.
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Communicating urgency.
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You have to encourage a decision from people.
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You know, when Barnabas from Thailand was here, I was talking to him.
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He said, "You know, when I would share gospel I always love when he says that.
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He goes, "In the past time..." I love that.
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He goes, "When I share the gospel with people in the past time, I would be friends with them for a very long time and get to know them." And he says, "No, I don't have time.
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I just share the gospel immediately with them.
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I'm running out of time.
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I just give them the gospel immediately.
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Because there's urgency." I was sharing the gospel with a guy one time, and he says, "So, let me ask you a question.
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I live my whole life however I want, and then I'm on my deathbed, and on my deathbed I pray and receive Christ, will I go to heaven?
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I said, well, technically, yeah.
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He says, okay, I'll just do that.
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And I said, no you won't.
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He said, what do you mean no I won't?
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I said, because there's two problems with your little scenario.
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First problem is this, you're not guaranteed a deathbed.
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Oh, wouldn't it be lovely, wouldn't it be lovely That's how the narrative of my life played out.
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I lived to be 110.
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I'm laying on my deathbed, surrounded by my family and loved ones, who held my hand as I gently fell asleep.
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And everybody sang, you know, "Kumbaya" or whatever.
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And wouldn't it be nice?
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Wouldn't it be nice if that happened for everybody?
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The sad reality is it doesn't happen to very many people.
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I can tell you stories of people that have died very young from weightlifting accidents.
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And one of my best friends from high school had a little sister who died in a car accident, suddenly, on her way to work.
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And I can tell you stories like this the rest of the week, people that died very suddenly, very unexpectedly, some in very unusual ways.
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But my point is this, that I shared with this man.
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You're not guaranteed a deathbed.
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Like, where is that written?
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I said, "But here's the other problem.
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This is an even bigger problem than that." I said, "Granted, let's say you're gonna have a deathbed.
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I'll give you that one.
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Let's say that you are gonna live to be 110 or whatever and you're on your deathbed.
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Here's the problem with that.
39:30-39:32
What that means," and I asked him how old he was.
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I think he was 30.
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I said, "What that means is you're going to have decades of saying no to God, of saying no to Jesus Christ.
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You're going to be doing that for decades.
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if the deathbed escape is your plan, that means from now until your deathbed, every time God's calling you to Himself, calling you to repentance, calling you to receive Christ, you're saying, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no." And I said, "What makes you think when you're on your deathbed, all of a sudden, you're going to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and your one true passion in life?" What's going to turn that around at the last second?
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I said, "Because what you're doing for decades is the one thing the Bible absolutely warns you more than anything else, "Do not harden your heart." Read Hebrews over and over and over, today, today, today.
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If you hear His voice, "Do not harden your heart, do not harden your heart." Why does it keep saying that? Why does God keep saying that?
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Because you're sending yourself to hell, that's why.
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By constantly saying no, constantly shutting Him out, constantly, "No God, no God, not today God, not interested today God." I said, "I promise you, if you make it to your deathbed, the last thing that you're interested in is Jesus Christ." That's why today is the day of salvation.
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That's why a decision has to be made today.
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And people need to know you've got to do something with this message.
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It's not like, "Okay, Jesus died on the cross for your sins, rose from the dead.
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FYI, just thought you'd like to know, have a nice day." There's something you need to do with this message.
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God now commands all men everywhere to repent.
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Get serious about God now, because you don't know how much longer you will have.
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And finally, this is so important, leave the results to God.
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Leave the results to God. Look at verse 32.
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Paul gives this awesome sermon. Awesome sermon.
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Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked.
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But others said, "We will hear you again about this." So Paul went out from their midst, but some men joined him and believed, among whom were Dionysius, the Areopagite.
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That guy had to have a nickname.
42:01-42:06
And a woman named Damaris and others with them.
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Rich Sprunk and I were talking about this a couple weeks ago.
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People on both sides of the fence, like, "Was Paul successful here?" I mean, look what happened.
42:19-42:20
Was Paul successful?
42:21-42:22
Some people mocked him.
42:22-42:22
He mentions resurrection.
42:23-42:24
By the way, you should always mention resurrection.
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That's the key right there.
42:28-42:29
Some people mocked him.
42:30-42:32
Oh, this is the guy that talks about raising from the dead.
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They made fun of him.
42:35-42:36
Some were curious.
42:36-42:37
They're like, well, we never heard this stuff before.
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We'd like to hear some more.
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It says that some people believe.
42:43-42:44
So is this successful or not?
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But we can't evaluate our witnessing effectiveness based on results.
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We can't.
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I'd like to remind you, just jot this reference down.
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We're not going to turn there.
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2 Corinthians 2.14.
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Victory is in the proclamation of the gospel.
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If you share the gospel with 100 people, and 100 people get saved, that's victory.
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If you share the gospel with 100 people, and nobody gets saved, that's still victory.
43:14-43:16
Because the victory is not based on your results.
43:16-43:20
The victory is based on the fact that the gospel is proclaimed.
43:20-43:22
Read 2 Corinthians 2.14.
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We had a whole sermon about this once upon a time.
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Remind yourself also that Noah - He preached for 120 years.
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How many converts did he have?
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Zero! None. Just his family.
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And praise God, his family got on the ark, and I'm sure that meant a lot to him.
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I'm saying you preach for 120 years while you're building a boat in the middle of your yard, and not one person - not one - not one person outside of your family believed you.
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Was Noah successful?
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God found him faithful, and that's success.
43:57-44:03
We should be praying, we should be striving, we should be looking to see new people coming to Christ.
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We should always be trying to up our game in evangelism, but always with the mindset that we can't save anyone.
44:12-44:16
Let's be faithful to do our part, because God is certainly faithful to do His.
44:18-44:23
This week, when you leave here today, you're going to be encountering some Greeks.
44:25-44:25
What do you do?
44:27-44:28
Meet them where they are.
44:30-44:31
Share some basics.
44:32-44:33
God loves you.
44:36-44:36
God provides for you.
44:36-44:37
God has a plan for you.
44:40-44:41
Encourage a decision.
44:41-44:42
There's urgency.
44:44-44:45
At the end of the day, just leave the results to God.
44:48-44:48
That's correct.
44:49-44:54
Father in heaven, Thank You for the glorious truth of Your Word.
44:57-45:03
Father, You know our culture is becoming more and more like the Greeks.
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I remember hearing a preacher say this 15 years ago.
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And I see it even more so today than then.
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Father, we're not intimidated by that.
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We're not in despair.
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It's Your message, God. It's Your power.
45:25-45:29
We've been talking this year about the unstoppable church.
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Father, we're not concerned that some idolatry and Bible ignorance is going to stop the advancement of Your kingdom.
45:39-45:44
By Your power, Father, and through the opportunities You give us, might we be found to be faithful witnesses.
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Help us, Father, to be discerning.
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Father, first, put that passion in us.
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Let us be provoked to want to move to witness to lost people.
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Give us discernment to be able to meet people where they are.
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May your Spirit fill us with the words.
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Tell them about You and ultimately bring them to the point of understanding who Jesus Christ is and what He's done.
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Father, we trust You. We know You're faithful.
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That's never in question.
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So Father, find us faithful to be ambassadors, to be Your spokespeople.
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We're going to look to You to do big things.
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Thank You, Father, that the victory isn't in our results.
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The victory is in the proclamation.
46:44-46:52
So we will all the more gladly about the victory in Jesus Christ.
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It's in His name that we pray.
46:55-46:55
Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 17:16-34
Why was Paul's approach different in witnessing to these "marketplace" people than it was to the Jews in the synagogue? What does this say about how we should approach people with the Gospel?
List some things about God that Paul taught. Why did he focus on these things in particular? See Acts 17:24-31.
Was Paul's preaching successful in Athens? Why or why not? See 2 Corinthians 2:14.
When was the last time your spirit was provoked (righteous anger) to the point where you had to act (Acts 17:16)?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another to have opportunity and boldness in sharing the love of God with people.
