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Day 9 | Dream Big Devotional | Kayce Eilermann · Life Community Church

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hey everyone.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining me.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want to start right off with something Pastor Jamie said in the very first devotional video of this series.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: He said, God cannot be contained, but he chooses to be encountered.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's our prayer for you that during this time of fasting and seeking him, that you would encounter the living God.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: So today we are reading Romans chapter 10, verses 13 through 15, and it says this everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him?
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's why the scriptures say how beautiful are the feet of the messengers who bring the good news.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the book of Romans is one of the longest and most important letters written by the Apostle Paul.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is formerly known as Saul of Tarsus.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: He was a rabbi and a Pharisee in Jerusalem, passionate, extremely passionate about Torah and following the traditions that God had given his people long ago.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he saw Jesus and his followers as a threat to these traditions.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, in an effort to defend the God he loved, or rather the traditions that felt familiar, Saul begins persecuting the growing church, imprisoning and even killing followers of Jesus.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: But in Acts chapter 9, Saul has an incredible encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of my favorite New Testament stories.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus reveals himself and says, no, Saul is actually the one going against God, Saul doesn't argue or defend himself.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: He repents.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: He really does desire truth.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Saul just wants to know and serve the one true God, the way God wants to be known and served.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So Saul's life is radically changed.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: He begins going by his Roman name, Paul, and his new mission in life is to tell everyone everywhere about the risen Jesus, no matter how much it costs him.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: As Paul travels, he helps start new churches so believers will continue to gather and grow in their faith.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: He writes many letters to these churches for correction, guidance, for teaching, and the book of Romans is one of these letters.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So this letter is written very late in Paul's career.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: We know at this point Saul Paul has already suffered greatly for the sake of the gospel.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Several years prior to this letter being written, all of the Jews are expelled from Rome under Emperor Claudius.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: But five years later, they are allowed to return.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: When the Jewish Christians return to Rome, they find a very unjuwish church because all the Gentile Christians had been leading it for the past several years.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the church begins to fight and split over their differences.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: When Paul hears about this fighting, he writes this letter, the book of Romans, to establish two crucial things: unity of the church and an urgency to spread the gospel.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: The enemy does not want unity of the church, and the enemy does not want us to know, to feel the urgency to spread the gospel.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: He wants us all in our own little corners of disagreement, bitterness, gossip, preference, apathy, splitting hairs over maybe a phrase you didn't like in the message on Sunday, or I can't worship because I don't like the song or the style, or this isn't how we did communion at my old church.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe they let that person lead a life group.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: We need more activities.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: We need less activities.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about this too much.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: We don't talk about this enough.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: The church is not a day spa that caters to the wants and the preferences of ourselves.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: The church is a gathering of humans, by the way, that just want to know and encounter God.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: We gather together to encourage each other and then leave this physical place to tell about Jesus.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 10 is about telling.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now you might say, my whole life is a testimony, the way I live.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's great.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's perfect.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually exactly where Christ's followers are instructed to start.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew 5.16 says, let your light shine for all to see, for all men.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: So when they see your good deeds, when they see the way you live, they will glorify God.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: They'll know Jesus because of the way that you live.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And 1 Peter 3.15 says, always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you why you have the hope you have today.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Prepared, not on the spot.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Be prepared now for people to ask you questions.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: These two areas of being a witness are actually easy for me.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: I find it easy to be a good person, to be kind, and to let my light shine as I go about my regular life.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I do have people willingly ask me what's different about me.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they start the conversation.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm prepared to say that it's because of Jesus.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: But telling, the enemy wants us to be afraid of telling.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because he knows the word.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the word says that faith comes by hearing the good news about Jesus.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Saul was willing to kill to preserve tradition.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Paul was willing to die for the sake of telling people about Jesus.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's a famous magician named Penn Gillette, and he calls himself beyond atheist.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think he actually even has a book.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: But he was approached after one of his shows by a fan who is a Christian, and the man very respectfully shared the gospel with Penn.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And after this encounter, Penn made a video where he says that anyone who claims to be a Christian, they have to be out telling people all the time, everywhere, the truth about Jesus.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a direct quote.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: He says, How much do you have to hate someone to believe there is eternal life and not tell them?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: So let's ask us this from a beyond atheist.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't even believe any of this, but he's saying, if you call yourself a Christian, how badly must you hate someone to believe what you say you believe and not tell them?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we ask ourselves, who do I hate so much that I believe this, but I'm not going to tell them?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's scariest for me with my family, and it's scariest for me with people who say they are religious or spiritual or they say they know God, but I know that I need to tell them that Jesus is the only way, the truth, and the life, and that no one can come to the Father except through him.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Do they know that?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Have they heard that?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And how can they hear about him unless they believe in him?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, wait, start over just the Bible verse part.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, embolden us to tell.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, increase our faith.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let us feel the urgency to tell that there is life in Jesus.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, go before us, prepare the hearts of the people that will encounter, prepare their hearts to hear and believe.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: We give everyone and everything to you in Jesus' name.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.