So how's everybody doing today? Good. I got one person doing good. That's all right.
Well, good. I'm excited to be here. We got a lot to talk about today, guys. All I can say is just strapping on your seat belts.
What do they say when you get in the side of a ride? All hands and feet inside the all feelings and emotions inside the cart at all times today? OK? No, but we're going to talk.
We're going to continue an increase. And I had a whole other message planned, but I don't normally get to sit up here. And it was super cool to sit up here and get to just be fed by Fred. And a message just touched my heart in the middle of that.
And I couldn't get away from it. So I've been praying a lot and studying a lot. And I have a lot of scripture to cover, but it's going to be good. We're going to get through it.
And if we don't, guess what? Next Sunday or another Sunday, we'll cover the rest of it. But before we get started, I know my had a good friend of mine. They gifted me a mug.
And then my daughter bought me a hat. And it says, just basically be careful. Whatever you say can be used in a sermon. So a couple people are looking instantly that know me.
They're like, oh, God, what do you have now? But our pastor, Fred, which we miss you, we love you guys. Sorry you're not here to defend yourself. That's how it normally works.
But what he was talking last week, and he was explaining. Remember about the truth? Remember how he said, if you were here last week, remember how he said he scraped sour cream, like the mold off sour cream? That's super disgusting, right?
I just, hey, we play a video for me real quick. Oh, he's doing it. It's sour cream. And if you could play it again while the sound's up.
Just a little green around the edge. We'll just scrape it out. You're not gonna eat that. Just the sour cream.
The all here is wife, Chris, and she's like, oh, my goodness. He isn't a liar, though. He really does that. But I'm here to help letting know that, bro, if you're watching, I love you.
But if no one's told you the truth, that's disgusting. Do not do that. I'll buy you sour cream, OK? No, we like to welcome to our church.
We like to have fun, guys. If you're here for the first time, wave at me, if you will. Got a couple people. Thanks for having us.
We're excited that you're here. If you don't mind connecting with Stephanie before you leave, we'd just like to give you a gift level on you. So thank you for being here. All right, now let's get serious.
You guys ready? I'm gonna need some help today. So we're gonna jump into Ephesians, probably some Ephesians, and he was talking about growing up. Did y'all like that message?
Said to grow up. No one likes to hear that, right? Especially me, like my wife's like, grow up. I'm like, man.
But what I want to talk about, something that really caught me. And I've been talking about increasing the reach and how we, you know, if we're reaching the one, what that looks like, because that's who we are. That's what we do. We're reaching the one.
But when we are talking about growing up and being infants, there's a few things that I think just really guy was laying on my heart to talk about. So we're gonna go through those today and starting in Ephesians. This is, I'm just using this as kind of the starter to remember what we were talking about. But Ephesians 4, if you want to turn there if you have your Bibles.
If you don't have your Bibles, then I'll pray for you. I'm kidding, it's on the screen behind me. So starting in verse 14, it says, this is the message translation. Know how long to infancy is among us, please.
We'll not tolerate vapes in the woods. Small children who are easy prey for predators. God wants us to, everyone say, grow up. Now listen, grow up.
Say it, grow up. There we go. To know the whole truth, and tell it in love. What are we telling it in?
All right, let's remember that. Like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. So he's the source of what?
He keeps us in step with each other, his very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love. So the thing I want to point out just to start to keep a, what we're going to focus on is growing with one another, loving one another, the maturity of what that looks like. And what it just said here, it says, he keeps us in step with who? Each other.
And Fred was talking about the unity that we would grow up into the unity. How many of you know that's super important? That it's not just about us getting there, but it's about helping everybody else get there. That as we move together as a church, a body, a unit, then we're able to cover a lot more ground, correct?
So this is bigger than us. It's about all of us. But what I hope to bring understanding today that it's just, it's so much bigger than us, that we can cover a territory, but together unity, drawing each other together, working with each other outside of these four walls is what's going to really impact. And that's how the kingdom advances, because that's what this is about.
So the first thing we're going to talk about today and listen, this, like I said, this doesn't have maybe the best flow. If you're a flow type of person, I'm going to ask you to bear with me because there's just, there's a few topics that we're going to talk about. The first one I'm going to touch on is going to be in Ephesians 3, and it's the mystery of Christ. Go to the next, go to the next slide.
All right. And then the next slide. All right. So in Ephesians 3, I'm going to start reading in verse four.
It says, as you read over what I have written to you, you'll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ. How many, how many people here know that there's a mystery to Christ? No, listen. How many people know there's a mystery to Christ?
And listen, we're going to be finding that out until the day we, we stand in front of Him and we're going to learn more understanding as we go. But listen, there's a mystery to Him. There's something that keeps us drawing closer to say, I got to know more. I want to know more about you.
I'm trying to find more out about you and it draws me to continue to chase after you. There's a mystery, right? I said it a couple of sermons ago, but the kingdom of God works backwards. And we always think that we, here's what I've learned.
The moment that you think you have it all figured out, scratch that plan and start over, is what I just said, there's a mystery to God. Sometimes He does things that we don't understand. I don't know why He heals this time, but He does it the next time. But I know that He's all entirely good.
I don't know that. I do know that as we move into friendship, He starts to open up and reveal His plans to us. I do know that and we get to play a part in that. But like I said, there's a mystery.
And I think if we will focus in on kind of what Paul's writing about, which his, his goal was to, to bring the word to the Gentiles, to bring the word to say that, hey, whether you're an insider or an outsider, it's a level playing field. And so today we're going to start off by touching on that and it says, none of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God's spirit through His holy apostles and prophets of the new order. The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of Him, all their lives, what I've been calling outsiders and insiders, stand on the same ground before God.
They get the same offer. Everyone say same offer. Same help. Same promises.
In Christ Jesus, the message is accessible and welcoming to everyone across the board. Did you guys read that? Because here's what I want to start with. This is the base level today.
I want us to understand that the ground that we stand on, that as we grow in Christ and we begin to learn this, that we're all equal. God loves everybody the same. He doesn't love you because you did this better than this person. That's not how He measures.
We're talking about the measure. That's how we measure people, right? We say, oh, hey, you did that for me. I'll do this for you.
But remember when I was looking at my wife that one day and I told her, I was like, hey, listen, this is what love looks like. When you treat me bad, I treat you good. Because I'm now showing you that you're not my source. When we talk about what the source is, who's the source to everything, he's got to be the source to everything so we can begin to understand what real love looks like and how we can start to love others out this way with how we live our life as believers.
You guys ain't hearing it. Amen? That's the goal, right? Is that I live my life to the place that draws them to God and then they are like, oh, man, they feel the love and then they start going to love another people.
Amen? Okay, just want to make sure you all are awake. Help me out this morning. The verse that says, this is my life work helping people understand and respond to this message.
It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the message to people who had no background in God's way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. You guys hear this? God's salt to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.
I got a lot to get there. I want to stop and I'm going to keep going. So here I am preaching and writing about things that are way over my head. Say, way over my head.
The inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ, my task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God who created all this in the first place has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through followers of Jesus like yourself gathering in churches, the extraordinary plain of God has become unknown and talked about even amongst the angels. Ooh, we hot dog. If y'all don't get excited about that, I don't know what will make you excited.
Sorry, you're going to wake up soon. This is the appetizer. I don't get excited about the appetizer either. So we're starting off into this and he's saying that, hey, all people are equal.
All people are equal. And this is where the levers coming together that I want to help us love people in the way that Christ loves because that's what it's going to take for us to mature as a body, to mature as the lever. But we have to understand the very base level of this, which is we're all equal. God loves every single person sitting in here, every single one, no matter what you look like, what your age is, what your occupation is, any of that stuff, whatever you want to throw out there, listen, he loves you the same.
He probably loves me a little bit more. I think so. But we won't get into that. That's just a personal, yeah, you listen, I love when people say that.
I think you're hearing the wrong, you're hearing the wrong God on that one. All right, so the next, the next point that we're going to get to is walk, don't crawl. Stay with me. Walk, don't crawl.
I was laughing because I was thinking about Fred when he was talking about carrying, carrying like he said me. I was just like, the world, but how Christians, how were infants extended adolescence, right? Did you read with me there at first? I said, hey, no prolonged infinities, right?
It doesn't need to go further. Like what's a baby do? It crawls, right? And then eventually as it matures, it does what?
Yeah, I know. We hate when it starts to walk, right? There's a rough stage that we got to get through when they start walking because then they're grabbing everything, smacking their heads off tables, all kinds of stuff. But yeah, we have to eventually grow up and start to walk, right?
That's the point of what we're trying to get at, that immaturity that when, when, what I'm going to be talking about today is when we're walking, what that looks like is that I'm walking out of the gospel. I'm not so much as interested anymore in my life at this moment. God's grilling me, working on me, whatever you guys like to call it this time. But I'm not as much interested in how good it sounds or you can sound or any of that stuff.
I'm interested to see how it produces fruit in your life that grows not just you but other people, right? Because words sound great. Listen, anybody can get it. Nowadays, you can just pop on chat, GBT and be like, hey, ask it a question.
I know it will give you the best spread. Some of you people, I'm telling you right now, use this for work. It will give you the best spread and it can even, it sounds professional. It sounds great.
You turn that in. Like if I would try to throw something like that and they'd look at me like, you didn't write this. Like, I know you didn't write this. But the reality of it is, I think we spend so much time trying to sound good.
Like, we want to sound perfect. And listen, talking is important. Yes, there's power in our word and there's salt and all that, like we were talking, he was talking about last week. That there has to be a point when what you say and what you do starts to mesh together and then you live out.
I don't much just have to tell Ray, hey, I love you. I can show him I love you. By how I can duck myself and if I truly care and I love him, he's going to see that I love him. I don't got to tell him every day.
And a lot of times if you do, if you got to say it repeatedly, it's because you're not loving and you're just trying to use words, right? We're not going there today. So, the Fusion Four says, in light of all this, here's what I want you to do. Now I'm locked up here a prisoner for the master.
I want you to get out there and walk. Better yet run. On the road called, on the road guide called you to travel. I don't want any of you sitting around on your hands.
I don't want anyone strolling off down some path that goes nowhere. In market you do this with humility and discipline, not in fits and starts. But steadily, pouring yourself out for each other in acts of love. In acts of what?
Alert and noticing differences and quick at mending fences. See, listen, nobody likes that. I was wrestling with this guy. I was like, this is what I want you to share.
And I'm like, man, these are tough ones because these are the ones we got to push. They're, we got to look at ourselves. We got to get real honest with ourselves and look in and really ask ourselves, hey, do we want to mature? Like if I ask you, like, do you want to mature?
Who in here wants to mature? All right, good. I just want to make sure that I got a few people I can talk to today because I want to mature. I have it right on my board and I write my little phrases up every time I come in and I look sit down and look at them and I say, I want to increase.
I want to mature. I want to do these things. Like that's the desire. As believers, do we want to do that?
Come on. Says in verse 4, you were all called to travel on, everyone say same road and in the same direction. So stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.
Who rules over all. Works through all. And it's present. Everything you are and think and do.
Come on. You with me? Come on, say it with me. Everything you are and think and do is what?
Oh, we permeated with oneness. I wish Don's voice could be like captured. I'd have him read the Bible to me. He's got like a reading voice.
So we're all on the what road? Going on. Okay. So that makes us what?
Oh, we're equals again. Huh. Interesting, right? We're on the same road.
We're on the same direction. Are we in the same car? Okay. Right?
Are you going to get in my car, bro? I'm just kidding. He said, yeah, we are. I'm just playing.
No. I said, listen, we're on the same road. Same direction. Right?
So if this, are you guys starting to pick up what? What? What? We're drawing into same one God.
No, I'm not getting your car either. You're not getting mine. Say this and one God. One baptism, one faith, one this.
Like are you guys hearing it? We're one. There's one thing we're chasing after one. And we're all in the same road.
One in the same direction. Come on. Go ahead. Saturate.
Right? Well guys. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that.
I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that.
Right? Well guys, as we're walking and getting into what we're talking about, we're going the same direction. On the same road. And I think it's super important that we pick up on some of this that we're reading, that we don't just read this.
I know you guys have read this passage. I understand that. But it's important that we understand what we're reading because if we miss the basics of like what I was talking about, we're going to get caught up in everything else that's going to keep us from the main goal of what should be happening. Which was to take, he's writing letters.
He's going to talk about the letter to the Philippians, Ephesians, different churches, right? He's writing to different churches. But it's the same encouragement because he's talking about the same God. And he's saying, hey, we all have the same purpose.
And this is what this looks like. And you're going to see that it's going to be done in love is the main thing that it's done in. But like I said, if we miss that, hey, there is one focus here. It's only God.
Amen? I need you all to help today. Listen, it's there's one focus. Why are we all here today?
I'm here for him. Yeah, he laid the message on my heart and asked me to speak it. But guess what? I'm here for him.
Y'all, I was up here Friday by myself in this place with empty. I'm running up and down the halls here in the middle because of the word that he gave me and what he was showing me. I'm just like, man, are you serious? We're going to get there.
I know it's early. You're still trying to wake up. But oneness, oneness. I want you to think oneness.
Same direction, same road, oneness. So he says in Ephesians 5, he says, watch what God does and then you do it. Like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you.
Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us.
Love like that. Can we say amen? So like I said, we're, we're, we have the mystery of God that Paul lays out and that we're all in the equal playing ground and it's available. Everything's available to everybody.
And then he throws in, hey, here's the example. Love like God loves. And most of us are like, oh, dah, that's the, yeah. But he's writing this to the church.
Okay? He's writing this to believers. So what we have to understand here is that obviously in the church, which we're in, we are the church. Understand that too.
I know some people are in the church. Yes, we are. We're in the place of fellowship right now amongst a bunch of believers. And he's writing this to them because there has to be more of an understanding and there's to be more of an infusion and we're getting caught up in other things because love is the most important thing and God is the most important thing.
So he's writing to this to give us a letter to show us that, hey, there needs to be more attention on this. If you are not understanding, look at him and walk it out like he walked it out. Look at him and walk it out like he walked it out. You don't know how great.
You don't have to know how he's going to show you how he's going to tell you how he's given everything you need. Did you read with me earlier? I said, the blood that flows through him flows through you. Everything, yes, that flows through him flows through you.
Here's the thing. You don't know how it's okay. I ain't mad at you. If I can be honest, there's days I don't know how to.
You don't want to be honest with me. Listen, there's days that I don't know how to. But guess what? I have never ending access to the Father that said, hey, when you don't know how, look at me.
Look at my example. This is how you walk it out because there's going to be times, listen, especially you young people. I know you're young too. I don't care where you're at though.
There's going to be things that you walk into that you couldn't prepare for. Listen, I don't care how much you prep. I don't care if you build an underground bunker and store it with food. There's still going to be an act, like at some point, there's going to be some aspect of it that you were not able to prepare on.
That means you had to then rely on the only one that has the plans. And that's why he's the one who reveals them to us through friendship. So we have to watch what he does. You ever not know what to do?
Ask him. What would you do in this situation? Listen, they might look different than some people how they might handle it. And I want you to know that if you trust God and it aligns up with his will, his work, and he speaks to you, that's what needs to be done in that situation.
What we're about to jump into is to talk about some of the stuff of what we do and how we make it so challenging to love each other inside the church. And I know people don't want to talk about this. Like I said, strap up, look to your neighbor and say, hey, keep all hands inside the vehicle times during the service. Because I don't want you, I don't want you out there not paying attention.
The hand gets ripped off and you're mad at me. Because this is not, I don't even say this is not going to be the easiest thing to hear, but what it is is it's going to be the truth. And it's not my truth, it's his truth. But it's what's going to help us grow and mature like we're trying to do.
And if we want to mature, we're going to listen to his word because that's the only thing that can grow us guys. It's the only thing. And we got to start loving one another better. I'm just going to say it.
I don't know if you think you're loving people great right now. You got to do better. You got to want to do better. And he's going to give you the strength to do it.
But it has to start with saying, God, I want this. It means so much to me that if I got you, I'm an insider, right? Then the inside of what you're doing to me needs to come outside and so I can spread it to people so then your kingdom can grow. It can advance.
It isn't about just happening in one area. Like Cumberland, Maryland is just a win here. But guess what? It needs to be established.
It's a part of the plan. And it's a big part. And if we got to start coming together, we got to start opening ourselves up and say, I want to increase, God. My love needs to increase.
All right. Sorry. I was trying to break the ice before we went in. All right.
Go to the next slide. Know who is for you and who is against you. If you have paper, write this down, please. You don't write down on it.
I'm not mad at you. Keeping it in his head, right? I say that too. I got it all up here, babe.
He's like, hey, you forgot this, this, this, this, this. I was like, what did I remember? He said, nothing. I was like, I'll write down next time.
Know who is for you and who is against you. This is so crucial, guys. I'm really beginning to learn how important this is. And I believe this is the main thing that God grabbed my heart as I was sitting there.
And we were talking about maturity. Because if we're going to grow and unity is going to happen, we need to know who's on our side and who's not. But more so what we need to realize is that the ones that are not, listen, we're not against them. Right?
But guess what? The way I live my life is going to determine if that person is going to stay against me. Or it might soften their heart to say, hey, something's different. And here's what we need to figure out.
So turn to Luke 9 with me and we're going to jump down to verse 46. Like I said, these are these are just little points I'm making, guys. I'm not. We're bouncing around a little bit because I want to bring this to a point.
But Luke 9 verse 46 says, they started arguing over which one would be the most famous. When Jesus realized how much this mattered to them, he brought a child to his son. Whoever accepts this child is if the child were me, except me, he said. And whoever accepts me, accepts the one who sent me.
You become great by accepting, not asserting. Your spirit, not your size makes the difference. Then verse 49, John spoke up. I love this.
He just, they just got done like arguing like, hey, who's the best? Who's the greatest? And then John speaks up, he's like, hey, I feel like this is how I took it when I was reading it. I feel like John was trying to be that like teacher's pet.
You know what I mean? Like he stepped up. He's like, master, we saw a man using your name to expel demons. And we stopped him because he wasn't our group.
And I've been saying, Jesus, look, I just feel like they were walking. Jesus is just like, what, what do you say? He said, don't stop him. If he's not an enemy, he's an ally.
Or other translations say, say what, uh, for whoever's not against you is for you. Is that, that hit you all the same? Cause when I was reading that, I read that, and listen, I've read this a thousand times, guys. But I mean, it stopped me.
He said, hey, master, we saw a man using your name. And we stopped him because he wasn't a part of our group. He don't go to city reach God. What is he doing?
You've never done street ministry. You don't know what you're doing. I can't invite you. You don't know what you're doing.
Oh, we can't, no, we can't serve together. You knock on people's doors. I'm just using basic things, guys. What I'm getting at here is here.
What I love most is here's a guy. Hey, I'll mention his name. We'll never know who it is until we get to heaven. Some random guy just casting demons down in Jesus name.
And what I thought was cool about that too. I'm like, man, what in the world? Like, here they're spreading the gospel. This man could have heard it.
I mean, I've heard it. I don't know. I don't have a lot of details on this man besides he was just doing the work that we're all called to do. And they said, you know what they said to him?
This is my favorite. Here, I love this. They pretty much walked up. I was just like, keep my man's name out your mouth.
I don't know what you're, oh, you think you are, but keep my man's name out your mouth. And Jesus is like, what? What are you doing? My name is supposed to be in their mouth.
My name is in your mouth. Come on. They're, they're casting you. It's bigger than you, John.
It's bigger than you. Okay. They were doing your name. You missed the biggest part.
It's his name that he was doing it in. That means he had an understanding that Jesus is the only one. He's the only name. And just because it looked a little different and you wore something a little different.
We're around in here smacking the name of Jesus out of people's mouths because we don't like how they look or we don't like what church they go to. We don't even like that they don't go to a church. Oh, come on. Help me out today.
Please. Because this is real stuff. I know a lot of us in here walk around like, oh, keep my name out of the mouth. We'll talk about my man's like that.
He's like, remember what I said? Kingdom of that. It's backwards. It's different than how we think.
It looked a little different than what we're used to or how we were taught or what we think. And we just instantly write them off. But if the kingdom's going to reach everywhere, guess what? We need so much more than what's in this room right now.
We need so much more than what's in this room. And we got to be able, this is the mature part of it. That they are walking and just because they're in that mindset of who's the best, who's the best? They missed all of it.
And it's about Jesus. It's about God's about the kingdom advancing. And through all that stuff, that secondary stuff, the main point was missed. Did you hear what I said earlier?
This is why I was paving the road that there's one road. We're going in the same direction. We look a little bit different. We talk a little bit different.
But guess what? We're all going through the same place. A lot of y'all are going to be mad when you get there. You're like, how'd you get there?
You're on the same road as me. Like, yeah, I laughed you twice. Right? Because this is the reality, though, of the stuff that we're reading.
We're so focused on all the wrong stuff. But yet we'll come in and we'll even in our day, we'll be mad. So bad out there. It's really bad.
It's in the enemies everywhere. And I'm like, yeah, you know, why? Because we're fighting each other. We're taking the name of Jesus out of the people's mouths.
When that's the thing it needs to be talked about. Come on, y'all. Says, don't stop him. If he's not an enemy, he's an ally.
Everyone say, with me. No. She said, with me. No, who is for you.
And who is against you. Do you see the importance of that? Do you see the importance of the maturity as a believer that it's about the mission? Right?
It's mission minded. It's not me minded. It's not about me getting to the front of the line. It's not about me looking good.
It's not about me. It's not about any of this. John, he said, what did John say? I must decrease.
So he increases, right? Like, it ain't about John. I was baptizing people. It ain't about John.
It's about the one that's coming. That's going to be able to really baptize you. Really do what needs to be done. Right?
That's what we got to look at, guys. I must decrease. He's got an increase. All right.
Y'all doing all right? All right. Let's go to the next point. Determined helps us to focus on God's kind of love.
We're going to jump into Philippians. Philippians 1, 7 through 21, I'm going to read real quick. It says, it's not at all fanciful for me to think this way about you. My prayers and hopes have deep roots in reality.
Everyone say deep roots in reality. Everyone say, deep roots in reality. And I say, deep roots in reality. I say, deep roots in reality.
I say, deep roots in reality. I say, deep roots in reality. Deep roots in reality. Everyone say, deep roots in reality.
You have, after all, stuck with me all the way from the time I was thrown in jail, put on trial, and came out of it in one piece. All along, you have experience with me the most generous help from God. He knows how much I love and miss you these days. Sometimes, I think I feel as strongly about you as Christ does.
That's a pretty strong statement there, huh? That's a real love, wouldn't you say? You love a group that much? So this is my prayer, that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much, but well.
Everyone say, but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life.
Circumspect, which means careful to consider all circumstances and possible consequences, an exemplary representing the best of its kind. A life Jesus will be proud of. Bountiful improves from the soul making Jesus Christ attractive to all. Attractive to who?
Getting everyone involved in the glory and praises of God. Did y'all read that? Like we read the same thing? It's important, guys.
This stuff is so important to help us focus on the real love that matters. Because we can get so sidetracked. It says you need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life.
I like that. We'll write a song. Live a lover's life. Alright, next point.
We're going to make it through, guys. A mature response. Everyone say, mature response. Yeah, a lot of people.
We're all still mature. But what does that, what I want us to see in the rest of the Olympians is I want to see, I want to see Paul's response. I want you all to see Paul's response. The verse 12 says, I want to report to you friends that my imprisonment here has had the opposite of its intended effect.
So he's imprisoned for preaching the gospel just to catch all up. And his imprisonment was to stop that, which it's actually had the opposite effect he says. So let me help you out real quick. Yeah.
I don't know where you may think that you got to be at or you got to be at a certain place or you need a certain platform. My man, my man is going to imprison. So wherever you're at, you are the gospel. You get to preach that thing wherever you're at.
And it's going to change hearts because guess what? There's power in it. It ain't me. It's the gospel.
There's power in that. So in prison, he said, which was meant to chain me up. So this couldn't happen. Actually, the opposite happened.
I don't know if you guys are excited as it is. He said, instead of being, I'm going to mess this up. Swelch. There you go.
The message has actually prosper. All the soldiers here and everyone else too found out that I'm in jail because of the society. Like think about this. He's in jail.
How many of y'all would have just shut down and quit? You don't have to be honest with me. Sorry. But he's in jail.
He's like, this is the advantage. His mind is so like, all right, I'm here. This is where I'm going to preach the gospel today. Not, oh, how do I get here?
What's going to happen next? What's going to do this? He said, no, wherever I am, I'm going to preach the gospel because that's how much I believe in it. I don't know where you're going today after here.
But I hope you take the gospel with you. I hope that you take it and you're giving it to people. And I'm saying you had to beat them over the head. Like I said earlier, I just said, hey, I can just love somebody to the point they're like, hey, what in the world?
This is wild. I just cussed you off from Randy off the road. You told me I have a nice day and bought me my food and chick the lays line. Yeah, it's different.
I'm not concerned about all that stuff. People have bad days. I don't hold on to that. I'm going to keep doing what I'm going to do.
Guess what? You know why you can't affect what I do? I don't care if everybody in here was like, this is the worst thing in the world. I'm never coming back to this church.
I mean, I do care. But I'm going to preach the Word of God. And if you want to hear it, great, that means it's going to stop me from preaching the Word of God. I'm going to press in to him even more.
I say, God, I know this is what you call me to do. It's what Paul is saying. Don't matter what happens. He's saying, you call me to this and I'm going to fulfill it.
That's how much I believe in it. And he says, now they've learned that all about him, not only that, but most of the followers of Jesus here have become far more sure of themselves in faith than ever, speaking out fiercely about God, about the Messiah. It's true that some people here, I want you to listen. If you're falling asleep, wake up.
It says, it's true that some here preach Christ because with me out of the way, they think they'll step right up into spotlight. But the others do it with the best heart in the world. It's talking about two different people, right? People don't it with bad motives.
People don't it with good motives. All right. It says, one group is motivated by pure love, knowing that I am here defending the message, wanting to help. The others, now that I'm out of the picture, are merely greedy, hoping to get something out of it for themselves.
Their motives are bad. They see me as their competition. Ooh, we. And so the worst it goes for me, the better.
Everyone say they think for them. Next slide. So how am I to respond? Remember how I said the mature response?
Y'all read this with me. This is so good. This is one of the moments when I was I was reading in my office. I took out the sprit and I could have I would tell you what, I would have had a red bull with a game, he said, I would have flew all around this place and said, so how am I to respond?
I decided. Everyone say I decided. No, listen. I decided.
I really don't care about their motives. No, come on. I really hate. I don't care about your motives, bro.
Hey, bro. I don't care about your motives. I love you anyway. Come on.
I don't care about your motives. He said, whether mixed, bad or indifferent. Every time one of those opens their mouth, every time one of them opens their mouth, crisis were claimed. So I just hear them on and I'm going to keep that celebration going because I know how it's going to turn out.
Come on, somebody. If y'all can't say amen to that, say amen. Somebody, please. Can I get one person?
Hot dog. He said, I don't care why you're doing it. The name's still coming out of his mouth. Let him go.
Don't stop him. What am I going to stop him for? Oh, my goodness. We're on the same team.
Do y'all remember the same road? Same direction. Oneness. Listen, I don't like how everybody does everything.
I don't like it at all. You notice anything I have to like? Everything that happens? It says that I have to be mature enough to understand that he's speaking and proclaiming the name.
The only one that matters. Listen, no other word that's going to come out of my mouth is going to matter more than the name of Jesus. You didn't hear me. No other word that comes out of your mouth, my mouth, anybody's mouth is going to be ever more important than the name Jesus.
Because that name alone can be said and it does multiple things. It's the secret weapon, y'all. You can speak the name of Jesus over cancer, over any sickness, over any situation, over anything. Right?
Any changes things. So my goodness, I love y'all to death, but your motives do not concern me. If his name is getting preached, and listen, I know a lot of people are going to run with this and take it way left field. My name is Pastor Fred.
I'll give you my number. You can send it all to them. I'm kidding. But I'm being for real.
This is the mature part that we're talking about, guys. This is the maturity that I have to be able to focus and understand. The most important thing ever is that the gospel is being preached, that Jesus is the one that's being talked about. Because guess what?