I am glad to have my son Elias with me and my wife's back home with our other four children. And I'm just grateful that as the children were singing, I was thinking about how that out of the mouth of babes thou hast perfected praise. And so when I walked in, I was late. I walked in and enjoyed just seeing the beautiful facility. But more importantly, I enjoyed sensing the warmth of God's love. When you come into a place and you can sense God's presence, God's goodness, God's mercy, it's home. So I know a few of you, but I don't know many of you, but I tell you where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty, and I'm trusting Him to help us this week. For those that may not know me, and probably many of you don't, I'll share just a little bit about my testimony. When I was about nine years old, I grew up in church. My dad was a deacon, granddad was a deacon, great-granddad was a deacon, and grew up in church. About the age of nine, my mom asked me if I was lost, and I did not really know what it meant to be lost. But at the end of that service, I remembered that a lot of people were gathered at the altar, and I came up, and I knelt down and prayed with everybody else. And I got up, and my dad asked me, did you get saved? And I told you I didn't know what it meant to be lost, and so how can you get saved if you don't know what it means to be lost? But I did not want to disappoint my dad, and I told him yes. And I went on to get baptized, and not long after that, at the age of nine, and they saw, some of them thought I had a bright profession. I said I felt fantastic, and I did feel fantastic, and everybody's hugging my neck, and I told them I just got saved. But I tell you, that was kind of like that seed that fell on that shallow soil that sprung up, BUT IT DIDN'T LAST. IT WASN'T GENUINE CONVERSION. AND TONIGHT I WANT TO DECLARE TO ALL OF YOU, YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU'VE BEEN BORN AGAIN BY GOD'S HOLY SPIRIT AND YOU'VE GOT A PERSONAL TESTIMONY OF SAVING FAITH YOURSELF. IT CAN'T BE SOMETHING THAT ANYBODY ELSE GIVES YOU. IT'S SOMETHING BETWEEN YOU AND GOD. And so I struggled with that for many years. I was wondering, am I really saved? And I went on to do the youth group things in church and went to a Christian university. And while I was there in my early twenties, I went to China. I signed up for a missionary trip to China. I spent a summer over there telling people about Jesus because I knew that was the name above all names. That's the name that needs to get out. But I didn't know him myself. And I'm afraid there's a lot of people around us everywhere that is talking about the name of Jesus, but they don't know Jesus. That's a big difference. And so that's where I was. And so I graduated from college. I moved to Nashville, Tennessee. I enjoyed driving up here this afternoon because there's wheat fields and just fields and fields and fields. Around Nashville, it's subdivision, subdivision, subdivision. All the farmers are selling out and they're putting houses in everywhere and skyrocketing the prices. But I grew up in that and I eventually moved to Nashville. And when I moved to Nashville that first summer, I really began to question, what do I believe? I graduated from a Christian university, which thank God, I went to a good school that did not redirect what I was brought up in. And so I encourage you to pray about where you're gonna go to college as you get to those stages in your life. And I went to an environment that helped shape me and direct me even though I didn't know Jesus. It was still pointing me in the right direction. It was extension of what my parents had been teaching me growing up. And so I moved to Nashville. And I was tired of what everybody else was telling me about Jesus, and I began to read through the Gospels for myself. C.S. Lewis said that as you read through the Gospels, you're going to have to determine a few things about what the claims of Christ are. And he said that some will say that he's a liar. That Jesus said some extraordinary things. Lest you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you shall have no part with me. That's a strange, that's a hard saying. So C.S. Lewis is probably right. Some would say Jesus is a liar. Some might say like his brothers would have said during his earthly ministry, he's a lunatic. He's out of his mind. He's speaking things out of his head that he's talking about coming down from heaven and going to heaven and talking about his heavenly father. And so some believe that Jesus is a liar. Some believe he's a lunatic. But as I read through those gospels for myself, and began to ask myself, it says, he who finds his life shall lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake shall find it. That Matthew 10, 39 stumped me. How do you find your life and lose it? And how do you lose your life and find it? And I was in the very moment of finding my life in a career in healthcare, in a financial situation that was much better than I've ever been in my life. as you're making your first few paychecks, and I was finding my life, I was finding my way. I had moved out of the little small country town, and now I'm a resident of the Nashville area, and I'm working in a very rich county in the United States of America, and I was finding my life, but I was realizing that that is not where life is to be found. And so I went to a men's retreat. I heard several men give their testimony. I stood up in the back, told about when I was nine, but I knew it was hollow. It was empty. That weekend, by the time Sunday night rolled around, I went to bed that night and I realized today's not the day of my salvation. I went to bed. I was troubled. I had already prayed. The minister the night of the church had asked me to dismiss in prayer. They all thought I was safe. They thought I was struggling about whether to join the church or not. That night I went to bed. I woke up about 140 and I got down on my knees beside my bed and all those skeletons in my closet, all those things I didn't want to confess, all those things I was hanging on to, all that dirt and filth and guilt and shame and fear, I began to pour out before God. I didn't get saved in my bedroom floor. I got back in my bed, just kind of went over the same prayer, Lord, forgive me for this. Forgive me for this. Forgive me for this. And Lord, if you don't save me, nobody can. You know, anybody that's ever got saved had to get to that point. Because grace is not grace without it being unmerited favor. And you have to get to a point that I can't work myself into a right standing with God. And as I got to that point, I said, God, if you can't save me, nobody can. All I got is a black heart full of sin. Something like that is what I said. You know what? It's just like that. I describe it, everybody describes it different. But I'd gone from age 13 to age 22 questioning and doubting, and for rightful reasons. Because if you're not saved, you need to question and doubt it. But if you have been saved, and you know it, you need to take what God gave you and grow with it. But there that night is like a cool gentle breeze of God's Holy Spirit swept through my soul. You know what? Ever since April 7, 2003, about 2.20 in the morning, I haven't been the same man. God changed my value systems that night. He changed the core, the fundamental nature of who I am. He changed me in a deep heart level. He changed my heart. This heart of stone that I had was taken out. Nobody can take that heart of stone out except God. And God took out a heart of stone, and He placed... A heart of stone is insensitive to God, insensitive toward other people. I was very selfish, even though it may have not looked selfish. Internally, there was a lot of selfishness in my life. But He took out that heart of stone, He placed a heart of flesh, and He put a genuine, godly love in my heart. And it changed me. He's still changing me. And you know what? He's going to keep changing me until I see Him face to face because He who began a good work, He promised, is going to bring it to pass. He's going to bring it to completion. Just like a telescope that you look at this end right here and you see out there in the distance. He is going to complete the work of salvation in my life. I'm assured of that. And so, I know I'm saved. I'm glad I'm saved. I want everybody in here to be saved and to know it. Make your peace calling and election sure. If the Holy Spirit of God works on your heart, come to Him. Run to Him. Run to Christ. Pursue Him. Even if you're just doubting or whatever. Pursue Him. Run to Him. Chase Him. Because I promise you, you'll never outrun Him. You'll never chase Him more than He's already chasing you. I look back and say, God, You were after me a long time. And I thank God that I finally came to a place of surrender. It wasn't long after that that a few months later I joined the church and was baptized at McFerrin. I was traveling around the nation as a health care consultant, in and out of different cities, and going in and out of hospitals and different stuff like that. As I was in those hotel rooms and walking down the streets of various cities, it was like the Lord was just calling to me and saying, preach My Word. I spent a lot of time reading the Scripture by myself, had a lot of time to study in that hotel room, and they were paying me to work all week, they were paying for my hotel, they were paying for my food, and eventually the Lord said, follow Me. And so I had, he had called me to preach the word. And then he said to leave my secular employment and follow him. And so I started following him. He led me down to the homeless shelter in Nashville, Tennessee. He eventually led me into the prison systems in Nashville, it was 2004. And I'm still doing some of that work today. And not long after that, he called me maybe a couple of years or less to pastor a church. And so I've just been trying to follow Jesus. I'm not an expert in any of this, I'm just trying to keep my eyes on Jesus. I want you to keep your eyes on Jesus too. And I know that if He can save some little country boy like me, that you wouldn't even know the little spot on the map. If I were to tell you, you couldn't have found it probably. If He could find somebody like me, a needle in a haystack, and deliver me and rescue me and fit me for heaven, He can do that for anybody in this area, anybody in Indianapolis, Indiana, anywhere around this world. And so I'm just grateful to be saved. And I'm grateful you're here too. And I pray that God will bless us this week. If you have your Bibles, I want to invite you to turn with me to Acts chapter 19. I could have probably just kept going on, I could tell you a whole lot more about what Jesus has done in my life, but I'm here to preach the Word and I want to try to bring a portion of Scripture to your mind tonight. Acts 19, verse 1. The Apostle Paul has already spent some time at Ephesus on the end of his second missionary journey. We're going to find him on his third missionary journey, and I want to read verse 1 down through verse 20. Before I read that, though, I want us to look at this and consider this for a moment. We're going to be looking at the city of Ephesus before a church in Ephesus was ever officially established. And so as we think about this, and think about this church, as we think about why we're here, why am I here, why is this church in this physical location, there's a lot of fundamental questions, elementary questions that we need to think of. Are we here? I think we've already fulfilled that purpose to some degree tonight in our songs of praise to the true and the living God. We're here to honor Him and worship Him, but I just want to bring it back to give you an idea that as the Apostle Paul is moving from place to place, he's moving into new territory to another territory, and as we think about that, we see that the Apostle Paul is motivated by one thing. One thing, and that is the glory of Almighty God. There are places all over this world where God is not being glorified. And if He's not being glorified in your life, that's why we're here, because He needs to be glorified. He is worthy of all possible honor, glory, and praise, not just out of your preacher's life, not just out of a few deacons' life. He's worthy of all possible honor, glory, and praise out of every single individual in this room. and He actually mandates that you give Him that glory and praise due unto His name. And so the Apostle Paul was going into town after town, and he was preaching the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that there truly was the Son of God who came down from heaven, lived a perfect, sinless life, died an atoning death on the cross, was buried, and on the third day, he rose again. Forty days later, he ascended to the right hand of God the Father, and he's seated there right now, and Paul was going into every city and saying, you need to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The glory of God was being manifested through the good news that a Savior had come into the world. And so he goes in to this city. And He begins to preach because the heavens today are declaring the glory of God. There's not a square inch of real estate in the entire universe that is not dedicated to the glory of God. All of it should resound to His praise and His honor. Where from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun, He is worthy of our praise. His name shall be made great throughout all the nations. And so Paul comes in here burning with a passion for God's glory. Let's begin reading verse 1. And it came to pass that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper coast, came to Ephesus. And finding certain disciples, he said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost, since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And he said unto John's baptism, Then said Paul, John barely baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them, and they spake with tongues and prophesied. And all the men were about twelve. And he went into the synagogue and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God. But when divers were hardened and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed for them and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannist. And this continued by the space of two years, so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that from his body were brought into the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them, which had evil spirits, the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and a chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped upon them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus. And fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many that believed came and confessed and showed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together and burned them before all men, and they counted the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed. Let's consider this subject tonight, the glory of God, and we see that is what was motivating the Apostle Paul. Here's a few things I want to bring to your attention. God is to be glorified in every place. He needs to be glorified in your heart, in your home, in this church, in this community, all around the globe. Secondly, we'll consider we live in a land of idolatry. We're living in a land of idolatry. God's Word tells us that we shall have no other gods before Him. We are living in a world where many are... God is the last thing on their mind. They don't care. They want the pleasures of this life. They're self-enamored. They're even hammered. with the things that would please them for the moment, all the while they are neglecting the weighty matters of life. And when we talk about the glory of God in just a minute, we're going to talk about the weightiness of God. That's what it means. The glory of God means His weight. When we use the word Christian, it means it's got weight to it. When we use the word Jesus, it's got weight to it because we know Him. And so we live in a land of idolatry. And then I want us to look at this and close quickly. With the glory of God must be our aim in every generation. As the Apostle Paul, we have the advantage of seeing this church here established in the city of Ephesus. God was on the move. God was saving souls. God was changing their lives. They were burning books that they used to celebrate. They were practicing magical arts and all of these things. But God upheaved their value system. But you know what happened? Years later, as we'll get, if you don't maintain the glory of God in every generation, there'll eventually come a place where this very location, where this church gathers, if we don't maintain a vision for the glory of God, His goodness, His holiness, His righteousness, and all of His attributes, His perfections, His unchanging character, then there'll come a day where there is no church in this area. I didn't say there wouldn't be a church somewhere because I believe the Lord will find faith on this earth, but He's going to find faith on this earth where there are people who have a vision for the glory of God. And so as we think about it tonight, what is the glory of God? It is His splendor. It is His brilliant beauty. As we think about, there is no one. I drove up here this afternoon, and you see the depth of perception of the clouds. You see creation testifying to the glory of God. You see the brilliant beauty of that. You see the sun shining down. I'll tell you, there is no one more beautiful in all the universe except God. And I'll tell you tonight, if you're here and God convicts you anytime this week and you realize it is God's goodness that is drawing you and leading you to repentance, to reject Him is to turn away from everything beautiful in your life. I go into the jails and prison in Tennessee almost every single week and I see men who have rejected the glory of God and they've changed it for a pill, a substance that brings a life of a living death. It is very empty, it is very I tell you, all the adversary has to do is to offer you some shiny fruit that will lead you to something very shallow and very empty. So I beg of you, dear children, always turn your heart to the brilliant beauty and the glory of God, the splendor of God, the radiance of God, the light of God, the love of God, the life of God, because He is who you need to draw near to. He is that good. I can't even put into words how good He is tonight, but I'm trying the best of my ability to proclaim the glory of God to you because He is that awesome. As we think about this word glory, as I mentioned, it means the Old Testament would use this word over 200 times. It means heaviness or weight. Where do we see that demonstrated when the people of Israel built that tabernacle according to God's pattern? Guess what happened when they put that thing together at the end of the book of Exodus? It says the shekinah glory came down. The weight of God's presence was so great that they could not even enter into that house because God's presence was manifested in such power that they realized that God is here. And when God is here, we use the word awesome often about a lot of things. We can use the word awesome about ice cream, or about a steak, or about a car, or whatever that is, or a cyber drug, or any of those things. But I tell you, God is really the one that we need to use that word awesome. He is the one that is mighty to save. He is incredible. He's indescribable. He's awesome. He's weighty. As we consider this, Paul was moved by this. He knew these words. There was a man in the Old Testament that had the bravery to ask this question unto the Lord, or to beseech Him. And he said this in Exodus 33, verse 18. Moses asked the Lord, he said, I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory. And God told him that you cannot see My face and live, but I'm going to hide you in the cleft of the rock, and all of My goodness shall pass before you. And I'll let you see not My face, because you can't see My face and live, but I'll let you see a little bit of My hinder parts. Put Him up in the cliff of that rock. And you know what happened? The Lord passed by, and the God of glory preached about the glory of God. And you know what He said? As He passed by, He said, The Lord, the Lord. Listen to this. As God begins to describe Himself. Sometimes you might say, well, the first way that God might describe Himself is that He's a God of wrath. He's going to punish your sin. He is looking to send you to hell. I'll tell you this. The first thing that God said about Himself. The Lord, the Lord God, merciful. Do you know this great big God in heaven wants to extend mercy, compassion to your lost, undone, black heart stained with sin. Merciful. And then the next word is gracious. Giving unto us what we do not deserve. Slow to anger. When's the last time you considered these attributes of God? He's patient. He's gentle. Thank God He's patient. He waited on me a long time. The Apostle Paul said, I thank God that you can see a pattern of God's patience in my life. He put up with a whole lot of stuff out of me before I ever came to Him. He's slow to anger. He's abounding in goodness and steadfast love. He's faithful, He's true, but He said He will by no means clear the guilty. I'm paraphrasing some of these. He's a God who is willing to forgive, and I encourage you to come to Him. But He's also a God who is righteous, and holy, and just, and He will hold you accountable for all of your lives. And here's the thing tonight as we've gathered here, as Paul was motivated to go into this new city of Ephesus, he wanted to preach where Christ had not been named. He went into this new city to preach Christ because he knew that all had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and we need someone to bridge the gap. The one that bridged the gap is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul went burning with that passion for God's glory. You know God will not share His glory with another. He's the all-in-one worthy of it. And so he that boasts, let him boast in this. that He knows and understands this true and living God. God has demonstrated His glory in many ways. We see His glory in His work of creation. The heavens declare the glory of God. We see God's glory in His work as He walked among the Israelites in the Old Testament days. We see God's glory as He came in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the greatest manifestation of God's glory on this earth. It says that He came and He was full of grace and truth. He's the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. He revealed the glory of God, the weightiness of God. The greatest way that He ever demonstrated that glory was going to the cross. to meet up with our lack of giving Him glory. And He was nailing the bullseye of God's glory the whole time. We also know that God reveals His glory in conversion. We sing that song, Heaven Came Down. And guess what happened? Heaven came down and what happened? Glory filled my soul. Went at the cross, the Savior. made me whole. My sins He washed away. My night was turned to day. Heaven came down. And what happened? Glory filled my soul. I got something real, something that's true. And so Paul was going into these cities and he was preaching about the God of glory and the glory of God. And as he went into this new area, I tell you that the glory of God must be manifested in every place. The glory of God is what was motivating missions. We need a great resurgence of missions and evangelism around this world among our people. If you know what it means to be saved, we need to be getting this word out to people. Not just for us, not just for us to huddle in our churches, but we need to get this message out because God is much bigger than these four walls. He can't be contained in the heaven of heaven, so I know he can't fit in this church house. If we really let him get a hold of everybody in this church, he won't be able to fit in this place. He'll have to bust down the walls. And he'll just keep on adding and adding and adding. But Paul went to this new city and we see Did you notice what happened in verse 8? He went in the synagogue, first spoke boldly by the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God? It is the realm by which the King reigns over. And in one regard, He reigns over all things in the universe. But I tell you, there's a difference. There's two kingdoms perhaps even here tonight. There's the kingdom of Christ. There's the kingdom of the dear Son of God. But there is also a kingdom of darkness. And this is why it's so important for you to come to the Lord Jesus Christ this very night because here's what He's able to do according to Colossians 1.13. He's able to translate you out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son. And that is a powerful thing where God demonstrates His glory? Where? In somebody else's life? No, He does that personally and intimately in your soul. If you've been saved by the grace of God, you ought to have a testimony that you say, there was a coming of night, I was in the dark, and God in His mighty arm that is not too short to save, His ear is not too dull that it cannot hear, He was able with His long outstretched arm He saw me crying out before Him, humbled down before Him, like a little child realizing, God, if You don't save me, nobody can. And He, by His manifestation of His Spirit, He lifted me up. He took me down in conviction, but He also lifted me up. That's what He did. And so Paul was preaching about the Kingdom of God everywhere he went. But I tell you, there's also some counterfeits out there. He spoke about, just to summarize it a little bit, we've got a lot of man-made religion around us. We've got a lot of stuff like that, people that are coming up with their own ideas about how to worship God. I'll tell you, anything that does not line up with the Word of God is out of bounds. It's strange fire. It is something that does not please God. We see here the seven sons of Sceva, a Jew, a chief of a priest. You know what? Those chief priests, Jesus already moved on from that, right? He wrote the whole book of Hebrews to say, we've already moved on from the old covenant. There's some new things going on. You've already got a high priest. He's seated at the right hand of God the Father. He's not having to work every day. He's taking a seat because the sacrifice for your sins have already been provided. And He can sit, and He can rest, and He can draw, He can intercede on behalf of us. But they're still going on with some kind of concoction of spirituality. How many times have you ever talked to somebody, Hey, do you know the Lord? I go to church where I'm spiritual. When people talk, I'm spiritual, there's a lot of explanation to be done going on there. There's all kinds of spiritual, all kinds of spirits in the world. They even name the liquor store, the spirit store. I mean, you get all kinds of spirits in you. But it's the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is going to lead you to live a life according to the truth of God's Word. Why would He do that? Because He wants you to glorify God. But there's man-made religion. We see this here. There's idolatry everywhere. Later on in this chapter, we see that Demetrius was a silversmith. He built these idols, these physical idols of the goddess Diana that they went to there and worshipped there. Now, you might say, well, Brother Brian, we're not bowing down to these physical idols. We see here the results of Paul's preaching though. You know, some, as they heard the preaching of the Apostle Paul, you know what it says there in one of those verses? It tells us here that the Apostle Paul, it says some were hardened. Some were hardened. Some want to have the glory for themselves. There's only one that is deserving of all possible honor, glory, and praise. But some want the glory for themselves. Some were hardened and they rejected the message that the apostle Paul had to share with them to the detriment of their own soul. And so not all are responding in the right way. We see God's first three commandments being broken all the time. You shall have no other gods before Me. If we're not on fire for the Lord, Where are we? What's more important tonight than the very God who created you and saved you for Himself? You see, we forget as He brought out the children of Israel out of Egypt, it tells us in the book of Exodus that God brought them out, not just to bring them out, but here's what He did. He brought them out that He might bring them in. You see, the Lord has made you for sweet fellowship, Sweet intimacy. He wants you to walk with Him and walk close to Him that we might manifest His glory, that we, as we walk around here and somebody sees members of Faith Missionary Baptist Church, that they realize there's something different here than maybe other places. Because the people here at this church, when you come to this church and you sit with the people in the pews in this church, when they talk about loving the Lord, they've got a testimony. And not only do they have a testimony, they have a daily walk where they're manifesting God's goodness and His mercy and love and grace in their ministry because God is very weighty to them. God is very heavy to them. When they say they're going to do something, they do it. Why? Because just as God keeps His Word, we're going to be a people that keep our Word. And if we can't keep our promises, we're going to admit our failures and our faults and our inabilities because we're not God. We're limited. But He is unlimited and He always keeps His Word. And we want to do the very best we can to honor Him and glorify Him. And so just like it was in the days of Paul here in Ephesus, We're living in a land of idolatry. You shall not have any other gods before me, the Lord commanded. He didn't say you can have this or that, and I'll tell you, Before I got saved, I had all kinds of other gods. I didn't even realize. I was so blinded to my own sin, I didn't realize that I had the god of money, I had the god of athletics, in particular basketball and baseball. Those were the gods that I worshipped. Those were the things that I thought brought about my identity. They shaped who I was. It was what I was about. It was what I talked about. It is what I breathe. It is what I ate. It is what I lived. And I'll tell you, that is a demonstration of idolatry. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so, think about what we're talking about. Think about where we're going. Think about what we're doing. You see, the Lord really wants to be number one in all of our lives. And that's what revival is all about. We talked about praying for, revive my heart. You know how you get revived this week and how you can stay revived? and how you can not get into cycles of getting cold and drifting. It is constantly getting in this Word and being like Moses and saying, Lord, show me Your glory. Lord, let me not put any other gods before You. Let us have no graven images. You may say, well, I'm not bound down to a statue, but I'll tell you that graven images are basically a manifestation of the imagination of a man's mind. There's a lot of things that I allow to build up in the imagination of my mind that are so much more important than perhaps what God would have me to do. And this is why Paul said we've got to cast down every imagination and evil thought. We've got to take it captive that we might bring everything under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Lord, does this please You? I want you to see what happened. As the Apostle Paul declared the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Him crucified, to these sinners in Ephesus. Psalm. If you've been saved, you're in that psalm category. Because there's a broad road that leads to destruction and many are going in there at. But there's a few that go through that straight gate and that narrow way that leads to life everlasting. There's a psalm. There's a psalm that here The message of the glorious gospel. And they respond. And they realize God is worthy of all of my life. No sacrifice is too great for you. My little boy came up to me this morning and said, Dad, how many days are you going to be gone? He's six. And I said, until next Sunday. And he said, that's 24 plus 24 plus 24 plus 24 plus 24, 24, 24. I think I got that right. I said, that's, I already knew how many hours were in a week. And I said, that's 168. I had to impress him a little bit. I said, that's 168 hours. that I won't see you. And I knew what the Lord had put on my heart to preach tonight. And I said, Son, you know why I'm going to Indiana? I'm going for the glory of God. I pray that'll be burned on that little six-year-old's heart. There's no sacrifice Too great for God, because He sacrificed it all for me. As the message went out, look at verse 18. I've got to show you this before I close. It said, "...many that believed..." You see, you must repent. and turn away from valuing anything else above the glory of God. It could be your toys, it could be your sports, it could be your education, it could be your career, whatever it is. Nothing is more important than God. It said many believed they came. You know what they did? They confessed. They confessed that the way they had been living their lives did not measure up to the glory of God, and it says they showed their deeds. Do you know what happened there? Most of the time, when we're not living for God's glory, we hide things from people. When I call church members as a pastor, There's times where I can pick up on, it seems like they're kind of hiding a few things from me. Yeah, I'll be there next Sunday. And they just kind of, they're not exposing, it should be this way, but that's just human nature. We don't like to bring things out into the light and just be completely honest even though David said, Lord, you desire truth in the inward parts. We like to hide a few things, but right here, when these people came to faith in Jesus Christ, when they trusted Him with all their heart, He said they exposed, this is what we've been doing. It's ugly, it's hideous, it's sin. And we can't live this way any longer. We've been worshiping through these magical arts, we've been bowing down to these idols, and we've got to give them up. It says they confessed, showed their deeds, many of them also, look at the manifestation of repentance in their lives. It says many of them also, They used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them all before all men. They said, we're done with the old life that we have. We're done. We're burning it. It's rubbish. It's filled with vanity and fruitlessness. It has no life in it. They burned it up. And how much was it worth? 50,000 pieces of silver. That would be like you and I hiring 50,000 men to work at our home for one day. That's a lot of money, isn't it? Could you afford to hire 50,000 people? I guess every one of your honey-do list would get done. You ladies would love that, wouldn't you? 50,000. I don't know how much it's worth, but that's 50,000 men working for one day. And they burn it up. You might say, that's a lot of money. Somebody just wasted a lot. You don't waste anything when you turn in the rubbish and the value system of this world. for the far surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. He is worth it all. And they were manifesting a genuine change of heart and life. And they burned it out in the streets publicly to say, hey, we don't need this anymore. And everybody asked them questions. Why are you wasting all that money? Can I have those books? No, we're burning them. Because they're not good for me, they're not good for you. We found Jesus, we found Christ. We found the Savior of the world. I pray you'll find Him this week. If you don't know Him already, I pray you find Him. If you do know Him, I pray that God would stir your hearts to want Him more and more and more. I don't know about you, but I'm already halfway home. Already halfway home. I want you to sober your mind on that. I don't know what age you are. Some of you are almost home. I'm over halfway home. I don't have any time to waste. I want to live every day. Redeem the time for the days are evil. The last point, the glory of God must be our aim in every generation as we see here. I told you earlier, we see we have the advantage. Paul was establishing this church. And we have Apollos, the eloquent preacher that was there. We have Paul preached there for the space of three years. We've got Timothy who pastored there as Paul's apostolic assistant. We also have the Apostle John who served in that church. But by the time we get to the end of the first century, And John the Revelator is recording for us the first church he speaks about. He said you've got right doctrine, but you're missing out on some practical things. He said you've left your first love. You see, somewhere along the path, You've got people, we've got men in here that I look up to, that I've heard preach and I've heard about for years. They've been holding up a standard of the glory of God. But you know what, if we don't have and train as what you're doing here just a little while ago as we see these children singing about the glory of God, we must infuse the glory of God on the next generation. Or the truth, where's the truth going to be? We see the evidence of that in the city of Ephesus. It faded away. And today we don't have any evidence of a church being in Ephesus. You say, how can that happen? It happens all the time. In marriages, in families, in churches. because we lose our focus on the glory of God, and we drift into coldness, and we get comfortable in the coldness, until we are reminded why we're here. Because if you and I are here to bring honor and glory to God, it's got to start, revival's got to start with me, and it's got to move outward. I hear people talk in the church sometimes, and I'm like, well, if you'll do what you're saying that person should do, if you'll live that kind of way, man, you would be on fire. If you want to see more shouting in the church, if you'd get a hold of the Lord and start shouting or really get a hold of the Lord and pray, man, this place would be rocking. It's always easy to point fingers. Lord, help me have a renewed vision of Your glory and Your majesty. and your work today. No one can fill the shoes you are in today, where you are today, in your family today, in the roles that you have today. May we live for Him. If you're here tonight and you have not been saved by the grace of God, I pray that you'll feel the weight of His glory bearing down on your soul in a good way, that you'll realize that, man, I need Him. I need Him in my life. And as He convicts you and draws you, if He does any time this week, I beg of you, don't believe the lie that everybody's going to look at you funny. I guarantee you everybody in this room has a desire to get on their faces before this God of glory and pray that the glory of God would come down and fill your soul that you have peace with God and you can jump up and tell somebody, I know what you're talking about. And so if He draws you and works on your heart in any way, I encourage you to come. Thank you for hearing me tonight. I'll turn it over to Brother Derek. God bless you.