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[0:00] Acts chapter 13, verse 42 through 52.

[0:13] ! The word power in the Greek is dunamis, from which we get our English word dynamite.

[0:36] And so what that's telling us is that the gospel is powerful to transform people. When the gospel is preached with courage and conviction, there will be results.

[0:49] But sometimes the responses to the gospel will be a negative response, because the gospel confronts sinners with the reality of their lostness, of God's judgment against them and their sin, and their inability to save themselves.

[1:08] But rather than turn to Christ, they choose to reject Him. So if you go to the New Testament, and the first person we have there really recorded as preaching is John the Baptist, and we see from his preaching, in which he called the Jews to repent in preparation for the coming of Christ, that the Jewish authorities opposed him, and they questioned him and his right to preach and to be doing the things that he was doing.

[1:39] So we see from the outset that there's opposition to the gospel. Jesus, though, as troubling as John was for the Pharisees, Jesus was a preacher who was even more troubling to them.

[1:55] His life and his message, we know, infuriated the Jewish authorities to the extent where they were constantly trying to seize Him, arrest Him, and then later ultimately schemed and plotted to execute Him.

[2:08] But Jesus made it clear throughout his ministry that the gospel would cause divisions. And in Matthew 10, 34-36, he says, Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.

[2:22] I have not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a person's enemies will be those of his own household.

[2:34] And then we see throughout the book of Acts that same pattern unfold. When the gospel is preached, it creates division, separating the repentant from those who are hard-hearted, the saved from the unsaved, the righteous from the self-righteous, from those who love the truth to those who reject it.

[2:57] And so here, Paul and Barnabas, if you remember from last week, they're at Antioch in Pisidia, and Paul has preached to the Jews in the synagogue.

[3:09] He's shared the gospel with them. And now in verses 42 through 52, we see how the people of that town responded to it, which leads us to the main idea for our study tonight, which is that the gospel gets reaction and creates division.

[3:25] The gospel gets reaction and creates divisions. In these verses, we see the reactions people have to the preaching of the gospel.

[3:36] And we know that as Christians, we are commanded by Christ to go and make disciples. And in order to do that, that requires us opening our mouths and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with unbelievers.

[3:52] And we should know that as we share the gospel, that there will be a reaction to our sharing it. Some of those reactions will be negative.

[4:04] But fear of rejection should not cause us to go into silence. It didn't silence Jesus. It didn't silence the apostles. And it didn't silence the person who shared the gospel with you, who God brought into your life to share the good news of who He is and what He has done to save sinners from their sins.

[4:26] So again, we're going to see different reactions throughout these verses to the gospel. And it takes place in three scenes. The first scene is the hearing of the gospel with initial gladness.

[4:40] The hearing of the gospel with initial gladness in verses 42 through 44. So again, Paul and Barnabas have been in the synagogue.

[4:51] Paul has preached the gospel. And now in verse 42, it says, As they went out, The people begged that these things might be told to them the next Sabbath. So here at least we see that Paul's preaching garnered the people's interests and many of them wanted to hear more.

[5:07] Paul's message, if you recall, had covered God's sovereign care for Israel and showed how Jesus was the promised Messiah who the scriptures were foretelling.

[5:20] So this is a good thing, right? Paul's preaching. He's garnered their interest. And perhaps they responded to the gospel here, these Jews in Antioch, in the same way that the Bereans did in Acts chapter 17.

[5:36] In Acts chapter 17, when we get there in about, you know, three years, you'll see that the Bereans and how they responded to Paul and Silas.

[5:47] In verse 10 through 11, it says, The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. And when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue, which is their custom, Paul's custom.

[5:58] Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. And so perhaps there's something similar going on here where they wanted Paul and Barnabas to come back, but they wanted to take some time to look at the scriptures themselves and examine what Paul had preached and see if it matched.

[6:19] However, in verse 43, it reveals that others who heard were not able to wait another week. And so in verse 43, at the beginning there, it says, And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas.

[6:37] So you can imagine that Paul has preached. The people are interested. Some are going to wait a week to have them come back. Others are just so excited. They want to hear more from Paul and Barnabas, and so they can't wait.

[6:50] And so you can imagine them walking with Paul and Barnabas throughout the city streets, asking their questions and receiving some more information. The reaction of this group is similar to the reaction of Jesus' first disciples, if you remember, who left their nets immediately to follow Him.

[7:07] This was an encouraging sign. Paul and Barnabas continued then to encourage them in verse 43. It says there, Who, as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God.

[7:21] So again, some of this group not only couldn't wait to hear, but had probably already professed faith in Christ at some point in this conversation. Whether their faith was genuine, was not immediately apparent, they would validate the truthfulness of their confession by continuing in the grace of God, as Paul and Barnabas encouraged them.

[7:44] When someone professes faith in Christ, we should respond to that profession, I think, in a similar way. But as I've shared before, I've found myself, especially with children and teenagers, being more skeptical of those professions.

[8:03] And I've shared that the Lord convicted me of that, especially when we were at Falls Creek. There, if you've been there, you see tons of teenagers, and lots of them, they're hearing the gospel, and they're going forward during the invitation.

[8:21] And you know how teenagers are. They're easily influenced. They easily give in to peer pressure. And so my concern was that these kids that were going forward would do so because they either felt pressured and wanted to feel included, or because that's just what everybody was doing, and so they wanted to be a part.

[8:41] And so I'll tell you that I watched our kids very closely during that time, especially the ones I knew I had baptized to see, and I knew I had talked and shared the gospel with, and I knew that they had communicated it well.

[8:53] Well, even still, you know, it's one thing to know and to be able to repeat. It's another thing to actually have it take root in your life. And so I was watching them very closely, and I remember after the first day looking at, you know, the hundreds of teens at the front of the stage, and the thought I had was, well, I hope they mean it.

[9:16] And I meant that in a skeptical kind of way, you know, almost as if I kind of doubt that all of them truly mean it. But after the second night and seeing the same thing and talking with some of those kids, because they asked the pastors to be up at the front just to talk to kids afterwards when everybody was leaving, and in talking with some of those kids, it was clear to me, at least in the ones that I talked to, that they had truly heard the gospel and had truly been convicted of their sin and were confessing Christ as their Lord and Savior in a genuine way.

[9:55] And so I remember walking out of the tabernacle that second night and was convicted by the thought that, you know, shouldn't I expect that all of these churches bring all of these kids to Falls Creek with the purpose that they will hear the gospel clearly, shouldn't I expect that God is going to be at work in an environment like that?

[10:21] And it convicted me because, you know, here I was being more skeptical and having more of a negative attitude towards what I saw God doing, and that shouldn't have been the case.

[10:34] And so I didn't feel like I was right to be skeptical. But anyhow, when people respond to the gospel positively, I think, again, we should encourage them when they do, and our encouragement should be that they continue, like Paul and Barnabas, continue to continue in the grace of God, continue to follow Christ, encourage them to do that.

[11:02] And if they've truly been saved, then we'll see the genuineness of their confession. You know, as Jesus pointed out in John 8, 31, Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.

[11:17] So your profession, your confession, will be validated by the way that you live your life from here on out. In Colossians 1, 21 through 23, the Apostle Paul says, And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all of creation under heaven, in which I, Paul, became a minister.

[11:53] So again, when a person confesses faith in Christ, we should encourage them. But when their actions are consistently out of line with what they have professed, we know that they were like those, maybe, who Jesus talked about the soil that was shallow, the seed fell and the plant grew and it withered in the sun because there was no root.

[12:23] The gospel hasn't really taken root in their lives. And we know from Scripture that there will be those who profess faith in Christ and may even model that for a while, someone like Judas, but eventually the truth will be revealed, as John said in 1 John 2, 19, of those who were apostate, of those who claimed to follow Christ and then eventually fell away.

[12:46] He said, And so we should encourage, I think, again, those professions, but we know that it's the life after the confession that will tell us whether or not it was genuine or not.

[13:14] And perseverance is obviously a mark of someone who has truly been saved. And I believe that right now in our country, the Lord is refining His church.

[13:27] We're going to have to persevere more than we have in a long time, I think, in this nation's history. Because we know that it's an increasingly unpopular belief to say that Jesus Christ is the only way that someone can be saved.

[13:44] And our beliefs that come from God's Word are also growing increasingly unpopular in our culture as well. Calling sin, sin is not something that people like to hear.

[14:00] And again, our faith is becoming increasingly unpopular in our society. But those who have been truly saved will persevere and will continue in the faith to the end.

[14:12] So, bring it on, I guess, right? And we will see who is true and who is false. So now we move on to scene number two in verses 45 through 49.

[14:27] The gospel creates divisions. The gospel creates divisions. So after the initial positive response to Paul's sermon and the subsequent reaction created, we see division amongst the people to that sermon he preached.

[14:44] In this case, the split took place among racial lines. The Jews reacted negatively, but it was the Gentiles who reacted positively. The response of the Jews is recorded for us in verses 45 through 47.

[15:00] And there we see in a stunning reversal of the previous week that the next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord.

[15:11] But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. So they're like, yeah, come back, we want to hear more of this. And then everybody else wants to hear it. And now all of a sudden, they're very jealous of this situation.

[15:25] Well, what caused that jealousy? Well, I believe it was their prejudice that they resented that salvation would be made possible for the Gentiles also, because we know that the Jews despised Gentiles.

[15:43] And in this way, these Jews had the same attitude as Jonah in the Old Testament. If you remember, Jonah who refused to go to Nineveh, not because he was afraid of what they would do to him, and they were wicked people, but because he was afraid of what God would do through him to the Ninevites.

[16:04] Jonah despised the Ninevites, and he wanted God to judge them, and he wanted God to pour out His wrath upon them. He did not want God to be gracious to them. He did not want God to save them.

[16:16] And his concern and his fear, and the reason why he ran is because he knew that if he went and he preached repentance, that God would be gracious to save them and lead them to repentance.

[16:29] And when that happened, when the city did repent, Jonah was so angry that he wanted to die. So you see, this prejudice runs deep. The Jews were infuriated by the thought that the blessing of salvation given to them would be extended to the Gentiles, and that thought filled them with jealousy to keep what they thought belonged only to them.

[16:56] They wanted to be the ones inside, and they wanted to keep the Gentiles on the outside. And so it says there, as Paul was preaching, that they began to contradict what was spoken by Paul in verse 45.

[17:10] And they were speaking against what Paul was saying. They were openly refuting his teaching, and in verse 45 it says too, they were not only doing that, but they were reviling him as they did so.

[17:22] And so imagine, many of you have taught Sunday school class, and some of you have preached. Could you imagine trying to teach or preach while someone is refuting what you're saying the moment that you're saying it and doing it in such a mean and hostile way?

[17:42] How would you respond? Well, we see how Paul and Barnabas responded, right? It says in verse 46 that they matched the Jews' fury with courage.

[17:56] And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying it was necessary that the Word of God be spoken first to you. So they don't back down at all. As angry as the Jews were, so Paul and Barnabas matched their fury with the courage to speak the Word of God.

[18:15] And they pointed out by saying again, it was necessary that the Word of God be spoken first to you, speaking of the Jews. And we know from Scripture that's been God's plan of salvation, that He first offered it to the Jewish people, that He chose Abraham, and from Abraham made a nation, and they were to be a light to the Gentiles.

[18:37] In Matthew 15, 24, if you recall, Jesus followed the same pattern. He answered a Canaanite woman and said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And then if you recall, when He sent out His 12 disciples on a preaching tour, Jesus told them, Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans, but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

[19:00] In Matthew 10, 5-6. But after His resurrection, and we know that He had interactions with Gentiles throughout all of that, Jesus was not trying to hold them out, but the word, the promise, was to the Jewish people.

[19:16] And it was through the Jewish people that the nations would be blessed, ultimately through Jesus Christ. And then after His resurrection, and prior to His ascension, what does Jesus tell His followers?

[19:28] Go into all the world. Go into all the world, proclaim the good news of who I am to them, and spread the gospel throughout the entire world.

[19:42] Tragically, though, the Jews in this crowd chose to refute the gospel instead, and thus, in their refutation of the gospel, they were rejecting it. And so Paul says to them in verse 46, Since you thrust aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life.

[20:01] The Jews had been waiting for the promised Messiah for centuries, but in rejecting Him, they were, as Paul says here, forfeiting the only hope that they'd ever have for eternal life.

[20:15] And so this passage teases us the important biblical truth regarding human responsibility. Like all who go to hell, the unbelieving Jews at Antioch judge themselves unworthy of eternal life by their unbelief.

[20:33] In John 3.18, Jesus says, Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

[20:46] people perish because they choose to reject and refuse to believe the gospel and that choice condemns them.

[20:59] John 5.39-40, Jesus says to the Pharisees, You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about Me, yet it's you.

[21:12] It's you who refuse to come to Me that you may have life. In John 8.24, Jesus says, I told you that you would die in your sins for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.

[21:29] This truth, that man has a responsibility to believe, must though not be forgotten that it comes in tandem with the equally biblical truth that God is sovereign in salvation.

[21:42] I've got a quote from J.R. Packer to share with you. It's a little lengthy, but it's good. He says, the particular contradiction which concerns us is the apparent opposition between divine sovereignty and human responsibility or putting it more biblically between what God does as king and what He does as judge.

[22:06] Scripture teaches us that as king, He orders and controls all things. human actions among them in accordance with His own eternal purpose.

[22:17] Scripture also teaches that as judge, He holds every man responsible for the choices He makes in the course of action He pursues. Thus, hearers of the gospel for the choices He makes, thus, hearers of the gospel are responsible for their reaction.

[22:35] If they reject the good news, they are guilty of unbelief. And He continues, Man without Christ is a guilty sinner answerable to God for breaking His law.

[22:46] This is why He needs the gospel. When He hears the gospel, He is responsible for the decision that He makes about it. It says before Him a choice between life and death, the most momentous choice that a man can ever face.

[23:01] when we preach the promises and invitations of the gospel and offer Christ to sinful men and women, it is part of our task to emphasize and reemphasize that they are responsible to God for the way in which they react to the good news of His grace.

[23:20] So having been rejected now by the Jewish community, Paul and Barnabas announce at the end of verse 46 into verse 47, Behold, we are turning to the Gentiles, for so the Lord has commanded us, saying, I have made you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.

[23:41] And there he's quoting from Isaiah 49.6. So here we see Paul and Barnabas reveal that the narrow-minded view of salvation expressed by the Jews was an idea that was incompatible with Scripture, which clearly taught that the Messiah would be sent to the Gentiles as well.

[24:03] Isaiah 42.1 talks about that. Then in verse 48, we hear, or we see, that when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord and, don't miss this part, and as many were appointed to eternal life, believed.

[24:24] So here we see one of the clearest statements in all of Scripture concerning God's sovereignty. We've seen man's responsibility. Now here we see God's sovereignty in salvation.

[24:35] Scripture repeatedly places the truth of man's responsibility and God's sovereignty in salvation before our eyes. And often, it's almost like this where we see one and then we see the other.

[24:47] Here's some other verses amongst many that I chose to share with you about God's sovereignty in salvation. In John 6.1.12-13, there it says, John says, but to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.

[25:06] And we're talking about human responsibility here. But then we see what's underneath that or what's behind that. who were born, speaking of the new birth, not of the blood.

[25:18] So two Christian parents can have children and they will pass on their genetic code to their children, but salvation does not pass on through the bloodstream like that.

[25:29] Nor the will of the flesh. So it's not of us. It's God who does it. Nor the will of man. It's not someone else who can cause it to happen for you.

[25:41] So how does this new birth happen? Well, it's of God. It's of God. John 6.65, Jesus says, and this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.

[25:57] 2 Thessalonians 2.13, but we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.

[26:12] Ephesians 1.3-4. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

[26:33] In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. And so when we're talking about these two things, I think John MacArthur says it well, and I've got a quote to share from him.

[26:48] He says, the matter of human will and divine election is so inscrutable, so incomprehensible to our minds as to demand that we believe both without being able to comprehend how they fit together in God's mind.

[27:02] We know it. We see it. How do they fit together? Well, this is why I love Romans 11, 33 through 35. Oh, the depths of the riches in wisdom and knowledge of God.

[27:13] How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor or who has given a gift to him that he might repay?

[27:25] And so my answer is God is smarter than me. He's infinitely smarter than me and I trust God. Right? We've been created in his image. We have the ability to think rationally and reasonably, but we are not God and we are not able to think at God's level.

[27:44] There are human beings that I'm not capable to think at their level. You know? Like Tom was talking about this guy who knows two dead languages and I struggle with English. You know what I'm saying?

[27:56] We see how smart people are. God created everything. God knows all things and who are we to serve as God's counselor. We're not able to do that.

[28:09] And if we think we are, we're being really foolish. Man's responsibility and God's sovereignty and salvation to me serve as the guide rails on the narrow pathway.

[28:21] To emphasize one over the other is to fall over those guard rails and to fall into doctrinal error. I feel safe traveling between those two guard rails.

[28:34] So we see that the Gentiles, as many as were appointed to salvation, believed and that they were elated by what they heard Paul and Barnabas just say.

[28:46] In verse 49, it says, And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region. So here we see again that it is the word of the Lord that serves as the agent by which salvation comes.

[28:59] Antioch was turned upside down because it was the word of God, it was the gospel preached to them that did that.

[29:11] Paul didn't preach messages about how you could have greater self-esteem. He didn't preach messages about that had to do with politics or social issues.

[29:24] He preached the gospel and that was what brought about the transformation. But again, not everyone was happy with what they heard. Just as the Pharisees couldn't beat Jesus in a debate, neither did those Jews in this crowd, neither were they able to refute what Paul and Barnabas said.

[29:46] And so in verse 50 it says, But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, they stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and they drove them out of their district.

[29:59] So what are the Jewish unbelievers doing here? Oh, they're playing politics, right? We don't like what these guys say. They're gaining influence.

[30:12] So let's go to the influential in our community, those who have deep pockets, those who sit on councils or boards or whatever. And no doubt they probably lied about what their true motivation was and they got them on their side and then these influential people went to those who were in charge of the city, the government officials, and collectively they worked together to kick Paul and Barnabas out of town.

[30:46] And then we get to scene three. Paul and Barnabas reaction to rejection. Verse 51 and 52, but they shook off the dust from their feet against them and they went to Iconium and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

[31:08] Have you ever been kicked out of a place where you filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit? Well, you probably got kicked out of there for the right reasons, right? They were kicked out for the wrong reasons, but they still were filled with joy because they were being persecuted for their faith and in that they were being treated as Christ their Savior was being treated.

[31:29] They were being so closely identified with Him. The act of shaking off the dust from their feet with a sign of ominous symbolism.

[31:40] This was not a good thing for the people of Antioch to see them do. If you remember when Jesus sent out the 70, He gave them the same instruction in Luke 10 11 through 12.

[31:52] But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, even the dust of your town that clings to your feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless, know this, that the kingdom of God has come.

[32:05] I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. And so now, Paul and Barnabas have gone, they've preached the gospel and people have been saved.

[32:18] That has been one reaction, a positive one, but others have reviled them and rejected them and hardened their hearts to the good news of Jesus Christ and they have kicked them out of town.

[32:31] But, Paul and Barnabas don't say, well, we've failed, you know, I guess we ought to go back to where we came from and, I don't know, lick our wounds and pray that we do better next time.

[32:45] No, they said, well, off to the next town, right? And so, it was eight miles away and no doubt as they went and traveled that eight miles they were rejoicing to see what God had done and even in the hardness of hearts, no doubt I'm sure praying for those that they would have a changed mind, that God would change their minds and save them before it was too late.

[33:08] But, again, we see they left behind two completely different groups, those who believed and those who rejected the gospel. And that, that, in this passage, reminds us of the choice facing all people.

[33:25] They either trust Christ or they reject Christ. There is no third option. There is no third group. When our Lord returns, there will be two groups. There's two paths.

[33:38] There's two destinations. You either believe Christ and are saved or you reject them. As Jesus said in Matthew 12, 30, whoever is not with me is against me and he who does not gather with me scatters.

[33:55] And Diane handed me a quote from Votie Bauckham that's fitting for our study tonight. It says, how many people are going to heaven? The exact number that God chose before the foundation of the world.

[34:07] Not one more, not one less. Our responsibility is to go and share the good news of Jesus Christ. and we leave the results up to God.

[34:17] We do so passionately, boldly, we plead with them and we hope that they will be saved, but ultimately when it came to us, God is the achiever in salvation.

[34:30] God is the one who gets the credit. When we go to heaven, God is the one who gets the glory. He gets the glory here. Same way with us as we go and share the good news of Jesus Christ. God is the one who receives the glory.

[34:43] He is the one who is the achiever. He is the one ultimately who must save. So how do we apply this text? Well, I've got three applications for us.

[34:55] First of all, encourage those who profess faith in Christ and keep an eye on their walk. So when people, your friends, your family, people in our church, co-workers maybe, they profess faith in Jesus Christ, I think you should be happy to hear that.

[35:15] I think you should be encouraging them and maybe even trying to disciple them but keep an eye on their walk. And it could be that, you know, being a new Christian, they're just immature and there's some things that they don't realize where then you can come alongside them with Scripture and gently remind them of the way that they should go.

[35:34] But when we see them really out of line, especially a church member, we know how to respond, don't we? In Matthew 18, we follow the steps that the Lord has given us to try to bring a wayward believer, someone at least who has professed to believe in Jesus Christ, how to warn them of the direction that they're going in in the hopes that they will repent.

[35:58] And if not, we eventually get to the point where we say as a church, well, based upon what we see in your life and your refusal to repent of the sin, we can no longer say as a church that you are truly following God, that you are truly saved.

[36:12] And we send you out with the hopes that you will see how serious this is and that God will convict you of your sin, the Holy Spirit will convict you of your sin and bring you back to us.

[36:26] The second application, do not be surprised when the gospel creates separations. So as we preach the gospel, we shouldn't be surprised that it will create separations, as Jesus said.

[36:40] Separations amongst family members, separations in communities, all kinds of separations. And so when we see that, that shouldn't be something that surprises us.

[36:52] And then finally, so that fill in with separations. Finally, even if people reject the gospel, Christians have reason to rejoice as we see Paul and Barnabas rejoicing.

[37:04] Christians have reason to rejoice. Now, I've shared this before, but it helps me to maintain the proper perspective in evangelism.

[37:17] You know, in baseball, it's all about statistics, right? And if a hitter is batting 300, that's really good because it's hard to hit a baseball. But what that means is they fail seven out of ten times, which in any other situation in life, if you're probably going to, well, you're not doing well, right?

[37:37] If you fail seven out of ten times at home, you're probably going to be in counseling with me or somebody else or an elder or something like that. If you fail seven out of ten times at work, you're probably going to be looking for a new job at some point in time, right?

[37:50] And I think that sometimes we put so much pressure on ourselves to be the one who saves the person when we should keep in mind that, yes, that's our responsibility.

[38:01] Share the gospel clearly, with conviction and with passion, but ultimately the results are up to God. And I'll tell you that makes, that, when I realized that, that lifted, or when God revealed that to me, that lifted a burden off of my shoulders.

[38:20] You know, if I go and I share the gospel with someone and I've been clear and I've been compassionate, then I've done what God has called me to do and the results are up to Him.

[38:30] And hopefully a seed has been planted that someone else will come along and water and maybe that someone will be me. But even if they reject it, I know that at least that they've heard it and, and again, that, that was their choice.

[38:49] So anyhow, I hope that that encourages you to share the gospel and, and to continue to share it and to not be afraid when people revile you for it or refute it or reject it.

[39:04] You just continue to do what the Lord has caused you to do. And again, I love the, the parable he told of the farmer who goes out and he just scatters seed. He's just throwing seed and he does that and he goes home and what does he do?

[39:18] Worry that it's going to grow or anything like that. He sleeps and, and, and the seed takes root. He just throws the seed. He's just a seed scatterer and that's what we are too.

[39:30] We're scattering seed and it's God who causes the growth. Amen? Amen. All right, let's pray. Lord, thank you for this night that we've had together and God, we pray that you would help this lesson to, to be fresh in our minds as we share the gospel that Lord, we know that, that there will be separations, that there will be divisions, that some people will hear the gospel with gladness and they will receive it and they will rejoice in knowing that they have been saved from their sins and in eternity in hell and that they have been separated from their sins and have eternal life and a, and a, and a joy in heaven that, that awaits them and so Father, we know that that happens but Lord, we also know that when we share the gospel that people will reject it and they will revile it, they will revile you, they will refute it, not only will they sometimes reject it but they will seek to oppose us and try to make life hard and miserable for us.

[40:33] Whatever the case may be, Lord, we pray that we would be like you, that we would share the truth, trust you with the results and not fear what men may do to us because Lord, we know that even if they persecute us, there's great joy in that for being so closely identified with our Lord and Savior and so help us, Lord, individually, help us as a church to go out and to share the good news, to trust you with the results and, and we love you God and we ask these things in Jesus name, Amen.

[41:05]  Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.