Good morning, Tabernacle. Thank you for being with us in Manistee and Cadillac as well. I, for one, am tired of talking about the weather. So instead, I thought we would start by talking about punctuation. Now, just in case you went to public school like I did, or didn't pay attention in English class, you know you have a period, you have a comma, a colon, and a semicolon. But by far, my favorite and probably most misused is the ellipsis.
And if you're not familiar with what an ellipsis is, this is the dot, dot, dot, right? And the meaning, I was looking it up because you might have seen it in a book or an email or most often nowadays you'll see it in a text. An ellipsis leaves something unsaid. And it could be used for dramatic effect, like the dramatic pause. It could be used kind of like et cetera. The worst is when you get a text and it just kind of trails off with a dot, dot, dot. And then you come back with a question mark and then they're silent. It's like there's no closure. What happened? Fill in the dot, dot, dot. The ellipsis.
The best description that I heard of the use of it is that the ellipsis invites the reader to participate, to either guess what they're saying, to guess what's next, to read between the lines, so to speak. Am I making sense? Now, I probably, before we move on from the ellipsis, I always like to give a PSA, a little public service announcement. The correct use of the ellipsis is that there are three. So those of you that like to use four and five, you're speaking a different language. It's three. Are you with me?
So because it's an invitation to participate, I'll do the same for you. If you have a Bible or a flat screen, if you'll turn to the book of Acts, we're in the last part of chapter 28. And we've been following this story for the past almost a half a year, talking about God's revolution, all the things that the apostles did after Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. He commanded them to go and make disciples. The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost in chapter one and boldly they went forth, men, women, young and old, and they carried this gospel that turned the ancient world upside down.
And so for the last 2000 years, we've been living in the fallout of that revolution as it continues to spread. And where we left the story, we've been following the last months and weeks, particularly with the apostle Paul. And Paul has finally made it to Rome where he's a prisoner of Rome, but he's been given house arrest. You remember that from last week after the shipwreck in Malta, he's in house arrest, which means he got to rent his own accommodations. And he spends most of his time chained to a rotating Roman soldier. And so that's where we are. We'll pick it up in verse 17. We'll read to the end. This is God's word.
It says after three days, he called together the local leaders of the Jews. And when they had gathered, he said to them, brothers, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans. When they had examined me, they wished to set me at liberty because there was no reason for the death penalty in my case. But because the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar, though I had no charge to bring against my nation. For this reason, therefore, I have asked to see you and speak with you, since it is because of the hope of Israel that I am wearing this chain. And they said to him, we have received no letters from Judea about you, and none of the brothers coming here has reported or spoken any evil about you. But we desire to hear from you what your views are, for with regard to this sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against.
And when they had appointed a day for him, they came to him at his lodging in greater numbers. From morning till evening, he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus, both from the law of Moses and from the prophets. And some were convinced by what he said, but others disbelieved. And disagreeing among themselves, they departed after Paul had made one statement. The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet, go to this people and say, you will indeed hear, but never understand. You will indeed see, but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull.
and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them. Therefore, let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles. They will listen. He lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. And that's how it ends. For 2,000 years, scholars have been saying the book of Acts ends rather abruptly.
Ladies, there's no closure. I mean, men care about closure too, but right? I mean, we like closure. What happens next? What happened to Paul? What happens to the trial? It's interesting. The book of Acts was first written in Greek. In Greek, there is no punctuation. There's no periods, there's no commas, there's no colons, semicolons. We've added those. And it's up to the reader who understands Greek to be able to put the punctuation the way we would understand it so we can read it in English. Does that make sense so far? And it's almost to me as if, even though in my text it ends with a period, it's more like,
dot, dot, dot. It's left unfinished. And I believe it's because the story is still being written. It's an invitation for the readers to participate, to pick up the baton because we know the first century believers did. That's why we stand here today. Now, because we love closure, I won't just make us suffer with the dot, dot, dot. What happened to Paul? Well, there's various theories.
One is that the book of Luke, which was written by Dr. Luke, as well as the book of Acts, also written by Dr. Luke, were a two-part legal defense that Luke was writing in order to defend Paul at his trial. Listen, let's just tell you what Jesus did, what the disciples did, what Paul did when he picked up the baton. We're no threat to Rome, and that's quite possible. Many scholars believe, and this isn't a big rock, it's not even really important, believe that Paul was actually released from his first trial, and he went on to plant more churches and preach more of the gospel. He may have made it all the way to Spain. We don't know for sure.
The documentation ends. From his letters in 1 Timothy and also to Titus, it seems to imply that maybe he was released. Now, we know he was rearrested because of what he wrote in 2 Timothy chapter four. If you'll remember in 1 Timothy, he tells Timothy to fight the good fight of the faith. And in 2 Timothy, he says, now my life is being poured out as a drink offering. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. It's almost like he knew of his impending end.
And church tradition all agrees that Paul was in fact martyred. He was executed at the hands of the Roman empire because he was a citizen under Nero. He was beheaded. But what is clear is if you go all the way back to the beginning of Luke, what Luke says in the purpose of writing that gospel was that he was going to write down all that Jesus began to do and teach. And then when he picks up the pen again for the book of Acts, we could say that's an account of all that Jesus continued to do and teach. What is the point that I'm driving at? The book of Acts is not about Paul.
He's been the focus of our attention for the last 10 or so chapters, but the book of Acts was never about Paul. Paul's another apostle. Paul's another disciple. Paul's just another believer like you and I. And Luke chose to record the thing. So what happened to him, we can learn from, take encouragement and instruction from, but the book of Acts is not about Paul. The book of Acts is about Jesus and his gospel.
So we can't lose sight of that fact. In Matthew chapter 16, Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. It's Jesus that built those churches in Ephesus and Colossae and Thessalonica and in Rome. Jesus built that church, not Paul. I haven't built anything. We haven't built anything. We're faithful to God's call and his commission, but it's Jesus that builds the church. I'm getting worked up. I just want to know if you're awake right now.
It's Christ, his gospel, his word, and the power of his Holy Spirit that builds the church. And so Acts, in my opinion, it kind of ends with an invitation. Will you, will we be a period or an ellipsis? Does this gospel message end with you? A dead end, a period, full stop. I've got my salvation. I know where I'm going and the world can burn around me. That's a lot of the attitudes of a lot of Christians. They may not say it that way, but that's how they live.
Or is this gospel that has saved you, that is changing you, is it instead a dot, dot, dot? I would contend that that's our responsibility. So how do we do that? Well, we look at these last verses and I think that there are some clues. The first thing that Paul does when he gets there is he calls together the local leaders of the Jews. That was his custom. And what does he do? He tells them, well, hey, I've been brought up here on these charges. I said nothing against Rome. I said nothing against the Jewish people. But I came here, he says, because of the hope of Israel.
Who is the hope of Israel? It's Jesus. And it's the hope of Gentiles. He's the hope of the world. He's the only hope. And so the very first thing that Paul does is he proclaims Jesus. And he's super cool about it, right? He calls the leaders together. See, he's chained. He can't go anywhere. And so he says, hey, let's summon these guys. And he explains that to them. We would like to hear more of this. And so they've come back in greater numbers. I have a suspicion that maybe Paul rented a big house, either with a big living room or a big back garden or what have you. So he could pack a lot of people in there. I can't go to them. I'll bring them to me. And what does he do? He proclaims Jesus.
During this time, Paul writes and proclaims Jesus. He writes the book of Ephesians, the book of Philippians, the book of Colossians, the book of Philemon, which by the way, Philemon is a letter to a slave holding Christian whose slave had run away and somehow had interacted with Paul. Paul leads him to Christ is the implication and then says, you need to go back and make amends with your master. Take this letter. And it's inspired Holy Scripture for us. Can you believe it? He's proclaiming Jesus everywhere with his mouth, with the written word. He's teaching, he's preaching, he's discipling. Think about that guard, right?
He's part of the Roman guard and one of his duties is to take his turn every other day for X amount of hours chained to this dude from Judea. Talk about a captive audience. And I imagine they just had normal man conversations. Hey, what'd you do for living for? Thank you for service. I don't know if they said that to Romans, but whatever. Are you married? What about your kids? Do you have hopes? Do you have dreams? Who do you worship? He's probably chained to him going, why are you getting on your knees? Who are you talking to? Where are your idols? Where are your gods? What are you in for?
Paul continues in every way, in every place to proclaim Jesus. In two of those letters that he wrote at that time, we get a hint about his mentality of proclaiming Jesus. In Colossians 4, he asked that church, pray for me that God may open a door for ministry while I'm here in prison. Many times when we're in a bad situation, that's not what we're looking for. We're at work. We can't stand our coworkers. We can't stand our boss. You know, we don't know why we're in public school. We don't know why we're interacting. Oh, I gotta go do this. I gotta go do that. Or for me, right? I'm ashamed to say, well.
Okay, I'll tell you. I spent snow bomb apocalypse traveling to Denver to preach and got caught in it on the way back. So a little fleshly rant, can we just all agree, never, ever, ever, ever fly for any reason into Chicago O'Hare. If you're from Chicago, I love you. I hate your airport. It could be wind. It could be snow. It could be sleet. It could be somebody having a smoke break, but it's always shut. And in the middle of the, you know, five delayed flights, three cancellations, you know, twice we had to deplane. Nothing's available. And I'm stuck in an embassy suite. It wasn't Malta.
I didn't get shipwrecked. I didn't get by a viper that I had to shake off into the, you know, and I'm ashamed to say, this is the thing I was ashamed to say, is I didn't have the mentality of, okay, God, here's a reason. Who can I share and proclaim Jesus with? I missed it because I was so focused on me. And Paul's saying, pray that while I'm in prison, chained to the sky, there'd be an open door of opportunity just to speak Jesus. What if we had that mentality? Well, I'll tell you one thing. We wouldn't be a period. We'd be a dot, dot, dot. We'd be a part of the continuation. In Philippians chapter one, again, written while he was in this house arrest mode.
He said to them that my imprisonment has actually served to advance the gospel so that because I am here, it has spread all throughout the imperial guard. What? The gospel in the name of Jesus. These soldiers are talking to each other. Like I said, they're taking rotations as a captive audience with arguably the greatest preacher who ever lived. Imagine being chained to him six hours a day.
He says, because of my imprisonment, others have become bold in sharing their faith. This is what I'm getting at. I believe God calls all of us in our vernacular here at the tab. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, either go to the website and look at our values or go to Emerge. We talk about being dominoes. That's how we proclaim Jesus. With our words, with our actions, with the way we live our lives. With Jesus front and center. Let them see evidence of who you worship by the way you live. Sometimes we're called to speak. Sometimes we're called just to act like a Christian. Right, I had that opportunity because when I finally ended up driving home,
And I get to Traverse City Airport to pick up my car, which is covered in eight feet of snow. And they hadn't cleared anything. The airport's still shut down. It took me an hour to dig that sucker out. And then as I pulled out, there's some Traverse City lady stuck. She's trying to get out too. And she has no hope. I could have, you know what I almost did? I could just back out of here and pay the million dollars for being stuck here all weekend. And then I was like, wait, preacher man, get out and help the lady dig out. We're called to live like Christ.
to be like Christ, to look for any opportunity and every opportunity to be a domino, to point people to Jesus. And the way that you're a domino, the way I'm a domino, they're not gonna be the same. So people that stand up front, we can impress up front, but you impact up close. You see the best 37 minutes, if I go overtime, 40 minutes that I've got for the week. We impress up front, but dominoes impact up close. Eye to eye, shoulder to shoulder, in conversations, over coffee, at the workplace, in study hall. Are you tracking?
And God has called all of us to proclaim Jesus there. So just do me a favor. Just look at your hand real quick. Sorry, I forgot. Northern Michigan. If you please, I beg you, I invite you, look at your hand, participate. Don't be that guy. Look at your hand. You see the little prince. I want you to look at the prince on your fingers, on your palm. Psalm 139 says every single one of us are fearfully and wonderfully made. You can stop looking at your hand. It's getting weird. But look at this. We all know that there are no two sets of fingerprints alike in all the world, all the billions of people in the world. And you can be tracked by your fingerprints because God made it unique to you.
And if it's God who fearfully and wonderfully made you with that unique design on your fingies, don't you think that he's also given every single one of us a ministry imprint that is just as unique? Your personality, your talents, your spiritual gifts, your hobbies, the people you run with, the stuff that's happened to you, your testimony, it's unique to you. Use it to proclaim Jesus. I like hunting, use it. I like trucks, use it. I like working out, use it. I don't like people, use it.
And sometimes it's with our words. Sometimes it's with our actions. But you guys, this is the way the revolution has happened for 2000 plus years. We gather for worship, but then we scatter for ministry as dominoes to all the spaces and places that your week takes you. Paul proclaims Jesus. We're called to proclaim Jesus, but only if we decide to be a part of the dot, dot, dot. Who does he proclaim Jesus to?
to anyone and everyone. It said first he invited the Jews and then he had a larger group of Jews there and then they got offended. They got offended because of something he quoted from their own scriptures. The prophet Isaiah told us that these people, there would come a time when their hearts would grow dull, their ears they could barely hear and their eyes would be closed. And because of that, this gospel would now also be made available to the Gentiles. It doesn't mean God is done with Jewish people. It doesn't mean God is done with Israel.
But it speaks about this in the New Testament, that God put a veil in his providence. I'm not God, I don't understand why. But his purpose and his plan was to put a veil over their eyes. It says this in 2 Corinthians chapter three, that their minds would be hardened, but that we with unveiled faces, now we have an opportunity to receive the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the hope of Israel and the hope of the world. So Paul, and us were to proclaim Jesus to anyone and everyone. It says for two years, he welcomed all who came to him, all who wanted answers, all who wanted to hear about this Jesus. And this is important for us. In Romans 11, it reminds Gentiles, this is a little sidebar, but I think it's important. In Romans 11, it says to the Gentile, do not become arrogant towards the Jews. Because remember, he says, from the root of Jesse, you were grafted in. Dull hearts, blind eyes, deaf ears, they were cut off so that we could be grafted in.
and have eternal life. And so he says, be careful, do not become arrogant. He goes on to talk about a time when that veil will be lifted. One day Israel will see the true Messiah. We just did a whole study of the book of Revelation. At the end of all things, there's gonna be a massive revival of Israel. Why do I bring this up? Well, in 2026, last couple months, it seems there is a growing bit of antisemitism even among Christians. Now this is not political. I'm not being political. I'm not saying we look at present day.
and just accept anything and everything that they do. But I'm never gonna be a hater. What does it say in scripture? He who blesses Israel will be blessed. What does it say at the back of the book? One day their eyes will be opened. God still has a plan for Israel. You go all the way back to Genesis. He made promises to their father, Abraham, sealed with a covenant where the sacrifices were cut in half. And to make a covenant, the two making the covenant were called to walk through the bits of the sacrifice. God walked through by himself. Abraham was in a deep sleep. What is that saying? This covenant depends on me, not on you.
Am I moving too fast? This is what I'm saying, friends. First of all, racism towards anyone is bad. And I'm saying to Christians, be careful that this, whatever your political bent is, doesn't become some sort of anti-Israel thing. And you say, well, they're not even believers. They're a godless nation. Paul just read that. Blind eyes, deaf ears, dull hearts, but not forever. For us, how do we apply that? We proclaim Jesus to anyone and everyone. There are no lost causes. Some of you at one point in your life were called a lost cause by somebody.
Some of you believe that if you ever darken the door of a church, oh, the whole place would blow up because you're the most unique sinner in the whole world. No one's done what you've done, right? The gospel, God's grace levels the playing field for all of us. Only by God's grace through faith am I saved. What do I deserve? Hell, hell, hell. And so do you. So we can never have, if this gospel is to be proclaimed, this Jesus is to be proclaimed to anyone and everyone, we can never have an us versus them mentality. Whoever they are, right? That people group, that alphabet group,
No, it's never us versus them. This gospel is for anyone and everyone, which also means that I have to pause right now because I'm not foolish enough to think that everyone who comes to our church has made a decision to receive Christ. Maybe you're just here trying to get more information. Maybe you're here to keep her happy. Maybe you're here because you were invited and you really want to go. So the question is, are you saved? Are you born again? Going to church won't save you. Being a good person won't save you. Quitting the bottle, quitting the girlfriend, fixing all the things, that won't save you.
only if you are washed in the blood of the lamb, only if you receive God's grace through faith, that you've confessed Jesus as your Lord, you've surrendered to him, you've given him your yes and said, here, take my life. I'll take your forgiveness, you take my life. Let's see what's gonna happen. It's an important question. Are you saved? We proclaim Jesus to anyone and everyone, including people who come to church. And Paul does this, the last words recorded in the book of Acts, boldly and unhindered.
boldly and unhindered. He says he was proclaiming the kingdom of God. He was teaching about the Lord Jesus with all boldness and without hindrance. Why was he bold? Well, because he had the Holy Spirit's power. The same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is the same Holy Spirit that was promised in Acts chapter one, verses eight. You will receive power and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and all the ends of the earth. Church, listen, Christian, listen, whether you're a period or an ellipsis, you are a witness. He didn't ask you to be one. He said, you will be. And he's a for real God. So if you're a witness, what kind of witness are you?
You have that power in you. That's why we can be bold. And bold is not brash. Bold is not rude. Bold is not mean. But bold knows I carry a message that ultimately will win out. Scripture says one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. That's coming. And as I've said a thousand times before, you will either willingly be on your knees or you'll be forced to your knees. One way or another, you will bend the knee. And so we go boldly. We speak boldly. We're dominoes boldly because we have this power. Or we may not be living according to the power.
We may not be tapping into that power or relying or depending on that power, but you have the power if you're saved. It's boldly and unhindered. This one holds so many of us back. We've mentioned it before. We're gonna keep banging away till we get past it. Some of us are so caught up in the mess of our lives or we're so caught up in the fact that we're in the process of becoming like Christ. We're being sanctified that we think that somehow because we're not perfect, we can't be a domino. We're hindered that way. Oh, if people knew about me, if people saw that, if people see I'm not a perfect husband, I'm not a perfect dad. We know, by the way.
We all know, right? I was sitting with a mental health professional at the fish fry. Shout out Manistee Fish Fry. Best one yet. Got right in, got the thing. You missed it. Sorry about you. It was delicious. But I'm sitting with a mental health professional and as soon as she identified herself as such, I was like, oh, I better just eat fish and stop talking because you're going to start diagnosing this crazy. And she started saying, oh, listen, everyone's got some sort of a mental thing. And I was like, I know, right? Because I've been saying that for years. Behind every set of those eyeballs and Manistee and especially Cadillac is straight crazy.
And if you're sitting there going, well, not me, you're the worst, right? You know, it says in 2 Corinthians 4, verse seven, it speaks about this treasure. This is for the Christian. This is for those of us who are saved. It says, we hold this treasure, the light of the gospel, of his love, his salvation, his redemption, his adoption, his forgiveness, his grace that overflows. We hold that treasure in jars of clay. Remember that. This is another part of our value statement that you can read about on the website. It says, we hold it in clay vessels, earthen vessels, pots. What do clay pots do? They crack.
They crack. So we say at the tabernacle, we're crackpots, which means that God's grace shines the brightest through those cracks. And it seems that we serve a God that wants to minister to others and let us proclaim Jesus to others in our weakness through the cracks. And all of you have one. You can be unhindered. Acts chapter four reminds us that the very first dominoes, they were preaching in Jerusalem and their hearers were amazed because they were ordinary, unschooled, uneducated, ignorant men, barely an eighth grade education.
Their names were Pete and John. They wore Carhartt. They worked for a living. Maybe had steel-toed boots. Are you with me? But they'd been with Jesus. Answer this carefully, friends, because that's the only qualification, to be someone who proclaims Jesus to anyone and everyone boldly and unhindered. Have you been with Jesus? If you've been with Jesus, would you raise your hand? Good, I was afraid we didn't have any Christians here.
It's his spirit that lives in us. Two or three gathered in his name. He's right here with us. We've already sung at all of our campuses. The Lord inhabits the praises of his people. He's here with us. We've been with Jesus. You have something to say. The fact is we can be bold and unhindered because Jesus will prevail. This revolution will go to the ends of the earth. It will meet every nation, every tongue, every tribe. Every race will be represented there. Jesus will prevail. He said he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against us. So I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you know what that means?
He'll prevail with or without you. Now, I'd rather be with him. I'm honored to be a part of it. I wanna be a dot, dot, dot. I don't wanna be a full stop. I don't wanna be a period. I don't wanna say, well, I got mine. I'm good. It's me, my family, my kids, my grandkids, we're good. What would it look like, Cadillac, Manistee, Buckley, all across Northern Michigan, if we decided to live into the dot, dot, dot, proclaiming Jesus in a unique way, which is unique to me?
I'm not trying to impress people. Leave that to people with microphones up front. That lasts for a little while. But I wanna impact up close. You know, the domino stories just coming out of the sportsman's banquet are overwhelming. This person, who someone was praying for them for years, who met this person, who invited this person, who brought that person with them. And because so many of you acted at the end, I'm gonna get a ticket. One for me, one for someone who's unsaved or someone who's unchurched. We see all these people give their life to Christ. But we can do that every day. We can do that every day. Church happens every week.
You know, that's why some of you even last week were like, is church still on? Bro, tabernacle doesn't close. The baton has been passed. Now I never ran track and field, but you know what I'm talking about, right? There's too much running in track. But when one runner passes the baton to the next, the baton's been passed to you. And you can decide, well, I don't like running. Or like Paul, you can run the race. Like those who've gone before us, we can run the race. Proclaiming Jesus to anyone, to everyone, everywhere, boldly and unhindered. What I'm trying to say is it's our turn.
It's our turn. And we've been doing it, but we need to keep doing it. Some of us are doing it, but some of us are not. Some of us are choosing to be a period. That's a dangerous place to be. I would rather be an ellipsis. You see, with or without us, no matter what happens in the future of the tabernacle, as the Lord tarries, if I'm here or I'm not, and we're all dead and gone, you know what? He'll still prevail. And we'll just be another brick in the wall, to quote Pink Floyd. But I'm okay with that, because this isn't about me.
And it's not about you. Just like the book of Acts is not about Paul. The book of Acts is about Jesus, the King of Kings. So I'm gonna invite you all three of our campuses, if you'll bow your heads with me, the bands are gonna come and I'm gonna ask you a question. And I don't ask this question because I don't know how to end. I'm a respecter of the Holy Spirit and I respect the volition, the free will of your heart. What is God saying to you? And what will you do about it? This might be the most important moment of the service. God, what are you saying to me? And what do you want me to do about it? Father, we thank you.
for your words, specifically the book of Acts. We thank you of the examples of the men and the women who suffered for your name, who suffered to plant your church, who sacrificed careers and fortunes and futures and retirement, even their own lives. God, would you help us not to be soft? Would you help us not to be lazy? Would you help us not to be blind and deaf and have dull hearts? Give us eyes to see the needs around us. Would you give us ears to hear your voice directing us?
Would you give us hearts that are on fire for you and your gospel and advancing your kingdom? And God, in the everyday spaces and places that we find ourselves, by the power of your spirit, would you help us to impact lives up close for your glory, to proclaim your great name? And it's in that name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.