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The Weekend Pulpit: Find Your Place, Do Your Part · Enjoying the Journey

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There is no substitute for the preaching and teaching of God's Word.
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Each weekday on Enjoying the Journey, Scott Pauley leads us in
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a brief study of Scripture. Today on The Weekend Pulpit,
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we are happy to share a full-length Bible message given
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through Scott's pulpit ministry. These messages were
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recorded live in a local church or gospel event in recent days.
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It is our prayer that the message will be a help to you today.
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Would you open your Bible with me, please, to the book of Acts? The book
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of Acts has been called the 5th gospel record. It is in every
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way the book of the continuing Christ. Aren't you glad Jesus
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wasn't finished when he ascended back to heaven? He continues
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his intercessory work there, and we continue his gospel
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work here. The Lord is still at work in this world, and we're part
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of the greatest work there is. And we're concentrating this week on one
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of the great characters in the book of Acts, and his name is
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Brother— what? You did listen yesterday.
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Brother Barnabas. We were introduced to him in Acts chapter number
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4 for the very first time. Barnabas was greatly
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used of the Lord in the early church. He was encourager
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to Saul of Tarsus when he first
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became a believer. Everybody was scared to death of him. Remember that?
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And by the way, before you think that's strange, imagine that some terrorist
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wanted to join your church. You talk about the security team going
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into high alert, and that's essentially
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what was happening. They said, we think this guy's coming undercover.
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And Barnabas said, no, he's one of us now. He was
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the entry point for Saul of Tarsus. I don't know about you, we sure have
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benefited from Paul's ministry to us. Behind the scenes,
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I'm grateful for Barnabas' ministry to him.
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And when you come to that great explanation
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of His name, the Son of Consolation, you find out a reason for
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that. He was by nature an encourager. I might say, not by nature,
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but by new birth. Nobody's born an encourager, but when
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you get born again, you get the consolation of the Spirit of God inside
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of you, and now you want to do for others what the Lord is
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doing in you. And he becomes really a conduit
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for the Lord's grace and truth and the ministry of the Holy Spirit all through
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the book of Acts. When we left him, turn back one page in your Bible
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to Acts chapter number 11. We're coming to Acts 13 in just a moment,
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but Acts 11 is where we left him. He was in Antioch. Remember, there's a
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great shift here because now the gospel is on the
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move from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the uttermost part of the earth.
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And the gospel, of course, came through Antioch, that great missionary-sending
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church. We come to Acts chapter 13,
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we are in the church at Antioch.
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And somebody said, well, what was the church at Antioch like? I have no idea.
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I have no idea. How big was it? No idea.
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What their building looked like? Probably didn't have one. How many
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programs they have? Who knows? Probably fewer
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than we have. You see, the measurement
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of a church is not in all the externals and peripheral things that we've tended
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to attach to it like barnacles to a ship. The greatness of a church is
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the fact that it gets the gospel out and exalts the Lord Jesus
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Christ. How many of you would like to have a God-blessed church?
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Then make much of Jesus. And don't
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just do it in the 4 walls of the building.
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And Antioch was such a church, and because of that, there was a really
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a ripple effect that went from that church,
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and Barnabas was a part of that. Look at verse number 1. Now there
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were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets
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and teachers. And I want to pause and say, thank God for the preachers and
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teachers of the word of God. You ought to thank the Lord. We have
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several preachers here tonight, and I Thank you, men, for coming. No preacher needs another
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meeting to go to. And if you've got faithful preachers and
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teachers, you ought to thank God for them and pray for them. And they were
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in the church. There were several of them. Look at the list here. It's an
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interesting list. Who's first on the list? Talk to me,
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class. Who's first? Aha, he's leading the charge.
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Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger and Lucius
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of Cyrene. And Manaen,
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which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and who's
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last on the list? Saul. Now, this is interesting.
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When we're done tonight, I'll show you that by the time we get to the
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end of this chapter, it is no longer Barnabas and Saul.
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It will be Paul and Barnabas. There's an
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interesting shift in Acts 13. It's a transitional chapter. It moves
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us from Jerusalem to Antioch in the book of Acts and the gospel advance.
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It moves us from an emphasis on Barnabas to an emphasis on his
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young protégé and his gospel partner Saul, who becomes
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Paul. There's just lots of shifts going on here.
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God's at work and you can't explain all that. And by the way, you can't
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put God in your box 'cause God's not gonna do it the way you think
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he ought to do it. His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts
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are higher than our thoughts, but he is at work and we're a part of
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the work. One of the things I love in verse number 1 is the
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variety of people that he used. Have you ever noticed God
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uses some strange people? People. And you're looking at
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one of them right now, and I'm looking at a church full of them.
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We're all different, some more different than others. Can I get a witness there?
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Right. You got Barnabas. We know Barnabas.
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Then you've got a man named Simeon. And some
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people— I won't get into the reasons for this— have surmised
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that this Simeon, and because of where
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he was from may have been the same man that was selected
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from the crowd to carry the cross of Jesus.
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Remember Simon of Cyrene? And there's some geographical and
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ethnic reasons for the reason they think that. I don't know if that's true or
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not. The one thing we do know, he was called Niger.
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You know what that means? This was a black man.
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That's right. This was an African man. Watch this carefully. In the first
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century church, in the missionary sending church in Antioch,
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there was a black Christian man who was in leadership
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in that church. Let me just pause and say, and I,
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look, I grew up in the South and I'm in the South preaching right now,
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but I want to remind you that God loves all people and Jesus died
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for every man. And if there's prejudice in any of us,
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it is because the love of Jesus has not really captured us.
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The old preachers used to say, the ground is level at the foot of the
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cross. A lot of talk today about prejudice in our
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world. The most equal thing on earth is the gospel of Jesus. Let me tell
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you what cuts through prejudice, the message of the love of the cross.
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I love this. So who cares what his skin color
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is? He's a child of God and he's a servant of Jesus Christ.
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And then you've got a man named Lucius of Cyrene.
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And Manasseh, this is an interesting character because here's a little biographical note.
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He was brought up with Herod the Tetrarch. Do you remember who Herod the Tetrarch
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was? Herod the Tetrarch was the Herod, one of the Herodian dynasty men.
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He was the Herod that chopped off the head of John the Baptist.
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This will blow your mind. 2 boys grew up in the same town,
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played, played together, knew one another.
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Were associated with one another to the point that when they're grown men,
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by name they're still associated. They grew up together.
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Watch this. And one of them became a persecutor of the church,
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and the other became a preacher in the church.
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That's fascinating to me. Old Robert
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Frost talked about 2 roads diverge in a yellow wood, and I,
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I chose the road less traveled by, and that has made all all the difference.
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There's always 2 roads. There's a narrow road and there's a broad road.
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And Herod the tetrarch got on the broad road that went to destruction. But thank
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God there was a boy named Manasseh who came up with him, but he went
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a different direction and he followed the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And then you've got Saul, which will become really the main character in
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the rest of the book of Acts. Now we pick up our story in verse
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2, as they ministered to the Lord
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and fasted, the Holy Ghost said— how many
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of you like the Holy Ghost to speak?
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The Holy Ghost said, separate me Barnabas and Saul for
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the work whereunto I have called them.
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And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent
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them away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost,
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departed from Seleucia And from thence they sailed to Cyprus. And when they
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were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews.
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And they had also John to their minister. We'll come back to that tomorrow night,
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but this is the young man John Mark. And when they had gone to
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the isle of Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer,
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a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-Jesus,
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which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man,
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who called for Barnabas and Saul. There they are again.
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And desired to hear the
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word of God. And what I've just read and you're hearing,
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the opening verses of Acts chapter number 13,
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is the record of an ordinary man.
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That's who Barnabas was. We know of no miracles.
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We do not have full recorded sermons of this man.
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Interesting, isn't it? In fact, you have a hard
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time even finding anything that he said. We know he spoke because the Bible says
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he exhorted and preached the gospel, but there's really no recorded words of
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this man. His life speaks.
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It's not his words, it's his works that speak.
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What you find here is an ordinary man— anybody glad God loves ordinary
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people?— who yielded his life to God.
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And God used him in a mighty way.
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I'm speaking tonight on this subject,
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find your place and do your part.
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Find your place and do your part. Would you say that please?
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Find your place and do your part. No,
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that's Presbyterian level. I want Pentecostal level. All right, let's try it
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again. Ready? Find your place and do your part. You'll do
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better if you preach it. All right, turn and look at the sinner next to
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you. Everybody's got a sinner next to them. Look at that sinner right there.
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Ladies, this is your chance. All right, now get your preaching finger
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out. I want you to point at that sinner. Look, if you don't do it,
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I'm gonna bring you up here and make you tell everybody. Look at that sinner
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next to you and say it. Ready? Ready? Find your place
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and do your part. Now turn to the sinner on the other side of you.
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Tell them. They need to hear it too. Ready? Find your place and do
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your part. Look back at me. Tell this sinner. Ready?
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Find your place and do your part.
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Now listen to me with your heart just a moment. Do you know what makes
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a church move forward? Churches don't move forward on the pastor's
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good sermons.
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Some people have the idea, well, I tell you, if the preacher will really get
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a humdinger and really, really, you know, peel the paint off the walls,
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then God could do something here. You really think churches move
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forward on a good sermon?
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Somebody said, I'll tell you one thing, now if we could get musicians,
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get the right musicians and get all the instrumentalists and get all the
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choir members in their place and get all the singers really polished,
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then we could really see God do something here.
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It's such a manward way of thinking.
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Somebody says, you know what we need? We need a bigger building. We got a
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bigger building now. If we had more money in the bank— I tell you,
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Pastor, I heard about this program. You all should start it. And if you fit—
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if you start this program now, this will change your church.
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You ever heard that before? It's not how churches move forward.
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Churches move forward, the gospel advances,
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and the kingdom of God flourishes When every believer— are
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you listening? When every believer simply finds their
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place and does their part.
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We have created in our Western mindset,
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in our American Christianity, a spectator
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sport where people come into beautiful
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buildings like this one and sit on comfortable seats like the one you're sitting on
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now and listen to guys like me drone on and on for a few minutes,
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and we give God a nod and we say, well, that was nice.
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And we go right out those doors and nothing changes, and nothing changed
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in the community, and there's no ripple effect for God, and the problem's
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not with God, the problem's with God's people.
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If God blesses a church, it is never because of what some
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one man does standing on a platform. It's because
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of what every man and every woman in that church does every
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day when they find their place and do their part.
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So what's that look like? I'm gonna walk you through these verses and I'm gonna
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give you a list. So get your pen ready. Maybe you don't normally take notes,
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but take notes tonight. I want you to write the list down. It all comes
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straight from scripture, but this will help you to apply it, to meditate
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on it. And when we're done tonight, I'm gonna ask you to identify at least
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one of these that you need to do. Maybe many of them, maybe all of
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them, but I'm gonna ask you to identify at least one of them that you
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need to apply And we're gonna commit it to God. Number 1,
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look at verse number 2. Let's start where they started. What's the first thing they're
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doing? The Bible does not say that they ministered to the lost.
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It does not say that they ministered to the Christians.
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It says they ministered what, church? To the Lord.
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Number 1, if you're gonna find your place and do your part,
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you gotta start first of all by learning to minister to the Lord.
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Minister to the Lord? What does that mean?
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Did you know that all true ministry has to be Godward before it's manward?
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Do you understand that before I ever get up and talk to you
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for God, I should have been somewhere talking to God for you?
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It's always God's way. Do you remember Samuel in the temple growing
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up, ministering with Eli? What's the Bible say? The Bible says,
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look, this is Samuel. This is the prophet.
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Wait a minute. Did it ever dawn on you that before he was a prophet,
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he was with a priest?
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This is the preacher that God so mightily anointed his preaching.
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The Bible says he did not let any of his words fall to the ground.
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How many of you preachers would like that to be said of your sermons?
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That'd be nice, wouldn't it? Every word hit the mark.
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And I tell you why. Because Samuel followed the divine order. The Bible
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says the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord.
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You know what it means? It means that this was not for
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public consumption. This was not dressing up for Sunday school. This was not putting on
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a good religious show so the people would think we were spiritual people.
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These were people who walked with God and sought
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God and lived in the presence of God, and it was out of the
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overflow of what God was doing in their lives
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that God used them to make such a difference.
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I'll tell you what we need to do. We need to back the truck up
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one stop and say, dear Lord, before we try to
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become better preachers and teachers and singers and Sunday school teachers and
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public leaders and church members, dear Lord, make us better
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Christians. Help us to live more devoted to Christ. Help us to learn to
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walk with you every day. Teach us to pray again. Help us
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to minister to the Lord.
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People say they want revival. I don't know that we really do.
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What most people mean by that is they want a guest evangelist to blow through
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town and light it up. And for the record, that means
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preach on everybody else's sins and
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let everybody else get right with God. That's not revival.
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Let me tell you what revival is. Revival, old Vance Havner, a good North Carolina
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evangelist of yesteryear, said that revival was one thing. It's God's
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people falling in love with Jesus all over again.
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I love that song. How long has it been? How long
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since you said, Jesus, I love you? How long since the fire
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burned in your soul? How long since you ministered
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to the Lord? Look at the verse, it helps us a
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little bit. The Bible says they ministered to the Lord, watch this carefully, and fasted.
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Now, this is interesting. There really are 2 parts to this.
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First, they're worshiping. That's what it means to minister to the Lord. They're worshiping.
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All of our witness and all of our work must grow out of our worship.
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But then, watch this, they're fasting, which means they're not only worshiping,
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they're praying, because in Scripture, fasting is never for fasting's
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sake. Fasting is always for praying's sake.
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Jesus said, this kind goeth not out but by prayer and what?
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Fasting. I don't know what's happened to us that
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even when you mention fasting, people think, well, that's pretty fanatical.
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We Baptists are better at feasting than we are fasting.
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Now seriously, call a potluck, all God's children come.
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Some who aren't God's children come. Have an
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eating meeting, brother, they come.
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Call a prayer meeting, a handful of saints show
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up. It reveals something
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about our priorities, doesn't it? You want to find
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your place? Your place is on your knees. You want to do your part?
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Your part is in worshiping and praying. It begins with
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ministering to the Lord. Number 2, write this one down.
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Not only must you minister to the Lord, but you must stay sensitive to the
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Holy Ghost. Look at verse 2. It was
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as they ministered and fasted, the Holy Ghost said.
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This tells us many things. One, that the Holy Spirit is a real person.
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He's not an it. He's not some force.
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He is a real person. And as a real person
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and as God, He speaks. Somebody said, come on now,
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preacher, you think the Spirit of God still speaks?
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Absolutely. How does he speak?
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Through his word.
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Now, I, I don't discount the fact that there are promptings, nudges of the Holy
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Ghost. I, this very day, at moments have felt divinely
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led and directed and prompted about certain things. Speak to this
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person, or, or say this, or Or don't do that.
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I believe in that, but I want you to listen to me very carefully because
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if you're not careful, you can make that so, so,
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what's the right word? So easy to misinterpret.
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Let me tell you how to know you're being led
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of the Holy Spirit. You ready? Live in the Bible.
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This is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The Holy
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Spirit is the Spirit of truth. You know how the Spirit of God primarily speaks?
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To his children through his own word. This is the God-breathed
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word of the living God given by inspiration
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of the Holy Ghost, illuminated only by the ministry of the Holy
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Spirit of God. Live in the word. Let the word of God live in you
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and live every day saying, Spirit of God, speak to me now.
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Lead me. Prompt me. This is not just hearing a
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revival sermon. This is living a revived life.
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This is more than just hearing the pastor's message on the Lord's Day. This is
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getting a word from God every day. How long has it been
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since the Spirit of God had your undivided attention and spoke to you, and you
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knew the Spirit of God was speaking to you? Better yet, how long has it
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been since the Holy Spirit of God spoke to you and you said yes?
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To find your place and do your part, you must minister to the Lord.
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You must stay sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Number 3, you You must let the
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Lord do his separating work in your life.
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Did you notice the first words the Holy Spirit says? Separate me.
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Literally, separate to me. The idea is
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that he wants these men for his own.
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Give these men to me. That's interesting to me.
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You know what the Holy Spirit is doing in all of us? His separating work.
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Now I gotta tell you, I believe in biblical separation, but most of the time
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when we preach on what we call separation, it's a guy like me getting
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up and going through a long list, a laundry list of things, and don't do
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this and don't do this and don't do this and don't do this and don't
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do this. All that is separation from. Can I just remind you that
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biblical separation never starts with what you're separated from?
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It starts with who you're separated to.
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Watch this. You take care of the yeses and the Holy Ghost will take care
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of the nos. There's a whole lot of stuff we try to get out of
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our lives. You can't get that out of your life through your own power.
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Let me tell you what you do. You let God have his rightful place in
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your life, and when God gets big in you, there won't be room for all
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that junk, and the Holy Ghost of God will crowd out of your life
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the things that do not bring him glory and honor.
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The Spirit of God is separating these men. It's the ongoing sanctifying
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work of God. Can I ask you a deeply personal question?
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Has the Holy Ghost been doing any separating work in you lately?
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How long has it been since the Spirit of God said, mm-mm, no, no,
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that's not for you anymore? By the
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way, it's not always bad stuff the Holy Spirit says that about. Sometimes it's good
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stuff not in its rightful place. It's the good stuff that robs us of the
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best stuff. Sometimes it's don't do this,
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sometimes it's do this. It is the separating
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work of God. Mr. Scofield once said that when God chooses
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to use a man, he always goes through a separating experience.
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For years I didn't understand that. 10 years ago,
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we were comfortable living in Knoxville, Tennessee and serving a great
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church and college and Just well cared for and
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happy. And the Holy Spirit said,
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I want you to leave. And I argued with
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him. Did you know that's not an argument you can win?
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I tried to convince God why I was needed there or why
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I needed to be there. And the Holy Spirit said, I,
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I want you to give yourself to the work of the gospel.
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It was the loneliest season of my life,
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and it was the greatest season of my life.
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I can't explain that to you. God knocked
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all the crutches out. All the people I had
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leaned on couldn't help me on this one.
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All the resources I depended on, gone.
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My identity wrapped up in a certain position,
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place, and people— gone.
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And you know what God did for me in that season of my life?
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He was separating me, and it was good because
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he was separating me to himself.
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Paul said, I've been separated unto
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the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm gonna tell you what some
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of us need. We need the Spirit of God to put us under the knife,
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to bring us into the surgery room of God and lay us
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open with a sharp two-edged sword and get out of us the things that don't
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please God and graft into us the things that do please God. We need
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the Spirit of God to do his separating work in our lives again so
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that we can find our place and do our part.
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Keep reading. Separate me Barnabas and Saul
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for the work whereunto I've called them. When they fasted and prayed,
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laid their hands on them, they sent them away.
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So they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost— can I ask you just a
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fun question? Look at verse 3 and look at verse 4. Let me ask,
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who sent them?
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Did the church send them? Yes or no?
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Did the Holy Ghost send them? Yes or no? The answer is both.
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Look at verse 3, please. They were sent by
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the church. In verse 4, they were sent by
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the Holy Ghost.
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This is really interesting, but in, in Bible days, did you know that the
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language of the New Testament here, there actually were 2 different words for
25:51
the word sent? One meant to thrust
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out of your own authority and power,
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to send something forth. The other meant to release
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Watch this carefully. Anybody want to take a wild guess which word is
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which? The Holy Ghost sent— that's
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the word to thrust forth of your own power and authority.
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The church sent— watch this— the church said, we take our hands off and
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we release them to do what God has
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given them to do.
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See, we say the church is the sending agency. That's true, but the Holy Spirit
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is the sending authority. The church simply acknowledges
26:38
what the Holy Ghost has already said. Dear Lord, give us churches like
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this that sense the leading of the Holy Spirit and say, we don't want to
26:45
get in God's way. Whatever God wants, that's all we want.
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We just want everybody to find their place and do their part.
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Stay sensitive to the Holy Ghost. Let the Lord do His separating work. Let me
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give you a 4th one. Do everything you can to get
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the Word of God to others. Beginning in verse
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4 down to verse number 7 where we've read, guess what they do?
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They go to many places and they see many people and watch
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this, in every place and with every person, they do the same thing. You know
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what they do? They give them the Word of God.
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I still believe in the power of the Word of God. Do you?
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The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord
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is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the
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heart. Look, everything you need is found in the Word of
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the living God. And here's our job. Our job's one thing,
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to get the Word of God to people.
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See, there's only 2 eternal things on this planet. That's the souls of men and
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the Word of God. And we get to work with both of them.
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We get to get the word of God, the gospel, the message of Jesus,
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the truth of God to the hearts and minds of people.
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Look, you can't do everything, but you can do something. And you're not going to
28:02
talk to everybody, but you're going to talk to somebody. Can you imagine what
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would happen if every member of a church said, I can't
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preach a sermon, I can't do that publicly, but let
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me tell you what I can do. I I can give a gospel tract.
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I can give a word for Christ. I can share a Bible verse. I can
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point somebody to Jesus Christ. If everybody was just
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actively engaged giving the word of God, I'm gonna tell you what would happen.
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It would turn the world upside down for Jesus Christ.
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And you know how it happens? When everybody simply,
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say it please, finds their place and does their part.
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So can I meddle a moment? Did you do that today?
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Have you done it in the last week?
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How long's that been?
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See, some of us, we did more talking about Jesus and witnessing the
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first 6 months after we got saved than we have the rest of our Christian
29:05
Because when you got converted, You were so excited about being a Christian. Remember you
29:08
wanted all your family saved and all your coworkers to know and all the friends
29:12
to get right with God? So you were getting the gospel out and bringing people
29:15
in. And then suddenly somewhere along the way, we let the embers die low and
29:19
suddenly we found a comfortable, complacent way to live our tidy little
29:23
Christian lives. And we are no longer in the place God wants us to
29:27
be. We're no longer doing our part to get the gospel out. It is no
29:30
wonder the gospel train comes to a screeching halt
29:34
and does not advance. We must say, you know what,
29:37
I'm going to get back to this. I got to get the gospel to
29:41
somebody. How many of you are glad you're going to heaven?
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Who you taking with you?
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Who? And we even in church, we say, well,
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we pray for everybody to be saved. Who's everybody?
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Look here, you're not praying for everybody if you're not praying for somebody.
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Who? Whose name? Whose face comes to you right now?
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Who's gonna die and go to hell if they don't get saved? Who?
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And you must say, somewhere out there, look at verse
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number 6, somewhere out there, there's a false prophet.
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You know what he needs? He needs the truth.
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Hmm, look at verse number 7. How about Sergius Paulus?
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Who's that man? He's a seeker.
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Look at this. He's desiring to hear the Word of God. I understand everybody
30:42
doesn't, but somebody does. There's somebody out
30:46
there that's not darkening the door of a revival meeting on a Monday night,
30:50
but they'd have a conversation with you. They wouldn't listen to a guy like me,
30:53
but they'd have a conversation with somebody like you if you'd find
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your place and do your part and say, let me tell you about Jesus and
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the difference he's made in my life.
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We had a number of conversations at University of Georgia today,
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really good ones. I had a young man come
31:12
talk to me for a long time today. It was a very interesting conversation.
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And we talked to lost people and people away from God and spiritual
31:21
needs. That was not the case with this young man. Some of
31:25
your people were there. They were talking to him across the way, and I heard
31:28
my name, and so I looked up, and they said,
31:33
Eric, there, you can go talk to him. And he came
31:36
over, and he had one of the cards, and on it, it said, Evangelist Scott
31:39
Pauling. He said, Sir, could I ask you a question? I said, Sure. He said,
31:42
What's an evangelist? I said,
31:45
That's a great question. And I thought maybe he's got
31:49
no context. In a matter of moments, I found out not only did he have
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context, he was a dedicated Christian young man who's been studying the Word
31:55
of God, and God's been dealing with him about serving the Lord with his life.
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Now you think about this, as a student on the campus of the University of
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Georgia who's studying accounting, and he said to me, I'll just be
32:07
honest with you, sir, he said, I've been thinking, when I get old and I'm
32:10
laying on my deathbed, I don't want the story of my life to be that
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I had a good job. He said, I've been thinking there's
32:17
got to be more to it than that. I said, if you're a pastor,
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I think God's calling that young man to preach.
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I don't know what he's going to end up doing. I'm praying for him.
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But I know one thing, everybody's not going to be a pastor, but everybody can
32:32
be a witness. Just find your place and do your
32:36
part. Let me just— this one.
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Notice what happens immediately when they start giving the gospel.
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Verse number 8, Elymas the sorcerer, for so is his name by interpretation,
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withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith.
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Would you write this down? Prepare for spiritual warfare.
32:55
Just expect it. You really think the devil's going
32:59
to be happy when people start coming to Jesus? Forward motion always
33:03
produces friction. Everything God ordains, Satan opposes.
33:06
So if the Lord is building, the devil's trying to tear down.
33:12
I never, never get surprised anymore. You have a meeting like this,
33:16
we had those men saved yesterday and good things happening. Don't let
33:20
it shock you or blow you away when the devil pokes his ugly head up.
33:23
It's like playing whack-a-mole with the devil. He's going to
33:26
pop up somewhere. So just expect it.
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And by the way, if you think that's just an event, no. The battle's on
33:35
till the final victory is won. Come to the end of the chapter, starting in
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verse number 45. The Jews, filled with envy, start speaking
33:43
against the things spoken by Paul. Verse 46, then Paul and
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Barnabas waxed bold. I love that. It's not the time
33:51
to cower in a corner. This is not the time to get tentative and hesitant.
33:54
It's not the time to say, well, we'll just be— we'll just be quiet.
33:57
Look, the devil's crying, the hounds of hell are shouting from the housetop. The Lord's
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people got to stand up and speak out. This is our moment and we must
34:04
not miss it. You just prepare yourself for spiritual
34:09
warfare, and no greater is he that is in you than he that is in
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the world. I bring you
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to one more verse. I'll give you 2 thoughts from it.
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It's verse 43,
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and I bring you this verse because this is the first time Paul's name is
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listed before Barnabas. You might want to mark
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that in your Bible. It's significant. Now, when the congregation was
34:34
broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes
34:39
followed Paul and Barnabas, who,
34:42
speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in
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the grace of God. You want to find your place and
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do your part? Write this one down. Number 6,
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die to self serve humbly.
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Do you think it bothered Barnabas that
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Paul now takes the lead?
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And you know, we get, we get a little silly sometimes imagining
35:11
that, that we got all the answers and these people on the
35:15
page of Scripture didn't deal with what we deal with. But put yourself in Barnabas's
35:19
sandals for just a minute. Barnabas was the leader of this missionary
35:23
team. Barnabas was the guy
35:27
who helped disciple Saul.
35:33
And it's not that Barnabas's work is any less now. It is just that
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God chose to touch Paul for a certain purpose and anoint
35:41
him and give him visibility and favor. And now Paul
35:44
becomes the real leader of the gospel advance.
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As a matter of fact, a couple chapters removed from this,
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they're gonna walk into a city and the Bible says Paul would be the chief
35:55
speaker. I've often wondered if that meant he was a better speaker than Barnabas.
35:59
Maybe. Can I give you what I believe
36:03
and observe here to be one of the great secrets to the continued blessing of
36:08
God? You ready for this? You just be dead to self and
36:11
you serve God humbly and let the Lord take care of the
36:18
Do you have to have your name called from the pulpit?
36:23
Does the pastor have to say, good job?
36:27
Do you have to have the applause of the people? Or are you
36:31
willing to simply find your place and do your part
36:35
and believe that the only one that matters is the one you're actually doing it
36:39
for anyhow, and his name is Jesus? By the way, you don't have
36:43
to keep score. He keeps good records.
36:48
And Barnabas was not gifted as Paul was. We all have
36:52
different abilities and different opportunities. We're gifted differently. We're fearfully and wonderfully
36:56
made. God made you for a purpose. There can only be one pastor
37:00
in the church, but watch this— every member of the church can find their place
37:04
and do their part. Every man and woman and young person among us can say,
37:08
you know what, I'm just going to do what God has given me to do.
37:13
That is where spiritual victories are won.
37:18
That's where churches move forward. Look at the end of the verse.
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What did they do? The Bible says they spoke to them and they
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persuaded them. I love that. It means to urge.
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They persuaded them to continue in the grace of
37:34
God. Number 7, you want to find your place and do your
37:38
part? Here's something you need to do: help others grow in their faith.
37:43
Yes, get the gospel to the lost, but then help those believers to
37:47
grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
37:52
I had no idea what the music was tonight, and I don't think
37:57
the people who chose the music knew what I was preaching on tonight. But I
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love the fact all the songs tonight were about the grace of God.
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Listen to me, people. Don't you ever get over the grace of God.
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Look, you don't get over grace. You go deeper into it.
38:15
It's like a vast ocean. You can never plumb the depths of
38:19
it. Oh, oh, the unsearchable riches
38:24
of the grace of our God. You come, you come to grace
38:28
and grace comes to you at the moment of your salvation.
38:32
But look at that verse. The Bible says you continue in the grace of
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God. Do you see? Look at the verse. Lots of truth here.
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What's our responsibility? Our responsibility is to urge them, persuade them.
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What's their responsibility? To continue. But watch this. There's not
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just responsibility in that verse. There's a resource in that verse. Watch this.
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You got our responsibility, but you got God's resource. You know what God's resource for
38:54
your whole life is? It is the grace of Almighty God. The grace
38:58
of God. I'm looking at a bunch of people tonight.
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Maybe somebody here needs the grace of God tonight. We all need it
39:06
every day, but I mean for salvation. There could be some sinner in here that
39:09
needs to experience the grace of God tonight. I would say to you, there's more
39:12
than enough grace for your sin. Where sin abounds, grace does much more
39:16
abound. Grace greater than all our sin.
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I'm looking at a whole lot of people in this room who've experienced the grace
39:24
of God, and I'd just like to remind you, it was grace when you got
39:27
saved, it's grace today, it'll always be grace, it'll be grace till
39:31
you see Jesus face to face. All of God's goodness in our life is grace
39:34
'cause we don't deserve any of it. So you
39:38
just make up your mind you're gonna continue in
39:41
the grace of God. You're going to find your place
39:47
and do your part.
39:48
It's funny,
39:51
Pastor, but in traveling, I go in places like this where
39:54
I really don't know anybody. I don't know your people,
39:58
and your pastor and I really don't know one another that well. And, and when
40:01
I go into churches, I don't ask things. I just don't. Pastor wants
40:05
to talk to me about things, fine, but I don't ask things. I don't ask
40:08
about certain members and I hate to say it this way, but I don't really
40:11
want to know. I want to have the liberty to just get up and say
40:15
whatever the Holy Spirit tells me to say. Let the Lord do with it whatever
40:18
he wants to do. It's not my church, it's his church.
40:23
But I have discovered in my travels that the same church members are everywhere.
40:29
They have different faces and names, but they're the same people.
40:32
And there's unique personalities and Gifts to
40:36
the church, interesting. We're all different.
40:39
We've come full circle now back where we started in verse 1, haven't we?
40:41
We're all different, but we're all the same. We're the Lord's people.
40:45
That's wonderful. But there are people
40:49
sometimes in a church that get out of their place. You know, the Proverbs talks
40:53
about like a bird wandering from its nest.
40:57
And the problem is not that they get out of their place in the church,
41:01
The problem is they get out of their place with God,
41:05
and when you're out of joint with God,
41:08
you're out of joint with his people.
41:13
When a member isn't right with the head,
41:17
he's not right with the other members.
41:22
No. And then there are those people, and they're not always the most prominent,
41:27
They're not always the leaders in name and title.
41:31
Sometimes they're the quiet, under-the-radar people in the church who
41:37
just— how can I say this— they find their place and
41:42
they do their part. And those
41:46
are the people that keep churches moving forward.
41:53
My dad started pastoring when I was about 14.
41:58
He'd been a businessman. God called him to preach, and he
42:01
would pastor that same church for 33 years. And it was
42:05
an amazing journey, and there were some battles
42:09
along the way. I remember
42:13
I was just a boy preacher myself, but I was watching my dad. I'd sit
42:17
on the front row and I'd watch carefully, and And Dad started preaching the gospel
42:20
and people started getting saved. It was wonderful. Added to the church.
42:24
That church had never seen anything quite like it. There was a spiritual awakening.
42:28
Hundreds of people started coming. It was just a,
42:32
what we might call an explosive kind of growth. And, and there
42:36
were some people that didn't like it. People tell on themselves, you know,
42:41
they tell on themselves when it doesn't go their way.
42:46
There was a man in that church, it's been decades ago now, a man in
42:49
that church who got just out of sorts. Can I say he was not in
42:52
his place and he wasn't doing his part? And he became a critic,
42:56
a cynic. He started fault-finding and talking,
43:00
stirring up trouble. It was a great grief to my dad.
43:03
My dad never talked about it much, but I knew
43:08
he was in the battle. I could tell you where I was. I would sit
43:11
on the front row of that church and watched my dad preach, tears streaming down
43:15
his face, preaching out of a broken heart, knowing that in the midst of all
43:19
that blessing, there was a great battle going on.
43:24
That man— my dad was preaching through the book of Nehemiah.
43:28
I'll never forget that. He was preaching about building and battling and preaching through
43:31
the book of Nehemiah, trying to help the people. And that man got so out
43:35
of sorts one night, he accosted my dad on the parking lot of the church.
43:40
Got in his face and threatened him. I'll never forget
43:44
it. I was just a kid. I was in the car and I could hear
43:46
the conversation. And he got in my dad's face and he said, if you ever
43:50
preach another sermon from the book of Nehemiah— can you imagine
43:54
saying such a thing to a preacher? I got out of the car. I was
43:58
gonna whip him in Jesus' name. That's what I was gonna do.
44:01
And I remember my dad said to me, Scott, Get in the car.
44:06
The Lord will take care of this. And he
44:09
did. Martin Luther said, always remember that even the devil's God's
44:13
devil. He knows how to take care of it.
44:18
And during the hardest time, that, that season in my dad's life
44:22
and that church, there was a man in our church named Neely Mills.
44:28
Neely Mills was an old World War II Veteran.
44:32
He was a Marine. Once a Marine, always a Marine, they say, right? That was
44:36
Neil Mills. He was a greeter. He would open the church door
44:40
for people coming in the main lobby. He was always there.
44:43
And you come through the door and you say, how you doing, Brother Mills?
44:45
He always gave the same answer, always said the same thing. He said, at my
44:48
post of duty. Sounds like a Marine, doesn't it? And he was.
44:53
He was tough. He's a tough man, but gentle.
44:58
I still remember he had great big strong hands and he was a woodworker,
45:02
had a wood shop, made things. And during
45:06
that season, Neely Mills, who was a man that did not qualify
45:10
to be a deacon, didn't qualify to be a deacon because
45:15
of some things in his past, that man and his wife
45:20
Frances made it their business
45:23
to encourage my dad and to encourage our church.
45:30
I remember, I remember meetings when my dad
45:34
was just laboring through preaching, and the meeting would
45:38
be done, and the little, you know, yappers,
45:41
yappers, yappers, yappers yap, you know. And Nita Mills
45:45
would leave his seat, always the same seat, come right down to the front and
45:48
put his big old arms around my dad and give him a bear hug and
45:51
say to him, preacher, you just keep preaching the Bible.
45:54
We're with you.
45:58
And Francis made the best peanut butter pie in America, and that didn't hurt either,
46:01
let me tell you. And I've
46:05
thought often about Neely and Francis Mills, because when
46:10
I get to heaven, I want to thank them. See,
46:13
I was a young preacher boy. Watching all that. I don't
46:18
know if I'd be in the ministry today. I don't know if
46:22
I had wanted to be in the ministry today if
46:27
it had not been for a Barnabas in that church who
46:32
just found his place and did his part.
46:42
If this Bible message has been used of God in your life or
46:45
we can pray for you in some definite way, please contact us
46:49
at enjoyingthejourney.org. We hope you will share the message
46:53
with others who may also be encouraged by it. For additional
46:57
full-length Bible messages, please visit Dr. Scott Pauley's YouTube channel.
47:01
Tomorrow is the Lord's Day, and we want to encourage
47:04
you to be faithful to attend a Bible-preaching church in your area.
47:07
This Sunday. Thank you for listening to The Weekend
47:11
Pulpit, and don't miss Enjoying the Journey daily devotional
47:15
podcast each Monday through Friday.