Turn in your Bibles today to Acts chapter 4...Acts chapter 4. The crowd of believers in Jerusalem is growing. Looking at the numbers that are here, depending on how you put them together, whether or not that definition of 5,000 men just is actually men, not men, women and children. Whether that number is independent of the 3,000 who were converted on the day of Pentecost, it all depends on how you put them together, but most agree that come the 32nd verse of chapter 4 that the church at Jerusalem, as it is being formulated, there probably are somewhere about 20,000 believers in Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. It's a crowd. As we come to this section, verse 32 of chapter 4 down through really verse 15 of chapter 5, we're going to see God doing some math. And through doing that math, we're going to see how a crowd becomes a church, how this group of independent believers gets formulated into a body. Have you ever started out to do something? With one intention, by the time it was all said and done, you accomplished something very different, whether that be good or whether it be bad. I remember a particular Sunday, we were having our guest preacher over to the house and we were having lunch together and my mother made not one but two rhubarb pies. The only thing better than rhubarb pie is warm rhubarb pie. And so she had made two of them, and one she intended to be warm, and so she had cooked our meal, and then the last thing she was going to do was warm the rhubarb pie. And so she put it in the oven and forgot about it under the broiler, and it was black on top. That, my friends, is a grievous loss to lose a homemade rhubarb pie. Grievous. Anyway, she said, see, that's why you make two. So she took the second one and put it in the oven and remembered and got it out and it was nice and warm, steam rising out of the top. And she said, Alan, will you carry this to the table? And I said, sure, no problem. Well, I touched it and it was hot. So how does a teenage boy carry a pie? By the two outside edges, right? So I picked up that rhubarb pie and off I went towards the table and it folded right in the middle. Well, it's only reasonable if she ruined one, it was okay for me to ruin one, right? Yeah, that's not how that went down. That's a story for another day. But anyway, my intention was very good. I was carrying that trophy to the table for us to have, and it ended very, very differently. Well, my intentions were good and it ended up very badly. Sometimes the intentions are bad and things end up very goodly. That happens as well. No, goodly is not in your dictionary, but it's a good word. But as we come to Acts chapter 4, I was struck with this very thought. What is the Sanhedrin thinking? What are their intentions? They've just brought these men in and they've threatened them. They want to stop this movement that they see them beginning. They don't want them to speak anymore in the name of Jesus Christ. What about the powers and the forces that were behind them? What was Satan thinking? Stop this at all costs and so unleash the weapons of hell. We've got to do everything we can, and it's no accident by the time we get to chapter 9 that we hear the word Saul yet breathing out, meaning as we look at that statement, that's what he's been doing all along. And so at what point he got commissioned to go out and stop the church and kill men, women, and children that were speaking in the name of Jesus Christ, we don't know. But it's probably going on. And so the forces are being unleashed. We see when they call out these seven proto-deacons in chapter 6, and immediately in chapter 7 we find Stephen proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ and he is persecuted and stoned and put to death. And we have our first martyr in the church. And so the forces of hell are being unleashed because they want to stop this movement in the name of Jesus Christ. That was the motive. But I want you to see as we come to chapter 4 and verse 32 what was being accomplished, even through persecution. Look at verse 32, and the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul. Neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common. and with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. neither was there any among them that lacked. For as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, which is being interpreted the son of consolation, a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it. and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. But a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira his wife sold the possession and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land While it remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost. And great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young man arose, wound him up, and carried him out and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered her, Tell me whether you sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.' Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost. And the young men came in and found her dead, and carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things. And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people, and they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch. And of the rest durst no man join himself to them, but the people magnified them. And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women." As he always does, the Lord will add his blessing to the reading of his word. What an account, what a story, what a picture. Notice the power of God on display. As we see this group, this crowd, now becoming connected, now becoming a body, now we begin to see God's plan for what this thing called the church should begin to look like in relationship one with another. As we come to this passage, we're going to see multiplication, division, addition. and subtraction taking place as this group, this crowd becomes a picture of a church. Notice, first of all, the situation of the church...the situation of the church. What were these circumstances of incredible growth? Well, notice the passage that comes before, they've met together and they have bound their hearts together in prayer. And they pray together for boldness. It's amazing to me. Here they are, this fledgling group. The apostles come together and this group of believers that they have been with and they come back and it seems like they've already been assembled to prayer as Peter and John come in and they tell them the things that happened and they tell them the message that the Sanhedrin gives to them and they respond by telling them what they said. How would we pray in those circumstances? And we don't know, necessarily, that they didn't pray other things. We have recorded for us this prayer that they prayed, where they praised God for who He is, for His great name, for His great power, for what He did in exonerating, vindicating the name of Jesus Christ. Though He died, He was vindicated in that He rose again from the dead. And notice, they don't say, now Lord, you know these people. You know how wicked they are. You know what they did to Jesus. Lord, would you please protect us? No doubt they wanted God's protection. They didn't pray for wisdom. God, would You give us wisdom to know when we should speak Your name or if we should speak Your name? We're just...you know, they've threatened us and we're not sure exactly what to do." No, that was already settled when Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel. When He said, you'll be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, that was already settled. They didn't say, God, give us wisdom to know whether or not we should speak Your name because they've threatened us. No, they said, God, give us boldness. Give us boldness. You've told us what to do and they've threatened us. What we need is boldness of character to do what You've told us to do in spite of what they've said they're going to do. We need confidence to obey You and speak the truth even though these people are threatening us. Boldness. Boy, if the church needs anything today, it needs boldness. Folks, the reality of it is too many in our culture have had their head stuck in the ground for too long. We look at our culture and somehow we see the decisions that have been made and are being made as disconnected somehow. Somehow we have bought into the idea that what really is happening is there are individual, isolated episodes of offense. It just so happens that somewhere, in some place, there is somebody in one school who is somehow offended because some child happens to bring his Bible. And because of that isolated incident of offense, we really don't want to offend anybody, and so let's make the decision no Bibles in school. Somewhere else, there's an isolated incident where somebody is somehow offended by somebody praying in the name of Jesus Christ. And in that one isolated case, they're offended. So, you know what? Let's make the decision that we're not going to pray in Jesus' name anymore. Somewhere, somehow, somebody is offended by the Ten Commandments, and so let's do what we can to sandblast the Ten Commandments off the wall of the Supreme Court. Isolated, just, you know, somebody's offended. Folks, hear me. What is happening in our culture is not a composite of a bunch of individual isolated events. It is the entrenching of an intentional worldview in our culture. You and I are living in a postmodern, relativistic, humanistic culture that says, no God. And if we can somehow thoroughly delete God out of the culture, then we'll realize there really is no God. God is just somehow a fabrication of the Christendom of our society and they have imposed it upon the general culture who really doesn't believe that there is a God. And so somehow we can take the relics of this God out of our culture. We'll see that He disappears. By the way, I'm not sure how wrong they are with how quiet the voices of opposition are. But the reality of it is, we are living in a culture that has a humanistic, man-centered worldview. And we have been threatened, don't speak in God's name, don't pray in God's name, don't carry God's Word. And we're sitting around praying for wisdom as to whether or not we should. I'm here to tell you today, you don't need to pray that prayer. It's time for us to pray for boldness. But the reality of it is, it's all connected. If you haven't read Humanist Manifesto 2, go read it because what you'll see is a road map for what is taking place in American culture. It's intentional. It is on purpose. And I'm here to tell you again this morning that if a generation can be raised wordless, it will of necessity become godless. But the Word of God is disappearing out of our culture. And like sand through the hourglass, it's slipping away in tiny pieces. And those little pieces seem so insignificant. It's not all that big a deal. It really doesn't matter all that much until you happen to look and the hourglass is more than half empty and you lose the whole. And once it's at that point, we have crossed the tipping line. Now the majority is now the minority. And you know what? I'm not sure that I believe, at least on the things that I'm talking about, that the majority of our country wants the Bible out of school, wants prayer out of school, wants God out of our morality. I'm not sure that that's where the majority is. I don't know, but I don't think so, just in the people that I talk to. But somehow the majority have the minority voice because we're not bold, because we won't step up and speak up. This group here prayed for boldness. Now God, maybe we got it wrong. We know what Jesus said, but boy, we weren't necessarily expecting this. Did we get it wrong? Maybe we're not supposed to speak up. No, they didn't get it wrong. And they said, God, apparently the circumstances in which You are going to birth Your church are going to be circumstances, a situation of controversy. Lord, we don't necessarily know how You're going to do that, but we're going to obey. You give us the boldness to speak and we otherwise might cower. Those are the circumstances. And you know what? They were real circumstances. As we come to verse 32, understand that when it says, and the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul, neither said any of them that out of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common. Understand the backdrop. Why are we looking now at an atmosphere of need? Because these were people who, because of their faith, were facing a thoroughly Judeo-Roman persecution. It starts in Jerusalem and it starts with these religious leaders who are diametrically opposed to the name of Jesus Christ and diametrically opposed to those who are going to proclaim his authority. But before long, it's going to actually move more from just Jewish opposition to Roman opposition by the time we get to the end of this book. All of the world is against the church. Hear me, do you know from its very conception that has never changed? In fact, I believe whenever we get to the point where the world is patting the church on the back, there's something wrong with the church. Now understand, you're going to see that even at the end of this passage, there's a great respect for those in the church among those in the world. But it doesn't mean that they love them. I don't think there's any place for the church to function in the world in such a way that it's seen with this respect. And unfortunately, as the culture of our world gets into the church, we're seeing more and more and more of that. We're seeing a very similar ethic in the church as we see in the world. We're seeing a very similar morality in the church that you see in the world. We're seeing very similar motivations in the church that you see in the world. And you know what's happened? There's a thorough disrespect of the church in our culture. And that's part of why there's such silence in watching it disappear. It's hard for us to know the statistics, but churches on the whole, just churches on the whole, for every one church, latest statistics I saw, for every one church that's starting in the United States of America, seven are closing their doors. That's just churches, churches in general. And the reason being is so many people see it as inconsequential. So when we look at the situation here, understand, this is a situation of persecution. These people were being disenfranchised. They're being, first of all, taken to task by their religious culture. And so they're losing everything. Some of these were people who lost employment because of their faith. Some were people who lost their possessions because of their faith. Some were probably business owners who, because of their faith, everybody was told, don't go to them. No longer use their services. And so they're left destitute, need, hurting. That's their situation. Those are their circumstances. But then I want you to see the condition. I want you to see the condition. Notice the things that are said of this group. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul. Neither said any of them that out of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common." First of all, see that they had great unity. It's an amazing thing to me that one of the greatest forces of unifying people is difficulty. Over and over and over again, I sit with families who gather together at the time of a funeral and they say to one another, why does it take something like this for us to finally get together? And I wish after doing as many funerals as I have that I could give them the answer. But the answers aren't easy, folks. Busyness, maybe not intentional. sometimes petty differences, often selfishness. So we just never get together, we never communicate, we never talk. And yet, boy, we come together at a time of great need, and there's a uniqueness there. There is something to family, isn't there? Even as disconnected as it may be, there's still just something to family. going back home after not being home for two years and having the opportunity where both of my brothers were there who we haven't talked much and we haven't been together because of geographic separation. And yet in just a few minutes, nobody has to explain to the others, now let's remember if we can how we interact as brothers. We're brothers. And yeah, there's, oh hey, how you been? And what's going on? And then before very long at all, you're brothers. Because family's family. There was a great unity, and the difficulty brought about and heightened that unity. It brought about that fellowship. It caused them to bond together, maybe because all the other relationships in life were fragmenting and falling apart and disconnecting, and so they turned to one another. And that fellowship brought with it a sense of dependence one upon another. It brought great unity. You know, maybe one of the greatest jeopardies in the church today, in our culture, is the fact that we are so free that we've lost the identity as a church. What does it mean to be together, to be codependent, to rest truly upon one another? And yes, we'll see that part of that for them was tangible, it was financial. But are we really unified as a body? Where do you turn when you hurt? Are we really unified in that we pray for one another? Not just by getting a name and here we are gathered together and the name is called from the pulpit and so the church prayed for me. But are we really praying for one another outside of these walls? Interacting with one another as a body. Caring for one another the way we ought to. Unfortunately, in a free culture, somehow there is a social dynamic to the church, but it's almost just like some other club. I'm a part of the garden club, I'm a part of my golf club, I'm a part of whatever, and there's connections there, and none of those things are wrong. But somehow the church tends, in a free culture, to take on the atmosphere of a club. God never intended for the church to be a club. God intended for the church to be a body. And hear me, while there was persecution here, and yes there were evil intentions, what men intended for evil, God intended for good. That's why we read this morning, Peter who is speaking, he wrote in that passage we read together, count it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you. He said, don't consider it an odd thing. Don't consider it to be something that's just way out of bounds or something that's unreasonable. God is in it. And in these circumstances, God was in this atmosphere of persecution because it uniquely took this crowd and made it into a body. People who now had a common profession of faith in Jesus Christ begin to realize that they are brothers and sisters, that they are family, and for them, even beyond their other familial relationships, because many of them were disowned by their real family. God's intention is for the church to have great unity. Great unity. But then notice, secondly, that there was great power. Verse 33, And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. Great power. You know, sometimes God intends to put us in difficult circumstances for the very purpose of demonstrating great power. Sometimes I believe the church in a free culture is as anemic as it is because we have so little need to see the power of God on display. When the primary emphasis of a church is its social interactions, there are people who with no spiritual intention like the social interaction of a church, and so they join the church. It's just something you do. Good people are members of a church, and so that's why we go. Why do you go to church? Because good people go to church. Do you know what? If all there is here is social interaction, and that's all there is, and there's not much need for great power, this body of believers saw the need for God's help. They saw it internally because of the needs they were facing. They saw it externally. Yes, there's a crowd of them, but they're looking at the persecution and they are thinking to themselves, how do we survive? How do we carry out this mission? What do we do? We're called to tell people about Jesus Christ. How does that get done? Will it be effective? And now we've got people who are telling us that if we do it, they're going to cut our heads off. They're going to throw us in jail. How in the world are we going to witness for Jesus Christ thrown in jail? And notice what God does. Great power. And why was that power given? He says it clearly. With great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. God gave His power for them to have the ability to speak greatly of who Jesus was and what He did. Folks, do you believe that God Almighty empowers the witness of the gospel. Do you really believe that? That it's not left to cunningly devised approaches of how I should share the gospel, that somehow I have to win the argument, that somehow I have to overcome all the odds, that somehow I have to be more eloquent, that I have to have all of the answers? I'll tell you, I had an intimidating scenario this week. There was a man who I knew going into the circumstances was very well read, very knowledgeable, in fact had a very broad understanding of a lot of things. And I went with a dear sister from our church, he's their neighbor, and I went to his house. And I will tell you, walking to the house, my heart was racing. What am I going to face? What questions am I going to face? Do I have all of the answers? I wonder if I'll be able to interact with him on the questions that he has. And understand, when I walked into the house, folks, I saw as clear a display of what I believe Paul must have seen when he was standing at the Acropolis and looked out and beheld all the idols. This was a house that was, and I say thoroughly, I mean thoroughly filled with idols. There were tribal masks all over the walls from all over the world. There were little Jewish trinkets and prayer things. There was several different Buddhas from several different countries. There were books and there were magazines. There were a couple of tables. Now understand, these were dining room tables, and every inch of all of those tables was completely covered in stuff. This was a man who I believe spiritually was wanting to make sure his bases were covered. It was intimidating. But you know what? I don't have to be able to answer all those questions. I don't have to be equipped to thoroughly refute everything that Islam has said. I don't have to be able to refute everything that has been prognosticated religiously about the end of the world and when it's going to be. I don't have to have all of those answers. But you know this? I believe today, like Paul believed it then, like these men believed it then, that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes it. And we are to be ready to give every man an answer, not for everything they might think is right, but for the hope that lies within us. Do you believe? that God will empower His witness and change hearts for His glory. That ought to give me all the boldness I need. God, I don't have all the answers, but you know what? I can go and tell of my Jesus. I know, Paul said, whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. boldness to declare the simple truth that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and He lived a sinless life and He died on Calvary's cross in my place because of my sin. And He paid the price of the just wrath of God for me and offered to me the free gift of eternal life if I would stop trusting myself and simply trust His cross work. And He'll offer it to all who will take claim of His sacrifice. And so you know what, we stayed for two hours. And I was amazed at how God filled my big mouth as I opened it, and all kinds of things. But you know, one of the things the Lord put on my heart, I took out my wallet and I took out a five dollar bill, and I said to the man, I said, you know what, do you know, do you know how they train bank tellers? He said, no, how do they train back? I said, do you know that they don't spend weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and run through their every kind of counterfeit currency they can get their hands on so that whenever they feel a counterfeit, they say, oh yeah, I felt that before, I know what that's like. No, they don't. They spend all of their time handling the real thing so that when they feel something that's not the real thing, it feels phony. I said, sir, you've spent a lot of time studying. It's admirable. You've done a lot of work. I applaud you for the work that you have done. But in the midst of all of your work, have you spent a lot of time reading the Bible?" No. No, I haven't. I said, I challenge you, the brilliant man that you are, with all the work that you put in, to for a while set all of this aside and handle the real deal. And after handling this, then handle these things, and I've got this feeling they'll feel fake, not real. I wonder how much time have you spent handling the real thing? How much time have you spent handling God's truth? How much time have you gotten into God's Word? How often have you gone and mined the truth that is in the Word of God that has convinced you that what you believe is real? It's not just an option on the shelf. It's not just a good way. It's not just a nice way to have a social life. It's not just a good way to have a nice outcome in the midst of a culture that's becoming more and more immoral. It's not just that the ethics of the Bible are a good way to live. It seems like the best way to fairness. But you believe that it's real. You know, I believe that if we'll speak with confidence, with boldness, that which we know to be true, that God will never lack in supplying His power. Great power. But then notice the third thing, great grace. Great grace. Notice what it says. It says, and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold." Now, don't misunderstand this. As I first was reading through this passage of Scripture, I was looking at the grace as the grace of those who were giving. But understand, that's not what this is saying. God was the one giving the grace. And some of them, it was grace to meet the need, and some of them, it was grace to have their need met. God was the one giving the grace. I believe that as God's people do God's will for God's glory alone, there will be no lack of God's grace. God will supply. Great grace was upon them all. God supplied for them, meeting their needs. Boy, as we look at this passage of Scripture, does it kick in the head, the health and wealth prosperity gospel. What an utter bunch of unspiritual wrecks these people must have been. They didn't love God, they weren't praying, they weren't telling other people about Jesus, they were immoral, they were ungodly, and that's why we find them losing their homes and their lands and being persecuted, right? They had to be ungodly because the health and wealth gospel says this, that boy, if you'll take your seed of faith and you'll give it believing God that you can't help, you can't help but be a multimillionaire. And man, if you're sick, there's got to be some sin in your life. You're just not believing. God bless God. You've got to send us your 15 bucks, though it's the last piece of your Social Security check, and you've got to get this little prayer cloth that we have for you, and that's your 15 bucks of seed faith, and you get it and you believe in that little prayer cloth. And you know what? You're going to live to be 965 and never have a sore joint. Folks, either the health, wealth, prosperity gospel is real, or this gospel is real. But these were people who were being persecuted, losing their lands, losing their homes, losing everything. But you know what? Great grace was upon them all. Hear me, friends. I'll never exchange wealth for the grace of God. Oh, to live with physical ailment and the grace of God, rather than to have health and know God. Oh, to live with financial need and the grace of God rather than to live with no need and no God. Great grace was upon them all. This really does an incredible damage to the health and wealth gospel. Because either these people were spiritual or they weren't. And the passage is clear that they were and they had need. And that need unified them. That need put them in a place of dependence so they could see the power of God. And that need put them in a place where they would live every day with the understanding that they needed God day by day by day by day. Oh, that the church would realize that we can do nothing to reach this world. without the grace of God. Oh, we can have well-devised programs. We can have beautiful facilities. We can publish our message. We can stream it on the Internet. We can do all of those things and they're not wrong. But folks, if we ever come to the place where we think in our minds that our methods, our methods are going to get the task of the church accomplished, we're done. We're done. Oh, we may get a crown, but I can tell you this, we won't have a church. Because a church only happens as God's people live with a constant mindset that we cannot do what God has called us to do. We must have the grace of God. I must have it to live and move and survive every day as an individual. And if every individual has that mindset, the church will be a place of grace. Oh, to be grace, Baptist Church. That every one of us lived consciously aware of the fact that God, we need you every day. God, I need you to do it. God, I need you to supply. I need your strength. I need your help. I need your confidence. I need your boldness. I need your wisdom. And grace is the mechanism of supplying for all of those things. As you look at grace in the New Testament, finding it founded here in the book of Acts and then being explained on throughout the epistles, you'll find that it is divine provision whereby God provides for His own for salvation, for sanctification, for succoring or helping one another, for sacrificial giving in such a way that we cannot and therefore should not take the credit. Here in this passage of Scripture, we'll find that God gives that grace so that they can comfort one another. And they can carry that comfort out by way of sacrificial giving. By the way, we'll come back and look at giving in this passage of Scripture because it's a great picture. But I want you to understand that nowhere does this passage of Scripture teach communism. You'll find that they had all things common, but there wasn't some dictatorial leader who said, now everybody sell everything and give it to us and we'll distribute it as we see fit. This was a movement of God in the individual hearts of people who when they got to the place where they realized that there was an effective means of distribution, they gave it to the Lord so that people's needs could be met. This is not communism. The church did not become a commune. They became a community of faith. And so they gave so that the mission could be accomplished, so that needs could be met. I wonder this morning as we look at our culture and our relative freedom and the progress philosophically to persecution. Groundwork is being laid, folks. It's being laid. I talked with a man this week. We had Grandparents Day. Taught in the public schools for 31 years. I made a few comments to our grandparents about who we are and why we are the school that we are and what we believe and what we will teach. And he came to me afterwards and he said, you know, you're absolutely right. Thirty-one years of teaching in the public school. And he said, I was the teacher. And he said, I watched it happen, but you know, you kind of just think of it as being disconnected. And he said, I was the one showing the movie. And I showed a movie and I was watching it. It was a movie I had watched before. And it was almost as though somebody turned on the loud speaker and the voice on the movie said this, this we have learned. We know how all things began and the Bible has been reduced to nothing more than a myth." He said, it jumped out at me. He said, I jumped up and I turned the projector off. It was a film strip. That ought to tell you how long ago. And he said, kids, did you hear what they just said? That's a lie. They don't know how all things began. And the Bible is no myth. Folks, the groundwork is being laid. It's just a matter of how entrenched it becomes before we start to feel the persecution for being the ones that are against the law as the law is changing. I wonder if that comes to us, will we have great unity? Are we a body, a family, codependent, interdependent? I wonder, are we setting ourselves now for the defense of the gospel so that we'll live in such a way that when we go to that culture, as we should be going to it now, that we'll see great power? I wonder. I wonder. Will we live in such a way that we'll experience great grace? If the answer to those things is no, know this, we're somewhere in the passage of Scripture before this, a great crowd. But we're not as what God wants it to be, a great church. By God's grace, Let's purpose now in our freedom that we are going to be a church. Let's pray.