We continue this morning in our series of the Book of Acts, and we're in Acts 13, right in the middle of it. In 13, it's a long passage. If you look at it, that's why I had to do the insert. And so I have two options. Either I preach for an hour or I preach really fast. And so I like listening to sermons at one and a half speed. So this is the one and a half speed Nathan Francis this morning. All right. And it'll get you out of here in way less than an hour. And if I lose you somewhere, there is my notes, my exact notes on that table back there. Just grab them afterwards. And it has all what I say. Okay. That's the deal. All right, let's read and give our attention to God's inerrant, infallible, and inspired word. Acts 13, beginning in verse 13. I won't read the whole thing. I'll read half of it and read the rest as we get to it. Now, Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia, and John left them and returned to Jerusalem. But they went on from Perga and came to Antioch at Pisida, and on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down. After the reading from the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogues sent a message to them, saying, Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it. So Paul stood up in motion with his hand, with his hand said, men of Israel and you who fear God, listen, the God of this people, Israel, chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt. And with uplifted arm, he led them out of it. And for about 40 years, he put up with them in the wilderness. And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. All this took about 450 years. And after that, he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man from the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years. And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, I've found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart who will do all my will. Of this man's offspring, God has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus, as he promised. Before his coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his course, he said, what do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but behold, after me one is coming, the sandals of his feet, I am not worthy to untie. Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they did not recognize him or understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him, being Jesus. And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in the tomb. But God raised him from the dead. And for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that God promised to the fathers. I'll stop there and I'll read the rest as we come to it. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I ask both for strength, for clarity of mind, but most of all, you've already heard me, Lord. It's not about me. Your spirit can take my simple, foolish words and do something amazing in adults and kids' hearts. That's what I'm asking, I've already asked it, and I ask it again, Father. You are able, please do it now, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Amen. I wanted to start by asking you, how do you feel about history? Do you love it or do you hate it? All right, so some of you hate it and just didn't want to say it out loud, but some of you love it. We even have some history teachers in the room. We're very grateful for you. But for those that don't love it, I wonder why. Maybe one reason was you have bad memories in school of having to memorize lots of dates and events. Maybe that's why. Or it was taught to you by some very boring teacher who just made it drudgery. I'm certain it wasn't some of our history teachers we have in the room. You should go in their classes. I'm sure they're more fun. But yeah, it can be dry or it can feel irrelevant. Like, who cares what happened in the Middle Ages? I don't live in the Middle Ages. Why does it matter to me? So there could be some reasons. Now, I imagine regardless how you feel about history, you'd feel very different about another historical document. Imagine I have used the analogy before, I like it a lot, of I have a will and in that will, it's some long lost relative of yours and your name is named in it. Are you interested in reading that? I don't care how you feel about history. You want to hear if your name is in it, if you are due some big inheritance, right? So both are historical documents. The difference is you're named in this one and you're not in that, right? You can see the difference. The question is, which is this? which is this. Is this more akin to your dusty old history book from high school or to a will with your name named in it? That's where we go today. I'm gonna try to make the case that's more like the will, right? That this actually greatly applies to you kids. That's why I said in the beginning, the $100, right? $100 is not nearly as valuable as what's in here because you are named in this. This actually can change the rest of your life. That's where we're going today. Look at page seven. You see the outline, and we're going to blast through the first point about the first ministry, missionary journey of Paul, and then we're going to spend most of our time on the second, which is divided into three parts. So this is Paul's sermon in Antioch, Episode, the gospel in Bud, the history of Israel, the gospel in Bloom, Christ, and then finally, the required response, reliance on Christ. All right. Okay, so I have a bunch of notes, but if you'll, I'm gonna go through this really quickly, and then we'll get to the good stuff, the actual sermon. Okay, if you look at that map, flip over and look at the map, and on there, see if you can follow along. I'm gonna read verse 13. Kids, you can do this too. There's a red line, so you can just follow the red line. Okay, now Paul, this is verse 13, his companions set sail from Paphos, that should be on the far side of the island, came to Perga and Pamphylia, John left them and returned to Jerusalem. Okay, so if you see where we are, this passage goes on, right, and then they're going on further inland. They went to Perga and came to Antioch and Pisida. Now there's lots of Antiochs, it's just a common name. Like we have Greenville, we have Greenvilles all over the country, so also Antioch is a common name. So they specify. All right, do you see that little, what's it, Via Sebastia, Sebasti, how do you say that? That is a Roman road. Okay, do you see that? It's a little gray line underneath their thing, underneath their path. So the point here that I want to make is that's pretty cool. The Romans built amazing roads. If you've studied history, if you loved history, you probably knew that. They made amazing road systems just for their military. Because of just the peace that they created in the Roman Empire, it was incredible for the spread of the gospel. It was not by accident that the gospel of Jesus came right in that time, and they could get all over the place and travel freely, safely on good roads. And so they're just following that road up. Okay, what's the point? This is a point I want to make out of that. We live in an age that still has unbelievable transportation. You can get all over the world in airplanes relatively inexpensively compared to what it could be in a ship taking a month or however long, right? And what about the technology? Some of you remember when you were a kid, if you called someone that didn't have your area code, you had to pay long distance fees, right? You kids can't even imagine that, right? Everyone has their area code came from wherever they got their first cell phone, right? And calling another country was incredibly expensive. Now with technology, not only can you call anyone, you can get on Zoom with people. I do this with people in Scotland. It is greatly helping our church partnership. Right? I talked to Ben Trainor easily on Zoom. We see each other. Stuff you can't even imagine. And so we live in an age that we can make use of that. Not only there's not Roman roads. This is the first point I wanted to make. Okay, there's another point there. You saw John left them and returned. So this is John Mark. You see that in verse middle of 13? The gospel writer of the gospel of Mark. He is Barnabas's nephew. And so he leaves, Mark doesn't tell us why, but this is a big deal to Paul. He abandoned him. So much so that later, you read this in Acts 15, that Barnabas and Paul parted ways. Barnabas said, hey, let's take John Mark with us next time. Paul was like, no way, last time he abandoned us. They agreed so sharply, they both split. He took someone else and then he took Mark. And so, but later they're reconciled and that's cool. But you should know that, that's important. All right, anything else important from this first section? That pretty much does it. All right, there you go. So this is his first missionary journey, easy travel, use Zoom, talk to people in other countries, love on missionaries, it's awesome. All right, now we get to the sermon. This is a sermon about a sermon, if you hadn't figured that out. All right, so look at point two, his sermon, The Gospel in Bud, The History of Israel. All right, this is one of three example sermons in the book of Acts. He probably preached lots and lots of sermons. We have three. This is one of them. Now, who's the audience? Mainly Jews with some God-fearers. Later in Acts 17, he's going to preach to a bunch of people that don't even know the Bible. That's going to be a different sermon than in 20, again, to the elders at Ephesus. So this is one of the main example sermons. One thing to note from this is this is evangelism. And so I want you to note his method. There's no diagrams. There's no fancy things. Some of you have suffered through fancy diagrams that I've drawn for you, and none of them. What is this? So I want you to pay attention. How does Paul share the gospel in this? Okay. All right, let's look. His sermon picks up with like verse 16. They ask him, hey, you want to say anything? And Paul's like, yes, I was waiting for you to ask that. I'd love to. He stands up and motions to them. All right, so men of Israel, this is verse 16. You who fear God, there's God-fearers there, right? Like Cornelius, remember him? He was a God-fearer. These are Gentiles that feared God. Listen, and then he dives into a sermon. The God of this people, Israel, chose our fathers and made them the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt. And you're like, really? You're going to start there? Why don't we just start with Jesus? Have you thought about that? Like, why are we gonna start way back with Exodus? There's a reason, and I wanna try to show it to you. In the Old Testament is the gospel in Bud. And I want you to, as he goes through, it's not just random facts. There's actually a pattern to it. Here's the pattern. There's problems, things are a mess, and God shows up. That's kind of the pattern we're gonna see repeated. Okay, so they're in Egypt, they're slaves, things are a mess. He sends Moses, Moses will deliver him, he delivers him out. Alright, so then look, for about 40 years he put up with them in the wilderness. I know it sounds funny. I think it means that he didn't destroy them. He was patient with them. It was actually a good thing. The alternative was they were rebels. They just kill them all. He endured with them in the wilderness for 40 years. But then he brings him into the promised land. Verse 19, after destroying seven nations, the land of Canaan, with Joshua leading him, he gave them the land of his inheritance. So you see problem, they're wandering, he gives them inheritance. Okay, then verse 20, all this took about 450 years. Okay, 400 years in Egypt, 40 years of wandering, 10 years of conquest, you do the math. Okay, here we go, 450. After that, he gave them judges. Were the judges a high point? No. The repeating verse in Judges is this, it says, It's the very last verse in the book, actually. In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. That's not a good thing. Parents used to imagine if that was how your kids behaved. I always do what's right in our own eyes. That's basically anarchy. And so that's a problem. Who does he send? Samuel. Samuel's a good guy. Hopefully you're catching on to the pattern here. Paul's making a point of this. Verse 21. They asked for a king, but he did it with the wrong heart. Who'd he give him? Saul. Was he a good guy? No, he was terrible. His son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, 40 years. That was a long 40 years. When he had removed him, he raised up David. David, good guy, right? And it says, I found a David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, he will do my will. Of course he did some terrible things, but it's also a picture of the gospel, there's grace for that. Do you see a pattern? Bad leader, good, okay. Samuel, Moses, do you follow that? Right, so he's tracking through the Old Testament, and then finally we get up, look at verse 23, of this man's offspring, David's, God brought to Israel a savior, Jesus, as he promised. And so he's hoping, like he's going loop after loop, right? Problem, God shows up, problem. And we finally get the, there are all these promises. If you're familiar with the covenant with David, right? It always have someone on the throne. There was not someone on the throne always, the greater son, David. I mean, the greater son of David is Jesus. And you see those last three words of verse 23, as he promised. Okay, if I'm already losing you, come back. The point of going through the Old Testament Israel is that there's momentum. Have you ever walked in on someone watching a movie, you're right in the middle, and they're like, no, none of this makes any sense to you. And you're like, why are you crying? Or like, why does this matter to you? You're like, well, if you were here the first hour and a half, you'd care about these people, right? If a good movie producers do that, they draw you in, you know their stories, and you are really excited, or you're terrified, or you're scared for them, right? That's what the Bible does. One of the things I think you should take from this is that the Old Testament builds momentum, and then the New Testament is very small. If you haven't looked at it, it's been a while since I've shown this to you. Let me show you, since it's been a while. Here's your Bible, okay? Here is 75% of it is your Old Testament. Do you read it? 25%, this little piece here, is the New Testament, right? This is like walking in on a movie three quarters through, not even halfway. Okay? Now, I know it's confusing. You're like, I tried reading the Old Testament. It didn't make any sense. Get a good study Bible. Right? The bottom half of the page explains why in the world this matters. Okay? Reformation study Bible is a great one. There's others, but get a good study Bible. Okay? So that's one application of this. The Old Testament matters. It lays all the foundation for why is it so cool that we get Jesus. Okay. That's one of the main points out of this first piece. Also, I hope you see, what's his method of evangelism? This is narrative evangelism, right? He's just telling a story. All right, now we get up, look at, this brings us to our second sub-point, which is, we had the gospel in Bud, we have it now in Bloom. Nice little analogy, huh? I didn't come up with it. Gospel in Bloom is Christ. He fulfilled all these prophecies. Look at verse 23. So they sent Jesus, as he promised, verse 24, before his coming, John, who's that? Different John, John the Baptist. John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance for all the people of Israel, and as John was finishing his course, he said, what do you suppose that I am? I am not he, I'm not the Savior. No, behold, after me comes one who is coming to the sandals of his feet. I am not worthy to untie. Here's something fun. You know who the last Old Testament prophet is? John the Baptist. He's in the New Testament. That's pretty funny. Okay, the reason he is the last of all the prophets, all the prophets pointed forward to Messiah, the last one actually lived in the same generation with Jesus, John the Baptist. Okay, so that's why we could fairly say he's the last of the Old Testament prophets, right? And he's saying, and he's here now, right? Isaiah, everyone else kept prophesying long before, and he's saying he's here. Okay, that's the point of that. Verse 26. Okay, cool things from this verse. How can Paul say to us, right? Remember, if you've been tracking with us, Jews and Gentiles had like a big wall between them, right? So he can say, Brothers, the family of Abraham, that's the Jews, and those who fear God, to us has been sent this message of salvation, right? There is no difference. Jew or Gentile, this gospel is for everyone. Even the people that you think are the last that would ever become a Christian. It is for everyone. All right, keep going there. All right, this message is this salvation, 27. This is wild. Have you ever been to a wedding? What's the DJ's job? After the wedding, what does he do? He says, he's been to weddings, what's he do? It is my distinct privilege and honor to introduce for the first time as husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. John Doe. Doesn't he do that? Right, and everyone directs their attention to the door and they walk through it. Right, all the guests are all distracted. That's what the Jewish religious leaders were supposed to do. It is my distinct privilege and honor to direct your attention to Bethlehem. All the prophets have been saying, the Messiah is here, go see him. That's what they should have done and they didn't, okay? They missed, that's what that verse says, isn't it? They didn't understand. But then look at this. They fulfilled them, the last line, they fulfilled the very prophecies by condemning him. This is wild theology. They hated Jesus. This was their, they loved it, they savored this. For three years, Jesus had humiliated them. And finally, they had Jesus strung up. They savored watching him being beaten and tortured, right? They're like, now it's your turn, Jesus, so much for all your power. You made fun of us. They loved it. They were doing exactly what they wanted to do. And yet, what were they doing? They were fulfilling the prophecies from hundreds of years before, from Isaiah the prophet. Is that wild? These evil men who weren't even paying attention to what they should have been doing, they actually were doing exactly what God ordained that they do. for your salvation. That's what's going on. It's pretty amazing. Look at the verses go on. It gives me goosebumps just saying, I hope it gives you goosebumps. This is crazy that they are fulfilling the prophecies by condemning him. Verse 28, and though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. Who was falling into whose plan? They were falling into God's plan, right? This is exactly what God wanted, and he was doing it. And when they'd carried out all that was written of him, if you don't believe in the sovereignty of God, wake up and read your Bible. Look at this. This is exactly what it's saying. It's saying, they fulfilled everything that was written of him. And then it says, they took him down from a tree, from the tree, and laid him in the tomb. All the Jews know exactly what he's talking about. Deuteronomy says anyone hung on a tree is cursed, right? In Galatians, he'll say this. There's, uh, nope. Different Galatians verse 3, 13, 14. God redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For as written, curse is everyone who is hung on a tree. So in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit by faith. This is the scandal of the cross. This is a scandal of the gospel. You don't realize it, but all of us either were or are under a curse. You are cursed by God. Why? Because you've broken his law. Do you understand that? Right? We are cursed by God. And so Jesus was hung on a tree and taking the curse that you deserve. That's really good news. And the Jews get it, the Jews understand. They knew what it meant to be hung on a tree. Isaiah 53 says, surely he has borne our griefs. This is hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, for your sins. That's why Jesus was executed. Because you are prideful and selfish and angry. And so am I. That's why Jesus, was execute you. He was cursed by God because you deserve a curse for your sins. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed. The gospel was proclaimed by the Old Testament prophets. Sometimes losing is winning. Do you know that? Sometimes losing is winning. Jesus lost, right? They thought they won and they were falling right into the plan of God. This is exactly what God said would happen. for our salvation. He goes on, verse 29, and when they had carried out all those written of him, they took him down from the tree, read that, verse 30, but God raised him up from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now who are now his witnesses, or eyewitnesses we'd say, to the people. Okay, so now he's giving a, we could call apologetic case. He's saying there's plenty of people still alive who saw Jesus, right? So he's saying all the Old Testament prophets pointed to this, but also he is now risen. All right, and then it says, verse 32, and we bring you the good news, the gospel. Kids, this is your $100 bill, right here. The good news, that what God has promised the fathers, he has fulfilled to us, their children, by raising Jesus, as is written in the second Psalm. You are my son, today you have begotten me. Okay, we're gonna get three Old Testament quotes. I'm gonna explain them very quickly. Okay, why is he quoting Psalm 2? If you read Psalm 2, it's all about Jesus. That's the first thing you need to know. Okay? The other thing is, this is as if saying that... Let me find it... Oh, today in raising you from the dead, I'm declaring that you are my son and I am your father, right? So Jesus' resurrection is showing Jesus' identity, right? You can say anything you want, but when you rise from the dead, everyone listens to you. That's kind of the point, okay? So you're my son, today I begin you. He is proof that he is God when he raises from the dead. Verse 34. And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way. Okay, again, an Old Testament prophecy. I will give you the holy and sure blessing of David. Therefore, he says in another psalm, you will not let your holy one see corruption. Okay, so what he's doing is he's tying these things together. New Testament story, Old Testament prophecy. One by one, he's tying it together, okay? That's because they need to see how the Old Testament connects to the New Testament. There's this crazy theology out there that there's a wall between the Old and New Testament. It's nuts, right? It's crazy. The Old Testament's for the Jews, the New Testament's for Christians. That's not true. Old Testament, as we already said, closely connects. It's all the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. Okay, that's what he's saying. Look at 36. for David, after he had served his purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep and he died. He was laid with his fathers and saw corruption. But he whom God raised up did not see corruption. He's talking about Jesus. Now he's getting even closer to the center of what he's getting at. 38. That's what I proclaim to you today. You know, as I thought right before, I was praying for each of you right before I came up and I said, you know what? I got nothing fancy to give them. I'm going to say these very simple truths. Many of you heard many, many times. Some of you believe them and some of you think you believe them and you don't. Okay? This is, it's very simple. But I'm praying that the Holy Spirit, right this morning, is moving some of your hearts to save some of you kids and even some of you adults. And many of you need to be stirred up about how great news this is. Let it be known, therefore, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. You are not under a curse anymore. You're not under a curse anymore. This is really good news. You feel it sometimes. You feel condemned by your sins. But if you're a Christian, it's not true, right? You're really free. All this weight that you bore, all got transferred over to Jesus, and you are free. And that's what it actually says. Look at the next verses. Go down. Let me find it. Here, verse 39. And by him, Everyone who believes, that's the action you have to take, you have to believe, you have to trust, you have to place your faith in Christ, is freed from everything to which you cannot be freed by the law of Moses. If you have a paper Bible in your hands, there's a tiny little footnote there, and at the bottom it says Greek for justified. So the literal word freed is actually the word justified. That's important. Justification is a big fancy word that means the same thing. You, all that legal debt you had, all got transferred over to Jesus. Okay? And so you remember, Russell led us through confessing our sins, right? Hopefully you confess some sins. You have sins that you can't pay for. You need to do something with them, right? If you haven't, you need to give them to Jesus. You are under a curse, all of us were, or are, right? You need to give it to Jesus. That's the point of this. And you can be freed. Do you feel free? Think about that for a minute. Do you feel free? Do you walk around with a weight of guilt? Maybe some of you should feel more guilt, right? But if you have given it to Christ, I remember I quoted Pilgrim's Progress, right? He went up the hill and his backpack fell off. This heavy load he was carrying. Some of you are carrying a heavy load you don't need to. Christ bore it. Others of you don't realize the load you're carrying and you need to give it to Jesus. Either way, we got nothing better here. We'll never get to any better messages than the gospel. This is as good as it gets. We got nothing better. But this is really good. This is very, very valuable. Way better than a will with your name in it. So we're in this last piece, the required response, right? You have to believe, right? It was very like, wow, isn't there something fancier? No, there's nothing fancier than that. But it means to surrender, to give over. Whose good life are you planning to get to heaven by? I hope it's not yours. Kids, I hope it's not yours. I hope you aren't just trying to be good to get to heaven. The only way to get to heaven is giving it to Jesus. If you do believe that, How much joy is this bringing you? My prayer is it'll bring you more joy. The joy that you, all those loads, all the sins of your life, you are not carrying, you've given them to Jesus. We come to the end. Look how he ends this sermon. So I guess I end it as well this way. Look at it, verse 40 and 41. Beware, therefore, lest what is said by the prophet should come about." It's amazing, quote, Old Testament prophecy from Habakkuk. I'll tell you why that's important in a second. Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish. For I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you. Now don't think that sounds good. That is not good news. Or you might think, oh, there's something so great that even if I told you so great, no. Look at the beginning of the verse, he says, perish, you scoffers. This is really bad news. Okay, the way you know that is, if you look at Habakkuk, Habakkuk is a prophet, it's right before the exile. And so he's decades before the Babylonians are going to come. And so he's warning the people saying, hey, basically it's too late. Like you need to repent, you need to turn back to God. No one's listening to him. He says, big trouble's coming. Right? Right now you are all peaceful, right? Everything is fine. You're mostly comfortable except for the seat you're sitting in. That's your biggest problem, right? Or something at work or at home, whatever the little thing is. Right? There is judgment coming. Hebrews 9.27 says, it's destined for man to die once after that comes judgment. Okay? So you need to today, make sure you're right with your Savior. Kids and adults, you need to make sure that you're right with your Savior. Noah yelled to all of his neighbors, it's going to flood. Nobody listened to him. He said, come in my boat. I got a big old ark. I got plenty of room for you. No one listened. And so I, like Habakkuk, proclaim a message. and say, you need to run to Christ. He's the ark. Kids need to run to Christ. Adults need to run to Christ. Habakkuk, right after that, Babylonians came, destroyed everything. Now, it's interesting. Does anyone know what happened in 70 AD? This is decades before 70 AD. Paul is preaching in a synagogue. Everyone loves the temple. Oh, the temple in Israel, Jerusalem is so beautiful. Titus comes and levels the thing. He lays siege on it. It is awful. A Paul again. is saying a similar thing. He's saying, be careful. Do you see that connection? Habakkuk was doing it before. Paul is doing it just decades before the destruction of everything they know and love about Israel. I don't know the future of America. I don't know the future of your own life or your health, but I do know this. Christ is the only ark there is. There's no other way. And so for those of you that have that ark, Enjoy the ride. You're safe. You're really safe. We need reminding of that. You need reminding of the good news that we are on an ark, right? That he sent Moses and he sent Samuel and he sent David and finally sent Christ, right? And that is your hope. And that's what I proclaim to you today. There is a warning. particularly for you covenant children. Do not take for granted that your parents love Jesus. You have to love Jesus. You have to run onto the ark yourself. Say, Jesus, save me. I don't want to pay for all these sins. I might be young, but I know I've sinned a lot. You need to turn to Christ. All of us need to turn to Christ. And then we need to proclaim it to everyone else. This morning, I just, I hope you can be encouraged. All I did was I read a sermon to you and explained a little bit of it. The Holy Spirit has to make this in your heart click. I hope it clicks for you. Let's pray. Lord, I'm done. It's back in your court. Lord, your words have been proclaimed. I hope I did it clearly. Lord, I pray that your spirit would move in their hearts. that birds would not steal this seed, that the gospel really would encourage them. They would feel free, for they are free if they have repented. And if this is not true of them, Lord, I pray they would. Children and adults, even people who have been in church for decades. Lord, it doesn't get any better than this. Lord, stir us up. Lord, give us great joy. Thank you that this is true. Thank you so much, Jesus, that you endured that torture because of my sin and their sin. Lord, thank you. I pray that the cross of Jesus Christ would be what absolutely transforms us as a church and transforms our community. Please do that, Lord. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.