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Good evening. Thank you so much for coming to Purits Baptist Church. We're going to take our seats and go to our first song 429 for the evening. In our hymnals 429 Hark the Herald Angels Sing 429. They're on the first. Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Glory to the newborn King. Peace on earth and mercy mild. God and sinners reconciled. Joyful all ye nations rise. Join the triumph of the skies. With angelic hosts proclaim. Christ is born in Bethlehem. Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Glory to the newborn King. Christ by highest heaven adored. Christ the everlasting Lord. Late in time behold Him come. Offspring of a virgin's womb. Veiled in flesh the God at sea. Hail the incarnate deity. Pleased as men with men to dwell. Jesus our Emmanuel. Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Glory to the newborn King. Hail the Hamborn Prince of Peace. Hail the Son of Righteousness. Light and life to all ye brings. Christ with healing in His wings. Mild He lays His glory by. Born that man no more may die. Born to raise the sons of earth. Born to give them second birth. Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Glory to the newborn King. Come desire of nations come. Fix in us thy humble home. Rise the woman's conquering seed. Bruise in us the serpent's head. Adam's likeness now he face. Stamp thine image in its place. Second Adam from above. Re-instate us in thy love. Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Glory to the newborn King. Good singing. Brother Nick would you pray for us this evening please? Amen. Just flip back to page 425. 425. No room in the inn. 425. No room in the inn there on the first. No beautiful chamber. No soft cradle bed. No place but a manger. Nowhere for his head. No praises of gladness. No thought of their sin. No glory but sadness. No room in the inn. No room, no room for Jesus. Oh give him welcome free. Lest you should hear at heaven's gate. There is no room for thee. No sweet consecration. No seeking his part. No humiliation. No place in the heart. No thought of the Savior. No sorrow for sin. No prayer for his favor. No room in the inn. No room, no room for Jesus. Oh give him welcome free. Lest you should hear at heaven's gate. There is no room for thee. No one to receive him. No welcome while here. No balm to relieve him. No staff but a spear. No seeking his treasure. No weeping for sin. No doing his plaster. No room in the inn. No room, no room for Jesus. Oh give him welcome free. Lest you should hear at heaven's gate. There is no room for thee. Very good singing. If you need a bulletin I think we still have some on this back cabinet for the James can get you one. On the front we have Luke 2 verse 11 and on the inside we have our service and soul winning times as well as our church stats. I'm gonna get account for any soul winning that needs to be reported for the last few days. Anything from Monday Tuesday or Wednesday outside okay. I think we had you said you had two that's right all right two for today so good good work on the soul winning. Keep that up. I've looked and we've already beaten every yearly record we've had for salvation so far but we want to finish strong all right so continue to finish strong and it's a really great work. It takes a lot of effort to get that many people saved. 681 so far year to date and so continue to work on your soul winning. On the right we have the list of our expecting ladies. Continue to pray for the Darnells. Also we have our guest preaching brother Chris Segura is going to come out at the beginning of the year next year January 2nd he'll be preaching for us and then brother Banek he just can't get enough of you he's coming back down here and then preach on the 9th and then brother Ben Naim is going to be here January 23rd and so January's packed a lot of good guest preachers and make sure that you're thanking them and showing up and making sure that they feel warm and welcome here. It's always warm in Houston right so it's a great thing about being here during Christmas time huh and then also our prayer request we have brother Edward Guimino and the Ayer family and Hernandez continue to pray for both of their health. Also we're doing a candlelight service this evening so immediately following the preaching I'm gonna have a couple guys help me pass out candles to everyone and they look like this all right so parent parental discretion but all your children are welcome to have one we are going to light them with real fire okay so just FYI and then after I have a few guys help me hand those out I'll have you come back up here we'll start the song we'll turn out the lights actually and I'll light mine I'll light you guys and I'll have you go up and down the aisles and just get everybody on the edges of the rows and then you on the edges need to be responsible for the rest of your row so just help the rest of your row light their candles and we'll sing silent night holy night to finish the service immediately following we also have a cookie bake-off competition all right and so we've got cookies in there there is a poster I put on the wall above the coffee station that is going to explain the voting all right so we're going to be voting on the best tasting the best decorated and the most creative cookies tonight and you're going to get three beads a green a red and like a clear white one and so you have to follow the instructions on the poster all right it'll tell you which one to vote but we'll have a cup out and we'll have you put your name on the cup and then uh we'll go ahead and vote for the best cookie so before we get started we'll make sure to get all the cups set up and then we'll give everybody beads and then you can go through the line get some cookies and vote and there'll be a prize for each one of those winners now here's the thing technically speaking there's nothing stopping any cookie from winning multiple of the competitions so just fyi someone could win at all but you know it could be evenly dispersed as well so you just make sure you vote the right way you know and there's no mail-in voting later or anything like that no no weird stuff okay it's all going to be done tonight and uh everything like that but um thanks so much for everybody coming and participating uh in our services and we'll wish you merry christmas let's go to our next song just click the page one more time to the back 424 oh come all you faithful oh come all you faithful 424 there on the first oh come all ye faithful joyful and triumphant oh come ye oh come ye to bev come and behold him born the king of angels oh come let us adore him oh come let us adore him oh come let us adore him christ the lord sing choirs of angels sing an exaltation oh sing all ye bright o's of heaven above glory to god oh glory in the highest oh come let us adore him oh come let us adore him oh come let us adore him christ the lord yay lord we greet thee for this happy morning jesus to thee be all glory give word of the father now in flesh appearing oh come let us adore him oh come let us adore him oh come let us adore him christ the lord very good singing at this time we'll turn our bibles acts chapter 26 brother brandon's going to read for us acts 26 we'll read the entire passage we'll pass the offering plate acts 26 all along as brother brand is going to read the entire chapter one all right we're there in acts chapter number six and the bible says then agrippa said unto paul thou art permitted to speak for thyself then paul stretched forth the hand and answered for himself i think myself happy king agrippa because i shall answer for myself this day before the touching all the things where of i'm accused of the jews especially because i know that you could be an expert in all customs and questions and are among the jews wherefore i beseech thee to be hear me patiently my manner of life from my youth which was at the first among mine own nation at jerusalem known all the jews which knew me from the beginning if they would testify that after the most greatest sect of our religion i lived a pharisee and now i stand and judge for the hope of the promise made of god unto our fathers unto whom promise of 12 tribes and saintly is serving god day and night hope to come for which god hopes sake king agrippa i am accused of the jews why should it be though a thing incredible with incredible with you that god should raise the dead i barely thought but with myself that i ought to do many things contrary to the name of jesus of nazareth which thing i also did in jerusalem and many of the saints did i shut up in prison having received authority from the chief priest and when they were put to death i gave my voice against them and i punished them often every sin of god and compelled them to blaspheme and being exceedingly mad against them i persecuted them even unto strange cities whereupon as i went to damascus with authority and commission from the chief priest at midday oh king i saw in the way a light from heaven above and the brightness of the sun shining round about me and then went which journeyed with me and we were all fallen to the earth and i heard a voice speaking unto me saying in the hebrew tongue saw saw why persecutest thou me it is hard for thee to kick against the prick and i said who art thou lord and he said i am jesus who thou persecuted but rise and stand up upon thy feet for i have appeared unto thee for this purpose to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou has seen and of those things in which i will appear unto thee delivering thee from the people and from the gentiles unto whom now i send thee to open their eyes and to turn them from the darkness of light and from the power of satan unto god that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me whereupon oh king of gripper i was not disobedient to the heavenly vision but showed first unto them damascus at a jerusalem and throughout all the coasts of judia and the intergentiles they should repent and turn to god and do works meet for repentance for these cause the jews caught me in the temple and we were about to kill me having therefore obtained the help of god i continue unto this day witnessing both the small and great saying none other things and those which the prophets and moses did say should come the christ should suffer and that he should be the first and should rise from the dead and should show light unto the people and to the gentiles and as he thus spake for himself festa said with a loud voice paul thou art beside thyself much learning doth make thee mad but he said i am not mad most noble festus but speak forth the words of truth and soberness but the king knoweth the things before whom also i speak freely for i'm persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him for this thing was not done in a corner king agrippa believeth thou the prophet i know that thou believeth then agrippa said unto paul almost thou persuadest me to be a christian and paul said i would god that not only thou but also all you that hear all that hear me this day were both almost and all together such as i am except these bonds and when he had thus spoken the king rose up and governed and were nice and they that sat them and when they were gone aside they talked between themselves saying this man does nothing worthy of death of bonds instead of grip unto festus this man might have been set at liberty if he had not appealed untruthful amen so we're here in acts chapter 26 we've been going through the book of acts and we're kind of getting closer to the end and paul has been enthralled in all kinds of crazy litigation and just being in bonds and and having gone through a lot of different situations and kind of give you a quick recap again paul was uh taken into custody by the romans uh to preserve him from the jews who were trying to kill him uh they tried to figure out what's going on but eventually they sent him unto uh felix felix ends up not really know what to do with them holds him for about two years then festus comes into his room uh festus ends up trying to do a jews the service and tries to get him released back to the jews so they can kill him but paul appeals to caesar and while festus is there you know in the rule agrippa shows up and agrippa apparently has either more authority or is this kind of in a higher level he's the king and he comes in he's just they're talking and he brings up paul and he's like i want to hear what's going on about this guy and so we kind of are here in the scenario where agrippa is talking with paul specifically about his situation and paul gets an opportunity to kind of just lay out his case explain why he's in the position he's in and try to talk to king agrippa and you know one thing that's really interesting about this story is the fact that god you know is allowing paul to preach the gospel to some of the most powerful people on the planet at this time i mean king agrippa is a high-ranking officer official in the roman empire at this time and it's not just agrippa it's all the other men that are with him you know his guards and deputies and officers just all the people that are basically uh high ups in the government paul gets this opportunity to preach the whole gospel to these people so we kind of look at this story as being a negative thing but it's also kind of a great honor to have the opportunity to preach to these type of people and albeit it's while he's arrested and you know basically being accused of of crimes and stuff like that nonetheless he still gets the opportunity to do it and so it starts out here in verse one it says then agrippa said unto paul thou art permitted to speak for thyself then paul stretched forth the hand and answered for himself i think myself happy king agrippa because i shall answer for myself this day before thee touching all things where i am accused of the jews especially because i know thee to be an expert in all customs and questions which are among the jews wherefore i beseech thee to hear me patiently so the apostle paul says thank you he's glad that he gets this opportunity to basically explain his situation defend himself and he's asking agrippa to basically give him a little bit of time here he's going to lay out the whole scenario he's going to kind of go into a full course of action here he doesn't want to just get interrupted or anything like that he wants to be able to kind of preach the full gospel as it were right and explain his whole life circumstances as to why he's in the situation he's in and in fact he doesn't just start uh you know at a random point in time he starts at the beginning of his life look what it says in verse number four my manner of life from my youth which was at the first among my own nation at jerusalem know all the jews which knew me from the beginning if they would testify that after the most straightest sec of our religion i lived a pharisee so paul starts out by saying look i grew up a pharisee i grew up being with the jews i was part of their religion in fact i was part of the straightest sect now the word straight there means narrow it's a it's a synonym with the word narrow you'd find this in matthew chapter 7 verse number 14 which says straight is the gate and narrow is the late is the way is the way which leads into life and few there be that find it the modern versions change that word narrow to difficult or they flip-flop and they'll say it's difficult to go to heaven yet the bible makes it clear that it's actually very easy to go to heaven it's just faith in jesus christ and that's a perversion that's a corruption of the scriptures but the word straight simply means narrow meaning the the apostle paul is trying to explain of a very religious nation the jews are known as being very religious okay as being ones that worship god and they're very zealous for the law and for god and they have the temple and everything like that they're not just heathen they're not like atheists or agnostic they're a religious group he's saying not only was i from a religious nation i was in the most narrow the most specific group of the most religious of the religious i mean he's basically saying like i am someone that really cared about religion really cared about the law of god really cared about the scriptures you know i was in the most you know elite group as it were of religious people and he's saying these people know if they would just open their mouth and not lie about it they could testify i was a pharisee verse 6 and now i stand in them and judged for the hope of the promise made of god unto our fathers under which promise our 12 tribes instantly serving god day and night hope to come for which hopes sake king of grippa i am accused of the jews so then he makes it clear i was you know a pharisee and i'm after the law and i'm after the prophets and the prophets have a continual message of hope there's this coming messiah there's this coming uh savior and he's like that's what we're all hoping for that's what we're all looking for and it's like the thing that i've been hoping for my whole life has happened and that's the reason why i'm standing here before you now and he also makes mention of a couple things here that are interesting he says unto which promise our 12 tribes instantly serving god day and night now the word instantly is just meaning like immediately or constantly in this in this situation now if he's saying that they're constantly or instantly serving god day and night that tells me that this point in time the sacrifices had not ceased okay basically the jews were still performing their version of what they think is the right religion they're still offering the sacrifices they still have the temple so that somewhat dates this portion of scripture here because we know from secular history that around 70 a.d titus a roman emperor came in and destroyed all of jerusalem and he caused the the sacrifices and everything to cease and that's kind of what's alluded to uh in lots of places in the gospels jesus christ said that one stone would not be left upon another and he talked about how jerusalem was going to be compassed about with armies and that you know essentially it was going to all be destroyed and there was going to be a desecration of the temple these things would be a punishment for rejecting the lord jesus christ well it would make no sense number one if a bunch of jews came from jerusalem where they were in the temple before if it had been destroyed and here that they're saying that they instantly are serving god meaning this is before 70 a.d so we can kind of get an idea of some idea of when this is happening we can have some limiter some boundaries as to when this was happening okay now it says in verse 8 why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that god should raise the dead now he's bringing up the resurrection and again that's the hope that they were looking for the difference between a Pharisee and a Sadducee is a lot but one of the most specific doctrines is the doctrine of the resurrection because the Pharisees believe in the resurrection and they believe resurrections are possible whereas the Sadducees they deny the resurrection they don't believe in a resurrection and so he's saying you know you he's kind of talking to a group he's like you believe in resurrections why because we see that in scripture even if you go into the old testament we see people risen from the dead coming back to life we see that was the through the book of hebrews through the lens of hebrews we realized that even abraham himself believed that because he thought that if he killed his son isaac god would raise him again from the dead he didn't know exactly how it was going to work but that was the only reason he was willing to kill his son is because he believed god was going to rise him again he wasn't just you know some uh crazy lunatic or something he had faith in the lord and he believed that even if he killed his own son god would raise him back to life as a figure of jesus christ so that he would have him now again if you knew for a fact that if you killed your son according to god's commandment god was going to bring him back to life that would make it a lot easier to do it wouldn't it i mean of course you know sacrificing your own child has just got to be unimaginable it's probably the most difficult task you could be tasked with but if you had full confidence and faith the lord is going to bring him back to life then it would be like okay well you know i'll do it you know it's not fun i don't want to do that but i'll get to have him back soon or whatever the situation is and you know when you go through the scriptures you can see the resurrection all throughout you can see prophets like elijah and elijah they're performing miracles at times they're raising people from the dead signifying what jesus was going to do so really if you don't believe in the resurrection you just don't believe in the bible you know and and if he's talking to someone that believes the bible even a little bit he's like of course you believe in the resurrection i mean is it really crazy for me to believe in the resurrection if you believe in the resurrection you know so just be like talking about any miracle of the bible and saying is it really impossible to believe god could flood the whole earth with you know or flood the whole earth you know of course we believe that he already did that with noah so of course he could do it again if you wanted now with the rainbow we believe he wouldn't but we see god performing all kinds of miracles throughout the old testament so he's just saying look obviously if you believe the old testament then you got to believe this could happen even today verse 9 i've really thought with myself that i ought to do many things contrary to the name of jesus of nazareth now he's going to talk about how he at first didn't really believe in jesus you know he was very against this doctrine and you know it's kind of crazy is if you think about it you know about the resurrection itself he's saying how is it hard for god to raise someone from the dead you know and if you think about it we believe that god created everything out of nothing right and the first man was created out of dust and he wasn't even alive if you're just trying to think about it logically what do you think it'd be easier to bring someone to life out of just pure dust or to take someone that was already alive and intact that's just dead and bring him back like wouldn't that be easier and you know just kind of a realistic sense or something like that so it's like why is it so hard to believe god could raise someone from the dead if you believe the whole world exists by the spoken words of god you know so it's just kind of like let's get some consistent logic here right if you believe god spoke the whole universe into existence through his word you know and he created every human being from dust how is it so hard to believe he could raise someone from the dead you know that would be really obvious really easy but the apostle paul himself did not initially believe in jesus christ he kind of rejected jesus christ and he did things contrary to the name of jesus of nazareth verse 10 which thing i also did in jerusalem and many of the saints did i shut up in prison having received authority from the chief priests and when they were put to death i gave my voice against them and i punished them off in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme and being exceedingly mad against them i persecuted them even under strange cities and this is some like pretty serious confession here by impossible and i guess you know one way you can look at this section of scripture is a little bit that paul's kind of getting he's reaping what he sows just think about it he was literally persecuting christians under the death imprisoning them and compelling them to blaspheme now what does that mean like he's literally either torturing them or threatening them by saying like i'm gonna kill you or put you in prison unless you blaspheme jesus and you know what what kind of a wicked heart do you have to have to try and pressure christians into blaspheming their savior through the threat of death violence or evil and you know what some people probably do some people probably you know through all that pressure through all that stress or whatever i mean whenever you torture someone they'll literally say anything that's why a confession under torture should never be accepted as legitimate because people will confess the things that they've never done that they don't believe in when they're in pain that's of course why you know evil and wicked governments and police departments will use that as a way to get people to confess to crimes you know they'll basically put them in a really pressured situation or try to confuse them or try to hurt them because they'll just say whatever they'll just say what do you want me to say where do you want me to sign you know what do you want me to do just make the pain stop and it's a very evil way to get a confession out of someone um you know it's kind of like say say uncle or say mercy or something you got someone you got their arm wrapped around or whatever you're pulling them they'll say whatever you want them to say okay when you got them in the right pressure point that's not a very legitimate thing and why would you want someone to believe something only when you're threatening them you know isn't that kind of weird i mean wouldn't it be weird if i said all right guys let's round up some people and let's put them in headlocks until they confess christ you know let's threaten them you know let's see how many more people can threaten or whatever isn't it a lot cooler when you walk up to people and they have complete free will and then they decide to believe in jesus christ that they grew up a catholic their whole life they grew up believing in works their whole life and you just show them in 15 minutes how it's just a free gift by faith and they're like wow i believe that they changed their mind isn't that sure the power of god's word rather than the threat of you know believe in my religion or we're cutting your head off that's the muslim way you know muslim gets converts as they threaten people and they try to coerce people and they try to you know say we're going to kill you if you don't believe in our you know religion or whatever that's not a legitimate way to spread the true faith of god's word okay and even the government does this you know they spread their versions of truth through coercion through threat through violence through all kinds of different things like that you know the truth you don't have to sell it it sells itself you know and that's why it doesn't make any sense to use these type of tactics against people but that's what paul was doing you know if paul really has the true religion in the world if he really has the faith giving you know of the religion that's right he's on the right track why is he having to kill all these people and put them in prison and compel them to blaspheme why can't he just get up and teach from the scriptures what he believes in convince them because he's off because he's wrong and you know what false religion can't just get up and explain what they believe and get people to come they have to use gimmicks or coercion tactics or threaten people or scare people or whatever their method is to try and garner interest in their religion whereas true religion should be free true religion should have no coercion true religion should have no threat of violence or evil against people but rather people should accept it from a place of free will in their heart now it says in verse 12 wherefore whereupon as i went to damascus with authority and commissioned from the chief priests at midday oh king i saw in the way of light from heaven above the brightness of the sun shining round about me and then which journeyed with me and when we were all fallen to the earth i heard a voice speaking unto me and saying in the hebrew tongue saul saul why persecute is thou me it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks so we have the apostle paul he's on his way to damascus he's been given authority to bind anybody that calls in the name of jesus christ we've already read this in previous places in scripture but as he's journeying this light comes out of nowhere and he says it's brighter than the sun that's bright because the sun is the brightest light you know there is really i mean you can't even look at the thing it's so bright and this light's even brighter and they just all fall down they're just like you know immediately falling down in the presence of jesus you know if if someone comes up to you like i saw jesus and i'm like well did you fall down and you couldn't see it's like no it's like you didn't see jesus you know it's like it's not a homeless bum sitting on a on a park bench or whatever you know it's not something that you dreamed up if you really saw jesus you wouldn't be able to see anymore because paul literally sees jesus and you know what happened to him he became literally blind physically blind from the experience of seeing jesus and you know what no one's seen god the father because if you saw god the father you'd be dead no one has ever seen god the father and told anybody about it okay in fact no one seen him period okay because the bible says no man has seen god at any time the only begotten son which is in the bosom of the father he hath declared him if you saw god the father you would just die melt or whatever i don't know it'd be like indiana jones or something okay they would just evaporate or be eviscerated by his brightness by his glory and when the apostle paul sees this jesus speaks unto him we know this is jesus and he calls him by name and and i like this phrase he says why persecute is thou me you know why i like this is because jesus takes persecution of his savior of his of his uh brethren personal you know paul had never met jesus up to this point okay let's make something clear he never talked to jesus in the flesh he never went around putting a kick me sign on jesus or anything like that you know he never gave him a noogie or anything no no he had never seen jesus ever you know that we know of maybe had seen him while he was in his ministry i don't know but they didn't really have a personal you know relationship or anything like that what was he doing he was persecuting christians and notice what jesus said that he was persecuting him why because jesus takes it personal when people are attacking his people okay and i like that about the lord jesus christ that he takes it personal verse 15 and he said who art thou lord and he said i am jesus whom thou persecuted so again he's taking it personal saying that you're persecuting me now when you persecute jesus things are going to go well for you okay notice the phrase he uses he says it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks now what is a prick besides you know joe biden okay no i'm just kidding a prick is a long stick that's a sharp point and and the prick uh would often be used in a lot of different contexts could be like a weapon a lot of times it's used for an animal though and the goal is you basically just kind of you would kind of prod or you'd poke an animal with the end of that prick and it would you know in the rear or something like that and it caused the animal to go so you know maybe you're plowing or maybe it's a chariot or whatever the situation is you're trying to drive that animal you're trying to get them to go in the direction you want you kind of prick that animal and that animal is like a goad it's going to kind of get that animal going in this direction now an animal a lot of times they have a lot thicker fur coat or hide or whatever so like they're less sensitive to this kind of a prick or whatever but like humans or whatever you hit them with a prick they probably start bleeding or get cut or something like that but you know animal hides in their rear i mean they can get hit pretty hard with sharp things and it doesn't hurt them as much as it would hurt a human but at least gets their butt in gear you know what i mean it'll really get them going in the direction that you want to get them going and so he's saying it'd be hard to kick against them imagine someone just had a whole bunch of sharp sticks with their points pointed right at you and you say i'm going to kick that that's not going to work very well i mean you're just going to kick your your leg off you're just going to kick it right into a sharp point and just stab your leg and jesus is saying look it's pretty hard to kick against the pricks buddy you know it doesn't really make any sense to persecute me you're really just going against the grain here and you're just going to end up injuring yourself he says in verse number 16 but rise and stand upon thy feet for i have appeared unto thee for this purpose make thee a minister and a witness both of the things which thou hast seen and of those things in the which i will appear unto thee delivering thee from the people and from the gentiles unto whom now i send thee so jesus says i want you to witness of this encounter of what you just saw us talking also i'm gonna in the future notice what he said in the end of verse 16 and of those things in the which i will appear unto thee telling him he's gonna future revelations future encounters the lord jesus christ and as we go through scripture we find out that the apostle paul had an abundance of revelations given to him from the lord jesus christ so the apostle paul learned a lot of things from jesus had a lot of special and close encounters with jesus christ another reason why probably in second corinthians later in the bible the apostle paul brings up a man that he knew that went to heaven and he's kind of like talking in a weird like third person or whatever i believe that's probably him you know it makes a lot of sense based on the context and everything that he's saying and the reason he's kind of talking in third person is the whole point of that section of scripture is he's trying not to talk like a fool he's like kind of he's kind of talking in a weird way about himself about all the things he did so he's not trying to brag he's kind of talking about in a weird way but it'd be kind of easy to brag if you've seen jesus multiple times wouldn't it i mean if you literally had an encounter with jesus christ and he's giving you personal revelations and personal wisdom i mean it'd be easy to walk around say like i've been to heaven me and jesus we're on you know close terms have you seen my favorites list he's number one you know just fyi we text we're texting buddies or whatever you know obviously someone could go around but the apostle paul said he's like if you do that you're kind of speaking like a fool you know there's not really uh a reason to do that and the person that even got the abundance of revelations is going to be persecuted by the devil and have thorns in the flesh you know so hey i get to be with jesus but then you get messengers of satan to buffet you then you get the thorns in the flesh and a lot of the persecution that comes with the abundance of revelation so it's a pro and a con to knowing who jesus is but the apostle paul's been called to be a special witness and minister not only to the jews but specifically to the gentiles because he said he's delivering them from the gentiles unto whom now i send thee now that's kind of an interesting thing to bring up because think about who he's talking to he's talking to king agrippa who is a gentile he's saying hey jesus came to me he told me to go to the gentiles here we are king agrippa let me tell you all about you know the lord jesus christ says what what are we doing when we talk to them verse 18 to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of satan unto god that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me now i have a red letter bible so it's really easy to me to understand this but this is jesus speaking and notice what jesus says jesus says that when you go and you're talking to an unsaved person the goal is to take them from darkness to light from the power of satan to god now that tells me something that the devil has power now keep your finger here and let's go to a couple places in scripture i want to compare this go to ephesians chapter number two ephesians chapter number two you know our adversary is not a chihuahua the bible says it's a roaring lion now when you think about a chihuahua you know what i think of all bark and no bite when i think of a roaring lion i think of all bark and bite yeah i mean this guy's got the greatest roar and the greatest bite i mean you really don't want to mess with a lion okay especially if you're unarmed and one of the most terrifying things that can happen is to be out in the safari out in the wilderness by yourself and there's a roaring lion because number one that thing can run faster than you that thing weighs a lot more than you it could just tear you into shreds instantly it could bite you and if you have no weapon i mean you're basically at the mercy of this lion okay and unfortunately that's what the unsaved are like when it comes to the devil they're basically out in the wilderness on their own unarmed and you know what the devil is a roaring lion going about seeking whom he may devour meaning that the devil can devour them at his will and in fact he does that to the unsaved on a regular basis ephesians chapter 2 even tells us verse 1 and you have the quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in time past you walked according the course of this world according to the prince of the power of the air the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience among whom also we all had our conversation in time past and lust of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath even as others the bible says when we were unsaved we were all under the influence of the devil's disobedience the spirit that was in us he's working through the unsaved and the bible says that we all had our conversation in time past meaning that we were all influenced by the devil in some way we were all sinners we were all disobedient we were all the children of wrath at some point in time and you know what that's why it's foolish to get a puffed up or arrogant attitude towards the unsaved as if you're so much better than them or you never went through the same problems or issues that they did look we were all unsaved at some point in our lives otherwise you wouldn't even need to get saved in order to need to be saved okay or at least in order to be saved you've had to had a point where you had to need to be saved right that's why you have to first explain to people they're sinners deserving of hell because if someone can't admit that they're a sinner how can they get saved you don't even need to be saved i mean if you've never sinned why do you need to be saved you don't that's why you have to first explain to people for all the sin and come short of the glory of god you know if you're not headed for you know i've asked people well do you think you deserve healthier sins and they'll say no well then i'm like well then why did jesus come did jesus need to die for your sins i mean if you're not headed for hell then what's the point you know the reason why jesus came is because you were headed for hell buddy because everybody was headed for hell and the only way to go to heaven was through the sacrifice of jesus christ okay so the devil has power the devil is a major influencer in this world in fact he's the main influencer in all of the children of this earth of the children of wrath and we have to be saved and rescued from the devil from the power of the devil from his influence go to second corinthians chapter number four now the devil he likes to do all of his work in the dark because he likes to use deceit and trickery and and the bible talks about him being you know a dark creature working in darkness and there's no light in him there's no truth in him he's just full of lies the devil's never going to tell anybody the truth because he doesn't have any truth to give the same way the devil doesn't have any light to give he's full of darkness so the only thing the devil is going to produce is darkness second corinthians chapter four pretty famous portion of scripture look at verse three but if our gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost and whom the god of this world have blinded the minds of them which believe not lest the light of the glorious gospel of christ who is the image of god should shine unto them now notice a couple things the bible describes the devil as the god of this world now what does that mean the god of this world it means ruler okay i'll submit you that the word god is synonymous with the word ruler okay so who is in charge of this earth the devil you know it's not joe biden okay it's not his handlers the devil okay it's not justin trudeau it's not kim jong-un or ill or whatever he is he's ill in the head you know it doesn't matter it's not zhi or whatever he is in china it's not any of these people i don't know what they are it doesn't matter the one that's really pulling all the strings of the devil and all these people are just as simple pawns and he's the god of this world and notice what he's doing he's blinding the minds of them which believe not the devil is out there trying to blind people he's trying to corrupt people he's using any and all tactics to just tear people down and destroy people and distract them and ruin them and get them to never believe in the gospel of jesus christ and you know some of his greatest minions are going to be false religion because you want to know the hardest people to pull out of that darkness are the people that are mormons the people that are muslims the people that are jova's witness the people that are into false religion the devil is just blinding their minds and blinding their eyes and hardening their hearts lest the light of the glorious gospel should shine unto them you know we're at literal war with the devil we go out to try and shine the glorious light of the gospel and to try and pull people from the power of satan you know what's the power of satan i don't know all the filth on the tv all the music and all the whore mongering and all the sin and all the drugs and all the alcohol and all of the violence and all just the lies and the deception and just the evil that's out there that's the power of the devil the devil is tricking people and lying to people and deceiving people and you know what the only hope that they have is the light of the glorious gospel of christ nothing else is going to pull them out of that you know people aren't going to just wake up on their own they're they're powerless and you know what the devil is a very powerful creature he has a lot of tools at his disposal he's a lot of minions he has a lot of ponds that he's using right now and you know what we as the church of god are their only hope we're the light and we don't want to hide our own light otherwise no one could get saved notice what the bible says in verse three but if our gospel be hid it is hidden to them that are lost meaning if we hide the gospel everyone's doomed everyone's damned to hell there's no other option there's no hope they'll never turn the light on by themselves they need someone to come and bring the gospel to them and when we go and bring the gospel what are we bringing verse five for we preach not ourselves but christ jesus the lord and ourselves your servants for jesus sake so notice we don't go out and preach anything about us we go and preach about him go preach about the lord jesus verse six for god who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of god in the face of jesus christ we have this treasure in earth and vessels the excellency of the power may be of god and not of us so the bible teaches that we go out and we preach the gospel that's how people get saved and god is hidden this treasure in you the light of jesus christ is in your heart and you have the opportunity to share that and the only way that light can come out is through your mouth not gonna come out through your ears you're not gonna start glowing okay your eyes aren't gonna glow if your eyes and ears are glowing go to the doctor okay you know how you get the light to people you have to open your mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel and that's how that light comes and it shines on people and it can get them saved and they can come out of that darkness and get saved and that's what the that's what the whole point is of paul's ministry to go and shine that light go back if you would to acts 26 it says in verse number 19 whereupon oh king of gripper i was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision it showed first unto them of damascus and at jerusalem and throughout all the coasts of judaea and then to the gentiles they should repent and turn to god and do works meet for repentance so the apostle paul says look i saw all this i can't just walk away i can't just pretend like that never happened i didn't disobey this heavenly vision that i got from the lord jesus christ i did exactly what he told me to do and so what did paul do he went out into the gentiles he preached the gospel he's getting people saved and when he's talking to the gentiles what does he tell him to repent and turn to god now what are they repenting of what are the gentiles repenting of well here's the thing the gentiles none of them are christian none of them are saved none of them are serving the lord jesus christ they're either just some kind of agnostic or the vast majority are kind of pagan they have idols they basically worship all kinds of unknown gods or whatever false gods the reason why i say agnostic because in acts chapter number 17 they have an altar to the unknown god so it's like they don't even know what's going on they know not what they worship they're just confused you know they're superstitious that's what the apostle paul accuses them of is being superstitious and when he's going out there and preaching what is he telling them they have to change their mind repent and they have to turn to god they have to believe on the lord jesus christ in order to be saved and not only is he teaching them how to get saved but then he's going beyond that and saying you should do works meet for repentance now i like this phrase and the reason why i like this phrase is because i believe it helps us understand what repentance is not okay repentance is not works and we can prove that from this verse alone let's just slow down and think about it repent and turn to god okay and then he says in the next breath and do something okay if repentance is works in that first part then he doesn't need to say and do works because it was already implied by that repentance okay so the repentance then has to be something completely different than the works also he says do works meet for repentance now what does meat mean i'm thinking like steak and brisket or whatever but meat here means suitable appropriate fit okay so he's saying do works that are suitable appropriate or fit or the repentance that you just had so if i just was serving a false god and a false religion and all of a sudden i believe in jesus wouldn't i then also maybe change my life on top of that that would be appropriate to the repentance that i just had if i just claimed to change my entire viewpoint in religion wouldn't it make sense to then have works in relation to the repentance i just had it's kind of like you go knock on someone's door and they were catholic when you knocked you get them saved and now they believe in jesus it's like now you need to go to a baptist church you need to do some works meat for repentance if you just became a christian if you just believed in jesus now you need to go to a christian church because you just repented of that catholic wickedness it doesn't make any sense to repent and then go back to the catholic church and then still not do anything for god or the faith that you actually believe it you know or if you're a muslim you don't go back to the mosque now you go to a christian church and you start serving the god of the bible right you don't go and worship the idols that you had back home you burn them you destroy them and smash them all the graven images of your false gods and then you start serving god okay so if he's telling them to do works meet for repentance that tells me their repentance is not the works it's separate isn't it now you can even prove this further go to jonah chapter three for a moment go to jonah in the old testament chapter number three we'll see another place in the bible where it defines turning from sin is works meaning their repentance here is also not turning from sin because we already proved their opinions is not works okay well let's prove something that is works and according to the bible work is turning from sin and you know what anybody that's sinful knows that stopping sinning is hard you know if you drink it's hard to quit drinking if you smoke it's hard to stop smoking you know you lie a lot it's hard to stop lying also you know if you whatever sin it is that you struggle with or you've been involved in or that you have made a pattern of in your life anybody knows it's hard to quit that it's not easy it's work okay now the bible tells us that jonah chapter three look at verse 10 and god saw their works that they turn from their evil way and god repented the evil that he said that he would do under them and he did not so when god sees someone cleaning up their life giving up sin what does god call that works okay and if that's works when we go to acts chapter 26 and we see to repent turn to god and do works meet for repentance that tells me that their repentance is also not turning from sin either i often think of works in the positive sense like going to church reading the bible helping people giving money to the poor you know what works is also the flip side of that not lying not stealing not you know blaspheming not doing any of those sins that you're doing before cleaning up your life think about what's happening in this chapter when it says uh in verse five so the people of ninova believed god and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even the least of them says in verse number six for word came into the king of ninova and he rose from his throne he laid his robe from him and covered him with sackcloth and satin ashes and he caused to be proclaimed and published throughout ninova by the decree of the king and his noble saying let neither man nor beast hurt nor flock taste anything let them not feed nor drink water but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto god yay let them turn every one from his evil way from the violence that is in their hands so notice he describes their turning what was their turning changing all their clothes getting in a sackcloth having a fast now anybody that's dieted knows that it's not easy it's work it hurts okay skipping meals hurts all right i've done it it's not fun you know i i tried to lose weight at one point in my life and all i could do when i was not eating was thinking about eating okay and it was work to try and like think about anything else you know it's hard work you know how about covering an animal in sackcloth that's work i mean this is you know i used to think about you you go up and down the street and you see little ladies with their little dog with like an outfit in their purse that wasn't the first time apparently they're putting their little dog in a you know sackcloth outfit here not eating you know crying mightily not doing any violence anymore this is not easy this is work they're doing a lot of works here and god saw that their works that they turn from their evil way okay so if we put the puzzle pieces together go back to acts chapter number 26 and we look at verse number 20 he says and do works meet for repentance what does that look like that looks like someone giving up their sin that looks like someone serving god but notice that the works are separate from repentance it's just what's appropriate suitable and the right response to their repentance so of course you know i believe that salvation is a free gift it's all by faith you can't lose it no matter how many works you do or do not have but when you get saved you should do them we're created under christ jesus unto good works so we're supposed to do good works we're supposed to do works you know meet for repentance and it's not appropriate it's not fit for a christian to not have works it's not fit it's not appropriate it's not suitable to sin and be wicked when you believe in jesus christ okay so can you do it and go to heaven yeah is it right no being backslidden is wrong it's wicked god's not pleased with that and when the apostle paul went out and preached he didn't just preach salvation alone he preached salvation and do the works and you know follow and good works you know setting up churches obviously when you're setting up churches and getting people plugged in you're not telling them to do nothing you're telling them to do a lot of work okay because church is a lot of work you know what it's suitable and it's appropriate for people who believe you know it's not appropriate for god's people just forsake church nope we need to do the works we need to have a church and we need the first works going out and preaching the gospel that's suitable that's appropriate or being a christian go to verse 21 or these causes the jews caught me in the temple and went about to kill me so why is it that the apostle paul's being like you know threatened with death because he believes the bible because he's preaching believe in jesus because he's telling people to serve god you know theological reasons okay verse 22 the bible says having therefore obtained help of god i continue unto this day witnessing both to small and great saying none other things than those which the prophets and moses did say should come the christ should suffer that he should be first that should rise from the dead and should show light unto the people and to the gentiles so the apostle paul is saying a couple things here first of all he says in verse 22 witnessing both the small and great now what does he mean by that he's not saying to you know pastor amenez and pastor thompson okay he's not talking about stature all right he's not talking to miss terry and brother samson okay he's talking about in in relevance to importance okay and he's saying i'm talking just you're common you're just poor person out in the ghetto and i'm talking to king agrippa the great and the apostle paul was given a special opportunity to preach not only to the small but also to the great to preach to the kings and to the princes and the nobles and the leaders and whatever also to the just made it handmaidens and the children and the young men and everybody and you know the apostle paul's not a respecter of persons he'll preach the gospel anybody will listen and you know what we should not only emphasize one group of people we should try to preach to both and i'll be honest with you there are people that will emphasize both groups there's some churches they only want to preach to the great you know they only want the rich and the well-groomed and the noble they want the mayor and the chief of police and you know they only want those people to come to to their church and talk to them and try to give them the gospel then there's the opposite though there's some people they say well i only want you know the ghetto and the poor and the whatever we should want both you know we should try to preach the gospel we shouldn't despise the great we shouldn't despise the poor we should try to give the gospel to both and basically show the both the opportunity to get the gospel now obviously when we go soul winning we may go first to the poor first to the small just because they're more receptive but you know we don't want to only go to them and sometimes we as a church will go to a nicer neighborhood we're not just going to be like oh this is too nice walk away no no we'll knock on their doors too and you know we'll go through and we'll give the gospel and you know what no matter what happens as long as you're trying and going out preaching the gospel you're doing the work of god okay we can only control so much you know don't get this attitude of like well i didn't do anything because you know i didn't get 18 people saved in the last five minutes or whatever well are you going and knocking on doors you try and share the gospel you know and sometimes we don't even have the right idea getting the right person saved maybe in a middle class or an upper class neighborhood you could maybe get that person actually come to church and be a soul winner and then they could get people saved and you could have even a greater impact by having that one person saved then you know a handful of people that get saved that aren't going to do anything for god so you know sometimes we look at it with human reasoning or human logic and it's not always the appropriate way to look at it you know the apostle paul wouldn't that have been a great person to get saved i mean think about all the works he got i mean ananias got the greatest person saved ever and think about this you know we should almost have this idea i don't want to be the greatest person ever i want to get the greatest person ever saved like i want to go and find the person that's going to end up doing the greatest works for god why not you know wouldn't that be a cool testimony you know and some sometimes people get mad about the fact that they can't be a preacher or you know ladies shouldn't be the pastor or whatever but why don't you get someone saved that's going to be a pastor or going to be a preacher or going to be the next great person or raise a child that's going to be a pastor you know raise a timothy raise a titus or just be a companion to those people you know priscilla and akila they weren't necessarily of note worthy you know opinion in the flesh you know the apostle paul they were someone really special and they laid down their life for him and they were basically uh you know holding him up and they were basically something he could lean on and and use and rely on and you know never underestimate your impact of the cause of christ and the things that you can do for the lord jesus christ and you know what it's our goal to go out and to preach you know what the bible says in verse 22 he said saying none other things than those which the prophets and moses did say should come paul didn't preach anything but the bible did paul try to get people saved outside of the scriptures the answer is no he only preached the bible and if the bible won't compel them see ya you know they have moses and the prophets let them hear him you know if you're not going to be convinced by that my dog and pony show isn't going to do it okay and he says that christ should suffer well keep your finger go to luke chapter two for a second go to luke chapter two let's tie this into christmas all right you know jesus he obviously died suffering we we think about that but you know what he just started suffering just right at the beginning you know we already sang the song no room in the end think about this you have the the lord jesus christ the word of god that created everything entering in his own creation and nobody can can give him a room i mean nobody wants him nobody has a place for the lord jesus christ for god in the flesh a precious little baby being born of the virgin mary i mean no one wants him just instantly coming into this world just to kind of illustrate and to show the symbolism of the fact that the world is rejecting the messiah is rejecting the word of god is rejecting the word is not seeking after the lord the world is in darkness and they don't want that light luke chapter two look at verse seven and she brought for their firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the end you know i hope the people that were in that end got saved but can you imagine you know how stupid they would feel later in life they're like yeah we were the ones that rejected jesus you know like he came and knocked on her door and you're like major bro you know or whatever like that would that would feel kind of stupid like to be the people that just rejected the messiah the lord jesus christ but you know while we think about that you know jesus said if you do it on the least of these my breath and you do it unto me and when the apostle paul was persecuting people jesus took it personally you know someone really needed your help and it was a born again child of god do you look at them as if jesus needed that help because that would be a great way to look at it and maybe you'd be a little bit more willing to help them and and to do good on them and but you have to realize that the world's not going to accept jesus you know it's us the world thinks that everything about jesus is stupid they think that it's foolish go back and i want to read a few more verses here and then we're going to turn to another place go to acts 26 and look at verse 21 for these causes i'm sorry uh i think i want to read verse uh 24 as he thus spake for himself festus said with a loud voice paul thou art beside thyself much learning does make thee mad but he said i'm not mad most noble vestus but speak forth the words of truth and soberness now the word mad we often think of it as being angry right if someone said i'm mad you would be like why are you so upset but in this context the word mad means crazy okay there's a character in alice in wonderland called the mad hatter and it's not that he's angry all the time it's the fact that the guy is crazy okay he's like insane or whatever and and basically what festus is doing is he's falsely accusing paul of just being crazy or a psycho or weird or something like that but according to the bible you know what he's preaching is the truth and he's preaching the truth and he even makes a stand here and he says very clearly but speak forth the words of truth and soberness so he's saying everything i'm saying makes sense it's exactly what the bible says and you know what the world is not going to accept the bible go to first corinthians chapter number two first corinthians chapter number two for a moment and and look what the bible says in first corinthians chapter number two in verse number one and i brethren when i came to you came not with excellency of speech or wisdom declaring on you the testimony of god for i determined not to know anything among you save jesus christ and am crucified so the bible makes it clear that jesus wasn't going around preaching some special wisdom or knowledge he was just simply preaching the gospel just preaching that christ died on the cross and you know when we go to the door and knock on the door and try to get someone saved we're not supposed to go and preach some uh scientific evidence or some great wisdom or some great you know let me tell you about all the archaeology that i've discovered you know that proves about jesus let me talk about the shroud of jesus you know the shroud of whatever you know where they found his face you know and through this you know we're not going to go through all this scientific discovery and all this extra information no what we're doing is we're just opening up the scriptures john 3 16 you know the the most famous verse in the bible for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him did not perish but have everlasting life you know but the thing is that the world's going to mock that the world's going to make fun of the bible look what it says on the just flip the page or just look at the latter portion of this chapter he says in verse 13 which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teaches but the holy ghost teaches comparing spiritual with spiritual but the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of god for their foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned according to the bible when you preach the word of god the unsaved are going to think that it's foolish now foolish is a you know a word we don't use as often what we use is the word idiot or stupid or dumb or something like that the bible is saying that to an unsaved person that's what the bible is going to seem like that's why it's also kind of silly to try and preach to someone anything in the bible except for the gospel you know you try to get them saved first try to get the holy ghost inside of them first because the atheist is going to mock the bible the atheist is going to scoff at the word of god you know false religion is going to say oh you believe in resurrection oh you believe that god created the world you know how do you believe in a trinity how could three persons be one god you know they're just basically going to mock and scoff at all the things that the word of god teaches very clearly because they're simply just not even saved and there's a lot of places in scripture that kind of bring this concept up look at chapter number four verse 10 we are fools for christ's sake but year wise in christ so the apostle paul when he's talking about himself he said that we're fools in christ so according to the bible you know is the world going to ever respect christians the answer is no and they're certainly not going to respect their leaders they're going to look at all the pastors and the spiritual leaders as being idiots fools not understanding the word of god you know to the world you know wisdom is thinking that a woman who you know basically cuts off a male body part and attaches to herself is now a man and i'm like that's stupid you know or they think a dude you know mutilating his body his private parts is now a woman no that's stupid that's foolish you know and they're like well you're just uneducated you know you don't understand gender theory no no i understand that a man's man and woman's woman you know and i understand that uh only women get pregnant there's not like pregnant people you know no no there's just women women get pregnant men have never gotten pregnant if you tell me that men can get pregnant i realize that you're stupid and you know when we get up and we say that only women get pregnant they're like oh you're stupid and misogynistic you know you you subscribe to the patriarchy you know oh the fact that men are stronger than women shocked you know oh man i wonder why you know women and men's sports have been different for centuries it's not like look if there was a woman that was better than men at sports they would have been competing a long time ago they never do you know what happens if some stupid faggot goes and tries to get into some woman's sports and he's not even athletic at all to try and beat up on women when really a man that's abusing women should get beat up you know that disgusting little queer little sissy boy should be the one that you know is actually getting pounded in the ground you know these little faggots or whatever they go into like the ufc and they're like literally crushing women's skulls and like beating up on women and doing that's stupid that's foolish you know the fact that we have a bunch of women cops running around here in our society that's stupid you know a big criminal a big man burly man he's not intimidated by some little girl coming around being like sir will you please follow the law it's like no why would we ever think that we're gonna the the people that are gonna enforce the law are some little woman you know driving around you know what they have no ability to enforce the things that they say except without a gun so it actually makes it more dangerous for every single person for the woman for the the person that's breaking the law i mean everything that the world does is stupid the world says that the whole universe is created of nothing how is that science is science false i saw called my friend so when you get the light when you walk into the light you can see everything and it's just obvious but the people that are in the dark they're trying to describe things to you that they've never seen and it just makes no sense but you know what when you describe to someone something that you've seen that they've never seen it just doesn't make any sense to them it's foolishness under them you know they can't comprehend it you have to bring them in the light first to then point out all the things that you're seeing very clearly so you know the goal should be to get people in the light not to try and describe things in the light while they stay in darkness it'll never make sense to them they can never understand it it'd be like someone coming from heaven and describing to us what heaven looks like we just wouldn't be able to figure it out it wouldn't make sense to us it would seem nonsensical possibly we wouldn't you know be able to figure these things out and so that's why it's silly to try and explain the bible to someone that's not saved we preach christ and him crucified that's the whole goal go back to act chapter 26 we'll kind of finish this real quickly verse 26 the bible says for the king knoweth of these things before whom also i speak freely brian persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him this thing was not done in a corner king agrippa believeth thou the prophets i know that thou believeth then agrippa said unto paul almost thou persuadest me to be a christian so the apostle paul says look everything that i've done and everything about me is not something that's kind of hidden it wasn't done in a corner of the world meaning it was done in the whole world you know and when the apostle paul's going out and preaching the gospel to different gentile areas they say that this is the guy that's come that's turning the world upside down you know they're not saying like who's paul you know what's going on here they're like this is the guy that's literally flipped society up on his head everything's completely shifted and changed and just everything's going everybody knows what's going on and here's the thing when you have true christianity when you're really serving god everyone's going to know who you are people people are going to figure out who you are and you know what it's crazy when you think about a church like ours who's who runs you know 40 50 on a on a service time you know we're not a big church there's literally 8 million people in the houston area right just a small little crowd a small little group of people just minding your own business yet sometimes you'll preach a sermon and the whole world freaks out about it and everybody knows who you are and everybody knows where what you're doing and and you know even our church in the dow's fourth area we're not running that many people you know 150 200 people something like that but just a small little church i mean when you think about the size of the churches in this area Joel Osteen's running like 30,000 people you know some of these churches out here are running all but you know they don't ever seem to be attacked they don't understand like all these people just coming after them and getting all mad about every single thing that they say and all this you know animosity and all this heat and everybody's mad at them you know it's the impossible is just one person why are they so mad it's just one little person because he's making a big impact for christ and you know what people that are going to make a big impact for christ are going to be met with much resistance much evil people are going to know who they are you know it's christianity is not going to be done in a secret you know in a corner and so sometimes people be like oh everybody knows who you are everybody says that you're cold everybody says well all right he's like well of course everybody's going to know you know who the truth is it'd be weird if nobody knows who you are if nobody is ever hearing about it because think about it if the entire city of of houston just went completely black out lost all electricity but then some random part of the city just lights just flooded into the sky nobody knows where nobody pays attention to it though that's not going to happen everyone's going to pay attention to it and see the christian church is supposed to be this big beaming light in a world of no lights of course everybody's going to look at it and follow it and come near it and unfortunately you know what happens when it's really dark and there's a light on bugs oh yeah you leave the light on cockroaches and mosquitoes and flies and all kinds of critters and creatures are going to come at that light aren't they and you know what when you're a church and you're shining bright cockroaches and scorpions and everything else you can imagine the sun's going to come and be attracted to that light and so don't be shocked don't be surprised when bugs come and they try to put out your light they're attracted to that particular light let's finish this chapter then it says in verse number 29 and paul said i would to god that not only thou but also all that hear me this day were both almost and altogether such as i am except these bonds so paul says look you almost i almost persuaded you to be a christian well i wish everybody here was a christian except for being locked up you know i wish you were exactly like me and notice paul's not mincing words paul's not saying like well i don't care if you're a christian or not he's saying like no you need to be just like me it's like oh you have the right religion and everybody else is wrong yes yeah he's not afraid to be like you need to change your mind you need a christian also this though here's an example someone that didn't get saved right i mean we don't know if he got saved later in the future but at this moment in time he's saying he's not saved right he didn't really repent he's like i almost repented i almost got saved and i believe you know you can learn something from this paul didn't then say anything else he preached the word of god he preached the gospel he almost got saved but he didn't so that's all he can do and there's going to be a lot of people that you preach the gospel it sounds pretty good they're not going to change their mind at that moment you got to walk away you got to keep going you know our goal is just to share the light is to preach the gospel give them an opportunity if they're not going to accept it you move on to the next person you know but paul didn't try to do anything different he's going to just preach the scriptures preach christ and him crucified and just keep going and you know that's what he did his whole ministry went into a town preached christ and crucified some people accepted it some people rejected it move on to the next town move on to the next town just keep going keep going keep going you know our goal is not to force people to get saved our goal is just to get as many people to listen that will and some people will mock not everybody's going to accept it you know but the power is of god it's not of us it's not anything that makes us special we're just vessels to open up our mouth and to preach the gospel and it says in verse 31 and when they were gone aside they talked between themselves saying this man do with nothing worthy of death or of bonds then said a grip on Ephesus this man might have been set at liberty if he had not appealed unto caesar so you know after hearing his testimony they're not dummies they go and they're talking they're conferring back in the back room and they're just like what are we going to do this guy's done nothing wrong we have nothing against him in fact we should probably even just let him go but he appealed unto caesar so i guess we're going to have to go and allow him to go be appealing unto caesar and obviously god worked that out so paul could get a free trip to rome albeit a pretty rocky ship but and we'll learn that in the next few chapters but he gets a free ticket to rome and god works through the apostle paul to give the gospel a lot of great people so you know here's my thought in this chapter you know we just need to go and preach christ and him crucified and not worry worry about the chips that are going to fall you know and not be afraid that some people may reject us think about jesus jesus came into this world he came into his own and his own received him not right he came to be in the world and the world that had no room for him you know these people in jerusalem didn't want paul okay move on king of grippa and festas they don't want him all right to rome you know and and not to get discouraged when people reject us or don't like us or don't agree with the bible but to realize that that's part of you know our sufferings with christ christ was rejected we too will be rejected when we preach the gospel but you know what we keep moving on and we keep finding the people that do want to hear so that we can get as many people saved as possible let's close in prayer thank you heavenly father for our church thank you for this opportunity to be gathered together i thank you that we get to celebrate christmas in the next few days i pray that i will be reminded that as we celebrate christmas you know you came into this world and nobody wanted you you know you were in the main you sent your son and your son was in the manger you know they weren't interested in the god of the universe but we are interested in the god of the universe and and we want to think about how we too if we follow in christ's footsteps are going to be rejected of this world and there's not going to be room for us at the end but we're going to just keep moving on we're going to keep preaching christ and crucified and we'll be fools for your sake and in jesus name we pray amen for our last song 431 431 silent night holy night and as i as we turn there i'm going to have a couple guys help me just pass out we're going to pass these out to everybody real quick and i'm going to go over real quick again our cookie instructions also if you brought cookies who brought cookies for the competition i just i want to give everyone a cup real quick would y'all bring some okay if you brought cookies for the competition here pass that pen around write your name on the bottom of the cup and then write the name of your cookie on the side and we're just going to put them out did y'all have one or two how many three types okay there you go all right you got two make sure you just put your name on the bottom did anybody else have bring any cookies or anything there we go great you have to take the lid off the other one the end that yeah yeah all right you can pass that so as soon as we're done go and take your cup there's a pin that they're passing around so you can write on that cup all right go ahead and put your cup with the cookies and then basically what we do i'm gonna have beads they're going to be red green and white and there's a poster even in the hallway that explains which bead goes with which category as far as voting anybody of the age 10 or older gets to vote okay so if you're 10 or older you get to vote and we'll give you beads and you're going to vote for the best tasting the best decorated the most creative you can follow that chart or whatever and i'll give everybody like 30 minutes or something like that to taste and try them and then vote and then we'll collect all of those and then we'll vote here in a minute so they want hey brother there you go all right so we'll go ahead and turn out the lights and then i'll light y'all are you playing for us go ahead do she need some light so so there on the first silent night holy night all is calm all is bright round yon virgin mother and child holy infant so tender and mild sleep in heavenly peace silent night holy night shepherds quake at the sight glory stream from heaven afar far heavenly hosting hallelujah christ the savior is born christ the savior is born silent night holy night son of god lost your light radiant beams from thy only face face with the dawn of redeeming grace jesus lord at thy birth jesus lord at thy birth silent night holy night wondrous star live my life with the angels let us sing hallelujah to our king christ the savior is born christ the savior is born merry christmas bye you