WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:15.599 Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:20.480 ! It is wonderful that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:25.679 either by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray for us 00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:31.439 that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself? 00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:37.280 The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, 00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:42.159 we really, I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the 00:00:42.159 --> 00:00:48.799 Bible, they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will do 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:55.120 what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a non-Christian, 00:00:55.119 --> 00:01:00.320 checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't hesitate to send us 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:05.280 questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the types of things 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:15.519 that you're really struggling with. So God bless. Let's just bow our heads in prayer, please. Father, 00:01:16.959 --> 00:01:23.759 we give you thanks and praise that you have a perfect and true knowledge of each one who is standing here, 00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:30.480 and those who are watching and entering into worship online and those downstream. We thank you, 00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:35.200 Father, for your good and perfect and true knowledge of each one of us. And you know, 00:01:35.200 --> 00:01:41.920 Father, the different ways that we are bound, that we are not open, that we are hindered. You know not 00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:48.320 only those which are outside of us, but even more importantly, those internal things that make us not 00:01:48.319 --> 00:01:55.119 open and hinder us. We ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would bring your word deep into our hearts 00:01:55.120 --> 00:02:03.920 this morning, that we might live open and unhindered lives for the good of our neighbors, the good of 00:02:03.920 --> 00:02:09.120 this city, the good of this nation, and for your great glory. And we ask this in the name of Jesus, 00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:13.040 your Son and our Savior. Amen. Please be seated. 00:02:13.039 --> 00:02:23.919 So I haven't done it in quite a few years. But in the past, there were a couple of times where 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:29.680 there were a group of people in the church who'd come from other backgrounds or no particular 00:02:30.319 --> 00:02:33.759 faith background at all. And they'd been coming to the church for a while and they decided that they 00:02:33.759 --> 00:02:40.399 wanted to become Anglicans. So I ran, in both cases, two sessions for them. I think it was maybe 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:46.319 three times, maybe two. I learned my lesson after the first one. But they were interested in becoming 00:02:46.319 --> 00:02:49.200 an Anglican. I said, well, I'll give you two evenings. We'll have, you know, an hour and a 00:02:49.200 --> 00:02:54.240 half, two hours of conversation. And I prepared a lot of stuff, you know, about the Book of Common Prayer, 00:02:54.879 --> 00:03:00.719 you know, the 39 articles, you know, our understanding of communion. Like, I prepared a whole pile of stuff. 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:06.719 But once we got into the conversation, they weren't interested in hardly any of that whatsoever. 00:03:06.719 --> 00:03:11.520 In fact, they were really just interested in questions of power and authority. 00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:16.800 They were really interested as to how much power the Queen had over the Anglican Church. 00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:23.120 They were interested in how much power the Archbishop of Canterbury had, how the Church 00:03:23.120 --> 00:03:28.240 of England controlled or didn't control us, the power of the bishop over us, how much power I had, 00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:32.639 how much power the congregation, how all those authority and power. That's what they were actually 00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:37.119 really interested in. And what they wanted to talk about. They said, yeah, yeah, yeah, we've come 00:03:37.119 --> 00:03:41.759 here enough. We understand Anglican view of communion, all that other stuff. We know the 39 articles are 00:03:41.759 --> 00:03:46.879 in there. We can read them ourselves. They were interested in this stuff. I mentioned this because, 00:03:46.879 --> 00:03:53.119 and I'm not saying this just because we happen to be in a federal election right now, where obviously 00:03:53.119 --> 00:03:59.679 questions of who's going to be in power are rife. And obviously, what's going on in the states is 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:06.000 affecting us. And there's all sorts of interesting power questions going on in the states. But we are, 00:04:06.640 --> 00:04:14.080 as a people, as human beings, almost preoccupied with questions of power. Not so much of authority, 00:04:14.080 --> 00:04:23.600 but of power. In fact, authority is almost a lost category of thought for Canadians. And it's not just 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:33.120 a political authority. We're very concerned about power dynamics in families, in husbands and wives, 00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:42.080 in schools and institutions. We read self-help books to maximize our own power. We read books to put 00:04:42.080 --> 00:04:48.160 boundaries up against other people's power over us. We are very, very concerned of questions of power. 00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:53.760 And a thing that maybe if you're outside of the Christian faith and you happen to be listening 00:04:53.760 --> 00:05:00.560 to this for some reason, there's another sort of unspoken issue that a lot of Christians have 00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:07.840 about the whole power of God and Jesus's power over us. And I think it's a similar thing to the 00:05:09.120 --> 00:05:13.440 an unspoken problem that those who are outside of the Christian faith have with Christianity. 00:05:13.439 --> 00:05:19.680 And that has to do with power. If I could put it one way, it would be like this. If Jesus can turn 00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:29.439 water into wine, what will he do? What will he turn me into against my will? See, because a lot of times 00:05:29.439 --> 00:05:33.759 Christians are a bit concerned. They don't want to get too close to God. Because if you get too close 00:05:33.759 --> 00:05:37.759 to God, who knows what he's going to command you to do? Who knows how he's going to change you? 00:05:38.399 --> 00:05:43.360 And are these changes things which will hurt us, make us look ridiculous? We're a bit worried about it. 00:05:44.160 --> 00:05:48.400 And I think it's the same thing for those outside of the Christian faith. A lot of times, 00:05:48.400 --> 00:05:55.439 if we look a bit deeper, we don't want it to be true. And we don't want it to be true because, 00:05:55.439 --> 00:06:00.319 gosh, there's power and authority issues that just frighten us and challenge our sense of autonomy. 00:06:00.960 --> 00:06:06.879 The text that we're going to look at today, Acts 28, actually has some very, very wise and beautiful 00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:13.920 things to say about this. It puts the whole question of God's power and how human beings relate to God's 00:06:13.920 --> 00:06:20.079 power front and center as it closes the book of Acts and launches the readers, so to speak, 00:06:20.079 --> 00:06:25.040 into the rest of life. So if you take your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 28, 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:30.800 we're going to look at how the book of Acts ends. We've been preaching through the book of Acts. 00:06:31.520 --> 00:06:39.600 So this is our final sermon on the book of Acts as part of this series. And what we're going to do, 00:06:39.600 --> 00:06:43.600 I'm just going to summarize. I'm going to come back to the story that Andrew read earlier, but just to 00:06:43.600 --> 00:06:50.000 summarize where we are. Luke is a book that was probably written somewhere between the year... 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:57.439 Well, this book will come to an end in the spring of the year 60. That's when the last story in the 00:06:57.439 --> 00:07:04.639 book happens. You can date it because of all the references to secular history. And somewhere between 00:07:04.639 --> 00:07:12.480 that and 64, this book was written. And because in the year, either the end of 64 or the beginning of 65 00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:20.480 was when Paul was martyred by the Emperor Nero. He wasn't crucified like Peter was. Because he was a 00:07:20.480 --> 00:07:29.439 Roman citizen, he was beheaded. And so we know that... Anyway, so the book is a... The book of 00:07:29.439 --> 00:07:35.120 Luke is... Of Acts, I mean, is written by Luke. It's an eyewitness-based history of the first 30 00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:42.160 years, roughly, of the Jesus movement. And we've now come to the end of it. And what's just happened 00:07:42.160 --> 00:07:49.600 before this is there was a whole story of the sea, the storm, and the shipwreck. And it ends with Paul 00:07:49.600 --> 00:07:58.959 and the other people safely arriving on the seashore, the locals. And by the way, if you go back and look 00:07:58.959 --> 00:08:04.239 at it, I think it says in the English language translation, natives. The actual word in Greek 00:08:04.239 --> 00:08:10.879 is barbarians, actually. It actually says the barbarians were unusually kind to us. So the word 00:08:10.879 --> 00:08:15.839 barbarians actually in the Bible is just not normally translated that way into English. But it says the 00:08:15.839 --> 00:08:22.079 barbarians were unusually kind to us. The snake bites Paul. Paul doesn't die. They think he's a god. 00:08:22.079 --> 00:08:28.879 Hospitality shown by the head of the island. Paul heals a whole pile of people. I mean, God heals people 00:08:28.879 --> 00:08:36.399 through Paul's prayers. They eventually make it to Italy. They walk the last 250 some odd kilometers. 00:08:37.120 --> 00:08:44.799 And then we come to... He's in Rome. And in Rome, he firsts Paul immediately. He's put into house arrest, 00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:52.960 which is sort of a light type of arrest. But he's in house arrest. He invites the Jewish leaders to come. 00:08:53.200 --> 00:08:57.440 He tells them all that he's a Christian. He has nothing against the Jewish people, that he's Jewish 00:08:57.440 --> 00:09:02.160 themselves. And they all say, we're very, very curious here about this Christianity thing. 00:09:02.480 --> 00:09:07.280 Everybody speaks against it. And here's where we're going to continue then with verse 23. 00:09:07.760 --> 00:09:13.200 Verse 23. So I've summarized those first 22 verses in chapter 28. And here's where we go, 00:09:13.520 --> 00:09:17.280 the last few verses of the book of Acts. And it goes like this. 00:09:17.279 --> 00:09:22.240 Verse 23. 00:09:22.240 --> 00:09:32.000 That's probably once again because he's in chains. He has a soldier with them. They don't want to make 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:36.879 their houses unclean by having a Roman soldier come in. So they go to him. It's also probably, 00:09:36.879 --> 00:09:41.600 as we're going to see in a moment, that Paul's whole attitude and heart is to welcome and show 00:09:41.600 --> 00:09:46.560 hospitality, even though he's a prisoner. Verse 23 again. 00:09:46.560 --> 00:09:51.600 When they had appointed a day for Paul, they came to him at his lodging in greater numbers. 00:09:51.600 --> 00:09:59.600 From morning till evening, he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to 00:09:59.600 --> 00:10:06.720 convince them about Jesus, both from the law of Moses and from the prophets. What Christians call the 00:10:06.720 --> 00:10:13.440 Old Testament, our Jewish friends call either the Torah or the Tanakh. And just sort of pause here 00:10:13.440 --> 00:10:21.840 for a second. It's very interesting here that Paul does three things. He expounds, he testifies, 00:10:21.840 --> 00:10:27.840 and he tries to convince. So what this means, these words are showing by expounding it means 00:10:28.560 --> 00:10:34.080 he's trying to open up everything in the Old Testament and nothing is off limits for them to ask him. 00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:40.000 He's just, they can ask him anything. They can challenge him any type of way. And he will give 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:46.800 reasoned arguments as to how to understand that particular text. Testify means that what he's doing 00:10:46.800 --> 00:10:52.320 is, of course, testifying, speaking, but it also has a sense of that he's solemn about it. Not that he has 00:10:52.320 --> 00:10:58.640 a long face and never cracks a joke. Not that he's not winsome, but that he says, this is of the utmost 00:10:58.639 --> 00:11:05.199 importance. Your eternal destiny hangs on these things which I'm talking to you about. And convince 00:11:05.199 --> 00:11:11.279 is exactly that. He's not trying to gaslight them. He's not trying to emotionally manipulate them or 00:11:11.279 --> 00:11:17.199 anything like that. He's using words to reason with them so that they, with their freedom and their 00:11:17.199 --> 00:11:22.639 intellect, can hear what he says. And it might be intellectual arguments. It might be aesthetic arguments. 00:11:22.639 --> 00:11:30.480 It might be, you know, poetic arguments. But he's trying to have them to understand the beauty and the 00:11:30.480 --> 00:11:35.759 power and the necessity of the gospel. And that's what he's doing with them. Spends a whole day doing that. 00:11:36.480 --> 00:11:42.720 One of the things you can see as you look through the Book of Acts and how it goes from a few Christians 00:11:42.720 --> 00:11:51.440 in Jerusalem eventually going and now even getting into Rome, the capital of the empire, is that it's 00:11:51.440 --> 00:12:00.960 always spread by those categories of expounding, testifying, sharing, convincing. Never force. 00:12:03.040 --> 00:12:07.120 There have been times in Christian history where Christians have attempted to use force. 00:12:07.120 --> 00:12:14.720 Just because you're a Christian doesn't mean you're acting Christianly. And why are those things wrong? 00:12:14.720 --> 00:12:19.440 Why can we say that there's certain things done with how the Christian faith was brought to the 00:12:19.440 --> 00:12:25.039 Americas or certain things that were done with the Crusades? We can say it's wrong because it's not what 00:12:25.039 --> 00:12:31.759 the Bible teaches. It's not what Christ wants. This is the way to expand the Christian faith. 00:12:32.879 --> 00:12:36.799 Now, some of you might say, okay, well, George, that's okay. That's sort of interesting to hear. 00:12:36.799 --> 00:12:40.879 It's interesting to hear you acknowledge that there were some things done wrong in the past by 00:12:40.879 --> 00:12:45.039 Christians. But is that really what you're talking about with power? I don't really... No, 00:12:45.039 --> 00:12:52.959 no. The power part comes here. And if I wanted to, I could sort of... I could try to convince you 00:12:52.959 --> 00:13:00.240 without being honest about a problem. So there's a problem not obvious in English, but it's there in 00:13:00.240 --> 00:13:03.279 the original language in verse 24. And it goes like this. 00:13:03.279 --> 00:13:13.039 And some were convinced, okay, some were convinced by what Paul said, but others disbelieved. Now, 00:13:13.039 --> 00:13:17.679 what's the problem with that? Well, here's the problem with that. In the original language that 00:13:17.679 --> 00:13:22.799 this was written in, there's a verb tense. Sorry to be a bit nerdy. Okay, I know as soon as I say verb 00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:27.679 tense, there's a whole group of you I just put to sleep. So I don't know, maybe I should think of a joke at the end 00:13:27.679 --> 00:13:33.759 of it. But there's a verb tense that exists in Greek and Hebrew that doesn't exist in English. And that verb 00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:40.799 tense is called the divine passive. And convinced is that is in the divine passive. So what does that 00:13:40.799 --> 00:13:51.199 mean? What that means is this. The implication here with convinced is that God convinces them. 00:13:54.079 --> 00:14:00.079 It's not purely their mind. In fact, at the end of the day, even though their mind is at work and their 00:14:00.079 --> 00:14:06.159 heart is at work and they're receptive to it, the real deep work of bringing them to faith 00:14:06.159 --> 00:14:13.519 faith is done by God, not by them. It's in the divine passive. So a bit of an image would be as if, 00:14:13.519 --> 00:14:20.079 you know, there's that whole thing from Revelation, how Jesus stands at the door and knocks. 00:14:20.719 --> 00:14:26.159 Some of you might be familiar with this. And what it's really saying here is that 00:14:27.439 --> 00:14:34.480 even though they hear it, you want to open the door to Jesus, this is saying that at some level, 00:14:34.480 --> 00:14:42.480 it's God who works in you to actually help you to open the door. And since in the language of the 00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:48.240 Bible, it's never just that Jesus enters into you, but you also enter into Jesus. That in fact, 00:14:48.879 --> 00:14:54.000 probably the bigger image is that you first enter into Jesus and then he enters into you. There's this, 00:14:54.639 --> 00:14:59.680 in a sense, it's just like a human relationship of love, right? Where you love another person, 00:14:59.680 --> 00:15:04.000 in some ways they let you into their lives and you let them into your lives. That's what love is. 00:15:04.720 --> 00:15:09.600 And that's a bit of an image about what it means to become a Christian, because it's a love imagery 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:16.639 of you allowing Jesus into your life as Savior and Lord, and you enter into him. And so the image here 00:15:16.639 --> 00:15:27.440 is I open the door, but I'm frozen, and I need the Holy Spirit to actually carry me into Christ. 00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:33.760 I'm dependent upon God. So are you. You're dependent upon God's power. 00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:40.720 Now, the mystery is a bit deepened by the other half of the verse. Look at it again, verse 24. 00:15:40.720 --> 00:15:46.560 And some were convinced, remember that's the divine passive, by what Paul had said, but others 00:15:46.560 --> 00:15:53.040 disbelieved. Disbelieved is a very uncommon word in English. It's rarely used anymore. 00:15:53.039 --> 00:16:01.679 And it is literally refused to believe. So here we have part of the mystery of God's power. 00:16:03.039 --> 00:16:10.480 That God's power is needed for me to become a Christian. But at the same time, God's power, 00:16:10.480 --> 00:16:19.200 in my case, is not such that it... I mean, on one level, it overrides my will, those parts of me that 00:16:19.200 --> 00:16:23.840 don't actually want to enter into Christ. But on another hand, when we actually come into Christ, 00:16:25.840 --> 00:16:30.240 it's almost as if our eyes open up and we realize that we've done what we deeply wanted to do, 00:16:30.879 --> 00:16:36.800 and that we had to depend upon God to carry us. But on the other hand, there is a part of the human 00:16:36.799 --> 00:16:41.759 will, the most important part of human will, that can at a deep level just refuse this, that can just 00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:51.599 actually say no. And God will respect our no. Our no has integrity, even if it ends up meaning that we 00:16:51.599 --> 00:17:00.000 turn our back on being healed. We turn our back on our Creator. We turn our back in having the ends of 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:05.119 our longings and yearnings and resting in the end of our longings and yearnings, that God will respect 00:17:05.119 --> 00:17:14.159 that powerful no. And God's power is talked about more. Look at what happens in verse 25. 00:17:15.839 --> 00:17:20.959 And disagreeing among themselves, they departed after Paul had made one statement. 00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:30.719 The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet. I'm going to read that 00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:37.920 again, that last bit. The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet. 00:17:37.920 --> 00:17:42.319 And then we'll read it in a moment. He quotes Isaiah chapter 6 verses 9 through 10. 00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:52.079 Now, it's a very, very interesting phrase there. It's a common phrase in the New Testament in particular. 00:17:52.079 --> 00:18:01.119 What the Bible is saying here, what Paul is saying here is that approximately 600 years ago, Isaiah spoke 00:18:01.119 --> 00:18:07.279 to the people in front of him. He spoke to the people in front of him. Those were Isaiah's words. 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:14.720 But what Paul is saying is that far more importantly, and that at the end of the day, 00:18:14.720 --> 00:18:23.759 every word that Isaiah spoke was the word the Holy Spirit wanted spoken. So the listeners could truly say 00:18:23.759 --> 00:18:30.240 it was Isaiah who spoke to us, and they could also truly say that it was the Holy Spirit who spoke to us. 00:18:33.440 --> 00:18:42.319 And the implication here, because of the way Paul quotes it, it also means that when Paul's hearers 00:18:42.319 --> 00:18:52.799 in 60 AD were hearing the words of Isaiah, they were hearing the Holy Spirit himself speak to them in 60 AD. 00:18:53.599 --> 00:19:03.439 And when in a minute or two I read Isaiah chapter 6 verses 9 and 10, you are hearing the Holy Spirit speak. 00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:16.880 That is part of God's power. And his speaking goes with us having the freedom to hear and to understand and to receive 00:19:16.880 --> 00:19:24.640 and to freely respond. But you see, it's more so, it's not just that there's this divine passive that God 00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:27.279 carries you and me when we come to faith. 00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:34.559 And, you know, I'm just going to, you know, pause here. I don't know where we all are in terms of the 00:19:34.559 --> 00:19:39.519 Christian faith. I don't know where you are watching this online. And I don't know where you are watching 00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:45.519 this downstream, if there's any people. And, you know, every week there's somewhere between 50 to 75 00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:52.559 people who end up watching either just the sermon or this. And I'm just a word to you. You know, part of the 00:19:52.559 --> 00:19:58.079 message of all of this is, listen to me, listen to my whatever I say about the reason, read the 00:19:58.079 --> 00:20:04.399 scriptures. And I would just encourage you, at the end of the day, there is a place to which reason can 00:20:04.399 --> 00:20:11.519 take you, but it can only take you so far. And you need to be born again. And I want to ask you if you're 00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:17.599 born again. And I want to just say to you that if you're not, you need to be. That at some point in 00:20:17.599 --> 00:20:23.119 time, you need to call out to God and say, God, I'm not sure if I agree with everything that George, I don't 00:20:23.119 --> 00:20:27.359 know if you're, I don't even know if I'm being foolish trying to talk like this to you. And if I'm just 00:20:27.359 --> 00:20:36.719 talking to myself and there's nobody there. But Father, if you are there, I want, I want to be born again. I 00:20:36.719 --> 00:20:47.219 want to belong to Christ. And I urge you to do that. But back to this particular text. So we have this 00:20:47.220 --> 00:20:53.600 divine passive. We have this power of God that he can cause words to be written by human beings that 00:20:53.600 --> 00:21:00.380 are actually him himself speaking to us. But the whole book of Acts is all about God working in the 00:21:00.380 --> 00:21:06.460 shadows, his strong hand of love working in the shadows to bring things about that he has designed 00:21:06.460 --> 00:21:14.360 and he wants to happen. And that his strong hand of love is working despite the fact that people get 00:21:14.359 --> 00:21:19.959 thrown in jail, despite the fact that the early Christians at first didn't want to do what God 00:21:19.959 --> 00:21:26.599 said, which was to go to Judea and to Samaria and to the ends of the earth with the gospel. And despite 00:21:26.599 --> 00:21:34.979 persecution, despite martyrdom, despite sin within the congregation, that God has the gospel go forth to 00:21:34.979 --> 00:21:40.859 more and more people. And his providence has seen that if you go back to Acts chapter 23, verse 11, 00:21:40.859 --> 00:21:48.039 God says to Paul, you are going to go to Rome and you are going to testify to me in Rome. And even 00:21:48.039 --> 00:21:54.299 though that's approximately three years earlier from this, and even though Paul has had to go to 00:21:54.299 --> 00:22:00.459 Jerusalem and he's almost killed by a mob and there's other attacks on his life and he's in criminal 00:22:00.459 --> 00:22:10.799 custody and he's held back by Felix who's corrupt and wants a bribe and wants to just please the elite. 00:22:10.859 --> 00:22:16.599 And then he's held back by a bureaucrat who doesn't really care about justice, just wants to please 00:22:16.599 --> 00:22:25.099 the elites and make his life happy. And even though he goes on a ship and the ship gets shipwrecked and 00:22:25.099 --> 00:22:34.079 a snake bites him and all of those things, he ends up in Rome. That's God's providence. God's strong hand 00:22:34.079 --> 00:22:41.359 of love working in the shadows. That's God's power. And in this story, you see miracles and healings. 00:22:42.159 --> 00:22:53.519 And earlier, you see demons being cast out. You see God's power at work. God's power at work. 00:22:53.519 --> 00:23:04.079 But there is, you know, one of the things which is so interesting about this text 00:23:04.079 --> 00:23:12.059 is if you go back and you read it, who is more free, Paul or Felix? Paul in chains or Felix, 00:23:12.279 --> 00:23:21.259 the corrupt governor? Who is more free, Paul or Festus, the indifferent bureaucrat? Who was more free, 00:23:21.259 --> 00:23:29.819 Agrippa married to his sister, only interested in spectacles? Who is more free? These people who 00:23:29.819 --> 00:23:38.640 look at good arguments and refuse to believe or Paul who's in chains? You see, part of the mystery of 00:23:38.640 --> 00:23:46.460 this whole text is that God made us to be free. He made you to be free. He made me to be free. 00:23:46.460 --> 00:23:55.480 And he honors that freedom in us as creatures, even to the point of us using our freedom to wreck our 00:23:55.480 --> 00:24:07.200 lives and turn far from him. But when we come to him, his power will be at work in you and in me, 00:24:07.319 --> 00:24:13.200 whether it's slow and maybe five steps forward and four and a half steps back or whatever it is, 00:24:13.200 --> 00:24:20.420 that God's Holy Spirit will always work in the direction of you and I being healed and you and I 00:24:20.420 --> 00:24:27.360 becoming free. Not just free from, because that's how the text is going to end, free from certain fears, 00:24:27.359 --> 00:24:32.559 but free to, free to love, free to love. 00:24:37.559 --> 00:24:43.899 There's a, well here, let's read this next text, which emphasizes this aspect of freedom, 00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:50.159 even if it's to our hurt. Look at verses 26 to 28. See, if, when you read this, you have to understand 00:24:50.160 --> 00:24:58.360 it's a text acknowledging God's respecting your freedom. It shows his longing and yearning that you 00:24:58.360 --> 00:25:05.120 would come to him so that he would turn the water of your life into this wine. That at the end of the 00:25:05.120 --> 00:25:11.000 day, after he's done this work, you'd say, gosh, I'm more free. Gosh, I'm more whole. Gosh, you know, 00:25:11.060 --> 00:25:17.700 I'm more complete. But also respecting it, even if it means that we become more dull and, and we lose the 00:25:17.700 --> 00:25:25.180 good of the intellect. Look at verse 26 to 27, 28. These are the words of Isaiah. Go to this people 00:25:25.180 --> 00:25:31.200 and say, you will indeed hear, but never understand, and you will indeed look, see, but never perceive, 00:25:31.380 --> 00:25:36.640 for this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they 00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:41.420 have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their 00:25:41.420 --> 00:25:50.519 heart, and turn, and I would heal them. Therefore, let it be known to you that this salvation of God 00:25:50.519 --> 00:25:54.800 has been sent to the pagans. They will listen. It doesn't mean that Paul won't speak to Jews. Now, 00:25:54.860 --> 00:26:00.820 just sort of pause here a bit more about this whole thing of freedom. God calls us to love him freely, 00:26:00.819 --> 00:26:08.079 and freely, and freely has to mean freely. Freely can't be smuggled in with some act of the will 00:26:08.079 --> 00:26:15.740 to make us do what we actually don't want. I, when I do marriage prep with people, usually I'll get 00:26:15.740 --> 00:26:21.720 something like alpha pre-marriage to do the, like, certain, like, really important things, like how to 00:26:21.720 --> 00:26:26.679 talk about money, you know, how to have conversations with your wife, how to deal with extended family, 00:26:26.680 --> 00:26:31.100 all of that type of stuff. I'll normally go through the marriage ceremony, which talks a little bit 00:26:31.100 --> 00:26:35.000 about what marriage is, and what it isn't, but one of the things I say, when it comes time to actually 00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:43.080 do the marriage ceremony, there needs to be five sober, unstoned people in the room. In a sense, 00:26:43.160 --> 00:26:49.299 I'd say it doesn't matter if you have 200 guests, and all of them are blind, drunk, or stoned. There has 00:26:49.299 --> 00:26:57.899 to be five sober people in the room. Me, both of you, and if there's 200 drunk people, we'll go outside 00:26:57.899 --> 00:27:04.099 on the street and find two people over 18 who aren't drunk or stoned and bring them in to be witnesses. 00:27:04.759 --> 00:27:12.099 Why is that? Because it's in some ways like a legal contract. If somebody said, listen, I was stoned out 00:27:12.099 --> 00:27:20.719 of my mind. I was drunk. I didn't mean those vows. I didn't intend to sign that. Well, I mean, obviously, 00:27:20.719 --> 00:27:27.819 there would be some legal complexities, and obviously, the other person would be extremely irate 00:27:27.819 --> 00:27:33.319 about that, but we all understand that it has to be freely entered into. We wouldn't, you wouldn't, 00:27:33.399 --> 00:27:38.000 and no wife would like it if three months later her husband said, you know, I never really wanted to 00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:42.059 marry you. In fact, if I hadn't been really drunk, I wouldn't have married you. That's not 00:27:42.059 --> 00:27:48.819 how you build intimacy between a husband and a wife, saying something like that. So we understand 00:27:48.819 --> 00:27:53.940 that love needs to be free. The person who's in the love relationship has to have a sense that the 00:27:53.940 --> 00:27:59.099 person chose them. They wanted out of their freedom to do that, and that's what God desires with us. He 00:27:59.099 --> 00:28:07.980 desires that free love relationship with us, and he honors our freedom even to our hurt. So you have this 00:28:07.980 --> 00:28:14.220 sense, then, that the power of God comes to us, and on one hand, it is completely and utterly capable 00:28:14.220 --> 00:28:22.900 of a miracle. He could, at any point in time, completely and utterly overwhelm you. God could 00:28:22.900 --> 00:28:28.779 do that. He could appear before us in such a way that we would fall on our face. In fact, it's very, 00:28:28.860 --> 00:28:34.660 very interesting. If you go back and read Isaiah chapter 6, it's one of the more, I mean, all the chapters in 00:28:34.660 --> 00:28:39.460 the Bible are interesting, but it's people forget that this 9 and 10 is the end of this other story, 00:28:39.560 --> 00:28:47.560 and it's the vision that God has of, Isaiah has a vision of God in the temple, and it almost 00:28:47.560 --> 00:28:56.480 completely devastates Isaiah, and Isaiah has to have, God sends an angel with some stones to make 00:28:56.480 --> 00:29:03.200 him clean. It's sort of a picture of the gospel coming, and so God could do something like that 00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:07.680 to make it so that we would all do it, even though we don't really want him to be God. We don't want 00:29:07.680 --> 00:29:14.559 him to be, Jesus to be our king. We don't want to be saved. He could do it, but our freedom matters, 00:29:14.559 --> 00:29:19.340 because love matters, and isn't that exactly what we human beings most want? 00:29:21.559 --> 00:29:28.059 I mean, why is it that we are so concerned about power? We are so concerned about power because we desire 00:29:28.059 --> 00:29:34.019 to have the integrity of our freedom, but at the same time, and this is part of the dilemma for human 00:29:34.019 --> 00:29:40.879 beings in Canada right now, we are both preoccupied with power in terms of sense of freedom, but also 00:29:40.879 --> 00:29:47.259 with love, and not realizing that often the way we talk about power will make love impossible. 00:29:49.179 --> 00:29:55.139 See, here's the thing. I was just watching an atheist debate, just part of it the other day. 00:29:58.059 --> 00:30:01.099 To become a Christian, you need to submit to Christ. 00:30:04.399 --> 00:30:10.480 You need to submit to him and trust that he is the Savior and the Lord, that he is the Lamb of God 00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:15.559 who takes away the sin of the world, that he will heal you. You need to submit to him. I need to. 00:30:16.679 --> 00:30:25.460 But it's not the submission of a slave to a master. It's not a submission to citizens, to an autocratic 00:30:25.460 --> 00:30:32.819 totalitarian government while guns are pointed at you. It is the submission that is needed in love. 00:30:36.259 --> 00:30:43.220 And on one hand, they can look very similar, but everyone who submits in love knows that it's very 00:30:43.220 --> 00:30:47.220 different than submitting as a result of terror or force. 00:30:47.220 --> 00:30:54.299 And that's the type of submission that we need towards God's power. 00:30:55.640 --> 00:30:59.559 And just in wrapping up, this fits a little bit with the... 00:30:59.559 --> 00:31:02.519 Oh, I should just... Yeah, no, I'll tell you till now. 00:31:02.900 --> 00:31:05.460 This fits a little bit with the odd story at the beginning. 00:31:06.200 --> 00:31:10.220 If you turn back in your Bibles to Acts 28, verse 1... 00:31:10.220 --> 00:31:14.500 Acts 28, verse 1, there's this very curious story at the beginning. 00:31:15.579 --> 00:31:17.019 And it goes like this. 00:31:17.360 --> 00:31:23.100 And after we were brought safely through, that's the storm and the shipwreck, and they all manage 00:31:23.100 --> 00:31:27.140 either by swimming or pieces of wood and other things to get to shore. 00:31:27.660 --> 00:31:31.740 So after we were brought safely through, we then learned that the island was called Malta. 00:31:32.700 --> 00:31:38.059 The native people, the barbarians, showed us unusual kindness. 00:31:38.059 --> 00:31:43.679 For they kindled the fire and welcomed us all because it had begun to rain and was cold. 00:31:44.399 --> 00:31:53.839 When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. 00:31:54.460 --> 00:31:56.720 Vipers are poisonous snakes and bit them. 00:31:57.559 --> 00:31:59.279 And not only to bit them, it's stuck there. 00:31:59.359 --> 00:32:00.460 Its jaws are right there. 00:32:00.519 --> 00:32:04.099 They can all see as Paul probably went ouch and put his arm up there. 00:32:04.099 --> 00:32:06.859 And there's the viper hanging down from his arm. 00:32:07.139 --> 00:32:08.439 And everybody sees it. 00:32:10.859 --> 00:32:19.679 When the native people, verse 4, when the barbarians saw the creature hanging from Paul's hand, 00:32:19.839 --> 00:32:20.919 they said to one another, 00:32:21.599 --> 00:32:26.179 No doubt, no doubt, this man is a murderer. 00:32:27.199 --> 00:32:28.079 Why do they think that? 00:32:28.079 --> 00:32:36.099 Well, though he has escaped from the sea, the goddess justice has not allowed him to live. 00:32:37.599 --> 00:32:38.359 They're pagans. 00:32:38.699 --> 00:32:40.439 They believe in gods and goddesses. 00:32:40.859 --> 00:32:43.179 And they see, gosh, he survived the storm. 00:32:43.299 --> 00:32:44.480 He survived the shipwreck. 00:32:45.859 --> 00:32:46.099 Ha! 00:32:48.019 --> 00:32:53.419 He can't escape the justice and vengeance of the gods and the goddesses. 00:32:53.420 --> 00:32:58.600 But verse 5, Paul, however, shook off the creature into the fire. 00:32:59.560 --> 00:33:01.519 Took it off and threw it into the fire. 00:33:02.480 --> 00:33:03.740 And he suffered no harm. 00:33:04.779 --> 00:33:08.580 They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. 00:33:09.279 --> 00:33:14.700 But when they had waited for a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, 00:33:15.220 --> 00:33:17.880 they changed their minds and said that he was a god. 00:33:17.880 --> 00:33:21.740 And the idea is they really watch him intently for quite a while. 00:33:21.820 --> 00:33:24.020 They're really looking forward to seeing him fall down and die. 00:33:24.100 --> 00:33:26.460 They really want to see the goddess justice at work. 00:33:27.040 --> 00:33:28.340 And after a while, they're disappointed. 00:33:28.500 --> 00:33:31.100 Then they realize the opposite extreme is actually probably a god. 00:33:31.700 --> 00:33:32.720 Now, this is really interesting. 00:33:32.800 --> 00:33:35.660 I'm just going to read this part at verse 7 just to end this bit. 00:33:35.700 --> 00:33:37.060 And then we'll go back to the end of the book. 00:33:37.580 --> 00:33:38.560 It's really amazing. 00:33:39.100 --> 00:33:40.840 Bible commentators will come up. 00:33:41.140 --> 00:33:41.900 Here's what it is. 00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:42.920 Now, verse 7, 00:33:42.920 --> 00:33:54.220 And it's really interesting. 00:33:54.360 --> 00:33:58.800 They go on and talk about why it is that maybe they would have... 00:33:58.800 --> 00:34:02.160 The commentators forget what just happened in verse 6. 00:34:02.580 --> 00:34:04.580 Why did Publius entertain Paul? 00:34:06.019 --> 00:34:06.500 Duh! 00:34:06.920 --> 00:34:09.440 If the gods show up, you entertain them. 00:34:09.440 --> 00:34:12.500 Not because Paul's a Roman citizen. 00:34:14.579 --> 00:34:16.679 I mean, Paul's a Roman citizen, but so what? 00:34:16.720 --> 00:34:17.639 He's in chains. 00:34:18.539 --> 00:34:19.659 He's going to go to get... 00:34:19.659 --> 00:34:21.079 You know, pretend he's... 00:34:21.079 --> 00:34:23.679 The implication is he's probably guilty of something. 00:34:24.139 --> 00:34:25.260 But here's the thing. 00:34:26.780 --> 00:34:29.440 If the gods show up, you entertain them. 00:34:30.300 --> 00:34:31.880 So how does this fit into the end of it? 00:34:32.159 --> 00:34:33.440 And I'll just very simply... 00:34:33.440 --> 00:34:38.599 In the pagan mind, 00:34:39.780 --> 00:34:43.860 anyone who could survive that storm and that shipwreck 00:34:43.860 --> 00:34:46.960 and not be bitten by a snake must be a god. 00:34:47.539 --> 00:34:50.380 And you need to be very careful around the gods and the goddesses. 00:34:50.500 --> 00:34:51.460 Why do you need to be careful? 00:34:52.039 --> 00:34:54.539 Because the gods and goddesses are amoral. 00:34:55.099 --> 00:34:56.139 They're peevish. 00:34:56.500 --> 00:34:57.800 They're short-tempered. 00:34:58.360 --> 00:35:00.260 They get slighted easily. 00:35:00.260 --> 00:35:05.920 And so on one hand, if you don't welcome the god who's now come to visit you, 00:35:06.300 --> 00:35:08.760 you are definitely going to feel his wrath. 00:35:08.940 --> 00:35:11.120 On the other hand, if you welcome him too much, 00:35:11.560 --> 00:35:15.200 you might very well feel the wrath of other gods and goddesses 00:35:15.200 --> 00:35:20.740 who get jealous of you spending so much time dealing with a god like Paul, 00:35:21.080 --> 00:35:23.740 whom they might say, because they're always jealous. 00:35:24.120 --> 00:35:25.300 They're always fighting. 00:35:25.820 --> 00:35:26.260 They're amoral. 00:35:27.020 --> 00:35:27.260 They're immoral. 00:35:27.260 --> 00:35:30.320 They're just concerned with their own pride, 00:35:30.520 --> 00:35:32.560 their own glory, and their own vengeance. 00:35:33.300 --> 00:35:35.300 And they don't care about human beings. 00:35:35.780 --> 00:35:37.600 Human beings are there to serve them. 00:35:37.780 --> 00:35:39.840 And they don't care about the fact that we die. 00:35:40.420 --> 00:35:43.560 And this is all part of what the beauty of the gospel is. 00:35:43.960 --> 00:35:47.580 How is it that pagans became Christians? 00:35:47.800 --> 00:35:50.760 It's because the beauty and the power of the gospel. 00:35:51.400 --> 00:35:52.660 Because Paul would have made known, 00:35:52.720 --> 00:35:53.880 it's not told them in the text, 00:35:53.940 --> 00:35:54.880 that he is not a god. 00:35:54.880 --> 00:35:57.519 He has come to tell them about the true and living God, 00:35:57.599 --> 00:35:59.700 the God who has created all things. 00:36:00.039 --> 00:36:03.980 And the God who has created all things is not indifferent to human beings. 00:36:04.280 --> 00:36:05.400 He loves human beings. 00:36:05.960 --> 00:36:08.940 He is not one who just wants to see us as slaves. 00:36:09.519 --> 00:36:13.280 He wants to have us be his adopted children by grace. 00:36:13.660 --> 00:36:15.980 He is very concerned with justice. 00:36:16.400 --> 00:36:18.180 He is very concerned with goodness. 00:36:18.660 --> 00:36:20.220 He sees that we are helpless. 00:36:20.680 --> 00:36:23.220 He is the one who has come to seek and save us. 00:36:23.219 --> 00:36:26.159 He doesn't come to seek and save us only when he's angry. 00:36:26.379 --> 00:36:28.719 He comes to seek us to save us. 00:36:29.219 --> 00:36:30.699 And he's not peevish. 00:36:30.859 --> 00:36:33.319 He's not undone by all of these things. 00:36:33.439 --> 00:36:38.480 He sees how self-centered we are and how inhospitable we are to him 00:36:38.480 --> 00:36:40.579 and how we turn our back on him. 00:36:40.939 --> 00:36:45.500 And his response to that is to come for us and to save us. 00:36:45.779 --> 00:36:48.199 And he does not just sort of flick away death. 00:36:48.339 --> 00:36:49.779 He enters into death. 00:36:49.780 --> 00:36:53.320 He does not just sort of survive the storm to show that he is God. 00:36:53.420 --> 00:36:57.700 He enters into your storm and mine to save you and me, 00:36:57.960 --> 00:37:00.560 who will be killed by the storms of our lives, 00:37:00.680 --> 00:37:04.860 who will be killed by the snakes, who will be killed by death. 00:37:04.900 --> 00:37:10.220 And he enters into death and storms because he loves us. 00:37:10.300 --> 00:37:13.780 He enters into our death to save us. 00:37:13.780 --> 00:37:18.140 And he does not demand hospitality for us. 00:37:18.900 --> 00:37:24.600 He is hospitable to you and me and welcomes you and me. 00:37:24.740 --> 00:37:26.040 He does not say, 00:37:26.560 --> 00:37:30.760 unless you welcome me certain way into my church, I will destroy you. 00:37:30.880 --> 00:37:31.760 He says, 00:37:31.760 --> 00:37:38.640 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 00:37:39.140 --> 00:37:41.660 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, 00:37:41.900 --> 00:37:44.160 for I am gentle and lowly of heart, 00:37:44.340 --> 00:37:46.660 and you will find rest for your souls. 00:37:47.200 --> 00:37:50.320 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. 00:37:50.320 --> 00:37:58.800 The true God is vastly different than the gods and goddesses of that world. 00:37:58.920 --> 00:38:00.620 And that's an important message for us. 00:38:01.240 --> 00:38:06.580 Look at how the book of Acts finally ends in verses 30 and 31 of chapter 28. 00:38:07.480 --> 00:38:10.740 Paul lived there two whole years in his own expense, 00:38:11.280 --> 00:38:12.360 and he welcomed all. 00:38:12.960 --> 00:38:13.160 See? 00:38:13.519 --> 00:38:14.039 He doesn't say, 00:38:14.100 --> 00:38:16.420 Listen, you have to pay some money to come and see me. 00:38:16.420 --> 00:38:17.099 No, he says, 00:38:17.400 --> 00:38:20.559 I'm going to pay for you to come and visit me. 00:38:20.579 --> 00:38:21.460 I'm going to welcome everyone. 00:38:22.220 --> 00:38:24.220 That's part of what God's kingdom is about. 00:38:24.340 --> 00:38:26.180 You see, that when you become part of God's kingdom, 00:38:26.300 --> 00:38:27.599 when you're formed by the gospel, 00:38:28.079 --> 00:38:29.360 you're formed to be generous. 00:38:29.900 --> 00:38:31.260 You're formed to be hospitable. 00:38:31.519 --> 00:38:32.940 You're formed to welcome. 00:38:33.460 --> 00:38:35.019 You're formed not to say to the world, 00:38:35.159 --> 00:38:36.119 You've got to support us, 00:38:36.139 --> 00:38:39.519 but how we can support our cities and our neighbors. 00:38:40.280 --> 00:38:41.139 And then in verse 31, 00:38:41.280 --> 00:38:44.860 Proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ 00:38:44.860 --> 00:38:48.099 with all boldness and without hindrance. 00:38:48.420 --> 00:38:51.620 With all boldness and without hindrance. 00:38:52.640 --> 00:38:55.240 You see, why is it? 00:38:56.240 --> 00:38:57.539 And I'm sure some of you are, 00:38:57.660 --> 00:39:01.480 maybe all of you are vastly more bold than I have been throughout my life. 00:39:02.539 --> 00:39:03.760 I've had to grow into, 00:39:03.840 --> 00:39:07.860 God has started to form me to be more bold and more open and unhindered. 00:39:07.860 --> 00:39:11.260 But why is it that if somebody asks you, 00:39:11.880 --> 00:39:13.300 maybe on Monday morning, 00:39:13.380 --> 00:39:14.440 what you did the day before, 00:39:14.620 --> 00:39:16.400 you leave out going to church. 00:39:17.019 --> 00:39:18.519 Like, why is it that for a moment, 00:39:18.740 --> 00:39:21.960 if I come back to the coffee shop in the afternoon, 00:39:22.480 --> 00:39:25.760 and they ask me what I've been doing for the last couple of hours, 00:39:25.980 --> 00:39:28.760 why is it that for a moment I hesitate wanting to say 00:39:28.760 --> 00:39:30.900 that I'd spent time reading the Bible and praying? 00:39:33.980 --> 00:39:36.500 Why is it that I hesitate about that? 00:39:36.500 --> 00:39:43.119 You know, there's all sorts of reasons why Paul could be told 00:39:43.119 --> 00:39:45.079 that he had to tone down what he said 00:39:45.079 --> 00:39:47.719 and not be too religious and not be too spiritual 00:39:47.719 --> 00:39:51.280 and just, you know, try to put oil on troubled waters 00:39:51.280 --> 00:39:53.840 and don't cause offense and all of that type of thing. 00:39:54.280 --> 00:39:57.219 But Paul, in house arrest in chains, 00:39:57.860 --> 00:40:00.940 proclaims and speaks about Jesus and the kingdom of God 00:40:00.940 --> 00:40:02.460 openly and unhindered. 00:40:02.900 --> 00:40:05.840 And the fact is that we often bind ourselves. 00:40:06.500 --> 00:40:09.559 We often pull our own punches. 00:40:10.860 --> 00:40:11.679 We hide. 00:40:14.519 --> 00:40:16.619 And the gospel here is encouraging us, 00:40:16.659 --> 00:40:19.239 the book here is encouraging us to be so gripped 00:40:19.239 --> 00:40:24.400 by the fact that God's power is at work, 00:40:24.500 --> 00:40:25.500 and it's not all about us. 00:40:25.800 --> 00:40:26.400 You know, at the end of the day, 00:40:26.440 --> 00:40:27.920 we might not be very good at convincing, 00:40:28.179 --> 00:40:29.719 but we can all pray for people 00:40:29.719 --> 00:40:32.420 that they will open their hearts to Christ. 00:40:32.420 --> 00:40:36.039 And we never know what tiny little word 00:40:36.039 --> 00:40:38.039 that we might say to another person 00:40:38.039 --> 00:40:40.519 that plants a seed in them, 00:40:41.340 --> 00:40:42.840 a seed in them, 00:40:43.159 --> 00:40:45.539 that will ultimately completely and utterly 00:40:45.539 --> 00:40:46.940 transform their life. 00:40:47.200 --> 00:40:49.840 It could even be something as simple as saying 00:40:49.840 --> 00:40:51.079 when somebody says, 00:40:51.079 --> 00:40:52.279 what would you do on your lunch break? 00:40:52.519 --> 00:40:52.960 And if you say, 00:40:53.019 --> 00:40:53.360 well, actually, 00:40:53.420 --> 00:40:55.019 I went and found a quiet corner 00:40:55.019 --> 00:40:56.299 and read my Bible and prayed. 00:40:57.340 --> 00:40:58.380 And they might smirk. 00:40:59.639 --> 00:41:00.779 They might laugh at you. 00:41:02.179 --> 00:41:03.579 But that could also be 00:41:03.579 --> 00:41:05.539 that tiny little pebble in their shoe 00:41:05.539 --> 00:41:08.139 that God starts to use to work in them 00:41:08.139 --> 00:41:09.400 and to draw them to himself. 00:41:10.380 --> 00:41:12.500 See, God wants you and I to live open 00:41:12.500 --> 00:41:15.960 and free and courageous and unhindered lives. 00:41:16.099 --> 00:41:17.840 That is his will for us. 00:41:18.760 --> 00:41:21.920 The devil and idols want to bind us. 00:41:22.920 --> 00:41:25.840 Jesus wants you and me to be free. 00:41:26.880 --> 00:41:27.960 I invite you to stand. 00:41:27.960 --> 00:41:43.079 Father, your word, 00:41:43.440 --> 00:41:45.940 Paul said when he was writing to the Colossians, 00:41:46.179 --> 00:41:47.579 Father, that it is for freedom 00:41:47.579 --> 00:41:48.699 that you have set us free. 00:41:49.940 --> 00:41:52.380 And it's not just, Father, for freedom from, 00:41:52.519 --> 00:41:54.420 although you want us to have freedom from, 00:41:54.579 --> 00:41:56.539 but it's also, Father, freedom to. 00:41:56.539 --> 00:42:00.400 Freedom to be open and unhindered. 00:42:00.559 --> 00:42:01.900 Freedom to be courageous. 00:42:02.239 --> 00:42:03.360 Freedom to be bold. 00:42:04.179 --> 00:42:05.980 Freedom to cross that room 00:42:05.980 --> 00:42:08.880 when we see the lonely or the new 00:42:08.880 --> 00:42:10.599 or those in trouble 00:42:10.599 --> 00:42:12.199 or those who are oppressed. 00:42:12.320 --> 00:42:14.480 That we are free to cross that room. 00:42:14.639 --> 00:42:17.340 That we are free to pray and speak into that. 00:42:17.460 --> 00:42:20.639 That we are free to love and to receive love. 00:42:20.739 --> 00:42:22.119 That we are free to forgive 00:42:22.119 --> 00:42:24.059 and to receive forgiveness. 00:42:24.059 --> 00:42:27.460 That we are freed to be reconciled 00:42:27.460 --> 00:42:29.440 and to value that. 00:42:29.539 --> 00:42:31.739 That we are freed to worship you up, 00:42:31.980 --> 00:42:33.799 to worship and to pray to you. 00:42:33.880 --> 00:42:35.940 That we are freed, Father. 00:42:36.019 --> 00:42:37.699 That is what you desire for us. 00:42:38.099 --> 00:42:39.079 And we ask, Father, 00:42:39.179 --> 00:42:42.019 that your gospel would become 00:42:42.019 --> 00:42:43.159 more and more real to us 00:42:43.159 --> 00:42:45.099 and your word more and more free to us. 00:42:45.159 --> 00:42:47.139 That you would help us to trust 00:42:47.139 --> 00:42:49.559 that you will do miracles of transformation 00:42:49.559 --> 00:42:50.619 in our lives. 00:42:50.619 --> 00:42:53.159 But it will be all for our good. 00:42:54.159 --> 00:42:55.440 All for our good. 00:42:55.619 --> 00:42:56.719 And all for our glory. 00:42:57.340 --> 00:42:59.299 That we should never fear, Father, 00:42:59.380 --> 00:43:00.759 getting too close to you. 00:43:01.179 --> 00:43:02.639 Or too open to you. 00:43:03.639 --> 00:43:04.900 And that, Father, in fact, 00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:05.519 we should say, 00:43:05.599 --> 00:43:08.380 Father, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, 00:43:08.920 --> 00:43:10.659 you know the water that is my life. 00:43:10.719 --> 00:43:13.019 I ask that you would do a mighty work within me. 00:43:13.420 --> 00:43:14.840 And turn that water into wine. 00:43:15.519 --> 00:43:17.480 We ask all these things in the name of Jesus, 00:43:17.640 --> 00:43:18.680 your Son and our Savior. 00:43:19.440 --> 00:43:19.760 Amen.