JUL 31 2016 | Acts 14:1-7

Sea Change Church · "Acts 14:1-7" · Adam Stadtmiller · July 31, 2016
Acts 14:1-7
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

If we hear the words of Scripture and faith, you know, it becomes the very breath of God. Amen? It becomes the words of life. And just like God breathed into Adam, you're going to be breathed into by the Holy Spirit. Reading from Acts 14, 1 through 7. At Iconium, Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. And there they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed.

But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. Let me just take a second with that verse because there's three interesting aspects there. Is it up on the screen there? Okay, thank you. It says they refused to believe. This is a very interesting word in the original language. I think the King James says, but the unbelieving Jews. But this is a word that is very strong. It means they refused to believe.

They were unpersuadable. Nothing could convince them. They had hardened their hearts so much that nothing could persuade them. If you come to me to sell me something, I'll start as an unbeliever. But I might become a believer if it's really good. But these were those who refused to believe. They were so hard. And then that word for this says they poisoned their minds.

That's the word in the Greek that is the verb form of evil. It means evil. They eviled into the people there. And then it says their minds. Actually, that word is the word for soul. They made the people who were they tried to make the people their entire being, their minds, their hearts, their emotion, everything to be evil against the gospel.

So strong of a verse. Verse three. So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there speaking boldly for the Lord who confirmed the message by his grace or of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders. The people of the city were divided. Some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. There was a plot afoot among both Gentiles and Jews together with their leaders to mistreat them and stone them.

But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to their surrounding country where they continued to preach the gospel. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Right on. Well, thank you, Elliot. I appreciate you reading the word. Elliot is a Bible teacher. And if you would like to hear more of that, then come Sunday mornings.

You've got a Romans class starting next week. Fantabulous. Looking forward to that, my friend. So if you have your Bibles, you're going to open it up to Acts 14, 1 through 7. That kind of struck me as you read that. I love listening to it because it hits me up with some new thoughts. But there was a plot afoot. It feels like the enemy always has a plot afoot, right?

Whenever we get into God's work, the enemy is trying to do something to get us off. Well, hey, I want to talk about Paul because we have moved from the early church to later on. We're about 13 years in now, and the early church is now a solidified church in a lot of places. And Paul has begun his missionary journeys. And until the end of the year, we're going to be going through, continue to go through Acts.

We're going to be focusing now on the second part of the book, which is the missionary journeys of Paul. And then we'll finish up with him in Rome. And I have Rome. And I have a couple series, three-week series in between there. But that's what it's going to look like spiritually. Now, I want you to understand this about Paul. Paul's life was a missionary journey.

Paul's entire existence after he became a follower of Jesus, believed in his heart, confessed with his mouth. And that's what it means to follow Jesus and the mission and the death and resurrection of Jesus. That Paul's entire life became a missionary journey. And we're going to look at that real quickly. If you put the first slide up, Gabby. Gabby's in the back right now.

Devin is her husband, plays bass. You're not going to be able to see that at all. Okay. Absolutely. So, nope. Not your fault. Not your fault. We need to get a bigger something there or other. But you can see Asia. Okay. And you can, anybody can make out Italy there in the corner? That is Italy. And Sicily. And I got to get one of those pointers. My old pastor had the laser pointer.

All right. A lot. This is the area right here. Whoa. Whoa. This is awesome. Did you see my hand was doing that? Did you think there was like spiritual power coming out as I was moving it around? For you that are listening, the screen was moving as I moved my hand. That's Paul's area of influence right there. Let's go to the next slide. Next slide. See, hey, that's a little better.

That's a little better. We can see that Paul starts out in Antioch. Where is Antioch? It's on the northern border of where? Syria. Important place today, right? Important place then. Important place today. Anyway, went down to Salamis and Paphos. Remember, he met a sorcerer there, spent some time there, and then up to Italia, and then Perga, and then Antioch, Pisidia.

And we find him today in Iconium is where we are. So we're on his first missionary journey, the first of three major missionary journeys. And so let me say this. You can write it down. Paul's entire life could be defined as a missionary journey. As a matter of fact, I could say that Jesus' entire life could be defined as a missionary journey. It says in Philippians that he left heaven and came to earth.

And from that place, he went and traveled as he shared the message of the good news of the gospel. And Gabby, we don't need the next slide. We won't use that one. They won't be able to see it. And let me say this. That our lives are meant to be a missionary journey. I would say that Jesus had a bunch of purposes that he speaks about. Came to do the Father's will and things of that nature.

But Jesus' entire purpose was to share with anyone who would listen the message of the good news of who he was and what he was about. Paul's entire life was dedicated to sharing the message of the gospel. As a matter of fact, any prominent figure you find in the New Testament, probably primary purpose is to share the message of the gospel. Now back to that slide right there.

We see that Paul starts in Antioch and he moves throughout Asia and Asia Minor and eventually makes his way over to Italy. And at the same way, if we were to take a map of your life, where would the places be? And I'm talking about your spiritual geography. Because I feel that one of the things God has called me to and to influence others to do is to take a hold of their spiritual geography for Christ.

That the scripture says in Joshua, wherever you place your foot, I will give that land to you. And so for us, let me just talk about our spiritual geography. It probably starts off at home in Antioch for us. That's on our street up in near Torrey Pines. And so that street, we want to make an influence on that street. When the gal from the down the street comes and wants to buy Girl Scout cookies and her daughter wants to sell Girl Scout cookies to us, but I've already been loaded up on Girl Scout cookies because I'm surrounded by children and soccer teams and I've got a stack of Girl Scout cookies.

I'm going to buy myself some more Girl Scout cookies. Why am I going to buy Girl Scout cookies? Why? Because I want to bless them. Even though I don't need any more Girl Scout cookies. I'm just going to bless it and say, thank you. Come back again next year. When my neighbor's trash cans are in the street and they have not brought them in, I am going to bring them to their gate.

I am not going to go through their gate into their backyard because that's creepy, but I will be bringing them in. When my neighbor's tree fell down and I didn't want to deal with it during the windstorm, I went down there and I was walking by and they were getting ready to cut it and I was like, do you need any help? Because I didn't want to do it, but there we were.

The next place would maybe be Trader Joe's, La Jolla Village Square, which is there, or my daughter's schools where she goes to, or Wind and Sea Beach where I've been trying to surf more often, and La Jolla Shores where I surf, to make an influence, to give somebody a wave, to do something, somebody needs, whatever it is. If you were to put the map of your life, because I believe we all have seven to ten places we visit on a regular basis, it's your coffee shop, it's your dry cleaner, it's your therapist, whatever it would be, a place you go on a regular basis, where are you trying to make an influence?

And so if you were to map out your spiritual geography, now this is something we're going to encourage you to do at the All Church Family Gathering. We're going to give you maps of your cities, of every city that is surrounding, and you are going to write down your spiritual geography and the names of the people that you're making a point to influence, because we want to be a church that's living on mission.

That's why we have the names of the cities in the back of the church, to give a visible example of where we're trying to reach. And if you don't see your city on there, and you'd like to spend $32 to have one of those signs made, we will do it for you and put it on the wall. Well, let's look at the essential truth of evangelism, because I really feel like we are going to be pushing deeper into evangelism.

We want to be a church that leads people to Christ and regularly speaks the message of Christ to people, the gospel of Jesus, and give people an opportunity to say, would you want to be saved? Would you want to pray with me? Or perhaps you don't want to use that older idea of the understanding of the four spiritual laws, but you would say, would you come to church with me?

You put them in the way of God's power. That's the key. There's a lot of different ways to do it. And like we see people, there's a variety of places people are. Some people will refuse to hear the gospel. And the enemy wants us to think that everyone you talk to wants to refuse the gospel. Do you ever get that mindset? I don't want to tell anybody about the gospel, because we're in a culture where everyone's refusing it.

Let me say, there are some people that will refuse it. And there are some other people that will receive it immediately. Have you thought of that perspective? Immediately will receive the gospel. This is what I've been looking for. I've been under shame. I've been under fear. I've been under doubt. But the only way you're going to know that is if you share the gospel in accordance to the personality God gave you.

Some of you, I said, we're all called to be a light. Some of you will be chandeliers. Some of you will be a flashlight to go into darker places. Others have the way that you do it, the style that you do it. Somebody recently came to me and said, I have these tracks. And I've just been laying these tracks around. Now, tracks have kind of gotten a bum rap as of late.

But I actually know somebody that said they wanted to be saved. And I had spoken to them after I had talked one time. He goes, I wanted to be saved. And I didn't know how to be saved. And the churches was closed because it was late at night. And I know people left tracks down at the pier. So I went down to the pier and looked for one. And I found one.

And I led myself to Christ. We're going to get to heaven. And Jesus is going to say, who's here from the tracks? And you're going to see a bunch of people. Yeah, that's us. That's us back here. Yeah. Is one in the back? Oh, we got one in the back. Right on. Well, welcome. Yay. I used to love those tracks when I was a kid. They were just scary stories and different stuff.

Here's the essential truth that we're going to find in this text. And I use the word art on purpose. Because I do believe that sharing the gospel is an art form. And I don't mean that to disparage the gospel in any way or to dumb it down. But I think there's an art in how we share and we understand. And easily figuring out where people are and how to enter into that.

Paul knew how to speak and how to become all things to all people. The art and grace, the grace of the gospel. Remember last week they said continue on in the grace of the gospel. That we want to be adorned with grace. As we share the gospel, we're not a bunch of angry people running around just sharing the gospel in anger. I will say that it is extremely difficult to share the good news of God's grace from a position of anger.

Let me say that again. It is extremely difficult to share the gospel and the good news and the grace of God from a position of anger. Watch what you put on Facebook, please. I don't post a lot on Facebook. If I do, it's a sermon or things like that. I'm shocked at what Christians put on Facebook. And I can see when people look at it, they would say immediately, I want nothing to do with that person.

I'm not saying you can't hold that opinion, but don't be a slave to your opinion where we drive people away from the gospel. When Paul came into a city, he thought, how can I bring the gospel to these people? The people that he gave the hardest time to were the religious people. The ones who said they had the answer. But if they didn't have the answer, if it was the world, the people that are countercultural to the gospel, he would go to them and find any way possible to become like them, to share with them.

Who are those people that we are perhaps considering enemies of the gospel, but actually they're ripe for the faith? There's a lot of low-hanging fruit today. Are we sharing the gospel? The grace and power of evangelism are only found when, it says, in the doing. Let me say that again. The art, the grace, and the power of evangelism. The power, because when you share the word of God, trust me, it brings power.

I love your testimony, and your testimony has an inherent power as the Holy Spirit shares it. But it is not as powerful as the word of God. And your testimony becomes more powerful when you lace it, when you steep it, when you infuse within it the very scriptures that are why you were saved. We need to know the scriptures. Do we have five to seven scriptures we know that back up our testimony, that we can share the word of God?

I will say you can share the word of God with somebody, and immediately their heart can be changed, because there is a power of God in the word of God. We'll just look at that in a second. It says the grace, power, and evangelism are only found in the doing. Let me tell you when you're going to experience all this stuff that you see happening in the scriptures, these type of things, these type of radical life transformations, is when you start sharing the gospel.

Until you put yourself in the way of that oncoming train of God's grace and power, you have to jump on the tracks. You have to commit, and you have to stand there and let that train come and just bowl you over. And it comes by knowing who you're going to share with, or when there's an opportunity, sharing the gospel. Perhaps it's praying in public.

Maybe you're that person. Perhaps it's whatever. I was here with Adam Bogey this week, and the FedEx guy came, and we're getting ready to go to Tuesday night. Adam's really good at this, and it makes me feel awkward sometimes. I'll just be real with you about that, but I'm happy when he does it. And the FedEx guy comes up, and he says, Who wants this package?

And I get the package, and I'm signing for the package. And he says to the young man, What am I? How old am I? The young man. Okay. He says to the gentleman, How can we pray for you? And I don't know if you know Adam and his wife. They come to the evening service. He runs the team there. And he says, Man, I just need more of God's power. I need to experience and understand God more in my life.

He says, Well, let's gather around. And so the FedEx guy's there with his thing, and I just signed it. And three of us gather around, and we lay our hands on him and pray for him. And Adam invites him to church. He says, I'm going to come on to church. I mean, that's Adam's style. I love it. Yeah, it's good stuff. I'm not saying you have to do it that way.

I'm just saying, Are you doing it? Are you sharing the gospel with anybody? And I've got to say, The gospel has to be verbal. In the 90s, I was convinced and told that, You know, You just do it in action. Just do it in action, And they'll kind of figure it out, And eventually ask questions. I haven't found that to work great. I've had some. But at some point, We have to be willing to speak the gospel.

Here's the hope of my salvation. How can I pray for you? Where we are making a conscious effort, Because the gospel, That has to be heard. And we'll look at that scripture in a moment. I'm going to move quickly now through this. Four key, Three, Excuse me, Three keys to sharing the gospel, And becoming living on mission, Within your spiritual geography.

Number one, Only by boldly sharing the gospel, Will people have the ability to receive, Or reject the gift of salvation. That's a definitive statement. Can Jesus come to people in dreams, Like we're hearing about happening in certain countries, Especially in the Muslim world? Absolutely. But if God wanted that to be his plan, He would not tell us to evangelize.

He would come to everybody in dreams, And thank you for the grace. He has still commissioned us, In the great commission when he left, The last thing he said, Was go out and make what? Disciples. That's for all Christians. You don't have to, There's no gift of discipleship. Anybody seen that? We have gifts of evangelism and everything. Is there a gift of discipleship?

I don't see it. He's called us all to go out and disciple. Who are you discipling? Along the way. Are there people that you're just, Discipling means you could be just talking to them, Over a multiple year period. I have people ten years I've been talking to them, Sharing with them. But eventually, I'm inviting them. My next door neighbor, I invited them this week to church, Because I want to get better at this.

It's very easy as a pastor, To say I do this every day, When I'm at home, I'm going to take a break, From being a Christian. Because I'm a Christian, A professional Christian. I want to get better in my life, To share the gospel. I want to say, If you're on Twitter, Tweet grace. If you're on Facebook, Facebook grace. Just, It is so desperate for hope and love.

Let people see a difference. Something that is full of grace there. The next is, Number two, Kingdoms collide whenever the gospel is shared. If you throw yourself on the train tracks, Of God's love, Grace, And power, In the form of, Sharing the gospel, In your actions, In your unspoken, And in your spoken word, You are going to experience kingdoms in conflict.

Number three, Evangelism releases God's power. If you are not experiencing God's power, The scripture promises, That if you share the gospel, You will experience God's power. If someone is saved, It is the ultimate power. Why? It gives them eternal life. Imagine Ponce de Leon, Findings, Do you like the pronunciation on Ponce right there? Yeah, Thank you very much.

I'll be here all week. Try the chicken. Imagine Ponce de Leon, Having the fountain of youth. If we had a fountain of youth, How far would they come? From the miracle that that would be. Well, let me explain to you that we do. It's called eternal life in Jesus Christ. And it is the power of the gospel. When someone is saved, It is more powerful than any physical miracle.

Even the healing of the most ardent, And hardest to cure diseases. Because those people will still eventually pass away. But eternal life is forever. Who are you discipling? Who are you sharing the gospel with? We have to be on mission. More and more, I'm just thinking, I just want to be about kingdom business. I don't want to be about my business. That the world is heading off a cliff.

That eternal damnation is eternal damnation. And while there was a, So for 2,000 years, Many have tried to soften the gospel, And say that hell is a place, That you can make your way out of. And the whole thing, If you know, I believe that the scripture is very clear, That hell is an eternal place. And if people do not receive, The mercy of Jesus Christ, And what he did on the cross, They will be eternally destined, To be in hell, Away from the love of God, Their father.

I believe that. I wouldn't be in this, If I didn't believe that. I'd be doing something else with my time. And so in number one, The first we see is this, Only by boldly sharing the gospel, Will people have the ability, To receive or reject the gift of salvation. It's a free gift. Romans 10, 4 says, I love this. This is so powerful. How then can they, Who's they?

That's the world. Okay? When I say, I'm going to do a little Miles McPherson. When I say, Who are they? You're going to say the world. How then can they, Who are they? Yeah, That's good. I like that. He's good at that. I'm not very good at it, But I'm going to work on it. How can they call on the one, Who they have not believed in? You see that? They're putting the world in a position, Of calling on God.

We need you. Let me just tell you what, The world ain't getting better. Has anybody noticed that? All these things that we've done, It's not evolving. It's the thing. It's not getting better. It says, How can they call on the one, They've not believed in? And how can they believe in the one, Whom they have not heard? And how can they hear, Without someone preaching to them?

It's not just my job, Because I went to seminary, To preach to them. It's our job. And imagine if all of us, Are going out on a regular basis, In La Jolla, To the different places that we go, In Carmel Valley, Where you live, In London, Or wherever you are. My brother and his wife are here, From London. It's good to have them. And we'll be, Yeah, Woot, Woot, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.

He runs, He's the CEO, Of the, The Vicentian Charities, Over there. It's a basic family project, And works, In the middle of Westminster Abbey, With at risk people, Be that Syrian refugees, Homeless, Chilled Afro-Caribbean kids, Travelers, They would be called gypsies here, Travelers there, And all kinds of stuff. Powerful work. I'm going to have him share, When he's here at some point, They're here for about a month, And so you'll be here, And have them share, About what they're doing there.

Very powerful work. But how can they, Without someone sharing? It says in this scripture, That there's two types of people, That are exposed here, In this scripture, When the gospel is spoken, And Elliot alluded to it. There's those, Who believe. Let me put that back, Into your mindset. That if you share, There are people who want, Are looking to believe.

I would probably, You know, Say that there are as many people, That are looking to believe, If not more, Than people who refuse to believe. There's a lot of people, That are questioning these days. If you start a conversation, With somebody about the gospel, Many will, I would say the majority, Would begin a questioning time with you. What about this? What about that?

What about this? Maybe 10 to 20 percent, Will say, I don't want to hear anything about that. And they will completely, Just shut you down. But I would say, It's easy these days, There's a lot of low hanging fruit, For gospel conversation. And if you use the scripture, When you're having gospel conversation, And once again, We have to know our Bibles, And I would recommit to knowing your Bible, Making it a commitment.

Then as you, The conversation begins, Weave the scripture in. And you don't have to give a verse. You know, Jesus never gets verses. Do you ever see that? What does he say? The prophet says this, It is written that. On and on. Oftentimes, When I say that, I'll be speaking to somebody, I will say something like, You know, We just, I just really believe that God just, He just loved everyone in the world so much, That he had a son, And he was willing to send him, That the entire world might be saved.

You know what? Give it your translation. But give the scripture, Because you will be confronting them with power. Because the word of God, God is living, And the scripture says, It is what? Active. And it is sharper than a double-edged sword right now, And it cuts through joint and marrow, Dividing to the very soul. That is the scripture. Share the scripture.

You don't have to be pious and say, You know, In Kings, You know, Or in Ephesians, Too way. Let me just say, Now there's a concordance that disagrees with that. Just infuse your, It's an art to infuse the language of the gospel. How will they hear? And there's two types of people here. Those who believe, And those who refuse to believe. Verse, Acts 13, 46, Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly, We had to speak the word of God to you first, Because they're speaking to the Jews, Remember?

And these Jews reject the scripture. But they were called to speak to the Jews first, And then to whom? The scripture goes to the Jew, And then to who? The Gentile. That is us. We had to. Do you feel compelled? Do you feel compelled to share the gospel? I don't feel compelled enough. Let me just be honest with you. I love discipling Christians. I love seeing people who are Christians grow in their faith.

It's my number one passion. I have to up my game personally, In being as committed and excited about evangelism, As I am about discipleship. Because discipleship, It's kind of like if you're in sales, It's a warm call, Right? It's like, you know, You have, you know, An audience that wants to grow. And I really want to get better, And I want to lead in this church in evangelism, And continue to invite people.

You begin to meet more and more people in the church, That I personally have invited, That in my own personal life, I have led to Christ, Outside of an altar call, When I'm preaching out in front. I want to be committed to that. Hopefully you do as well. There are those, So they were compelled. We had to speak the word of God to you first. And since you rejected, And do not consider yourself worthy of eternal life.

Wow. We now turn to the Gentiles. I would say this is so interesting. Now Paul, once again, Why is he being so hardcore here? Because he's speaking to Jews, That were saying, We have it figured out. He's speaking to people. He doesn't speak, Oftentimes, To Gentiles this way, Except to maybe some of the sorcerers, That began to come against him. But for the most part, He speaks very differently, To church people, Than he does to unbelieving people.

And I see a lot of Christians speak to unbelievers, Like Paul spoke to pious Jewish leaders. There's a differentiation in how we share the gospel. There needs to be a differentiation. If you're angry when you're sharing the gospel, Let me just say, Go back into your prayer closet, And get a love of God for people. Realizing that they need a love of a father, That we become from that place.

And I love that Paul didn't take responsibility for their belief. It's not his job to make sure they're saved. What is his job? Share the gospel. That's it. Share it. That's your responsibility. When we stand before God, We will be held accountable for every word we said, And every action that we say. And when you stand before God, It'll be alone. That I don't, You know, Personally, I don't care what anybody else's opinion is, Of how I share, When I share, Or how I share, Because I know one day, God's going to question me.

And I want to be ready for that interview. I definitely want to be ready for that interview. I want to be able to stand before God, And say, Look, I've shared the gospel, In spirit and in truth. No matter what someone called me, Or what they thought about me sharing the truth. Number two, Kingdoms collide when the gospel is shared. We see here, The people of the city were divided.

If you share the gospel, You're going to have a divided crowd. If you don't share the gospel, You're never going to have a divided crowd. At least give yourself an opportunity for a divided crowd. Let me say that again. If you don't share the gospel, You're never going to have a divided crowd. If you do share the gospel, You're going to have a divided crowd.

At least give yourself an opportunity for a divided crowd. We're told, The enemy wants to get us off in dry and waterless pastures, And take the free gift of God and grace, So that we would not share it. And so it says that, You do not consider the, Excuse me, The kingdoms collided here. The people were divided. In verse 4 and 5, Chapter 14, Some sided with the Jews, Others with the apostle.

Who's siding with you right now? Do you have anybody that's siding with you? If no one is siding with you right now, In your belief as you're sharing the gospel, Let me encourage you to go back to your time with God, And begin to contemplate what it would look like, To have people side with you in the sharing of the gospel. We have to have people that were leading closer to Christ.

There was a plot afoot among both the Gentiles and the Jews, Together with their leaders, To mistreat and to stone them. Whoa, full on, To stone them. I like that they just left. You know, You don't have to take abuse as a Christian. Do you get that? A lot of people go, I just got to take abuse. Paul got stoned, But I think whenever he could get out of there, He would.

Now granted, He felt like he was called to be a martyr in Rome, And he wanted to share the gospel with Caesar. That's why he went to Rome. You get that? He wanted to go to the top of the food chain. And he was willing to die for that cause. But when Paul could get out of a stoning, He would get out of a stoning, Okay? Sometimes we need to get out of a way of a stoning.

He would be, You know, Lowered out of the, Remember at the early days, He was lowered out of a basket, Out of a city. This time they just take off and run, But then he comes back later on. Be wise. Don't just take abuse. Let's say, If you can get out of a stoning, Get out of a stoning. And then there's other times, Reminds me of a movie I saw one time. Then there's other times, Where we need to hold strong, And be willing to be persecuted, For the gospel.

But be wise. You know, That God, There's enough suffering in life, That we don't have to invite it upon ourselves. Does that make sense? And so we see that here, That kingdoms are colliding. People are upset. Now we see this in Ephesians. Look at this powerful verse in Ephesians. As for you, You were dead in your transgressions and sins, In which you live, When you followed the ways of this world, And the ruler of the kingdom of the air, The spirit who is now at work, And those who are disobedient.

Do you see the things happening in the world? Do you realize that our battle is not against flesh and blood, Or whoever is running for a political office, Or whoever is running a certain organization, That you disagree with what they're doing, Or your next door neighbor. Our battle is always against, The principalities the scripture says, And the battle, The spiritual battle, That is in the air.

If you want to win a battle, You have to win it spiritually, Before you're going to win it physically. We see that in the book of Joshua. Are you taking your battles before the Lord? In this election season, And we see the different things that are happening in our country, Are you more tuned in with Fox News' opinion, Or with God's kingdom opinion, Or CNN, Or whatever brand of the news that you listen to, Are you following, Are you pursuing victory in the heavenly realms?

I want to say, We want to have a plan as a church, Before these elections come up, Of prayer and fasting, And see what God's going to do. I want to be a person who's committed, To praying for these things. When you preach the gospel, You'd better be backing it up with prayer. Because prayer is also going to infuse you with power. And the final point for today, Is this on the back of your notes, Evangelism releases God's power.

I never experienced God. Put yourself in the way of God's power. Put yourself in scripture, It's powerful. Put yourself in evangelism. We see right here in verse 3. So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, Speaking boldly for the Lord, Who confirmed their message of his grace. I love that. There it is. The message of his grace. By enabling them, Because he decided that he would do this in this situation, He enabled them to perform signs and wonders.

I want to say, You might not perform the signs and wonders that Paul and Barnabas did. But God has signs and wonders for you. And perhaps it's financial provision. Perhaps it's praying for somebody for healing. Perhaps it's a word of compassion. Perhaps it's the very gift of salvation. There is no greater miracle. If you want to perform miracles, Lead people to Jesus.

Because you take them from death into life. That's the greatest miracle. The enemy loves to get us all focused on, What about these miracles? Are these still available today? What about this? Is this available? When he knows the more time we waste on that, Not that it's wasted. The more time we spend on that, Disproportionately, To sharing the gospel, Then people are going to miss out on the greatest miracle there is.

You want to be a miracle worker? Share the gospel. Lead someone to eternal life. And you will give them eternal life. Talk about power. Final verse of the day. It says, Romans 1.16. When I first got back into Jesus, After a season away in college, I grew my hair out long. I wore long white karate pants and white t-shirts. And I tried to look like Jesus.

You remember those days, Albie? You remember that? I needed something as radical as the streets of PB and TJ. So, Why are the worst places named after two letters? You know what I mean? TJ, You don't call La Jolla LJ, But PB. I love PB for all you crown pointers. No part. But there's just a couple streets that run through the middle of it That are a little rough, If you remember.

Garnet and Grand. Romans 1.16. It says this. It says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel. Why? Because it is the power of God That brings salvation to everyone who believes. First to the Jew and then to the Gentile. The power of God. You want power. We want to live in power. You know, miracles are great. I'd love to see a few miracles in my day. But the miracle I care about the most And want to care about the most Is the miracle of salvation And the spiritual geography of my life.

Think about now who you will win to Jesus this week. And come back with a report next week on your lips Of who you shared the gospel with. Amen? Amen. Let's ask the worship team to come forward And I'll ask you to stand. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.