We are continuing this morning in this 19th chapter of Acts. Last Sunday we started off with a Bible study about the first seven verses. And then our sermon last Sunday was primarily about verses 8-16. So this morning we're going to pick things up in verse 17. And you can probably see that that means we have a lot of territory to cover this morning. 24 verses through the end of the chapter. But it is kind of one package we need to keep together. So this chapter has continued to resist my best attempts to figure out how to preach it. So I'm just going to stumble through this morning and do my best. I think it's been the single hardest chapter of Acts to figure out how to preach for me. Let's pause for just a moment and pray first. Father, thank You for this new morning and all of Your goodness to us and our Lord Jesus Christ and all of the rich truths we got to sing about and all of the people here that we got to sing together with and to one another and to You with one another. We got to pray and we got to praise. We got to confess, and that is a rich thing that we've been able to do this morning. And I pray that you would work in our hearts such that worship like that would come from hearts that genuinely love you and believe you are worthy of all of our worship. So would you help us to see the greatness of Jesus again this morning and long for Him to be worshiped, long for Him to reign in our hearts without a rival as we just prayed. We pray in His name, Amen. All right, so we will, at the end this morning, return to our outline from last Sunday, like I promised. But first of all, there's just a lot in this chapter to talk about. We can't talk about all of it, but I've picked out a few of the things to point out along the way. So we're just going to work through the text, and I'm going to point out a few things as we go. And you've got kind of a bullet point list on your handout to help you keep track of where I'm at. First of all, we have here the mighty Word. In verses 11-16, we read, as we did last Sunday, about these extraordinary miracles that God was sending. Evil spirits came out. Diseases were healed in the name of Jesus. And so that brings us to verse 17 where it says, this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, and fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled." And then notice verse 20, "'So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.'" The word mightily there is often translated power. Some translations say the word grew in power. You know, the extraordinary miracles in Ephesus weren't ultimately the point. They supported the ministry of the powerful Word. They were signs that pointed to Jesus. Ephesus was a place of power, a place of magic and demonic activity, a place of immense money. But there was a new and greater power in town. It was the message of Christ crucified. To the Jews, a stumbling block. To the Greeks, foolishness. But to those who were being saved, both Jews and Greeks, it's the power of God. So it is that use of power at the end of verse 20 is especially poignant in Ephesus. The Word was mighty. And this kind of summary statement like you have in verse 20 is found in other places in Acts, like Acts 6, verse 7, Acts 12, verse 24. They're kind of summary statements of what God was doing. And each time, what the summary statement focuses on is how the Word of Christ spread, grew, changed lives. And that is still our goal today, that the Word of Christ might spread through us. So first of all, in Ephesus, the Word was mighty. Now verse 21, now after these events, Paul resolved in the Spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem, saying, after I have been there, I must also see Rome. And having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia. That means he stayed in Ephesus for a while. Okay, so Paul wants to go through Macedonia and Achaia. So if you think of him from the southern part of Greece going back up the coast, visiting for maybe the fifth time some of those churches that he planted, and then traveling from there back to Jerusalem, but then getting to Rome, There are some pieces of the puzzle that these verses don't give us that thankfully we find in Romans 15, which Paul probably wrote Romans just, I don't know, maybe a year after this or something like that. So you see that on your handout. Here's what he wrote to the Romans. I hope to see you, Romans, in passing as I go to Spain and to be helped on my journey there by you once I have enjoyed your company for a while. At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem bringing aid to the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints of Jerusalem. When therefore I have completed this and have delivered to Jerusalem what has been collected, I will leave for Spain by way of you, by way of Rome. So that really fills in the story for us. That tells us that Jerusalem and Rome were actually just temporary stopping points on Paul's desired route all the way to Spain. Paul wanted to take the gospel all the way to the western limits of the Roman Empire. One old Bible teacher pointed out that Paul's name means little. That's what Paul means. But even the great emperors of Greece and Rome would have a hard time surpassing the largeness of vision that he had. He wanted to take the Word of Christ to the ends of the world as they knew it. But first, he needed to go through Macedonia and Achaia to collect donations from them for the poor in Jerusalem. And as we know from 2 Corinthians 8, those churches in Macedonia and Achaia were not wealthy. but the abundance of their generosity and love for their brothers and sisters, they were eager to give. So he was going to go collect those funds, deliver them to Jerusalem, then travel to Rome, spend some time in Rome to meet that church he had never met, and then continue on to Spain. At least that was his desire. And God had some things coming that would adjust those plans. But that desire formed during this time in Ephesus. That's what Luke is telling us. Now verse 23, about that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the way. And as we've seen several times now, that little phrase, the way, was something that people seemed to call the Christians. And so that's referring to Christianity. No little disturbance concerning Christianity in Ephesus. Now remember that the end of verse 22, Paul stayed in Asia. He stayed in Ephesus for a while, even though he really wanted to get moving to Jerusalem, to Rome, to Spain. So what we learn from the next chapter in Acts, and what we learn from Paul's other letters, is that he suffered tremendously during this time in Ephesus. There's actually not anything in Acts 19 that would necessarily clue you into that, except that it says, no little disturbance arose. But we know that he said he had in Ephesus many adversaries. And he says in 1 Corinthians 15, it was like fighting with beasts being in Ephesus. Some scholars think that it is likely that he was imprisoned at some point in Ephesus because we know he was in prison more times than are recorded. than he, or detailed in Acts. And he wrote in 2 Corinthians 1, talking about his time in Ephesus, that he despaired even of life itself. So whatever was going on in Ephesus, it was like fighting with beasts and had him at the point of despairing even of life itself. And it's interesting that in Romans, he says that Priscilla and Aquila risked their necks for his life. And the place where that most likely happened was Ephesus. So again, I'm pulling together a whole bunch of different verses from the letters that fill this in for us, but he stayed in Ephesus because he said elsewhere, God had opened a wide door for effective work, but we need to understand that he stayed at the cost of tremendous personal suffering. There is a ridiculous idea circulating around Christianity that if you are in God's will, you won't suffer, and that if you are suffering, you must have gotten off track somehow and lost God's blessing. That is absurdity, and it is error. He stayed because God opened a wide door for effective work, but he stayed at the cost of tremendous personal suffering. Now back to verse 23, about that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the way, concerning Christianity, and the particular instance here involves this silversmith named Demetrius. Verse 24, for a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, So that would mean either little temples of the goddess Artemis or little shrines with a little statue of her in them. He made silver shrines of Artemis and he brought no little business to the craftsmen. These he gathered together with the workmen in similar trades and he said, men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see in here that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger, not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple of a great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing. and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship." When they heard this, they were enraged and were crying out, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. So the city was filled with the confusion and they rushed together into the theater dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul's companions in travel. All right, there's a lot going on here, but one of the things to note is Luke's historical credibility. If Luke just made these things up, or if people often propose if someone many decades or even centuries later just made up these Bible books, then They were going to have a hard time getting all of these local details right, but Luke nails it. And I don't have time to explain all of the points where that's true because there are so many, but let me just mention a few. We know from history that Ephesus was a city that fiercely defended the worship of Artemis and did not allow her to be insulted. We know that this area of Asia was a place of frequent riots and unrest during this time. We know that this is hard for me to wrap my mind around, hard for us to wrap our mind around, but we know that the Temple of Artemis was a source of so much financial gain that the They call it the cult. All the people associated with it, the group that ran it, the authorities in Ephesus that oversaw it, they had so much money that the Temple of Artemis was the most important bank in the entire Roman province of Asia. In other words, if you had money to invest, you invested it at the Temple of Artemis. And if you needed big loans, you went and got them from the Temple of Artemis. It was like Asia's Wall Street because there was so much money in that worship of the goddess. We know that there was a significant industry in silver during the time. We know archaeologists say that the silversmith shops were close to the theater. Archaeologists have found silver statutes of Artemis. They found a marble model of the temple. They found many clay shrines of the temple. Even the end of verse 27 when Demetrius refers to Artemis as, she whom all Asia and the world worship. There's some hyperbole there, like he's given a political speech and working up the crowd to be proud of their city. But he's also not off base because Pole Hill reports that there were at least 33 shrines to Artemis in other places across the Roman Empire, and the worship of Artemis may well have been the most popular idol worship in the Roman Empire. Pilgrims flocked from all over the empire to worship at its famous temple. We also know that the theater was massive. A few years after this, it would probably seat 24,000 people and be the largest in the empire. At this point, it probably seated a mere 20,000 people. And we know that theaters in cities like Ephesus were often used for public assemblies just like this one. Do you think Luke was making up this story or writing it 200 years later? It's not, this is not fiction. And actually, secular historians have noted that what Luke records here is one of the most remarkable windows we have into the life of these ancient cities. So we see Luke's historical credibility, but let's continue on, verse 30. But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him. So here you've got this huge mob in the theater. worked up into this frenzy in defense of their money and their civic pride and all that. And verse 30, when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples wouldn't let him. For Paul, it was an irresistible opportunity despite great danger. his brothers and sisters wouldn't let him, but if he could, if he was willing to step out in front of that huge crowd and say a word about Jesus. Now, verse 31 says, even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater. So the next point on your handout refers to the gospel's reach in Ephesus. Well, how does verse 31 show us that? Well, it's because we know from other historical records that the Asiarchs were very high officials in Ephesus and in the whole province of Asia. This was the highest office a citizen could achieve. And then it's not exactly clear what their role was, but verse 31 tells us that some of them were friends with Paul. So we don't know anything about how that happened, but it gives you a tantalizing little hint of just I love to think of the gospel like fingers reaching into a community, and you long for it to reach deeply into the community. This gives you a hint about how far it had reached into Ephesus. That these very highest civic leaders in the city of Ephesus were friends with Paul. Surely meaning they had to some degree been favorable toward or even believed in what he was teaching about Jesus. and they were trying to protect him. So that means the gospel in Ephesus not only reached the diseased, not only reached the demon possessed, not only reached into a synagogue in a way that we have not seen anywhere else, but it also reached into the very highest ranks of the fourth largest city in the Roman Empire. Now let's keep reading verse 32. Now, some cried out one thing. So here we are with the mob in the theater. Some cried out one thing, some another for the assembly was in confusion and most of them did not know why they had come together. Can I just pause and can we get on a soapbox about that line for just a minute? Is that not the age in which we live? an age of rage and fury and the latest thing that everybody's worked up about. But if you actually started asking some questions about how much people know about what they're worked up about or excited about, they may know almost nothing. They just know it's the thing you're supposed to be excited about or upset about. That is the way human nature works. It should not be the way Christians think. That is not living in truth. Most of them did not know why they had come together. Verse 33, Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward. And Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd. But when they recognized that he was a Jew, they didn't let him speak. They just started yelling for about two hours. Great as Artemis of the Ephesians. What is going on there? Who is Alexander? Why are they trying to put a Jew up there And I don't know, we only know what the text says, but here's a guess. A guess is that the Jews were always trying to not have a reputation as troublemakers, trying to make sure that they were in good... relationship with the Roman Empire, and they were very concerned that people were going to think Paul and the Christians were just some Jewish sect, and the Jews were going to get in trouble. So that they took Alexander, who was maybe a synagogue leader or something, and said, hey, you got to tell the crowd that that's not us. Paul's not one of us. We're not the ones that are threatening your idol worship and all that. And so Alexander steps up and is going to try to speak, but the crowds won't let him. And it says when they recognize that he was a Jew. And so that surely means one of two things. Either it means it's just anti-Semitism, they just didn't want to hear from a Jew. Or it means they thought, you're a Jew. We know what you believe. You believe in one God. You don't believe in all of our gods. Why would we want to listen to you? And so they start crying out about the greatness of Artemis. Only one person was able to quiet the crowd. Verse 35, it's the town clerk. And here again, Luke is just right on because in modern municipalities today, the town clerk may not have much a whole lot of authority. But in that day, the clerk was the chief administrative officer of the city who reported to Rome. This was Rome's liaison in the city. And so if you wanted to keep Rome happy, you keep the town clerk happy. So when the town clerk steps up, that is what finally gets this crowd to settle down. Verse 35, and when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, Men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky? And by the way, we don't know what that stone is that fell from the sky. We know that meteorites were often associated with the mother goddess in mythology, but what this means, I don't know. Verse 36, seeing them that these things cannot be denied. You ought to be quiet and do nothing rash. Now, let's see those words, seeing them that these things cannot be denied. I wonder if Luke got some special joy out of recording those words because they're so absurd. There's so much irony in those words because these things about Artemis definitely can be denied. Jesus is the living One who truly came down from heaven. Not a meteorite goddess, but the Son of God. And His resurrection is what cannot be denied. So I don't think Luke was here on this day. I think he got the report from somebody else, but I can just imagine Luke sitting there with his notepad like, oh, gotta write that one down. That is too good not to record. Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to settle down. Verse 37, for you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess. If, therefore, Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open and there are proconsuls, let them bring charges against one another. But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly, for we really are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion." And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly. So the most important Roman representative in Ephesus said, there is no cause for these things. And so the last point in your list refers to legal Christianity. We have seen this several times and in the chapters ahead we're going to see it more. Luke is emphasizing the times when Roman officials verified that Christianity was legal, was not dangerous, it was not criminal. Why is Why is Luke recording those things? Well, he's writing years after this, right? And it is not hard for anyone to see that the Roman Empire is likely to become very hostile to Christianity. So I think that Luke is probably recording these things in the hope that it might provide some protection for the Christians. That there might be some record of how many times Roman officials said, no, Christianity is not illegal. This is not a danger. It's not criminal. It should be allowed. Now, you know, Nero eventually showed up a few years after this and things turned south. But I think that's part of Luke's motivation. Okay, we obviously didn't cover every detail in the chapter, but hopefully that gives you a little bit of a summary of what happened here. And so, because there's so much happening here, I've got just a couple key things I want us to kind of park on to remember and apply from this chapter. So, I think we're to the back of your handout now. At the top there, you see the numbers that we were using last week. Twelve unusual disciples, three months in the synagogue, two years in the Hall of Tyrannus, one living Lord Jesus, one power over disease and demons, one apostle of Jesus. So we come now to just add two more numbers here. And the first of those is 50,000. This is the glad cost of loyalty to Christ. the glad cost of loyalty to Christ. So, when God worked these great miracles in Ephesus, including the demonstration of the power of Jesus over demons, we read this. So back up now to verse 18 in Acts 19. Back to verse 18. Also, many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to 50,000 pieces of silver." Which would be 50,000 days wages. So, four points about this. First of all, magic had a deep influence in Ephesus. Magic had a deep influence in Ephesus. Paul Hill writes, Ephesus was reputed as a center for magic. The famous statue of Artemis, the centerpiece of her temple, was noted for the mysterious terms engraved on the crown, girdle, and feet of the image. Keener says that the most recent scholarship believes that there were six special magical terms that came from Ephesus and were known and used across the Roman Empire. There may have been scrolls or books with curses, defenses, and other magic formulas. So this is all about power, right? You know, idolatry itself is about power, but when you get into certain words to use, formulas to use, curses to use, secrets, now we're talking about magic. And those things, they're either, they're always one of two things, they're either just empty lies, they're just made up, or they're satanic and demonic in their power. So, We need to look carefully now at the grammar of verse 18. The ESV says, many of those who were now believers came confessing and divulging their practices. Now the way the grammar works here, it is very clear that these people were already believers. Okay, you might read that quickly and think that these were people getting saved, but the grammar clearly indicates otherwise. It says these people who already had believed, the verb tense refers to something that's happened in the past and has a continuing effect. They had already believed and they were still believing. And their faith, their continuing faith was demonstrated by the fact that now they came confessing and divulging their practices. So these were, as your handout says, believers who recognized an area of disloyalty to Christ. Let me use a very simple little example. Somehow, you know, when you have little kids, you accumulate large amounts of books which hide in unusual places, and you see them after several years and say, oh, I remember that book. And then if you have a child when you're 40, it happens even more so, because then you have lots of books from many years ago you've completely forgotten about, and they reappear. So anyway, this week on our living room floor, here's a coloring book from my trip to Turkey, whenever I went to Turkey, eight years ago or something. Well, I didn't realize that was what it was. I'd forgotten this thing even existed. All I saw was a book laying on my living room floor that has on the back of it a craft. It's a craft to make a magic eye to hang in your house to protect you. because that's a huge tradition in Turkish culture. It's like, what is this? And I flipped it over. It's like, oh yeah, it's a Turkey coloring book I got when I was there in Istanbul. You see what I'm influencing my kids with. So if that was a traditional part of a culture, think of yourself as a Turkish believer in Christ. It's not as easy as it sounds to us Americans to just take that thing down and get rid of it. It's not as easy as it sounds. And so this is very common struggle for believers around the world. When you have things that are a deeply entrenched part of your culture, they're part of your family, they're very familiar, it's not so easy to just get rid of all that stuff right away. And then some of that, you don't even see it. You don't even recognize, wait a second, this is contrary to my new faith in Christ. So this is very important to see this in Acts 19. These were already believers who had not yet dealt with their magic. But somehow through the power that God demonstrated, they realized, wow, my commitment to magic is contrary to my loyalty to Jesus. And so they came and they wanted to confess, divulge, deal with this. We'll talk more about the details of that in just a second, but let's stay general for a minute and just let it remind you of the category. If you have turned from your sin to trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you're not done seeing sin in your life. There's stuff you've never even noticed that God's going to shine the light on. There's stuff you haven't seen as disloyalty to Christ. It's kind of a blind spot for you right now. But someday God's gonna do something. Maybe He'll use a brother and sister in Christ. Maybe He'll use certain circumstances. Maybe you'll be part of His word. God's gonna show you and you'll go, oh wow, that is a problem. He'll show us our worry or our control or our anger or our irritability or our laziness or our meanness or our lust or our gossip or our dishonesty and we'll see it in a way we've never seen it before. He'll show us the darkness of our sin and how it's not loyal to Christ. And at first we feel guilt and we feel shame about that, but we've got to realize this is a normal part of Christian growth. It's good. The sin's not good, but the process of seeing it is good. And so we know these believers understood that because they came, they responded by publicly confessing their sin. Verse 19, a number of those, well, the end of verse 18, they were confessing and divulging their practices. You know, we're usually too embarrassed to let anybody know about our sin. The last thing we would do is publicly confess and divulge it. But somehow these believers said, I admit it. I've realized there's stuff going on in my life that doesn't honor Christ. And I think this chapter should just give us a little reminder that sometimes we need to do that. It's beyond the scope of this message to talk about when you should confess your sin to other people. And we're not talking about an earthly priest who is going to give you absolution of your sins. That's not what we're talking about. But James 5 does refer to confessing our sins to one another, praying for one another. And so there are at least some times when it's appropriate for us to say to some of our Christian brothers and sisters, you know what? God has shown me something in my life that is not loyal to him. We need to tell some people that. And their confession was then followed by forsaking. Verse 19, a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. and they counted the value and it was that 50,000 days wages. So they didn't just say, yeah, I have this problem. They brought the problem and they burned it up. Now I know not all sins are quite that easy to get rid of, nor was this one, right? Just burning it up didn't mean they couldn't return to it, but they at least made it harder for themselves. That's the principle. And it was extremely expensive to do that. You do the math and 50,000 days wages is an incredible amount of money. How can that even be possible? How could they even have afforded these things? Well, first of all, realize we might be talking about a lot of people. We may be talking about hundreds or thousands of people. And secondly, remember the books were very expensive in the ancient world. But thirdly, and most importantly, this shows us how much money they could make from magic. These books were not collectibles. These were not tip guides for their video games. These books were ways they could make money. These were spells that they would use to do magic to make money off of the people who came to Ephesus to worship Artemis, the people who came to the temple, the people who came to Ephesus for its magic, the people who came because they wanted curses or spells on enemies or defense of themselves from other people or whatever. The reason why they had these very valuable books was because they were making so much money from magic. and then they forsook it all for Jesus. And I bet they did it with joy because they had learned that Jesus was the true power of God. They had no more interest in spells and curses and amulets. You know, that was a big thing in Ephesus, those special words carved into pieces of jewelry that you'd wear to guard yourself. They had no need for that because they had Jesus. And they didn't say, oh, well, I'll sell my books and give the money to the church. No, those books needed to be destroyed. They did not be passed on to someone else, sold to someone else. And actually, you see the word divulging there, verse 18, right? The end of verse 18. One of the things that may be going on is that magic is very much about secrecy. And so part of what may be going on was they were taking, and I'm using the Bible, but of course it's not the Bible we're talking about, right? They're taking books that had secret things in them. And the point was it's secret. That's part of why it's so valuable. Nobody knows what it is. And they were saying, look, not secret anymore. Here, show the world. Because this is empty. This is vain. This is not true. So they were taking these things that were these special secrets and they were just laying them out for the world to see. Exposing the sinful works of darkness. And what was all of this that was happening here? I want us to use the word worship. It was worship. Confessing sin is worship, right? Worship, the English word comes from worth-ship. It is the demonstration of the worth of something. Confessing sin demonstrates the worth of Jesus. It is worship. Forsaking sin is worship. When we are convicted of our sin, we might at first be afraid of the shame and the embarrassment, but what if we remembered that turning from sin is worship? So that leads us to our final number on your handout. And that is the number two. Two, worship services in Ephesus. to worship services in Ephesus. Alright, so in your Bible again, let's put them side by side. Start in verse 17. This became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. And many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And the number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to 50,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily." Do you see the sandwich there at the end of verse 18? The name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. V. 20, the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily, and what's in between is confessing a forsaken sin. It was worship. Now jump then to V. 28. Well, the end of V. 27, she whom all Asia and the world worship. Verse 28, when they heard this, they were enraged and were crying out, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. Verse 34, the end of the verse, for about two hours, they all cried out with one voice, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. Now is that worship? I mean, it says it is, right? The end of verse 27? Is that not ascribing worth to something? To this goddess? They worshipped Artemis. They cried out about how great Artemis was. Was it actually ultimately about Artemis that they were worshipping? What's the last word in verse 25? Wealth. Wasn't that a big part of what they were worshipping? And another thing too, Ephesus is going to be, see the word in v. 27, this trade of ours may come into disrepute. At the end of v. 27, she may even be deposed from her magnificence. They were proud. Proud of their city. Proud of their trade. Proud of their goddess. Proud of their temple. So you have a love for money. You have a love for their pride. It's two of the three things in 1 John 2. Lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life are both right here. That's ultimately what they were worshiping, but Artemis represented those things. And were they timid worshipers? You know, we talked about Psalm 100 two weeks ago. Shout to the Lord, all the earth. Well, they were doing it, boy. Shout to Artemis, all the earth. They were energetic worshipers. But those who were burning their magical books and confessing their sin, they were worshiping too. And they were the true worshipers, worshiping in spirit and in truth. So over here, you've got this huge crowd in the theater crying out, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. And over here, you've got these followers of Jesus worshiping him by turning from their sin and turning in loyalty to him. You've got one false God and you've got the one true God. So I titled this, and it's a tiny bit tongue in cheek, but The Worship Wars in Ephesus. The phrase worship wars has been used in American Christianity for about the past three decades, four decades, for the war about music styles between Christians and what's appropriate for the worship of God. And those questions are important. My point right now is not music. I'm just grabbing that phrase worship wars. because there really is a worship war going on, and it's not actually the war between Christians about what kind of music you ought to use in church. There's a worship war about whether each person will worship Jesus or not. There is no other place to be other than worshiping Jesus or worshiping the gods of this world. Ever since the Garden of Eden, there has been a worship war. The longer I pastor, the more I love the worship of God's people. And I think that's because just the more we grow and mature in the Lord, the more we understand how much worship God deserves and the more we want Him to be worshiped. If you've never sat down in front in one of our services here, you really need to do it sometime. so that you can hear the followers of Jesus sing together. It's really a different experience for those of you back there in the back row. And I know that we can't all sit down front, but sometime you need to come do it. Because If you can stop and listen and not think about the stuff our minds are prone to think about, you know, how's the temperature, and is my worship guide folded the right way, and I wonder what the person in front of me thinks of my voice and all that. If you set that aside and you just listen, and if you know how much God deserves worship, what keeps happening to me on Sunday mornings is I cry. when I listen to you sing, because this is what it's about. This is what Jesus deserves. When His people come together and say, you are worth everything, and I love you, and I want to live for you, and I want to serve you, and they do that, they shout to the Lord through the mechanism of song, ah, it is so, so important. There's a worship war, and every Sunday morning we're firing our cannons. We're fighting the worship war for Jesus' sake. But as we learned this morning, we have to think beyond music. Because confessing and forsaking sin is a great act of worship, too. When the Holy Spirit helps us see our sin, maybe we should stop saying, oh, I'm embarrassed about this. And maybe we should start saying, this is an opportunity to worship. By God's grace, I'm going to confess and forsake whatever it is in my life that is not loyal to Jesus, and I'm going to fire my cannons in the worship wars. And sometimes, see, here's where it connects to confessing the sin to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Sometimes I think we increase the worship when we're willing to do that. When we say to a brother or sister in Christ, you know, God has shown me that this area of my life is not loyal to Him, and I want you to pray for me, and by His grace, I want to turn from it. That was a worship moment. You were testifying about the value of Jesus to you. And you might even need to burn something, literally, figuratively, digitally, to break away from that sin. But when you do those things, when you take those steps to try to cut off the opportunity for the sin, or when you have the humility to say to a brother or sister, you know, God has shown me this in my life and I want to turn from it, pray for me, that is all worship. It is just as much worship as our gathered singing on a Sunday morning. All of that is worship, fighting the worship war for the honor of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who is worthy. Do you have your worship guide? Can I just show you one thing? I mentioned it earlier. Can you turn to the last song, Come My Soul With Every Care? So, second verse, I've come, my soul, with every care, with my burden I began. Lord, remove this load of sin. With your blood for sinners spilt, set my conscience free from guilt. Lord, your rest to me impart. Take possession of my heart. There in my heart, can we switch the word maintain over to the beginning of that sentence? There, maintain your blood bought right and without a rival reign. And so every time we take any kind of step to set aside rivals and reestablish the supremacy of Jesus in our hearts, we are worshiping Jesus. We are saying, that is your blood-bought right to my life, every part of my life. Let's pray. I'm just going to be quiet for a minute and let you pray to the Lord. I hope you can express that desire to Him that He might reign without rival in your heart.