Well, if you have your Bibles with you, I'd invite you to turn to Acts chapter 14. This morning, I really want to look at that second missionary journey of the Apostle Paul. So Acts chapter 14 will be our jumping off point. If we have time, we'll get all the way to look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. as a result of a missionary journey. I love studying mission work. I love missionary work. It's been in my heart from a little boy. My mom told me that right after I was saved, I started down through the neighborhood knocking on doors, telling people about the Lord Jesus Christ. She said I would come home very distraught, that these people would not Trust the Lord Jesus Christ I had the greatest message in the world is that you know a young boy and they would not listen But that burden grew and grew and so I always love missions always have and I love studying Paul's ministry missionary journeys and so I want to drop into Acts chapter 14 15 16 and touch on 17. We'll go through this rapid clip rather quickly so keep your finger on your Bible and we're gonna see how God will challenge us to think about missions. Let me pray and ask the Lord for help. Lord, I ask you that you would help me, Lord. This is your word, it's not mine. And so your word is infallible, it's inerrant, and it's all sufficient for everything we need. Mine is not, Lord. And so I ask that your word would shine forth and it would pierce our hearts, Lord. It would capture our minds. It would even gather our emotions to think biblically, to think how you think about missions. It's not easy, Lord. This is challenging. As we study this, we'll see the challenges that are in there, Lord. And those same challenges face us today. So I pray that you would encourage us that we would be missionaries wherever we are. We would support missions around the world. We would be engaged. I thank you for Gold Country Baptist Church that I know is engaged in missions. May this message from God's word only spur them on even more. to see the glory of Christ spread through the nations. Lord, we thank you for this time together. Lord, may your word preach in Jesus' name. Amen. As we get to the end of chapter 14 in Acts, if you're there in your Bibles, you will see that this great trip has come to an end. Paul has taken Barnabas with him, the son of encouragement. Together these men went out with others, and they had been sharing the gospel all the way across southern Galatia, and they have spent many, many hours and time with people. We can pick it up, you'll start to see some of this in verse 19 towards the end. But the Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul." That's the way you end the first missionary journey? Yes, it was not an easy time. I tell people, look, there's a missions God's way and then there's a missions man's way. I see all kinds of things through the 40 years of ministry. I see lots of people try to do missions man's way. They try to work it out where it favors them. Doing missions God's way is very costly. In fact, let me say this very clearly. It may cost you everything to do missions God's way. And this is what happens to Apostle Paul. He has preached the gospel. He has gone from town to town preaching the gospel. At the end of this missionary journey, he's drug out of town by Jews, his own people. He is stoned in verse 19, left for dead, thinking that they had finished off this rebel against Israel. And yet God had a different plan. I love verse 20, but while the disciples stood around him, that's an interesting scene, right? Here's this guy probably bloodied under a pile of rocks, and all of a sudden he got up and he entered the city. And the next day he went away with Barnabas to Derbe. And after they had preached the gospel to the cities and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and then to Antioch. This is not Antioch where they were sent, the second Antioch. And you go, wait a minute, Scott. Back in verse 19 is where the Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, where they stoned him to death. And notice it says in verse 21 that they're going right back there. Can you imagine Barnabas? Paul, you do remember that rock to the head. Or maybe you don't. This is how driven this man is. Remember, he loves Christ's church. He's willing to die for Christ's church. He is captured by the glory of Christ, and when you're captured by the glory of Christ, you love church. You love Christ's church. That's what makes us so different. We're not some Elks Club or Moose Club or anybody else. We are the church. We're the blood-bought church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We belong to Him and no one else. And you're willing to lay your life down for it. That's what mission work is. You want to see the church of the Lord Jesus Christ expand and grow. You want to see the kingdom of God in a greater way. And when they throw rocks at you or insult you or take your money, or whatever it may be, you're so focused on the glory of Christ, you will not stop. Now notice what they did when they went back. Verse 22, strengthening the souls of the disciples. We'll just stop right there. Your soul is the person that God saves. Yesterday, you said goodbye to a dear brother, and it's just a goodbye because you're gonna see him again. His body does not go with him, praise the Lord, right? I'm sure that one's probably worn out. Right? Like many of ours. It is our soul that God sent his son to die for. It is the person he knows before the foundation of the world. It is whom he sent Christ to rescue that soul. I am here preaching to your souls today, not to your outside person. I want your souls to be strengthened. So this is the mark of preachers and missionaries and people who love the Lord Jesus Christ and share their faith with their family and friends and neighbors. This is what we want to do. We want to strengthen the souls of disciples, followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are Christians. We follow Christ. That's who we are. And so he knew that and he wanted to strengthen those souls. Notice he says, encourage them to continue in the faith. Oh, that's needed. I pray when you walk out of this room that you are more encouraged in your faith than when you walked in. That's my prayer today. I prayed that this morning for you, and I don't even know you. I just want you to be more encouraged in your faith today. I want you to see Christ more glorious. I want you to see willing to say, God, what do you want from me? What can I do? How can I join what you're doing and follow you? and whatever place and time that God has you in, but notice he says to them, there's a reality to this, that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. That's the theology of suffering, brothers and sisters. Did you think you were gonna come to Christ and everything was just gonna be perfect? I think that's what the American church sells today. Oh, God wants you healthy, wealthy, and wise. I told one guy, I said, God might want you dead for his glory. Might, a lot of people got saved at funerals. One of my best friends, his fiancee died on a youth outing while they were swimming. She fell off a cliff, hit her head, died in his arms, and her dad, who she had prayed for for years, came to faith at her funeral. Listen, we enter the kingdom of God through many, it says, trials and testings. I think some of you that maybe have just a little more gray like me, you understand that. Life is hard. And Paul's doing this. Notice he is strengthening their souls and encouraging their faith because of the tribulations. This is hard, this is why you come to church. I hope you're not coming to church because you check the box. Well, good Lord, I came to church, bless my business, keep my kids from being sick and all those type of things. No, no, you come here to be strengthened so you can go out there, right? We open the doors out to the world and the problem of the American church is we've opened them in. We've changed our theology for them. Oh no, we're here to strengthen you. Oh, so much more to say about that, but we have to keep moving. Verse 23, notice what they did. They appointed elders in every city there, in every church. Having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they believed. They passed through Bethsaida and Pamphylia, and when they'd spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Atalaia, and from there they sailed to Antioch, from which they were commended to the grace of God for the work that they had been accomplished. End of the first missionary journey. And you can say it ended with a bang, right to Paul's head probably. It was a tough, tough time. And yet they were amazed. The elders were appointed. They were encouraging people and strengthening the souls. They went back to where people hated them and they spoke the word and the churches were established. And when they had arrived in verse 27, they gathered the church together. They gave a report of all the things God had done. It's the first missionary report to the church. Can you imagine being there? I mean, they're going out in Galatia. Nobody goes out there. That's where they go. They come back and they tell the church how God had opened the doors of faith to the Gentiles, to the pagans. to those outside of the Jewish people. God was saving them, and they spent a long time with the disciples. And you go, isn't that wonderful? Can you imagine how worshiping people are going, wow, God's saving Gentiles. These men, Paul and Barnabas, had suffered, but yet here they're back. They're telling us about the elders that have done, how people come to faith, how they encourage their souls, how they strengthen their faith. And then chapter 15. This is what often happens to missionaries. And this may happen to you. Maybe you shared the gospel at the job or with somebody and you had an exciting experience because God used you in a special way. And then you come home or you come back and there's a situation that meets you head on that's just as opposite. Look at chapter 15, verse one. Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. I mean, pull the plug out of the balloon, right? You're coming off this missionary journey that you thought you were gonna die on at one point, as you're under a pile of rocks, and the Lord gives you life, you stand back up, you go encourage all these believers, you come back to tell them all about it, as you get to Judea, back to where you were sent, you're sending church, you find out they're knee-deep in works, in taxing, here's what they're saying, well, Jesus is fine, but you better do this too. Sorry about that. Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom of Moses, notice that in your Bible, you cannot be saved. How discouraging. Work space, listen, and you've probably heard your pastor say this, Christ plus anything is what? Nothing. It's nothing. In verse two, when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate, I bet they did. We just took a stoning for this. and you're gonna say that it's Christ plus all these works? You better believe there was a great dissension and there was a great debate. These men were sold out to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the brethren determined that Paul and Barnas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders concerning this issue, and remember, that's the hub, everything's coming out of Jerusalem, that's where Peter is, that's where James' brother Jesus is, that's where the decisions are being made at this point. The church hasn't dispersed, this is coming off the first missionary journey, that decision has to go there. They are so unclear of what the gospel is they send these men up there. Now notice on the way, because Paul can't stop himself, he goes to Phoenicia and Samaria and he tells everybody about the conversion of the Gentiles and he's bringing great joy to the brethren because he just cannot talk about what Jesus is doing. Right? And when they arrived in Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles, the elders, in the report of all that God had done. Now look at 5. Now verse 5 is very different than verse 1. But some of the sect of Pharisees, now notice this, who had believed, pestos is the word there, have faith, stood up saying, is it necessary to circumcise them to direct them to observe the law of Moses? So you go, well, Scott, wait a minute, maybe this is where it's coming from. And it probably was. Now, if you're not settled on something and you're not clear on something, you will say something and the next person will take it further, and I think this is what happened here. So these men here are saying it must be necessary, this is the law we grew up with, this is what we were taught, and we must keep this. Now, there's a lot of writing on this, you can read a lot on this, but here's where I landed. The word pistos is very important here. Pharisees who had believed. They had faith. I think these are saved men. They're still wrestling with what they do with salvation. Should this be a part of salvation? And so they direct them to circumcision and the law. And notice that in verse six, the apostle and the elders came together and looked into this matter. Now this is interesting. Look, hey, Jesus Christ alone is salvation. That's what Paul's been teaching to the Gentiles. He's not taught anything different. But here back in the home office, back in the home church, there's a confusion on that. and so as they get here now they're now they're here they're in Jerusalem this is where Peter's at this is where where some of the disciples are at and the leaders of the church and notice in verse 7 Peter stands up Peter the denier of Jesus Christ before his death Peter the one restored Peter, the one who has a vision to go to Cornelius in chapter 10 of Acts, to give the gospel to Gentile. Peter, the one who said, no unclean food has ever touched my lips, and the Lord says, eat. This is who stands up here. This is fascinating. Peter stood up and said to them, brethren, you know, verse seven, that in the early days, God made a choice among you, and that by my mouth, the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe, Acts chapter 10. By my own mouth, he said, I was there, the Lord gave me this vision, I understood it, no New Testament yet, God's doing spectacular things, leading them through visions and dreams and understandings of that way at that point, and he knows he's to go to the Gentiles, he says, by my own mouth this took place. In verse eight, in God, who knows the heart, Isn't that interesting? Peter says God knows the heart. Testify to them, giving them the Holy Spirit. Now look at this, just as he also did to us. No difference. If you're a saved person, you have to have the Holy Spirit in you. It's the way God identifies you. God loves you so much that he saved you through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ that he places his own spirit within you. It is one of the greatest marks of salvation that God himself in his spirit takes resident up in you. And he says, look, just as we, us Jews, even me, one of the disciples and apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, just as he gave us the Holy Spirit, breathed it upon us in that upper room in Acts chapter one, so we also have seen that the Gentiles received this. Notice verse nine, he made no distinctions between us and them. cleansing their hearts by what? Faith. Doctrine of justification. Christ alone, grace alone, through faith alone. That's how they were saved. Notice Peter is adding nothing to this. In fact, he really gets after him. Verse 10, one of my favorite verses here of kind of a little bit of poke at them. Verse 10, now therefore why do you put God to test? You're testing God when you try to add something to his gospel. By placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither, listen, our fathers nor we were able to bear. What's he saying? We never kept the 10 commandments. We couldn't keep all of that stuff. That was our tutor to lead us to Christ. The law was to teach us we needed a Savior, and yet now we're going to stick this on the yoke, put that heavy yoke upon the neck of these Gentiles? We never kept it, and neither did our fathers. Verse 11, but we believed. We believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they are saved in that same way. That's what he's telling them to get rid of this. And all the people kept silent in verse 12, right? As they listened to Barnabas and Paul relating the wonderful signs and wonders of what God was doing. All proving that the doctrine of Christ alone was being taught and it was transforming people's lives. Next person stands up, this is fascinating. You have Peter, he's kind of the spokesman of the disciples, right? Of the 12 that followed the Lord Jesus Christ. Next person stands up is James. Now the question is, what James is this? Well, chapter 12, verse 2, James, the nether inner circle, the brother of John, is beheaded, his life is taken by Herod. So this is James, the brother of Jesus. Isn't that interesting? We know in John chapter seven that his brothers and sisters came to him and they wanted him to go and be this king and go to Jerusalem. And he says to them, when they say, hey, your family's outside. I have no family. My family is those who do the will of God. This brother did not believe in him when Jesus was on the earth. And so it tells us this man had a radical salvation. He watched his brother do all these things and yet till God pledged faith into his heart and mind through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, he finally becomes a believer. Now he's part of the head of the church. And so you have the spokesman of the disciples, you have the sibling, earthly sibling, of the Lord Jesus Christ here saying the same things. Look at verse 14, he relates back to Simon. Simon has related how God first concerned himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for his name. I love that verse. because God said in his providence he was going to take Scott Manez, a Gentile, from the world and make me his child. And I love that verse. Let me just read it again. Simon has related how God has first concerned himself about taking from the Gentiles a people for his name. What does that mean? For his glory. Listen, brothers and sisters, God saved you for his glory. I tell people all the time, God did not save you to hold down dirt on this earth. There's plenty of people who can do that. He saved you for his glory. Does your life exalt Christ in some way? And this is mission work, right? Because you can't be on a missionary field in Gold Country area if you're not exalting Christ. You'll be a missionary for something. You'll be a mission for money raising and parenting and all kinds of things. You'll be a mission for all kinds of things, but to be a mission for Christ is you want to share His name. You want His glory known, and you're unashamed of Him. You're unashamed of Him. And here, James, the brother of Jesus, who would have been ashamed of him for a while before he was saved, said, look, he's pulling people from the Gentile world. He's concerned himself with taking from the Gentile people, people for his glory. What a statement. You know what he does? He goes on and quotes Amos and several other Old Testament prophets. And then he goes down to verse 19 and says, And he gives them some things. stay away from abstaining from things contaminated by idols. That's a big problem. And I think what they're thinking here is if we want the Jews to know the Lord Jesus Christ, we probably should walk in a way that's glorifying to God and to be around things contaminated by idol worship would really distract from the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So he says stay away from that. I think that's great teaching. Too many Christians. Here's what's wrong with the American church today. I got a foot in the world and a foot at church. Right? Contamination. I want to be liked and known. Love is love. I want my gender, which isn't my gender, and all that. I want to have that, but boy, I don't want to go to hell. I think Jesus likes me anyway. Right? Contamination. Here, it was probably physical. Their families were involved in festivals that worshiped idolistic idols that were full of immorality and paganism at its highest level, and you can study that all in 1 Corinthians because that's what they were doing there. You are going to trip people up if you have one foot in the world and you say you're a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when I mean one foot in the world, we're in the world, but we're not of it, right? What are you known for? If I asked your best friends and your families to tell me about you, would they say about you that you're a lover of the Lord Jesus Christ and his word? It's a good question. And if you ask me, if you say, Scott, could I ask you? I go, yeah, ask away. And I would tell you this, that sometimes it's probably not true, but I want it to be. I don't wanna dedicate my life so when I speak with people and live among people that they say, that man, I don't agree with him maybe, but he loves that Jesus and he loves that word that he spoke. Do you wanna be known for that? See, we'll never be missionaries in our own right, we'll never share the gospel if we wanna straddle the fence and live in one side of the world and one part in the church. It just doesn't work. That's not what God called us. Well, I'm sure your pastor speaks, we use the term lordship salvation. is he our master. in a sweet, wonderful, master-serving way, right? In the Old Testament, when you did, in the year of Jubilee, when you could be free and you didn't have to be a slave anymore, you could come to your master and say, I wanna serve you for life, and they would take an awl and drive it through the lobe of your ear on a doorpost, and everybody would see that all the time, every time they would say, that man, that right there, that woman right there is dedicated for the rest of their existence on this earth to serve his or her master. That's lordship. My ears aren't pierced. My wife probably wouldn't like that. But they're pierced spiritually. He's my master. He's my Lord. He's my Savior. And to contaminate that view by loving the things the world loves, that's dangerous. And I think this is what, we come here because we need to be reminded of this, right? I had a woman tell me recently, she goes, I love coming to church because I'm in the world all day and my feet are dirty with the things that I've had to wrestle with and go through. And I come here and I'm reminded that my Lord loves me and he died for me. And that contamination can become washed away in the truth of Jesus and the truth of the word and the fellowship of the saints. I'm reminded of that and that's why you're here today, I trust. See, that's what makes you effective. You taste grace, not only for salvation, but you taste it daily. I know, I can't read your minds, but doubtlessly you're going through your mind and saying, Scott, you're probably right. There are areas in my life that are too worldly. And they're not pleasing to Jesus. And I'm probably not an effective missionary at my job, in my neighborhood, because I look too much like the world. He goes on to say a few other things, fornication. I mean, fornication was just part of religion. Do you realize that? When you get into Corinth, the prostitutes and all the immorality was just part of their religious society. Paul wanted to make sure, the elders here wanted to make sure, and even all the way back to the law in Israel, wanted to make sure that that was never to be part of anything of the worship of God. God designed sex for a beautiful thing, for a man and a woman to procreate and fill the earth, and so that more people would know the truth of the gospel. And it has its perfect place given. And it ruins testimonies. So often, divorce after divorce within the church because of infidelity. Young people on their phones, older people on their phones. Pornography, just a massive issue within the American church. You wonder why missions is dying? Why church in America is dying? Because we don't separate ourselves from these things. And we find ourselves contaminating it. Now, Scott, you're sounding legalistic. No, I'm not. I'm sounding like Jesus is everything and we want to follow him, right? And I'm not telling you I have all these things figured out in my own life. I'm still a man that has to daily die to sin, daily die to my own desires and follow the Lord Jesus Christ. The last one is the strangling of animals from the blood. You know, God gave a beautiful way to put an animal down in the Old Testament. And I've had the privilege of doing this. We've raised some lambs for meat and things like that. I remember one time, instead of the way we would normally put them down, I decided that I would just put them down the way they did in the Old Testament, because I wanted to experience that. I wanted my boys to see this as many years ago. And as I stuck that lamb, and I held it in my arms, and it bled out into a basin, just because I wanted to see, I wanted to understand Old Testament teaching, and I wanted to understand Christ and more, and that body of that lamb just went limp into my arms. Pagans? Strangle. Hatred. They would let all their hatred come out and strangle an animal to death in their, quote, worship. This is as demonic as can be. There's so much good practical instruction that honors God, the way we deal with our lives here. This was the difference between the pagan church and the pagan worship in the church of today. So they go on and they say, this is what should be done, and they take Judas and Barthabas and Silas and leading men and Paul and Barnabas and say, hey, we want you to go and tell the churches this. And they take Judas and Silas, and they take them back to the church at Antioch, and those guys preach, and they preach a very, very long time. And they deliver this great message from the elders. Hey, this is what God's doing. Salvation comes by grace alone, through faith alone, through Christ alone. That's what they're telling people. In verse 31, notice when they read it, they rejoice because of its encouragement. They were encouraged. Oh, we don't have to do this. Isn't Christ plus this, this, and this? Let me see if I can bring it into context a little bit. What about baptism? Baptism in the act of obedience does not save you. Amen? I mean, we're in a lot of trouble. So is that thief on the cross. We have to be careful of those things, right? As those who hold to Baptist teaching, which I think are biblical teachings, we believe baptism is this statement of, this is my Lord, I want everybody to know what he did for me. It's a public proclamation of the salvation that God has done in our hearts. In no way or shape or form does that have anything to do with our salvation. It's the result of our salvation. So that's what they're after here. Live for the Lord Jesus. Got to look at 32. This helps Phil and I as we go a little long some days. Judas and Silas also be in prophets among themselves. Encourage and strengthen the brothers with lengthy messages. Where's my clock at speaking of that? Okay, I got it here. I got to keep rolling here. American church today. Oh, we'll sing songs. There's effemination of the church going on. We sing and it's get lost in all this stuff. And boy, the preacher better not go more than 15 minutes. Because we've got to get down to Cracker Barrel. I'm still in the South. I don't know where you go here. But I go to a college football game. And I go there, and there's a two-hour tailgate party before. And then the game's four hours. And then we celebrate afterwards. And we wonder if our life is done if they lost. But we can't sit in church for an hour and a half. And heaven forbid I ever come to an evening service, or discipleship groups, or anything like that. Hey, look, the early church was built on the preaching of the glory of Christ, the gathering of the saints to worship this Savior who had done what nobody else could do, to realize that God had called them out of the pagan world they lived in to be his children. I don't know how that excites you, but it still excites me after many, many years of salvation. I wake up in the morning and say, Lord, thank you for saving this wretch. What are we doing today? Right? See, we approach it that way. Now, second missionary journey starts, and we're gonna have to blow through this real quick, but this is fun. After some days, Paul and Barnabas, verse 36, said, let us return and visit the brethren in every city which we have proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are. And I'm sure maybe Barnabas is going, what? We're going back? This will be the third trip into where they tried to kill you. Not all ministers get along perfectly. Barnabas wanted to take John called Mark along with him, but Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And notice this, and there occurred a sharp disagreement, and they separated over this. Barnabas took John, Mark, Paul took Silas with him. You see in that verse 40. Isn't that interesting? Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 11 that sometimes there must be dissension among us in order for the will of God to come forward. That's what happens sometimes. I'm not saying it was right, I don't know how this got solved. We know that John Mark eventually comes along and at the last inspired letter of Paul in 2 Timothy, right before his death, probably three to four months before his death, he says, send John Mark to me, he is useful. So somewhere along the line this got fixed, but just like Barnabas said, well, I'll take the kid. I'll spend time with him. And we have no idea. The Bible does not tell us what Barnabas and John Mark did. We don't even know about that missionary journey, and I can't wait to ask those guys, what happened with you guys? Tell us about that trip. But off they went. Now look at chapter 16 real quickly. Paul came to Derbe and Lystra. And the disciple was there named Timothy, son of a Jewish woman who was a believer and his father was a Greek. Now this is an amazing man. Look at in verse two, he was well-spoken by the brethren in Lystra and Iconium. So here he finds this young man, his name is Timothy. We know him well if we've studied our Bibles at all. One of the things unique about this man, he's, it wasn't just sitting around, he was already serving. That's the wonderful thing about leadership. When pastors, when we're looking for elders and deacons and people to head up ministries, we look for people who are not standing there, pick me, pick me. We're looking for people who are already serving. Cuz then we know they're not up to the position. Are you serving the Lord without anybody asking you? Do you see the announcements in the bulletins where they're constantly looking for somebody in that ministry? Do you ever burden to do that? I remember one of my children's ministry people from years ago, he came up to me and says, I can't take it anymore. For a year, you've asked for the head of children's ministry. I can't take it anymore, I'll do it. I said, good. Turned out to be one of the best children's ministry leaders we ever had. He couldn't take it anymore. And that's what we look for in these men. So Paul wanted this man to go with him. Now notice what happens, he's not circumcised in verse 3 and 4, he's circumcised Timothy. You go, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, the Jews just say you don't have to be circumcised. Why does he do that? Because he's headed to the Jews. Where does Paul go first every town he goes into? Where does he go first? Synagogues, good, Bible people in here. He can't take Timothy in there. Timothy, we're gonna love the gospel so much we're gonna sacrifice quite greatly. That's some cringe. Parents, sorry, you can explain that later. Timothy, we're gonna do this because the gospel will go forward. See, the missionary journeys are full of sacrifice, time and time again. It gets even more sacrifice here. Paul has this desire to go north. He wants to go to northern Galatia. What we see in Lystra and Derbe and all that, that's southern Galatia. He wants to go north. He's set on going north. He wants to reach places, look at verse seven, Miza and Bithynia. Do you remember that name, Bithynia? Chapter one, first Peter one. to the churches dispersed, and he gives a list of churches, and Bethany is in there. Paul wants to go there, and here in this text, the Bible says the spirit of Jesus would not let him go. All right, let's hit a little practical application. What do you want to do that the Lord's not letting you do? He's probably got something better here. This is an incredible statement. He wants to go there. Now, Bithynia, let me come back to that real quick before I lose that train of thought. Peter gets there, or somebody gets there, because they're marked among the churches of the dispersion. So God says, I'm gonna reach Bithynia, I'm gonna reach Northern Galatia, but I'm not reaching it with you. You go to Troas. As you turn the page or you get down to verse 9, you find out that he gets to Troas and there he has a vision of a man. I don't think this was actually some particular individual, at least we're not told, but it's way to say, Paul, you're not going to northern Galatia, you're going to Thessalonica and Philippi, Macedonia. And I love this because in my ministry, I've had some things, I've had some ideas. Oh God, I want to do this. And I start telling God what I think we should be doing. And then all of a sudden God says, yeah, we're not doing that. We're going this way. Complete, complete opposite than what I thought I was doing. And you can go over here and you can dig your heels in and you can make your list of why you should be doing what you think you should be doing. Or you can say, God, what are you doing? And can I join you? Do you see the difference? A lot of us find our time over here. We're gonna serve God this way. And God says, no, you're not. You're gonna serve him this way. And listen, what happens because he does this, because he goes there, it's amazing. Chapter 16, verse 14, he meets Lydia, a worshiper of God, who hears the gospel and gets saved. Birth of the Philippi church. Next you have the demonic woman, the little girl, they're making money off her and she's saying what seems to be biblical true things about Paul and the Most High and all that, but Satan never gets the opportunity to teach those kind of things. And Paul said, no way, cast a demon out of her. They bring a crowd, they throw him into prison. He's in the Philippi jail now. He's beaten. Notice the Bible says in verse 23, they struck them with many blows. I just wanted to go to Northern Galatia. I want to go to Bithynia. It's cooler up there. The people are nice. I'm in a jail now, beaten into my life. Would you sing? They did. In fact, they sang so well that God said in an earthquake, you know the story, the chains fell off and the gates opened. And the jailer said, if you're a Roman jailer and you lose your prisoner, you are done for, you're dead. So, well, I'm just going to kill myself. Oh, hold on here. We are all here, he says. I always think about, well, how did, why did the pagan prisoners not run away? Because God can capture everybody, right? He keeps them there. And how many got saved of them? We don't know, but the jailer gets saved, his wife gets saved, his children get saved, and now you have Lydia and you have the birth of Philippi, because he didn't go to Northern Galatia. Wow. God's way. Ask him what he's doing and see if you can join him. Quit telling God what you want him to do. He's God, you are. Thank you. He is perfect in all that he does, we are not. Die to yourself daily and take up the cross. That's the lesson here. It doesn't end because they get run out of town because they beat a couple of roadman citizens, that wouldn't go over good. And for Thessalonica. And they end up in Thessalonica, and here, this church is just this amazing church. If you turn to 1 Thessalonians 1, I just want to just point out a couple of things real quick, because this is what it does, this is what happens in missions. Paul takes these men, now he's got Silvanus with him, 1 Thessalonians 1, and Timothy, and probably a whole host of people, but these are the ones that are mentioned, most likely Luke there, because he's writing all this in Acts, he's the we with the we passages, right? And they come there to Thessalonica, And there the church of Thessalonians is birthed, right? Remember, he goes and he preaches three Sundays, excuse me, three Sabbaths in the synagogue, and many believe, and then the whole town gets mad at him, and they come, and they knew what was gonna happen, so they take Paul, and Silas, and Timothy, and they slip them out the back door, and they grab the ones that they can find. Jason, this man who is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, they take him out, and they beat him instead. Why Paul is sneaking away, because he had to, because they knew Paul was carrying that gospel. He ends up down in Berea, then Athens, and then the Corinth. And when he gets to Corinth, he can't stand it, and he writes this letter to them. And look at what he does. He says, we give thanks to God always for you. One of the things I always ask missionaries that tell me when they come to me, Scott, I want to go to the mission field. I said, who are you going with? Who's the we that you're going with? How are you gonna develop the wheeze? Paul always does things in groups. He goes with others. And he says, we always make mention of you. So when they're traveling from Philippi to Thessalonica, from Thessalonica to Berea, to Berea to Athens, Athens to Corinth, they were always praying for this church. And there's reasons why they were praying for them. Notice that they saw that they had, verse three, constantly bearing in mind your work of faith. I always love to flip that around. You have a faith that works. Not faith that came by works, faith that works. Does your faith work? Or does it sit on your hands? I talked to one old man one day and he said, I said, well, how are you living for the Lord Jesus? I'm just sitting here waiting for Jesus to come back and he's on his clicker. Man, I'm glad your faith is working. Do you have a faith that works? Does it work when things are difficult? When your marriage is struggling? When the children are difficult, when the finances aren't there, do you have a faith that works? It's the difference between a saving faith and a dead faith. Saving faith, it works, it's serving the Lord, he's our king, he's everything, we've driven all the near, Lord, what do you want me to do for you? That's just why they prayed and thanked the Lord. I trust that and I believe and I know Phil, I know that's where he wants his church to go and doubtlessly all these people here, you must have a faith that works, don't you? Is there one man doing all the work here? You have a faith that works. Notice you labor of love, and just flip that one around, you have a love that labors. You have a love that labors. Do you have a love for Jesus that you'll labor? Oh, we need VBS workers, oh, we need children's ministries, we need people singing in the choirs, we need this and that. Oh, Lord, I love you so much, I'll step into that. Nobody else's, I'll step into that. Then, steadfast hope, a hope that is steadfast, because your hope is steadfast in Jesus Christ. I love verse 4. I trust this is your church. Look at verse 4. I'm in the NASB, but he starts out with a verb, knowing, beloved by God, brethren, beloved by God, His choice of you or His election of you, is the idea of the word there. Knowing. Do you know what that means? Is he didn't have to come and tell them. He doesn't have to come back and say, hey I know you're wrestling with free will. No, no need. You already understand that God knew you from the foundations of the world. He drew you to himself before you were ever even a twinkle in your mother's eye. He knew you and he loved you before the foundations of the world and you were not going to escape his grace and mercy. That's a church. That's why he rejoices over this church, because he didn't have to teach soteriology to them over and over and over again. They understood the doctrine of salvation. That is God who saves. Praise the Lord he doesn't write E's on foreheads so we could just proclaim the gospel and love people, but he knows who is is, and when a church knows that, great things happen in a church. Too many churches, I've tried to help through the years, we can't go forward because we don't understand how people get saved, so we gotta sit down there and go through all the fights. Because, well, you know, it doesn't seem fair. You want fair? The wage of sin is death, there you go. All have sinned, there you go. That's fair. When we get soteriologically right and realize that we were dead in our sins and trespasses, we have no spiritual life in us, we're deserving of hell's fire, when we get that understood, that God plucks us out of that and grants us mercy and grace, wow, are we amazed at grace still. Are you still amazed at grace? That's a good soteriological view, and that's what this church had. His preaching didn't come in word only. Remember, they had all the guys, all the Plato's and Socrates, and they all stand up and give a word. That's not what he's talking about here. This is the word logos, but it just didn't come in this logos of, oh, hey, you know, here's the way life is gonna go. No, no, it was the word of God, and it came with the Holy Spirit, and it was convincing, assuring power. You still believe that? I mean, you don't have to be charismatic to believe this. I think the charismatics abuse the pneumatology. This is the reminder that when we preach the word, the Holy Spirit comes with it. I know he's here today, and as I proclaim to you, I know it's the Holy Spirit that's talking to your heart, not Scott. And if it's Scott talking to you, you're in trouble. Spirit changes people. That's why we proclaim his truth, not our own. You want to share the Word of God with somebody? The Spirit will come with it. You want to share what you think? Yeah, good luck. Share God's Word. Post it, read it, memorize it, share it with people because it comes with the Holy Spirit. And it changes lives, and notice it changed him. He says, we knew what kind of men we proved to be, so you should be imitators of us, because we're imitators of the Lord, verse six. Even though there's much tribulation, that church knew it, Jason got beaten, that church understood what it was. But he says, look, your reputation goes out. One of the things when we talked with Didier, when we had him here with Phil and I, they were so thankful for our churches, because what our churches are doing are speaking volume over there. that this church in gold country in Shingle Springs, California loves us and is praying for us and giving to us. He says your reputation, he spoke of you. I had him up in the Boise for a week up there and he spoke of you and he spoke of our church and he spoke of many other churches because it proceeds because we're laboring our love for them. And this is what he talked about here. This goes forth, this is what missionaries do. We teach them the gospel, the gospel changes their lives, and people go, well, look what's happening in Jordan Valley, Oregon, and they don't even know where that is. Right? And then one last, I'm gonna give you one more word here, because I'm, oh, I'm almost done, Phil, hang on. This is incredible, look at verse eight. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you. Now, do you see that in your Bible? I don't know what your translation says, but the word sounded in the NASB is the Greek word, we get the word echo. Now, there's a bit of an echo in here, I can hear it, I don't know if you can, but when I speak, if I say hello, it doesn't say goodbye, right? What I say comes back exactly the same. That's what he's saying. This is what's so amazing about this church is they spoke, they echoed the word of God. They didn't echo the word of their church or what they thought should be happening or some new movement or something like that. They echoed the word of God because what they said was exactly what God's word said and that's what sounded back and forth. Is that what this church is? I know you're a pastor and I know that's what he preaches. Is that what you preach? Do you echo the word of God? or you add into it. See, that's what's happened in the American church today. They can't take the Word of God. It's too convicting for them. It doesn't fit their lifestyle. It doesn't fit their designer Jesus they want and all that other stuff, so they're not echoing the Word of God. Gender's not very hard. On the ranch, you pick up a tail, it'll tell you right away. It's not hard. Sorry, parents. He made them male and female, both to bring glory to him in their unique ways. Equal yet different. He gave marriage between a man and a woman to resemble the Christ in his church. And the American church is abandoning that. He doesn't ask women to preach. He doesn't ask men to give babies. He gave us unique roles to bring glory to him. We're not echoing, as an American church, we're not echoing the word of God anymore. So we're a nation that needs missionaries in it now. We used to send them out, now we're taking them in. And a lot of the missionaries we're taking in are coming in from foreign religions. Are we echoing the truth? Notice it echoed so much that they didn't need to say anything in the verse eight. And the report was how they turned from idols to serve a living God. Pagans, rank pagans, haters of God, now servants of God because of the gospel message. Do you want to see that in your neighborhood? How about your family? Who do you pray in for? I have a book in my, I carry in my backpack all the time. It's just full of people I'm praying for. Problems we were having, whatever it may be, but there's all kinds of lost people I'm praying for them. They're rank pagans headed for hell and I want God to save them. And then when I pray for them, then I think about them, and then when I have an opportunity to go with them, I will share the gospel with them. But if I don't pray for them, I don't think about them in a gospel way. I want to see them turn from idols to serve a living God, and guess what? Then what happens? They wait for Jesus. Now the word waiting is a beautiful Greek word. It's a prefix. Amino is the word abide, right? But this is anamino. It means waiting with expected confidence. It's a strong Greek word. It's not used very many times in the New Testament. It's a strong, we wait with great confidence. Some die, like our dear brother that you guys said goodbye to just for a little while yesterday. Some die, but some will see him in the air. But you wait with confidence. Because my confidence is in Christ, not in me, not in the church or some building or something like that. My confidence is in Christ and his finished work. And I wait for him. Notice whom he, if there's any question about who Jesus is, it's whom he, the father, raised from the dead, that is Jesus. And notice he rescues you from the wrath to come. And brother and sister, if you're here today and you don't know Jesus, your savior, you will have to deal with the wrath of God. And it won't be pretty. Or you can have Jesus die in your place. I'll close with this. When Jesus died on the cross for Scott Benez, he was judged like he committed my sins. Let that sink in just a bit. He was judged like he committed my sins. Wages of sin is death. Oh, I got just a short time. I'm asking the Lord to let me preach to 80. I turn 60 here in just a couple months. I want 20 more years. Let me go, Lord, let me run for 80. He may take me home tomorrow, who knows? Let me go for just another 20. Let me still be amazed at your grace on this earth. Let me praise the one who died for me. Let me finish well. Are you praying the same? Father, we thank you for this time in the word today. We're overwhelmed with the gospel that would motivate men to take rocks to their head and get up and keep doing it. I pray you would help us, Lord, that we would be people, members of gold country Baptist church so captured by the glory of Christ, so overwhelmed with His grace, still amazed at His grace, that we would rise each morning and remind ourselves, preach the gospel to ourselves of what you've done for us. Oh Lord, drive the all through our ear. We're lifetimers. Help us live that way. Lord, we'll be great missionaries in the deserts of Jordan Valley or Sacramento or Folsom or Eldorado Hills, all through this gold country. Lord, we want to serve you till you tell us to come home. So Lord, help us, Lord. We give you the glory and praise for all that was said and sung and done here today. In Jesus' name, amen.