We need the Lord. Samson needed that identity in Christ, in the Lord God. So do we tonight so that people can see Jesus, what? In us. You know what else? They need to smell him in us, amen? Ain't that what the scripture says? That Jesus, when he leads us in triumph, what does he do? He diffuses the aroma or the fragrance of Christ through us when he is leading us. That is, people can smell Jesus. They can recognize Him upon our lives, and that's how we wanna live to His glory. Why? As we mentioned last night, what has God said He's committed to do? He's committed to fill this world up with the knowledge of His glory, right? And who is He using to do that today? He's using people like you and me to do that. So I want you to take your copy that you brought with you tonight of the Word of God and turn to Acts chapter 17, Acts chapter 17. We're gonna look at the Apostle Paul doing the very thing that God in his zealousness said he would do. In Isaiah nine in verses six and seven, we have that prophetic picture of a child that was gonna be born and a son that would be given. and they said his name shall be called what? Wonderful. What's the other name they gave him? Counselor. What's another name? Mighty God. What's another name? Everlasting Father. What's another name? The Prince of Peace. Now what was gonna be upon his shoulders? the government or the reign. He was gonna rule and reign. He would order it and he would establish it. That is, he would set it up and he would sustain it. He said, the increase of his government, there shall be no end. And it says in the closing verses on there, for the zeal of the Lord of hosts. would perform this. The zeal of the Lord of hosts, the passion of God himself would see this mission that his son would fulfill, he would see that it would come to pass. So tonight when we were singing about the everlasting arms, when the choir was singing to us and they was talking about the safest place in all the world under the shelter of the Almighty. Anytime the gospel goes forth, anytime the work of God goes forth, anytime you in your home or you in your community or you on your campus is standing on the foundation of the Word of God and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know who that is at work in us? That's the zeal of the Lord of hosts working in us and through us to fulfill everything that he promised he would do. And we can't do it, what, without him, amen? He's gonna do it if it's gonna be done, and he's gonna use people like you and me. We've seen doing this with the Apostle Paul in this chapter of Acts chapter 17. Look at about verse number 22. That's where we will begin. The scripture says, then Paul stood in the midst of the area of Pagus and said, men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious. For as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar that had been set aside with this inscription upon it, to the unknown God. So now Paul is gonna capitalize. He's gonna redeem the time. He's gonna use what they had right before him, what God had given him, and now he's gonna segue right in to tell them, I wanna tell you who this God, who you don't know who he is, I know him and I'm gonna tell you all about him. And I wanna tell you, that's how we wanna live life, amen. God is gonna give us different things at different times to tell his story, whether it be a day like today that we rejoice in because he sends the rains to us, and we can't help to say that God has promised that, hey, it rains on the what? Just and. The unjust. God has been gracious and kind to nations since time began. He's given us sunshine and rain. He's given us seasons for harvest and seasons for reaping and seasons for sowing. But there's been times throughout the history of mankind, God let men do their own thing and go their own way all through time. But since Jesus came, he's commanded every man to repent. and put their trust and confidence in Jesus, and therefore he sends us out to a world to tell them, and Paul's on that mission to tell them. And he says, to the unknown God, therefore the one whom you worship, or the idea is you ignore and worship without knowing him, I proclaim to you, verse 24, God who made the world and everything in it, and all God's people said, He's made it all, right? It all belongs to him. Proverbs 16, four says, all things are of the Lord or belong to the Lord, even the wicked for the day of calamity or the day of destruction. Everything belongs to the Lord. And all God's people said, I know Satan is the prince of the power of the air. He's the ruler of this world, but this world still belongs to our father, doesn't it? and everything is still working as he intended it to be. God, who made the world and everything in it, since he is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he worshiped with men's hands as though he, God, needed anything, since it is he who gives to all life, breath, and all things. And all God's people said, whether it's acknowledged or not, he's the one who gives it. Whether men bow the knee to him or not, he's the one who gives it. Whether man acknowledges him as being who he is, he's still who he is, he's unchanging, he can't be changed. You can't thwart his plan, he's working out his plan, and he's right on schedule with it, amen? So we don't have to fret, we under the shadow of the wings are in the secret place of the Almighty, and I wanna tell you tonight, that's the safest place in all the world to be. Even in the most dangerous places of the world. You better off being in the most dangerous place of the world, under the wings of the Almighty, and being in the safest place without him, amen? You're better off, I'm better off. So he says in verse number 26, and he, this God that I'm talking about, he is made from one blood, every nation of men. to dwell on the face of the whole earth. And this God has not only made men, but he's also determined their pre-appointed times. That is when they would live and when they would die. When we would be here and when we depart from this world. That's in God's hands. And all God's people said. He has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, where they would live and where we are going when we die. Verse 27, so that they, humanity, mankind, should seek the Lord in hope that they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Verse 28, For in him we live, we move, and we have our being, as also some of your poets have said, for we are also his offspring. Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, meaning he made us, We ought to not think that divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, that is something shaped by the art of man's devising, verse 30. Truly these times of ignorance God has overlooked, but now commands what? All men everywhere to do what? Repent. Why? Because he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the standard of this judgment, the man whom he has ordained and he has given us assurance of this to all by raising this man, him, we know who he is, his name is what? Jesus from the dead. And all God's people said, amen. And may God add a blessing to the reading of this word. May help us tonight grasp some of these things as we look at it. Paul just simply took a moment of what these men had given him and other generations that come before him that had made this inscription he saw it a great opportunity to explain to them who this God is, who they call an unknown God. And he's gonna tell them that this God is the creator of heaven and earth. And because he's the creator of heaven and earth, he's also the creator of all mankind. and he created you who are standing here today. And because he is the creator, therefore he is Lord of heaven and earth, the creation itself will be held accountable to him. The problem is the creation itself is fallen. That's why you don't know him. And that's why he's known as the unknown God to you. Because you're fallen from the original sin that has been passed on to everybody that has been born in this world, and as a result thereof, you have built temples, and you have built inscriptions, and you have built idols, and you've done all these things, which in reality, as Paul would teach us in the book of Romans, chapter one, verses 18 through 32, he says, that's been a what? A manifestation of the wrath of God upon humanity, for humanity has tried to, what, alter and change the incorruptible God into a corruptible creature or an idol of some sort, and they tried to alter it and change it to fit their lifestyle, and Paul is telling them right here in Athens, that's exactly what you have done with your life. But I wanna tell you, God's gonna judge this world, and he's gonna judge this world by one standard. And that standard that he's gonna judge the world by is by a man who came and took upon flesh, God himself, and he lived a righteous life, and he lived a life that we couldn't live, and he died a death that we couldn't die. And God's gonna judge the world by his righteousness, and if you're not as righteous as him, you'll never be able to stand before him and give an account for your life. And you see, but God's standard for judgment can't be different than his standard for life. You see, if God's gonna judge the world by one standard, that same standard is how men are lived by. And there's not a person in here that can live up to the standard of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen? So that means then how in the world can I be as righteous as this man? Well, I can only be as righteous as this man when I understand what this man came to do. And that is he came to fulfill the will of his father to be a sacrifice for his father, a sacrifice that none of us could offer unto the father because we were all tainted and we were corrupted and twisted in our sins. So God himself took it upon himself to offer himself to himself on our behalf. And I wanna tell you that's what grace is. Grace is God cheerfully. and delightfully, cheerfully and delightfully, offering unto himself for himself, offering that unto us in the face of deserved wrath. What we deserve is the wrath of God, amen. but God himself came and lived the life that you and I could never live, that qualified him to die a death that we could never die, so that we could trust him with our life, and when we do, we die with him on the cross, and when we die with him on the cross, he takes his life of righteousness and counts it unto us, but he took our sin from us and nailed it to the cross. Man, what a blessing, amen. So that we could be declared innocent and not guilty. Now the problem is, is that the men in that day didn't realize that he says in verse 28, for in him we live and move and have our being. They didn't realize life came from him. They didn't realize that they moved about and everything that they did in life, they didn't know that that came from him. They didn't realize that they were created and exist and should exist to his glory. They didn't know that. And they wouldn't know that until they come to know him through the Lord Jesus Christ. You think about when God created this world. We take Genesis for an example. And I wanna tell you, Jesus believed God created this world in what, six days and on the seventh day, what did he do? He didn't create this world over millions of years of time and all that. Jesus said what? In six literal days, the Father created this world. And matter of fact, he also said in the beginning, God created what? Mail and? You see, if you discredit Jesus, you discredit the Father. If you discredit what Jesus says, you discredit everything that the Bible teaches us about life, amen? So you can't discredit Jesus because we have an opinion about our modern day society and how it wants to think. No, if you believe Jesus, you believe him. And when you believe him, you believe that you're to live on what? Every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord, amen. Why? Because Jesus believed it, and that's what salvation is. It's believing into him. It's taking him at his word. You believe him that he said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh under my father except what? through him. See, heaven is a place, and it's a place we'll live forever in, and it's a place that is beyond our capabilities of fully understanding what it is and how long it will be and all those things, but heaven's much more than a place, it's all about a person. And I wanna tell you, the reward of heaven is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ of getting to live forever with him, amen. And the only way to have that is to know him and believe him and trust him. That's why Jesus said, if you believe me, you believe my father. So not only are you believing me, but you believe in my father. You're putting your trust in my father because I don't say anything the father hadn't told me to say. I hadn't done anything the father hadn't told me to do. I don't heal anybody that the father hadn't told me to heal. So everything he did, he did it in the glory or for the praise of the glory of his father and we become benefactors of that. We become the blessings of that. Matter of fact, Peter said it like this, that the Christ would suffer and the glories that would follow. We're part of those glories, amen. Isn't it a glorious thing that he'll save you and me? You know who you are, amen. I know who I am, and I don't believe there's anybody in here worse than me. And Jesus still saved me, amen. Why? Because he didn't accept me because of me, he accepted me because of him, amen. He accepts me because of what his son did for me on my behalf and I am blessed by what his son done for me and he swapped his life for my life when I put my trust into him. So when we tell people God accepts us just the way that we are and he does, a sinner, We often mislead them. It's almost saying God accepts us because he approves of us the way that we are, and he doesn't approve of us the way we are. The testimony of the cross testifies he doesn't approve of us as a sinner, amen? He accepts us because somebody else was righteous. He accepts us because somebody else lived a life we couldn't live. He accepts us because somebody else died a death that we couldn't die. And the miracle of salvation is, is that when I trust him, he then swaps lives with me. And what he is in righteousness, now I become, and what I was in sin, he took it upon the cross. and dealt with it before his father. He who knew no sin became sin on my behalf, that I who knew no righteousness might become the righteousness of God in him, amen. What a wonder, that's the gospel in a nutshell, ain't it? That's the good news of the glory of God. But when God created this world, who did he speak to in particular when he created the beast of the field? He said, let the earth bring forth what? The creatures. When he created the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, he spoke to those areas that they live in and that they move about in and they have their existence in. How many of you ever seen a squirrel swimming in the sea? They don't live there, do they? They don't move about. How many of you ever seen a fish in a tree? Somebody did what? Somebody put it there, right? And if they put it there, if that tree ain't a treetop under the water, what's gonna happen to that fish? It ain't gonna make it, because it ain't designed to live there. Squirrels ain't designed to live in the sea, and birds ain't designed to live in the sea. They live where? In the skies. They live in the trees. Well, that's the same thing. But you see, who did God speak to when he created mankind? He said, let us make man in our image. He didn't speak to the earth, though he took dust of the earth and he formed a man by the name of Adam. And then he formed all the beasts and brought them to him and Adam named them, but he didn't find anybody compatible with him. So God put him to sleep, took from his side, created a woman and brought it to him, a helpmate to him. But you see, what God did was say, let us create man in our likeness. When he spoke to everything else in the creation, when he brought it out, but see, we don't fit in the sea, we don't fit in the trees, we don't fit in this old world. The only place we really fit in is when we live in him, move in him, and have our existence in him, amen? And you see, the problem in the fall, though, we got separated. And the only way to get brought back into that place where we live, move, and have our being, that's what Jesus came to do. to restore us back to where we're supposed to live. That we're to have life in him. For an example, when Jesus walked through this world, he said things like this, that he is the bread of life. that he is the living water, that he is life, and he came to give us life. He even said, matter of fact, in John chapter five, when he was walking and teaching about what he was gonna do, he says this, he says, there's coming a day when the dead will hear my voice and they will live. And he said, don't marvel that what I just said, for God has given me the authority to make all judgment. But not only that, he says, there's coming a day that those are in the graves are gonna hear my voice and they all will live. Some are gonna be resurrected from to everlasting life with him and some are gonna be resurrected in the judgment and separated from him. But the key what he was talking about is this, is that here's the people who are living in this world, they have life but they don't have life. They're dead. They're dead in what? Their trespasses and sins. What are they dead to? They're dead to God. They can't honor him with their lives. Why? Because they can't hear him. And because they can't hear him, they can't honor him. And if they can't honor him, they can't heed him. And if they can't heed him, they can't go hold forth the word of God to everybody else. So what they do is they start living life and doing their thing, but there's a God out there that's still gonna hold them accountable. See, they don't have, they don't live in him or by him. What they live off of is lies. And they live off falsehood. They live off deception and darkness. Matter of fact, turn to Revelation 22. Let me show you this. Revelation 22. This is one of those passages that grip me every time I read it. Proverbs 21, 16 says this, that they that forsake or leave off the principle ways of God, that would be the law. And when I say the law, we're not talking about the idea of the 10 commandments. If we were to sum up the 10 commandments with one word, what word would we use to sum them up? The word love, right? How do we sum that up? Love God with what? All your heart, mind, soul, and spirit. That's the first aspect of the Ten Commandments, to love God. And what's the second part? Love your neighbor. That's the rest of them. That's being righteous with God and justice toward men. Treating your neighbor fairly, rightly, loving him. That's the summation of the law. Now the thing is, we can't love God 24 hours a day, seven days a week perfectly. That's why we needed what? A righteous redeemer, amen. He did what we couldn't do. We can't love our neighbor flawlessly, blamelessly. We're too self-centered, and all God's people said, we normally what? Make it about who? Us. So we had a redeemer that stepped in our place, and he fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law, and even beyond that, if you read in the book of Hebrews, Jesus lived by the grace of God. Scripture says by the grace of God, he tasted death for all of us. He came and lived according to the grace of God. So the grace of God is just not something that teaches us how to live, that's how our master lived. So that we could embrace God's grace, amen, why? Because he was sent in this world to be a gift to his father and a substitute on our behalf. Now the thing is, Revelation 22 and verse 14 says this, who do his commandments, and of course we know John 14 says, how do you know if you love the Lord? How do you know if he's changed your heart? How do you know if he's made you a new creature in Christ? How do you know? You do what he says to do, right? Isn't that what he said in John 14? Those that love me do what my Father says to do. So he says, blessed are those who do his commandments. that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates of the city. Another way to say that, Brother David, is blessed are those who overcome. The overcomers are those who have been born again in Christ Jesus. That's who they are. Chapter 21 and verse number six and eight will tell us the same thing. But notice what verse 15 says. You got those who have access to the things of God and then those who are on the outside. But on the outside, what's the first description of them? What are they? He's not talking about dog dogs, he's talking about people. Who are they? They're what? They're dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and whoever loves, that is they fond of and practice a lie. What that means is those who legitimize and qualify a falsehood or a lie as making it a legit way of living, that's the people who are on the outside. They love, or the word there is the word phileo type of love, which means you're fond of something. It's a brotherly kind of love. You have an affection for that which is based on a lie. And you see, those that Paul was talking to that day in Athens, when he was communicating with them, he says that in him we live, in him we move, and in him we exist. Now in that right there, those who are on the outside, as they were, because the Bible says when he preached that day, most of them, when he talked about the resurrection, they mocked him and they pushed back at it. Why? Because they qualified the falsehood as a legitimate way of living. And they lived off of lies. They lived in the dark. They lived in deception. They were blinded, the scripture says, when just by nature, being born as a human, we receive that in the fall, but not only that, what does Satan do? He keeps people, what? In the dark that they may not be saved. Isn't that what 2 Corinthians 4 says? Why? Because he uses falsehood and lies as a way of legitimizing somebody's life. So everybody who's on the outside are those that he qualifies as a dog. Why does he call them a dog though? Why does he talk about people and refer to them as a dog? It is because as he taught his disciples, remember what he told them not to do? Don't cast your pearls before the hogs and the dogs. Are you with me? I mean, how many of y'all ever raised hogs before? Anybody here ever had a hog? If you clean that hog up, Mr. Gunn, right? Mr. Gunn, if you clean that hog up, and you get him spiffy looking like Brother David right here. I mean, look, you trim his hair, you clean him up, look at that. You get him all clean. I mean, he's, Brother David smells good. He smells good. He looks good. Got a little bacon on him, right? A little grease. Now, what is gonna happen when you clean that hog up on the outside and the first mud hole or slop hole he sees, what is he gonna do? He's gonna do what? He can't appreciate looking good. He can't appreciate smelling good. He can't appreciate being clean. Why? He has no way to value it. It's not in his nature. He can't value it. Like a dog, for an example. A dog's the same way. That's why he says, you don't put the holy things and the priceless rare things like pearls before your dogs and your hogs. Why? Because they cannot estimate its worth. They cannot value its worth. And the dogs can't value the worth. of the Lord Jesus Christ. They cannot recognize how priceless and precious of a cornerstone that he is, that God has laid, that everything that is gonna be rooted and the result of an eternal work of God is gonna be what? Attached to it, aligned with it, and built around it. Why? That's why the Jews, what? They rejected his cornerstone because they couldn't see his value. You know what they saw Jesus as worth? 30 pieces of silver. You know what 30 pieces of silver manage up to be? The price of a slave. That's what it boils down to. The Older Testament said you take, to buy a slave was the price if a slave got killed on a work or something and you was using him from somebody else, he was obligated to pay the man who owned him 30 pieces of silver for him. And the prophet Jeremiah and the prophet Zechariah both prophesy that the shepherds in their day were gonna take and see that the value of the true shepherd, the true king who they're gonna reject, They're gonna push away at him. They're gonna reject him. They're gonna give Zechariah, who takes on the role as a prefigure of Christ as a shepherd, and they're gonna pay him 30 pieces of silver. And Zechariah is told by God to take those 30 pieces of silver. This is in Zechariah chapter 11, a microcosm of the picture of time. of the true king, the true shepherd, and the rejection of him and the ruin that comes as a result of, but he says, take that 30 pieces of silver and go to the temple and throw it to the potter. For obviously, the potter was in the temple for some reason, whether he was offering an offering or he was getting a job to do by the chief priest and those in that day, but he went and threw the 30 pieces to the potter, and then we know The picture of that. Remember that guy that betrayed Jesus? Y'all remember his name? What was his name? Judas. What did they pay Judas? What was the price that they paid Judas to betray the king? 30 pieces of silver. And that 30 pieces of silver got so heavy in Judas's hand, the guilt-ridden hands, what did he do with it? He went back to the temple and he threw it at the priests in the temple, and they knew it was what? Blood money, and they didn't want anything to do with it, so they used the money to buy what? The potter's field. The potter's field. Why? Because they could not estimate the value of Jesus. And therefore they lived, and they moved about in life, They were motivated in life. They existed in life for everything but him. And as a result, they'll spend an eternity separated from him and always for an eternity be known as a dog. Because they just couldn't estimate the worth of the Lord Jesus Christ. I wanna tell you in here tonight, he's worth everything, ain't he? He's worth everything. but he's got to change this, right? He's got to change this from within. You see a dead man in his deadness of his sin has what? A hard heart, doesn't he? And a hard heart can't be penetrated. It's kind of like this right here. For an example, I brought this rock in here tonight. The scripture says over the book of Ezekiel that God would later at some point with the nation of Israel, which still hadn't happened yet, but it's gonna happen. He said, I'm gonna remove the stony heart out of them and I'm gonna give them a heart of flesh. Now, when you think of the word flesh, we automatically run to the bad side, right? the old fleshly nature of men, but that's not used within that context. It's just comparing the difference between a stone and flesh in itself. It's just a comparison. But what God's gonna do with Israel still yet in a future day when he saves the nation, which he promised he was gonna do, and Romans 11 talks about, when the fullness of the Gentiles, us, we come in, God's gonna revert back and he's gonna save the whole nation at that time. but he says when he does it, Zechariah chapter 12 said he's gonna pour the spirit of grace and supplication upon them, and that they're gonna cry out for repentance of what God's already said he's gonna do, and this is the picture here. You take this old rock right here, and I want you to listen for it. Listen now, I'm gonna hit it, and I want y'all to listen and see if it cries, okay, if it makes any noise and cries out. All right, brother Jack, put your hand up on that pew right there. Not tonight. All right, brother Beckman, come on, you do it. You from LSU, you ought to be tough. You're not that tough. Okay. Yeah. I got this old Q-Bean in here. Now this thing is pretty bright. I'm not gonna shine anybody's eyes, but I'm gonna shine it on this rock. And I want y'all to see if this rock flinches. That thing's bright just looking at it. Now what if I shined it on, oh, look, he quenched. He closed his eyes, huh, Stephanie? Look, she did it too. Why? We what? We protect our eyes because we are, our eyes are what? Sensitive to that bright light, but this rock's not. Wow, this rock's dead, isn't it? All right. Now y'all listen for it. Y'all heard it cry yet? All right, Ms. Dozier, let's see your hand. Come on, put your arm out for me. Okay, do y'all see the comparison? Untouched, unmoved, can't feel. Dead. But your flesh is sensitive. And if I put this fire on it, you're gonna let everybody in here know, right? If I hit Brother Jack's hand, he's gonna do what? He's gonna forget he's got another good hand, right? Y'all know how when you bust your finger, boy, and it just takes all your attention? Why? Because our flesh is sensitive, but a stony dead heart is dead to God and insensitive to him. It's not moved by him. It's not tender, pliable, moldable. But when God removes that stony heart and he gives us a heart of flesh, that's saying now we can see him, we can feel him, we can hear him. We got ears to hear and when we hear, we can see. Remember, faith is what? seeing what God reveals, agreeing with what he revealed to me, and acting on what he gave it to me. If you read in Hebrews 11 where it says, by faith Abraham, by faith Moses, by faith Noah, what that is saying is that they heard from God, they heeded what they heard, they honored God when they heeded it, and now they hold it forth as an example for everybody else to live. That's what it means to live by faith. This is not a word we throw out there. There's a lot that goes on in that. They heard God, they heeded him, they honored him in obedience, and now they are holding forth their way of living as an example for everybody else to live, to hear him, heed him, and honor him. Amen? Why? Because God removed what? The stony heart. The hard heart. That's moved. Speaking of Hebrews 11, I think about Noah. It says Noah in particular that he was divinely warned, divinely warned by God. But before he was warned by God, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, didn't he? See, grace put him in a position to be divinely warned. And when he was divinely warned, the scripture says he moved with fear. with fear and did what? Prepared an ark for the saving of his household. You see, that's what happens when God works on a person's heart. They're moved by him. They're sensitive to him. And they're not moved simply by their desires and their lust and their wants. No, they move by divine word from God that positions them to do the will of God. And therefore they exist as a servant or a witness to God and testify to his righteousness, amen. And the Bible says what? Noah was a preacher of righteousness, wasn't he? Isaiah 54 9 says that it attaches that flood and calls them the waters of Noah. Why? Because Noah was so moved that not only did he act and prepare an ark, but he also preached that floodwaters were coming. Judgment was coming. And he became known for what he preached. And that historical marker in days gone by is attached to him as a preacher of the waters that were coming. that the world perished in, but those that took God at his word safely were taken care of on that ark. And when you think about that catastrophic event, the world's most devastating event that's ever happened in the world, he got into a what? Not a boat, not a ship, but an ark. An ark. Why is it an ark? The difference between an ark and a boat is, is that a boat has a rudder. A boat has a power source, whether it be the wind, a sail, or oarsmen, or whatever it is that puts it through the water, and a boat also has something to hold it in the water like an anchor. But an ark didn't have a rudder, didn't have a sail, and it didn't have an anchor. So that meant when Noah got in it, who was he at the mercy of? completely at the mercy of God. To do with him whatever God chose to do with him, amen. To take him wherever God chose to take him. And you know, the picture of the ark is the same picture for us coming into Christ Jesus. That now we live, move, and have our being. We are at his mercy, amen. He can take us wherever he chooses to take us and do whatever he wants with us. Why? He's where we find life at now. He's where we move through him and we exist for him, amen? And it's no longer living off lies and off our flesh and existing for ourselves. We're now living for him. So when Paul preached that message, what was he doing? He was filling Athens up with the glory of God, telling them about a God that they didn't know, about a man they didn't know, a man that lived the life they couldn't live, die to death, they couldn't die. And God's gonna judge every man by that one man. And if that one man's gonna be the judgment, he's also the man by which we're to live by. So therefore, he lived, died, and rose again that he may be Lord over our lives, amen? So we what? Surrender ourselves to him. Surrender ourselves to him. So tonight, I would encourage you, you know, where are you living? who's motivating and moving you to do what you do, and who are you existing for in this life? If it's not Jesus, I'd encourage you to give your life to him tonight. If it is Jesus, keep living for him, keep proclaiming him, and keep filling this old world up with his glory, because there's people out there that still have stony hearts, and they'll never be transformed without the message of the gospel, amen? For the gospel is the foolishness of God that is preached to men that men think is foolish until they hear the call of God upon their life, and he transforms their lives, amen? It's still the power of God unto salvation. So go forth and tell them. God can change them. You can't, I can't, but he can. But he'll never change them without a preacher, amen? Without a servant. You gotta go tell him what he came to do. That's our responsibility. in the kingdom of God. Praise to him, amen. So Brother David's gonna come, we're gonna pray and we just encourage you right now, look, lay it all at the feet of Jesus. Let him take you where he wants to take you, amen. He's not done with you, amen. He's still got a lot he can do with you. Whether you're small, whether you've been around for a few years, you might not be able to do what you used to be able to do, but I guarantee you can still do something in the kingdom, amen. Don't limit what he's able to do in you and through you, amen. Let him decide what he's gonna do with you and how he's gonna do it. Oh, Noah wasn't a young man when he built that ark, was he? Abraham wasn't a young man when he did what he did. Moses wasn't a young man when he led the people out. Why? Because it doesn't matter when you're dealing with God. He never considers the limitations, nor does he ever consider the odds, does he? It's just a matter of what he's gonna do and we can trust him in it and give him the glory for it. So, Father, we bless you and we thank you. We ask you to help us with these things tonight. We ask you to give us wisdom on how to move and live and exist for your glory. So we just submit ourselves to you right here in this place, asking you to have your way with us. And I pray that by your power, you'll set lost souls free that may be in here tonight, that you would free them, that they could come to you and that they would acknowledge you and confess that you have done a work within them, and that they would praise you for your glory. And for the rest of us, that we may have wandered and drifted in a drought-like famine mindset, that you will bring us back and rain your blessings upon us. In Jesus' name, amen.