The Church God Uses

Well, good morning, would you help me welcome all of our brave campuses here this morning? So good to be with all of you. A couple of quick things. One is I just wanted to tell you thank you, thank you, thank you so much for last week. Last week we had Protect Kids Colorado here. We signed petitions. It made me a little nervous to do it because we didn't have good luck before. You guys were incredible. It went great. We were not allowed to be told how many signatures, but there were thousands of signatures that will go to helping get Protect Kids Colorado on the ballot. So thank you for doing such a great job with that. Appreciate it. Also want you to know this, this Tuesday we have an open house at Brave Academy. In 2020, Kim and I started to feel burdened during all the lockdowns and what was going on in our schools. We got to make a difference. We got to start something. We're in year three of Brave Academy. God is doing some incredible things. We have incredible teachers, incredible administrators, incredible students and families that are a part of that. If you're even considering, maybe I could send my student to Brave. If you're even considering, my grandkid could maybe come there or you just want to see what's it all about. Please come. I'll be there. A bunch of our team will be there Tuesday, 9.30 AM. Please tell your friends and family next year year four is going to be a breakthrough year for us.

God's been doing some incredible things. So at the very least, would you do this? Would you be praying that God would continue to expand his reach and influence through Brave Academy? Amen. So with that, let's continue our worship this morning as we go before the Lord and get ready to hear his word. Would you pray with me? Our Father in heaven, we give you all the glory, all the honor and all the praise for who you are. Lord, we gather here this morning to sing praise to you because you and you alone are worthy of it. Lord, we gather here to pray because we're dependent upon you and we gather here to hear your word because we as a people believe that every time your word is faithfully and accurately proclaimed that it is you who are speaking. So our prayer collectively this morning is speak, Lord, for we are ready to hear. And so now for all those who are gathered who desire to hear the Lord Jesus Christ speak directly to you, who will believe what he tells you and who will by faith put into practice what he shows you. Will you agree with me very loudly this morning by saying the word, amen. Amen. Many of you know that activity does not equal impact and that busyness does not necessarily equate to influence. I mean, just because there's a lot of activity going on in your life, just because you're moving around a lot, just because you're doing a lot of things doesn't mean that you're accomplishing much or you're influencing people well. I think sometimes we look back on our busy seasons and we think, I was doing a lot. I was really, really busy, but I don't know that I really did anything. I was just really busy doing stuff. And so a lot of times we take inventory of our life.

We start thinking about how can I have the most influence or what do I need to get rid of so I can have greater impact? Churches need to think that way too, because in every church, in every culture, there's always activity. There's people in the doors, there's outside, people outside the doors, there's programs taking place, there's prayer meetings, there's preaching, there's singing, there's all sorts of different activities. But how is it we know whether this is a church that God's pleased with or not? I mean, as a believer in Christ who is called to be part of a local assembly to represent the Lord Jesus Christ locally and be his visible influence in an area, we need to be part of a local church. But when we're part of a local church, how do we know that we're the kind of local church that the Lord wants to use? Have you ever wondered for what the Lord is looking for in a church to see what he's going to say? I can use that. I can bless this. I can do that. Because for all of us deep down in our hearts, because we belong to the Lord Jesus, we want to be used by him. We want to know, Lord, I'm part of a place that your presence is at, that you're using our church, and I get to be a part on this side of heaven, all that you're doing. And if you've ever wondered about the church that God uses today, I believe that God has a word for you. If you'd open up your Bibles to Acts chapter 13, Acts chapter 13, it's a very pivotal point in this book where the gospel begins to be taken really far out to the Gentiles and things begin to go clearly. In this church in Antioch, we're going to see some principles that they put into practice that God was able to use that will still be available to us today. So let's read through the first 12 verses of Acts 13, and then I'm going to clearly

unpack five truths about a church that God uses so we can use that over our lives to say, is this the kind of church that we are in the type of church that we want to be? Hear the word of the Lord in Acts chapter 13. He says, Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and from there they sailed to Cyprus. When they reached Salamis, they began to proclaim the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews and they also had John as their helper. When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they found a magician, a Jewish false prophet, whose name was Bargesas, who was with the pro-council, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Elymas, the magician, for so his name is translated, was opposing them, seeking to turn the pro-council away from the faith. But Saul, who was also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze on him and said, you who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness,

will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord? Now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you and you will be blind and not see the sun for a time. And immediately a mist and a darkness fell on him and he went about seeking those who would lead him by the hand. Then the pro-council believed when he saw what had happened, being amazed at the teaching of the Lord. And here in Acts 13, we're still talking about the church at Antioch. The church at Antioch was where believers were first called Christians or followers of Christ, the pejorative term that you're one of those Messiah followers, that's who you are. And this gives us insight into the church that God uses. And let me give you five truths here today. And the first is this, the church God uses depends on prayer and fasting rather than methods. The church that God uses depends on prayer and fasting rather than methods. Now, here's what he says. He says, now there were at Antioch in the church that was there, there were prophets and teachers. So there were gifted men used of the Lord in that church. And he lists five of them, Barnabas and Simeon, who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaan, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul.

I want you to see this without going into great detail. And if you wanna research it on your own in different commentaries and learn all about those different five men, but I just want you to see this. You have Barnabas, who is an encourager. Barnabas, who has been bringing Saul along, teaching him the ways of God. You have Simeon, who was called Niger, means he had dark skin. It means he was probably from North Africa. It means he wasn't from the same place that everybody else was from. And then you had Lucius of Cyrene, again, a guy from another place. And then you had Manaan, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch. Herod the Tetrarch was Herod Antipas that had John the Baptist killed. So Herod Antipas had John the Baptist killed. I mean, he's in his kingdom, so to speak. And you have who? You have Saul, the one who was one of the most well-trained rabbis of the day, who's now been converted, who's going around doing the things of the Lord and preaching the gospel. So just these five men alone, you have incredible diversity. But here's what they're doing when they get together. Most of us, when we think about what should the church be, we wanna have what?

A meeting. We wanna get together and talk. We wanna get together and strategize. We wanna get together and consider how we're gonna market and what are we gonna do and what programs are we gonna have and what times are we gonna meet and where are we gonna meet at and do they have chairs there? Do we need to order though? We start strategizing. Here's what they do. It says, while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting. So when they came together in this church, what were they known to do? To minister to the Lord means that we worship the Lord. It means the words being shared. It means they were singing praise to God. It means we're trying to give God all the glory that he can possibly get. And we're what? We're praying. And we're doing what? We're fasting. And fasting, while it's not commanded in the Bible, it's expected. Even Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount doesn't say, you have to fast. He says, when you fast, here's how you fast. When you pray, it's expected.

Here's how you would pray. And so fasting is setting aside food and physical nourishment for the sake of growing spiritually and having more spiritual nourishment. And as we've said during this 21 days of fasting, it's a spiritual discipline. If you've never done it before, don't say, okay, I'll go 21 days. You won't make it. But maybe there's one meal that you could do. And the purpose is to set aside what your body and flesh desire to focus on the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the key in this 21 days of prayer and fasting has been that you'd fall more in love with Jesus. Not that you starve yourself, that you spend more time with God so that you can hear his voice more clearly. So what was this church at Antioch doing? They were saying, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna worship the Lord and we're gonna pray and fast. And when you do those things, that's a church we're gonna be. God looks down and says, I can use that church. Now, why is this such a big deal? Think about it. When people gather for Christian gatherings, why do they gather? Oftentimes it's for the preaching. We can draw a big crowd for preachers. Sometimes it's for worship.

When different groups that we like to sing worship song come to town, hey, we'll go down to Ball Arena, we'll fill Ball Arena just to worship. That's awesome. We do the Warrior Summit. We'll have a couple thousand guys here. We do a women's conference. I have a couple thousand gals here. We do a prayer conference and there's 30 people. Why? Because the only person that's going to be there is Jesus. There is no entertainment. There is no, what do I get out of this? There's a chance to go and hear the voice of God. Friends, here at Brave, we are a praying church. We've always been a praying church. Before I moved from Central Illinois, the first thing we did was get on our knees in a living room and pray, and pray about where we were going, and pray about who we were going to meet, and pray about where we were going to be. It was prayer, it was prayer, it was prayer. And we just listed prayers, prayers, prayers, prayers, prayers, and then when we arrived here, what did we do? We kept praying and we kept praying. And when we started our first Tuesdays, you need to understand, long before first Tuesday, when we would gather, we would have about 20, 25 people that would be there every month.

I led the prayer meeting. I led the worship. I played the guitar. It wasn't what we have now, but it was the same God that we were serving, praying to him, asking him to move. Now, when we gather on first Tuesday, we have hundreds of people on all our campuses that gather to seek the face of the Lord because we understand, as a church, that the greatest thing we can do is spend time with Jesus. And churches that preference Jesus, Jesus looks down and says, I can use that church. That's why, as long as I'm your pastor, prayer will always be primary to all the ministries we do at Brave. We're the only church I know in the country that sets aside and redirects all other ministries on the first week of the month to go to first Tuesday. Don't meet in your cadres. Don't do other things. Why? Because it's so important that we all get together and pray. It's way more important than anything else you're gonna do. And we see it all the time. We have three different times during the year where we pray as a staff. I pick the three busiest times of the year. I pick Easter, I pick Christmas,

and I pick fall kickoff because that's when everybody on staff's scrambling. I'm like, okay, we're gonna pause and pray that week. Why? Because I know that when we do and we preference God and we seek his face, he always comes through more abundantly. Those weekend services are always our most attended, always our most fruitful. And every time people on staff say, we should do this every week, right? Prayer's powerful. God looks for praying churches. He looks for praying people because what praying churches are saying is, Lord, we're not depending on our strategy and we're not depending upon our methods and we're not depending on our intellect or our wisdom, but boy, are we depending upon you. And what do you have to say to us and how do you want this to go? And Lord, we're holding it with an open hand. We think this is where you're leading, but you can turn us any way you want. And when God sees that, God blesses that. See, a lot of people think, well, God doesn't use small churches. I've been in a lot of fruitful churches under 100 people, just so you know. Some people say God doesn't use big churches.

We don't need any big churches. I've been in a lot of big churches that are very fruitful. It's not the size of your church that matters, it's the fruitfulness and dependency on the Holy Spirit that does. And when a church is dependent upon Jesus, Jesus looks down and says, okay, I can use that church because that group of people wants me to get the glory and that group of people doesn't believe they can accomplish it. And that group of people actually is saying they need me and that's who God chooses to use. I mean, we see this all throughout the scripture. Psalm 127, verse one says, unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it do what? They labor in vain. Or how about Zechariah 4, six, not by might, not by power, but by my spirit declares the Lord. Even Jesus teaches us in John chapter 15, verse five, apart from me, you can do nothing. Jesus says in Matthew 6, 33, to seek first the kingdom of God. That's why when we read David, the man after God's own heart, the one that worshiped him, and even when he was sinful, kept coming back to the Lord. In Psalm 27, in verse eight, he says,

when you said, seek my face, my heart said to you, your face, oh Lord, I shall seek. I mean, I find it really interesting when I read through the book of Acts that I read about the church in Jerusalem. It was the original church. It had all the apostles. It had history. It had prestige. It had credibility. But that's not the church that God chose to use to take the gospel of the Gentiles. Who did he choose? He chose the church in Antioch only for one reason, because they were the dependent one. God looks down at all churches and says, if you're dependent upon me, I'll use you. Amen? And so what prayer does is it. It gives us a kneeling posture, and we never kneel unless we know who's in charge. Church growth without prayer is pointless. Just getting more of a crowd is pointless. In Jesus' ministry, he had crowds all around him, but very few disciples. Crowds don't mean anything. Fervency and seeking the Lord does. So I just wanna give you some highlights from this, because notice what he says. They're fasting and praying,

and then he says, while they're fasting and praying, while the leadership is saying, we don't know what to do, the Holy Spirit says, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work for which I have called them. So they're praying, Lord, show us what to do, and God tells them, Barnabas and Saul, send them. So what do they do? They don't send them. Notice what they do next. Then when they had fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, they sent them away. So what were they not doing? They weren't just praying to get an answer. Some of us pray just to get an answer. Lord, as soon as I get the answer, I'll go do my thing. Oh, Lord, thanks for telling me I'm going there. I got it from here. No, no, no. They prayed and fasted, they got the answer, and then what do they do? They prayed and fasted some more so that they were sure. And then what do they do? They commissioned them publicly. So I'm gonna give you some truths, five truths for mission, because there's so much that comes out of this one verse, it's the point I'm spending the most time on this morning. But I'm gonna give you five truths for mission. They'll show up on the screen.

And the first is this, you need to see this. God uses the local church as his mission base. He always uses the local church as his mission base. Why? Because he established the church. He established the church. I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. All ministry is to come out of the local church. So if you're a believer, you've gotta be part of a local church somewhere. You don't have to be part of Brave Church, but you gotta be part of a church, a local assembly, because that's where missions is driven from. It always is. And can I just tell you this? I hate it when people say, the next revival is not coming through the church. It's coming, I'm like, yeah, the next revival of course is coming through the church. It always comes through the church. There may be businessmen, but those businessmen happen to be in a church. Maybe it's athletes, but those athletes happen to be in a church. God always does his work through the church. The devil is always trying to get believers to say, I love Jesus, I just don't love the church. If you love Jesus, not only will you love the church, but you'll pour your heart, life, and soul into the church

so that Jesus Christ can be glorified. God uses the local church as his mission base, amen? Second is this, unity in Christ matters more than background. Unity in Christ matters more than background. You see these five men at the beginning of this chapter. They're from all different places. They're from all different walks of life. They have all different religious backgrounds, and they are coming together because unity is not sameness. It is shared surrender to Christ and his mission. Friends, we don't have to think the same. We don't have to vote the same. We don't have to root for the same sports teams. We don't have to do anything. What we're gonna center on is that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, and we're gonna submit to him no matter what, amen? That's what unites us here. That's what unites us. And when you see that, it really leads to the third point that I wanna make, and it's this, that diversity is a strength when Christ is central. Diversity is a strength when Christ is central. I mean, you have multi-ethnic leadership before this mission even expands, and prayer sustains unity where diversity could cause fracture. Now, here's how the New Testament does diversity. Here's how the Bible does diversity.

It's not DEI. DEI is we need more black people. We need more Asian people. We need less white people. We need more of this type. We need, based on skin color, if we can get everybody the same, then it's gonna work. That is not how God goes after it at all. God goes after hearts, but God goes after every heart, and what God wants is the church to be united around Jesus Christ. Now, let me just tell you about Kim and I. Prior to planting this church, we literally traveled all over the world, preached the gospel. That's what we did. Some of our favorite places to go in the world were where we were the only white people for miles. When we go to India, we stand out. When we go to Africa, we stand out. Oftentimes, we did work in the inner city. We stood out. We prayed fervently that God would let us lead a multicultural church. We wanted that, and God led us to Denver, and 92% white people, and from day one, we always prayed that God would bring us other people,

other skin colors, other ethnicities, but we never targeted that. We just said, Lord, in your time, in your way, let our church be a reflection of the kingdom, and now when we look around, we got black people, and Hispanic people, and Asian people. We have some of those on our staff. We have people from Russia. We have people from Ukraine. We have people that go live all over the world that are part of our family, and I love it because what unites us is God's love for us. is the gospel of Jesus Christ, amen? And that's where diversity is a strength and not a weakness. And then I want you to see this too, number four is that God prepares leaders before he appoints them. It's interesting, God says, set aside for me Barnabas and Saul. And nobody looked around like, who are they? We've never even met them before. Did they even come to church? No, these were men that were already serving. And if you're not serving in the church, you can't lead for Christ's church. If you can't serve, you can never lead. It's serving, it's serving, it's serving. And when God looks down and says, they're servants, I can use that.

Those are the kind of servants that I want. That's what I'm looking for. So when he calls out Barnabas and Saul, they're already faithful, they're serving, they're teaching. Friends, God does not call the idol. He calls those that are faithful, right? Don't sit there and say, well, if God ever wants me to do anything, then maybe he can speak to me. He does want you to do, he gifted you, he wants you to serve. And as he sees you serve, other people will see your fruitfulness. And when God speaks like, it's them, get them, set them apart. And then it leads to this fifth one, notice this. Spiritual leaders in the church affirm and commission gifted saints. They affirm and commission gifted saints. They prayed and fasted, they heard who it was. They prayed and fasted some more. And then they, what? They laid hands and sent them. They commissioned them publicly. The leaders in the church were saying, follow these men. These men are servants. These men have what it takes. These men are for Jesus. What you never see in the New Testament is Lone Rangers that are just out there saying,

I'm just gonna start this, I'm gonna do this. God told me. There's none of that in the New Testament. It's always under the leadership of the local church if you're doing it God's way. And here's the thing, when you're praying and fasting church, God does some incredible things, doesn't he? I mean, last year at this time, we were praying and fasting, got put on my heart, Matthew 25. And I was praying about campuses and how are we gonna expand them? And he said, I was in prison and you visited me. And I knew immediately we needed to do prison campuses. And shortly thereafter, we hired Pastor Howie. We've been in Buena Vista. They just opened a door for us in the federal prison in Inglewood. Just so you know, now we're on two prison campuses. Praise the Lord, that's worthy of praise. We hope by this summer to be in five or six more. We'll see what the Lord does. We're adding people to our staff that can help with that. And we're seeing men in prison meet Jesus. We're seeing men in prison that know Jesus grow in Jesus. It's incredible. They're one of our campuses, we love it. But God is doing stuff. He does stuff corporately.

He's been doing stuff corporately. But he also does stuff individually when we seek him too. Did you know that? Do you mind if I just share a story personally that was kind of cool that happened to me during this 21 days? Yeah, so for me, I love preaching the gospel. I love getting a chance to preach the gospel. There's no place I'd rather preach than right here. This is my favorite place. Brave's my favorite place to preach. But I've always asked the Lord, hey, continue to open doors, help me expand my influence. I just want to preach the gospel to more people. And I've been looking around, talking to different friends. And some of my friends kind of run in the political sphere and they're at the White House and they do all that. And that's fine, that's not really my thing. I got other friends that do different things. And I'm like, that's not really my thing. But I've been telling the Lord, I'm like, Lord, I love talking to athletes. That's what I love to do, I'm good at it. And it's not because I have this prominent athletic background. I could show you my entire college football career in about 90 seconds if you ever get time. So it's not like I'm this great guy. But I understand athletes and all this stuff. This year I had a chance to give devotions

at Valor High School before one of their football games and just had a thrill doing it, it was awesome. And I was praying to the Lord during this 21 days of prayer and fasting that he would open up doors for me. And I remembered Pastor Cal, you know my pastor that comes and preaches here often. He had given a sermon some 20 years ago about when he was growing up in Ohio. He heard this guy give a talk who had just given chapel for the Cleveland Browns. And he said, how did he do that? And he went up and talked to him. He said, I just prayed that God would open up doors. Well, Cal, unfortunately, I mean, he's still a Christian, but he's a Green Bay Packers fan. And so he started praying that the Lord would open up doors for him to preach to the Green Bay Packers someday. And he's done chapel for them several times. As a matter of fact, when he retired, Brett Favre sent him a video congratulating him on his faithful service as a pastor, pretty cool. Well, when I heard this, I was sitting there 20 years ago and I began to pray. I'm like, Lord, I'd like to do that. I mean, that'd be kind of fun if I had a chance to be able to talk to some professional sports teams like before one of their games. And about a decade ago, I got a chance

to talk to the Broncos and do that. It was a really, really cool time. Well, this week, I was wrestling with the Lord on something. They asked me to be obedient to, and I knew what he was telling me to do, and I didn't wanna do it. You ever have one of those things? About two in the morning on Tuesday, I said, fine, I'm gonna do whatever you want, and I'm gonna set this aside. I'm gonna do what you want. And you don't even need to show me any scripture, but if you do, just confirm it. He did. Afternoon, I got a text with two questions. One was about Warrior Summit and one was, would you like to do chapel for the New England Patriots on Saturday? So I said immediately, absolutely. And then I began to think, are you sure? So last night, I did chapel for the New England Patriots. Okay? I was expecting about five to 15 guys. There were 40 guys that showed up last night. And I had a message all ready to go. It was on Philippians 2, about preferencing one another and laying down your life and how there'd be great reward in heaven if you preference other people. And how, you know what?

It's very rare in life you can make people happy, but if you lay down your life and empower a field tomorrow, 76,000 people will be ecstatic with you. I mean, I was ready to go. But the Lord put on my heart, Galatians 2, 20 and 21. I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God for if righteousness could be gained through the law, then Christ died needlessly. And I just preached the gospel. I talked about their new identity and their new access to the Holy Spirit. And I talked about their new freedom that they had. And I talked about what it's gonna be like to enter the stadium, but that's not that big of a deal. I said, the AFC Championship's a big deal here in America, but the biggest deal you're ever gonna have is when you stand before the Lord Jesus Christ. And I was able to preach the gospel last night. Amen? And just so you know, there's a lot of born-again believers on that team. They're super nice to me. They were super nice to my son. They were so nice to my son that he got in the car last night and said, Dad, I don't know what to tell you.

He goes, I might even be a Patriots fan now. So he slept in the garage. But the point is, there's bigger things at stake than the teams that we root for. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ, amen? And God hears our prayers. I mean, that's such a little prayer. It's such a non-big deal. It doesn't mean anything. All it meant to me is, God's saying, Jeff, I heard you. And I can do whatever I need to do whenever I need to do it. And it was just super encouraging to me. But we wanna be a church that depends upon prayer and fasting because before God works through his people, he works in his people when we're together on our knees, amen? So let's be a church that depends upon prayer and fasting. Now, as we continue, let me give you a second one. The church God uses proclaims God's word boldly. The church God uses proclaims the word boldly. Notice they fasted and prayed, they got the answer, they fasted and prayed, they commissioned. And then so being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and from there they sailed to Cyprus. And when they reached Salamis, they began to proclaim the word of God

in the synagogues of the Jews. And they also had John as their helper. Now you can look at maps and you can see how far this was and the different miles that they traveled. But for me today, that's not the important thing. What I want you to see is when they went where they were gonna go, what's the first thing they did? They didn't bring food. They didn't bring aid. They didn't say, hey, we love you guys. They didn't bring water. What did they bring? They brought the word of God and they proclaimed it. Because that's what mission is. Now you may not be called to be a quote missionary, but every one of us in whatever clothes we wear Monday through Saturday, we're missionaries. We're ambassadors for Christ. Whether it be with your neighbors or the people in your community, whether it be people at work, people at your school, like no matter where you go, you represent the Lord Jesus Christ. To do what? To present the word of God to people so that people can hear about who Jesus is. Because for some people, as it's often said, cliche, you may be the only Bible some people ever read.

And so when you can share the word, there's power in the word. It's one thing to read it, but when you speak the word, God uses his word to speak to other people's hearts. And so the first thing they do is they're not getting down and they're going right to the synagogue and they're not saying, hey, let's meet each other. Let's do all this. Let's form a committee. Let's plan a barbecue. Let's get a potluck supper. First thing they're doing is we're going to the synagogue because we know the Jews and here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And we're gonna demonstrate from the Old Testament scriptures, the Hebrew word, that God is who he says he is and that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. That's the most important thing we can do. I mean, even in Acts chapter four, verse 20, when these guys are being threatened with their lives or being punished, what'd they say? They said, you do whatever's right in your sight, but we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. I mean, even in the book of Romans chapter 10, we hear about this. Romans chapter 10, he says this, verse 14.

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in him who they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things. Isn't it awesome? How do people get saved? By hearing the word of the Lord. That's why I tell you, even if you only know one scripture, know one scripture. If you can learn two, learn two. If you know where to turn in your Bible, know where to turn in your Bible. Because when the word of God gets a hold of somebody's heart, God changes them. I mean, it's interesting in Colossians 1.28, he says, we are proclaiming him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom so we may present every man complete in Christ. And probably one of my favorite places in the entire New Testament, 2 Timothy chapter four, before he gives the charge, he says, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Preach Christ.

Tell people about Jesus. Tell people about Jesus. Don't be afraid. When God sends people to speak, the message we're called to speak is always Christ, right? Whatever fills you is gonna spill out of you. If it's sports, it's gonna spill out of you. If it's money, it's gonna spill out of you. If it's love, it's gonna spill out of you. If it's a relationship, it's gonna spill out of you. If it's Jesus, he will spill out of you through his Holy Spirit, amen? I mean, it's like this. When you see new parents, you do not have to teach them how to have an expression of joy for their kids. You don't pull them aside and like, we're teaching a parenting class, what's it on? Well, when you have a newborn, we're gonna teach you how to show that you really love it. There's no such thing. I mean, that child comes out, the first time you've ever seen that child, and in nanoseconds, you're like, I'd die for them. They're the most incredible thing I've ever seen. I've never seen something so beautiful in my entire life. Like, what happened? You're expressing joy for what you've seen. When you fall in love with Jesus and you spend more time with Jesus, you can't help but talk about the things of Jesus.

It's like today, two games on this afternoon, one in the NFC, one in the AFC. The winners won't just say, yeah, it was fun, I gotta go. They'll give an expression of their joy. They'll talk about why they were there. They'll talk about what happened. They can't help but speak because they're overflowing with joy, amen? And what God wants us to do is he wants us to proclaim the word boldly because being sent by God always results in speaking for God. So the church God uses depends upon prayer and fasting. It depends upon proclaiming God's word boldly. Let me give you a third one. The church God uses expects and endures opposition. It expects and endures opposition. Notice what happens. So they're commissioned. The Holy Spirit said, go. Are you sure, Holy Spirit? We're gonna pray and fast some more. Yeah, you two go. I'm sure, this is the mission. They go, they do what they're told. They're preaching the word. And guess what happens next? When they had gone through the whole island, this is verse six, as far as Paphos, they found a magician, a Jewish false prophet

whose name was Bar-Jesus, which means son of Jesus or son of Joshua, who was with the pro-council Sergius Paulus, so one of the rulers of the day was Sergius Paulus, and it says he was a man of intelligence. And this man, Sergius Paulus, summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. Everything's going well. We're proclaiming the word in the synagogue. We're proclaiming the words in the street. Sergius Paulus, one of the political leaders of the day, super intelligent man, wants us to come and share the word with him. It's going great, but notice what happens. But Elymas, verse eight, the magician, for so his name is translated, was opposing them, seeking to turn the pro-council away from the faith. So what was he doing? He was saying, the enemy hates it when people draw close to Jesus. As a non-believer, his job is to keep you blind so you can't see the light of the glory, to make you think that you're okay, to make you think when you die, you're going to heaven, to make you think everything's good, to make you think you're religious enough. He blinds you. But once you've been awakened to the truth

that it's only by grace through faith you can be saved, and it's only in Jesus you can be saved, and that involves repentance and faith, which is a life of full surrender, and that's the only way you have it, then what does he do in your life? He doesn't blind you because you already know the truth. What does he do? He distracts you from spending time with Jesus. You can be religious as you want, just don't spend time with Jesus. You can even come to church, but just don't pay attention. You can even be in a cadre, just don't contribute. I mean, you can go pray, but just be distracted. I mean, everything that he wants to do is to keep you from him. So when they go out to share the gospel, what can you expect? Opposition. Why? Because when you're trying to tell somebody who's dead in their sin about the solution in Christ, the devil's gonna go to every length he can to keep you from sharing that truth. Friends, I feel it every single Saturday night. I feel it on Sunday morning when I wake up. I do. Because why? Because the devil doesn't want me preaching the word of God to you.

He doesn't want you to hear it. It's why in Matthew chapter 13, verse 19, when he's talking about the parable of the soils, on the hard heart, what does the enemy come do? and snatches it away before it even takes root. The enemy hates God, he hates the word of God, he doesn't want anybody to hear it. So we should expect that when we're taking the gospel out into a culture that's hostile to the gospel, that there will be opposition and we shouldn't be surprised by it, why? Well, John 15 verses 18 to 20 tells us that the world hates truth. I don't know if you know this or have taken inventory lately but our world hates the truth as a general rule of thumb. Bible also tells us, here's one for a plaque in your family room, 2 Timothy 3.12, all people who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. So you wanna do things God's way, there's opposition coming towards you. Ephesians 6.12 says our struggle is not against what? Not against flesh and blood. Hey, you need to understand, there's no other human being in this world that's your problem, your spouse is not your problem, your kids are not your problem, your mom and dad are not your problem, your boss is not your problem, your employees are not your problem,

your neighbor's not your problem. Here's the problem, you have an enemy that hates you who works through all different circumstances. That's why our battle is not against flesh and blood. Our battle is in the unseen realm, the things we can't see, which is why prayer and fasting is so important because things have to happen in the invisible spiritual world before they ever are recognized in our present world today, right? And so this is what we're seeing here. You can expect opposition but people are not who's objecting you. The enemy, Satan was using this guy, Elimus or bar Jesus, but they recognized it was just the enemy. It wasn't this guy, it's what the enemy was using. And you need to understand, the closer you get to Jesus and the more steps of faith you take, the more fire you're gonna have. I mean, soldiers understand this. It's one thing to be in basic training, it's another thing to be in the infantry. When you get called to the infantry, you realize the bullets are a lot closer than they were in basic training. The same is true in the church. Now, if you don't believe me,

it's only because you're not serving. But if you get excited about Jesus and he shows you to serve, the first day you start serving, you'll be like, that was harder than I thought it was gonna be. I thought it was gonna be a lot easier than that. Why? Because it's opposed. Because anytime you wanna honor Jesus and serve someone else, there's always gonna be opposition. So we don't just turn our back and turn tail and be like, well, that was hard. Maybe we'll just go out and get a sandwich tonight and we'll rally, because we can't go talk to Sergius Paulus. Maybe there's someone else. That's not what they do. They endure this. And what you need to understand is that sharing your faith is always a risk and the cost of it is normal. It's always normal. In church history, revival is always met with resistance. It always is. And it always breaks out when there's a group of people in a church that is prayerful and God begins to move, amen?

So expect and endure opposition. Don't just run from it. I would say it this way. If there is no opposition, the gospel's probably not advancing. I mean, I have never met a person and it's never happened to me where, hey, everybody I go share the gospel with is just so interested and it's so much fun. I mean, if that was like that, we'd all go out and share the gospel every day. It's usually we're sitting down and then somebody doesn't wanna hear us or people turn their back on us or we lose friends because of it. Why? Because it's truth. And people reject the truth. So expect and endure opposition and then couple it with this. This is number four. A church God uses walks in the power of the Holy Spirit. See, instead of shrinking back, they believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. So notice this. It says, but Saul, who was also known as Paul, and just really quick on that, he had both names prior to this time. Saul was his Jewish name. Saul was his Jewish name.

Paul was his Greco-Roman name. From this point on in the story, he's gonna be called Paul because his mission is gonna be to the Gentiles. He still retained both names, but because he's gonna go talk primarily with Gentiles, his Jewish name didn't mean as much as his Greco-Roman name, so he's gonna go by Paul. He was filled with the Holy Spirit. Being filled with the Holy Spirit means you're controlled by the Holy Spirit. The Bible says in Ephesians 5, do not be drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. So when you're filled with the Spirit, it means you're controlled by the Spirit. Don't be controlled by alcohol. Don't be controlled by drugs. Be controlled by the Holy Spirit. So when it says that Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit, it meant this. He was yielding his life to the Holy Spirit. He was yielding his life to Jesus. He was walking in obedience, and as he's walking in obedience with Jesus, here's what happens. He fixed his gaze on him. Now, he's talking to Elymas, because Elymas was like,

he was seeking to oppose the truth. He was seeking to turn the pro-council away, like don't listen to them, but Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit. He fixed his gaze on him, and he said this. Now, you gotta hear this, okay? This is what the Word of God teaches. We have the wrong view of love. We think love is sappy, sweet, emotional, nice, and that everybody should be happy with us all the time. That is not love. Love is caring for people, being kind to people, but being truthful with people as well. Jesus was that way, so was Paul. So notice what he said to him. You probably wouldn't expect to hear this in church, but this is Paul doing this. He said, you who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord? There's nothing encouraging in that. I mean, there's not like, hey, you're a really good guy, but I think you're off here, and let's talk about. No, it's like, you're a son of the devil. Will you ever stop doing what you're doing and let Jesus have his way? That's what he was saying. And notice what happens next. It's amazing.

And immediately, he says this in verse 11. Now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and not see the sun for a time. Means you're gonna be blind for a while. Now it's interesting because when Saul got saved, he went blind for a while. So this is not so much punitive as reflective, because I believe that when Saul was blind for those three days, that's when he was doing his reflecting on what's going on and what's this. So I don't believe that Paul was calling down a curse on this guy for permanence, but for a season, it's probably time that you took a pause and are thinking about what you're doing. So he tells him, you're gonna be blind for a time and not see the sun, and it says this. And immediately, a mist and a darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking those who would lead him by the hand. I mean, here's the guy that's trying to be this big religious leader, and now he's like, somebody walk me somewhere, right? Now, we have the same access to the power and the Holy Spirit. Now, I find in our generation, I don't have access to that. As I've been filled with the Holy Spirit, controlled by the Holy Spirit, the Lord has never asked me to cause somebody to be blind. If I did have that spiritual superpower over the last 35 years, I may have tried it a couple times.

What I do have is access to the same Holy Spirit, and as I'm filled with the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit prompts me in a given situation to say something, to not say something, or to do whatever he wants me to do, or how to act in obedience, that's what I'm called to do in that moment, and that's exactly what Paul was doing. Paul was not saying, I don't like this guy, I'm gonna make him blind. Paul was saying, the Holy Spirit is having me say this to this man, and this is something God's gonna do to him, and I'm just being obedient by telling him that. That's what it means to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. And we have access to the same power. Jesus said, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you'll be my witnesses. We have power in the Holy Spirit. I mean, we don't realize the access to the power that we have. I mean, as Christians, we shortchange everything, and we're getting together in cadres, and we talk, yeah, I'm really struggling, I'm really struggling, I'm really struggling, which is okay, because all of us are growing what? Increasingly, not perfectly, that's fine. But when it's the same thing week after week, month after month, year after year, and you're five years down the road,

I'm still struggling, I'm still struggling, maybe it's because you wanna still struggle. Maybe it's because what you're saying is I'm trying to work on this, and it's not working. Let me just save you five years. You can't fix what's broken. If you could fix your brokenness, Jesus died for nothing. He didn't just die to save you and then say, now you have everything, everything will work perfect. He says, you still can't do anything apart from me. And so when we realize that we can be controlled by a spirit and say, Lord, this sin is in my life, there's no way I'm ever gonna break it, it's always been here, it's only gonna be by your help, I'm sick of it, I don't know what to change, I don't know what to do, but I'm gonna yield to you, show me whatever you want me to do, go wherever you want me to go, I just want the sin out of my life. He will guide you, he will take you. I mean, I look back on my life 35 years ago and see the sins that I sinned, and I'm still a sinner, I mean, don't get me wrong, but I don't sin like I used to sin. I mean, I don't like talking about the way I used to live. You understand what I'm saying? Because there's a sanctification process and a growing. And when you realize you have all the power you need, we get scared to go out and share the gospel with anybody, and God's like, I'm the one doing the sharing,

and I'm in you, and I'm pretty big, and I'm really good at this, so you don't need to fear. And don't worry about it, I got this. I mean, even in Luke 10, in verse 19, Jesus promised us authority. He said, behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you. In 2 Corinthians 10, in verses three to five, he says it like this. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destructions of the fortress. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. I mean, Ephesians 6 tells us to be strong in the Lord. James 4, 7 tells us to resist the devil. Listen, you don't need to curse the devil. You don't need to tell the devil, get out of my life. Don't even talk to him. You don't need to. You resist him and he'll flee from you. And he's always talking to you. And here's how you know his voice. It's always distracting.

It's always destructive. He's always telling you how miserable you are and what you did wrong. Or if it's not you, it's the person next to you and he's trying to get you to blame and criticize and be angry and carry around unforgiveness. That's who he is. Because he hates God and he hates you and he hates people. But when you recognize that voice and you resist that and you pour into your identity and say, no, no, no, I'm born again. The enemy can't touch me. Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. I'm holy and I'm loved and I'm cherished and I'm blessed and I'm favored. Not because of anything I've done, but Jesus Christ is my Lord and God and he indwells me by his spirit. Amen? And then I begin to see myself the way God sees me, which is not arrogant, that's humble, because the mirror in my life doesn't look like that. My behavior doesn't always reflect that, but my true identity is that, amen? And that's what we need to do. And so this temporary blindness was in hopes to cause this man, Elymas, to come to his senses and see that Jesus was God. But I just wanna tell you this, you walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.

If you're born again, he indwells you. The same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead dwells in you. The same spirit that you're reading about working through all these men and women in the first century lives in you. You have access to all the power that you need. And as a reminder, light always beats darkness. Darkness never has a chance, amen? So spirit-filled boldness tells the truth, and then it's gonna do this final thing. I mean, if we get these first four, we can be a church that God uses. Depend upon prayer and fasting, proclaim the word boldly, expect and endure opposition, and when we do, don't turn tail. We walk in the power of the Spirit, and then do this. Number five, you trust God for the results. A church that God uses trusts God for the results. Sometimes we tell God, these are the results I want, this is how I'm praying, and if you do this, we know you're good. Nope, God, you do whatever you want. I just wanna be obedient to you in the moment, and you can do whatever you wanna do. I'm willing to do whatever you want, because notice what happens in verse 12. Then the procouncil, this Sergius Paulus, believed when he saw what had happened, being amazed at the teaching of the Lord.

So when he saw this miracle and this blindness, he's like, I believe in your God, but he was amazed at what? He wasn't amazed that the guy went blind, he was amazed at what? The way that Paul and Barnabas were teaching, because he was hearing God, and he was hearing the word of the Lord, and his heart was being changed, because all they were doing was telling him, here's what the scriptures say, here's what it means. Here's what the scriptures say, here's what it means. Here's what the scriptures say, here's what it means. And over time, his heart was like, that's what I want. That's what I've been looking for. This is the Jesus I need. And his heart was radically transformed. So we give God all the glory, honor, and praise. It's one of the reasons that we celebrate baptism in the church, is so that we can celebrate what the life change that we see God doing in other people. Because he's still saving people to this day. And he doesn't save every single person. I want you to save them, I want you to save them, I want you to save them. And sometimes we're just praying with somebody we didn't even know, and God saves them. Praise God, right? We leave the results to God. And just like seeds need soil, growth needs truth.

Like Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel in Romans 1.16, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. We see in 1 Corinthians 2, verse four, that faith rests upon God's power. Paul says, I didn't come to you with wise or persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirit. And then we see in Acts 2.41, those who had received the word, it's the word that produces everything. All we're called to do is honor the Lord, seek his faith, yield to him, and be bold in our proclamation, that's it. And then we leave the results to God. We can hear the Lord, Lord, I think you're leading us this way, as long as we continue to do what? Depend upon the way the Lord's leading. I thought he was gonna go, okay, he's going this, we're fine, it's not our plans, Lord, it's yours. Lord, we're gonna meet you face to face, and we just wanna know that we've been a church that's doing these things so that you can use us. Because there's nothing more glorious on this side of heaven than being part of a movement and a life-giving community of God that sees God at work. And you're invited into it. You're invited, if you're born again believer, God's gifted you to serve the body of Christ. For the purpose of building up the body of Christ so that we get more excited about Jesus

and more thrilled about him, and that we go out into the world and live out the mandates of the gospel. So we tell people, oh my gosh, you wouldn't believe what's going on, our church is so exciting, God is doing so many things, God is present, I hear him every single week, we're worshiping him, we're praying to him, I'm involved in this, and this person's involved in that, you wouldn't believe the things that God's doing. I wanna be part of that, and I am part of that, and so are you, and God wants to do incredible things in and through the life. of a church when that church aligns with what God wants to be seen in that church. And so today, the way we're gonna end our service is by taking communion together. Because Jesus Christ is what's central to this mission. Jesus Christ is what centers us. It's his death on the cross, because 2,000 years ago, he came as the God-man, fulfilled the law, died on the cross, and was buried. Three days later, he rose, and when he died on the cross, he said, it is finished, it's complete. And when we repent of our sins and surrender to Jesus, we're completely cleansed, past, present, future, not for any good thing we've ever done, but because of our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Anyone who's been born again is welcome to take this supper today with us. On both our campuses, we'll have pastors come up

and administer the elements today. And so I'm gonna invite you, after we pray, just to hold these in your hand, prepare your heart however you would during the singing of this song over you, being reminded of the fact that all God has accomplished. Would you pray with me? Our Father in heaven, we give you glory, honor, and praise today. We thank you for who you are. Lord, we thank you as we celebrate this supper today that we be reminded of Christ's death, his burial, and his resurrection. Lord, thank you for saving us. If you're here today and you never trusted in Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, he wants to have a relationship with you, you can pray like this, Lord, save me. I believe that you're God. I believe you died on the cross for all my sin. I believe you rose from the dead. Come into my life and save me. And Lord, for those of us who you have saved, Lord, remind us of all you've saved us from and continue to deliver us from the power of sin so we can walk in the fullness and grace of who you are. We give you all the glory, all the honor, and all the praise in Jesus' name, amen. Prepare your heart as you hear this song sung over you.