Overcoming Discouraging Circumstances

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles, turn to Acts chapter 18, and hold your place at verse 1.
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The title this morning is Overcoming Discouraging Circumstances, Overcoming Discouraging Circumstances.
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Life is filled with moments of discouragement.
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No matter how positive and good things may be going, it seems there are times when difficulties and discouragements and pains and sufferings can rear their ugly head.
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We can be doing great and wonderful and feel healthy and take one trip to the doctor and life turn us on our head.
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We can get up one morning feeling like things are well, we're financially stable, our children are healthy and we have all that we need only to go in and find out our job has been dissolved.
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Life is filled with difficulty and one of the most difficult things that we deal with in life is people.
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People will sometimes disappoint us or even turn their backs on us and we can be left feeling lonely, we can be left feeling insecure by the pains inflicted by people who we once called friends and I will say that in the ministry this is particularly poignant because we will spend hour upon hour trying to witness to someone and when we're witnessing to someone it seems like, and we know there is an eternal significance to what we're doing, it's not as if we're trying to convince someone to follow our favorite ball team or not as if we're trying to convince someone to like the same music that we like or even the political position that someone may in, it's not like we're trying to simply get them to vote in the way that we might think they ought.
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But when we're talking to someone about eternity, we're talking to them about life forever in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ where there will be unending and unspeakable joy forever only increasing to His glory or a life wholly cut off from the grace of God only enveloped in His wrath forever.
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So it can be quite discouraging when we go to a person and we begin to talk to them about the gospel and they say I don't want to hear that, I have no need for that, what a foolish statement but you've all heard it, I don't need to think about that, at least not right now, I'm in my twenties, I'm in my teens, people don't die until they're old.
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And so we attempt to share the gospel with them only to be rebuffed and we find ourselves discouraged.
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Or even worse, we find someone who confesses Christ and we are excited that this person has received the Lord seemingly by verbally at least confessing Him as Savior, they've been washed in the waters of baptism, they've tasted of communion and they've tasted the beauty of the glory of Jesus Christ and we've discipled them and we see them then depart.
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What a discouraging day that is to see a person that you've poured not only hours of ministry into but tears over prayer to see them walk away.
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It's such a heartbreaking moment.
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We work alongside people only to have one disagreement uproot decades of ministry and it would be easy to allow the discouragements of ministry to overwhelm us and to make us think, is it even worth it? Should we even continue? Just going to sit down and quit.
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Just going to stop.
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Well, Paul the Apostle was not immune from discouragement.
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He was not immune from difficulty and people, I think, consider Paul to be somewhat of a superhuman man and in a way he is a great man, he was highly intelligent, used of God in so many miraculous ways, had a faith that I have a hard time even understanding the depths of it and his ability to go and willingness to go and yet he was a man and he dealt with discouragement and difficulty as a man and today we're going to look at a part of scripture where as I am reading this I see Paul in the face of tremendous difficulty and yet he stays the course.
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And so today I want us to read this and we're going to read 17 verses.
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I will greatly admit I will not be giving a complete exposition of all 17 verses, but I don't want to just read part of it.
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Because the narrative of his time in Corinth is hugely important to understand what he was facing and how God saw him through.
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So would you read with me as we stand? We're going to read, we stand to give honor and reverence to God's word and we're going to read verses 1-17 and then I'll preach through as much as God will give me the ability.
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It says, after Paul left, or excuse me, after this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth and he found a Jew named Achilla, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla.
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Because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome and he went to see them and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked for they were tent makers by trade and he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.
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When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus and when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, your blood be on your own heads.
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I am innocent.
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From now on I will go to the Gentiles.
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And he left there and he went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshipper of God.
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His house was next door to the synagogue.
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Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord together with his entire household and many of the Corinthians, hearing Paul, believed and were baptized and the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, do not be afraid but go on speaking and do not be silent for I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you for I have many in this city who are my people and he stayed a year and six months teaching the word of God among them.
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But when Galileo was pro-council of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal saying this man has persuaded people to worship God contrary to the law.
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But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Galileo said to the Jews, if it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, oh Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves.
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I refuse to be a judge of these things and he drove them from the tribunal and they all seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal but Galileo paid no attention to any of this.
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That is the word of the Lord, let us pray.
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Father, we thank you for this opportunity to look at this word, to study this narrative, to be encouraged by it and Lord, as we see the apostle Paul going into a city owned by liceviousness and licentiousness and yet, Father, not giving in to the discouragement and being encouraged by you, I pray that we would also understand that we have reason to be encouraged by you as well.
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Father, we live in a nation which is in many ways on par with Corinth, it is a vanity fair and yet, oh God, Paul spent 18 months ministering there.
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May we see that tenacity as a reason to stay the course.
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No matter what may come, Father, encourage us and I pray now as I preach this word that you would keep me from error, I pray that you would keep me from saying anything that would be against your word or against the truth on behalf of your people and for my own soul and my sake, I pray for that protection and I pray that you would bless this time to glorify you, instruct your saints and lead unbelievers to the truth.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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Want to add a small disclaimer to today's message.
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It's going to begin sort of heavily filled with historical background because it's somewhat necessary to understanding the narrative.
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And for those of you who haven't been with us, we've been doing a verse by verse exposition of Acts.
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We have taken a few Sundays off.
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Last week we stopped to talk about the election and God still being on His throne and guess what? He still is on His throne.
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He was on His throne Monday, He's on His throne Tuesday and He's on His throne Wednesday, He's on His throne today and so we're encouraged by that.
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But when we are in Acts, if you haven't been in the study with us, you might not know where we are so let me at least just bring you up to speed.
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We're leading in Acts 18.
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This is Paul's second missionary journey.
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He's received a vision from God to go into Macedonia where he and his companions Silas and Timothy and at some point Luke had gone and upon arriving in Philippi, he was able to establish a church there and then he went on to Thessalonica, to Berea and then to Athens.
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In each area he stirred up the people and when he stirred up the people, he was run out of town.
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Even Athens did not welcome him, though there is no space in the scripture where it says they ran him out of town, they also didn't welcome him in as one of the culturally or intellectually elite either.
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As one commentator said, from Athens he was dismissed with polite contempt rather than violently driven out.
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It's sort of just okay, we go on.
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So Paul leaves Athens, the bastion of intellectualism of the ancient world and he travels to a city called Corinth, says in verse 1 and I'm just going to go through the text but we're going to stop at verse 1 and spend some time because it says after this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth and again if you know nothing of the ancient world, that statement wouldn't seem like a whole lot.
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Most Christians are familiar with Corinth only because the New Testament has two books which are addressed to the church which was founded there and those who haven't read those books or read the history surrounding the city of Corinth may think, well they're two Christian, well that's a Christian town because it had two books written to it.
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And so we might think of Corinth as just another place on Paul's list of stops but Corinth is unlike many of the cities that Paul has come to at this time.
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Corinth was the capital of Achaia and was the third largest city in the Roman Empire.
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In the first century it was the third only to Rome itself and to Alexandria.
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It had a population of some 200,000 people which would have been 20 times that of Athens.
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Remember Paul just left Athens which was a center for intellectualism but it was a relatively small place.
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He's now in Corinth which is many times larger.
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It hosted the famous Isthmian games every two years which are even at this point in history more popular than the Olympics.
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So this was a place that people knew about and people made pilgrimages to and people traveled to this place.
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It was a huge center of commerce and it was also a huge center of religion.
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It was the center where Aphrodite, also called Venus, the Greek goddess of love, was worshipped there in Corinth.
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There was a temple that was filled with no less than a thousand sacred temple prostitutes who made it their job to use that engagement as a part of worship.
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So Corinth because of this was known for being a place of sexual immorality, sexual promiscuity.
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As early as the 5th century B.C.
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to Corinthianize was a verb which meant to engage in sexually immoral behavior and a Corinthian woman was the synonym for the harlot.
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John Stott in his commentary on this particular passage says that Corinth was the vanity fair of the ancient world.
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It was the vanity fair of the Roman Empire.
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Many of you probably think of vanity fair as a magazine.
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Most people don't know it as anything but.
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But that phrase, vanity fair, actually has its origins back in the writings of the Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.
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When John Bunyan was giving allegorical names to certain cities that the Christian would pass through on his journey, one of those cities was called Vanity.
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And it was called Vanity because it was an endless fair.
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It was just always amusement all the time and it was intended to titillate the senses and it was a place of pure, licentious and lascivious behavior.
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It was the vanity fair.
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Vanity fair is a place with an over-the-top urban lifestyle, a place where merriment reigns.
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And again, this is a major cultural shift for the Apostle Paul because he just left the intellectual capital of the world.
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He left a place highly focused on academics and now he has gone to a place highly focused on amusement.
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Athens was the home of the philosopher, Corinth the home of the philanderer.
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Athens sought to stimulate and satisfy the mind and Corinth the body.
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If a correlation could be found today, and I kind of racked my brain trying to think because there's no city of Yale or Harvard, but I kind of thought of, you know, if you think of Yale and Harvard and these sort of intellectual places where intellectual philosophers gather, you'd think that would sort of be the Athens of the ancient world.
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What then would be Corinth? Las Vegas, we've talked about this, Mike and I, about how they just hand out pornography in the street there.
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Atlantic City maybe, I've never been there, but you know.
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So, you know, if we had a comparison, which we really don't, I would say based on what I've read, even Las Vegas would pale in comparison to what was happening in Corinth.
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Because the promiscuity of Corinth was not, as it were, simply part of the debauchery of the place, it was part of the worship.
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It was part of how men and women sought their righteousness, as it were, was through this promiscuity and bad behavior.
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And in the midst of this immorality, in fact, I almost titled the sermon, Preaching the Gospel to Immoral People, but then I thought, are there any other kind? You know, I mean, do we really, have we ever preached the gospel to a righteous man? No, there is none righteous, no, not one, you know, so really, I changed the title because of that, but seriously though, here Paul is coming into a place where immorality is seen as a virtue, and maybe there is a little difference there.
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I mean, think about our nation, there was at least a time when immorality was sought to be hidden.
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Television and movies would have certain standards by which they would set things aside, even when Ricky and Lucy didn't sleep in the same bed, you know, we understand there was a time when there was an attempt to say there are things that are right and there are things that are wrong and we are going to sort of separate those things out.
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Well in Corinth, that which was immoral was that which was virtuous, they had become the masters of calling good evil and evil good.
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And in the midst of this immorality, in comes the Apostle Paul, and you might think that that superhero of a man, with no less than the crimson S on his chest, came riding into town as it were a white knight, with a scripture roll in his hand ready to whack down any immoral person.
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You might think that he went in just as a hero of heroes.
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Well, I want to show you something in 1 Corinthians if I might.
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Just hold your place in Acts and I just want you to turn to 1 Corinthians 2.
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1 Corinthians 2 verse 1, it's only a few books over, Paul recounts this situation in his letter to the Corinthians.
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He recounts what he remembers about his journey there.
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1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 1, he said, And when I came to you brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.
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See, he had just come from Athens and that's what they cared about in Athens, was lofty speech.
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He said, I didn't come to you with that.
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For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
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My message was simple, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, repent and trust in Him.
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And verse 3 is the key.
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And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
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You think Paul came in as a white knight? No, Paul came in as in his own words, in weakness and in fear and in trembling.
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I don't know how many of you have been out with us when we go out to evangelize.
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I don't know how many of you have been out to the fishing hole with us.
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But I will say this, there are times when you go out and you're surrounded by the brethren and you feel kind of, you know, you feel kind of good because you're not all alone.
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But just this last time we went out, Mike and I had spent a few, 10 days out there and we would sort of rotate back and forth and other people would come.
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But there was a few times where we were there for hours by ourselves.
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And I tell you, Callahan sort of country area, people aren't as antagonistic at least by norm.
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But I got to thinking, you know, imagine being all by yourself.
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Because Paul is alone at this point.
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He's going to meet some people and live with them and there's a relationship that's going to form.
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But at this point, Timothy and Silas, they're back in Berea dealing with that church.
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And here he is.
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He's there alone.
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And he says, I was in weakness and in fear and much trembling.
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Because not only is he alone, he's alone with a city of 200,000 people.
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The only people he has any religious association with at all would have been the Jewish people and they hated his message.
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Imagine the sense of discouragement that he would have faced in such a place.
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You see people saying they're worshiping God through spending time with prostitutes.
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You're trying to go and take these people to gospel.
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I got to thinking this week, I said, you know, it's one thing to have someone reject your message intellectually.
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It's another thing to have someone reject your message morally.
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For instance, if I were to go on to a college campus and have an opportunity to speak to a professor, and I might be able to share with him the truth of the gospel, and we might have an intellectual debate on the historicity of the scriptures and the testimony of Christ and who he was, and we might have some intellectual rousing conversation back and forth.
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But you know what, if I was asked to go preach at a frat house on a Friday night, it might be a little bit more intimidating.
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Because where in one sense I might fear intellectually being dispatched because I just didn't know enough or whatever, didn't know how to debate, I might fear getting carried out on a stretcher in the frat house.
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It's a much different place and a much different sense of fear that Paul's experiencing here.
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Yet as we're going to see, even though coming in weakness and fear, Paul ended up staying here for much longer than he stayed in Athens.
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We don't know really how long he stayed in Athens, but they tell us specifically, the writer Luke tells us specifically in this scripture that he stayed here for a year and a half.
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And it got me to thinking, what was the appeal? Why not Athens for a year and a half? Why not sit there and debate the philosophers for a year and a half? Why go to the frat house for a year and a half? Well, there were some reasons why Corinth would have made a better place.
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Corinth contained a world famous emporium that brought people from all around the world.
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It commanded the trade routes in all directions, not only north and south, but also east and west.
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It was situated close to an isthmus which joined the mainland of Greece to the Peloponnesian peninsula.
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Let's try saying that three times.
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And there was a place in Corinth where it was only three and a half miles from sea to sea.
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And what would happen is, instead of sailing all around that peninsula, ships would bring their cargo in and they would have it carried across that three mile area to put on another ship.
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It was much quicker and safer than trying to navigate all the way around that peninsula.
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Or they even had a rail system where smaller ships could be taken up out of the water, put onto these rails and taken across that three mile way, put back in the water and continue on.
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John Stott, again I reference him, such a great commentator, he said that Paul must have seen the strategic importance of where he was.
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If trade could radiate from Corinth in all directions, so too could the gospel radiate in all directions from this place.
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And this leads us to verse two.
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It says, And he found a Jew named Achilla, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome, and he went to see them.
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And because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked, for they were tent makers by trade.
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Again, this takes a little bit of history to understand this, because it mentions a historical event.
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Claudius, the emperor at that time, had made a specific rule that the Jews had to leave Rome.
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This is actually something that we can learn about outside of the scriptures.
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There's history written about this particular event.
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A historian named Suetonius wrote about this particular event, and he says that the Jews were expelled from Rome because they were rioting.
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And what I find most interesting is that they were rioting over a person, and the person's name was Crestus.
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And many scholars have conjectured and wondered, and I'm not arguing this for proof, and if you want to argue the other way, I'm not going to, you can have it, I'm not going to argue, but here's, some have said that perhaps Suetonius misunderstood, and it was actually the name of Christos that was causing the rioting in Rome.
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You see, Christos is how the title of the Messiah, Christ, is said in Greek.
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And so if Suetonius heard that some person named Crestus was creating a division between the Jews in Rome, perhaps it wasn't Crestus, but perhaps the message of the gospel had made its way to Rome.
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Remember, Paul's not the only missionary.
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We talked about this already.
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There were other people going other directions too.
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Paul is who we follow.
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Paul is who Luke gives us his testimony, but Paul's not the only one.
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Perhaps the message of the gospel had made its way to Rome, and perhaps this message of the gospel had already divided men and women in Rome of the Jewish nation, or the Jewish people there.
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And because of the rioting that had occurred, Claudius said, you're out of there.
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Now I tend to believe, and again I wouldn't mind a rousing debate, actually just, yeah I would.
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But I tend to think that Priscilla and Achilla are already believers here.
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And you say, well why? It says, and he found a Jew named Achilla.
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It doesn't say a believer named Achilla, but it does say this, it says he was recently from Rome with his wife, because Claudius had commanded the Jews to leave Rome, and he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them.
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But it never mentions their conversion.
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In other times when Paul meets someone and he shares the gospel, we get a reference to their conversion, but here we only see that he meets them and he begins to stay with them.
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Now is it possible that in staying with them and in working alongside them, he brought their conversion through the preaching of the gospel? Sure.
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Is it possible they'd already heard about this Christos? Because they had come from Rome and this division that had happened, possibly that too.
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And we don't know, and as I said, it's not a hill to die on.
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But it's an interesting thing to think that God had already began to establish His church in other places, outside of just what Paul's doing.
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God is sending His missionaries and God has missionaries working in other places as well.
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This passage also brings up another issue which I really, for lack of time, don't want to get into too far, but it does bring up the issue of bivocational ministry.
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I'm never going to get to the end.
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There's so much stuff in this passage, but this is interesting.
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You guys know what bivocational ministry is.
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Bivocational ministry is when a pastor works a second job, usually one that actually pays the bills, because for whatever reason the ministry that he's doing isn't able to support his family at that time.
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My family and I are grateful that here at the church, you all are able to support us and we're grateful for that.
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But we've talked about the fact that we may one day be called to a church where I have to take a job as a teacher, I have a degree, I could teach social studies, I call it my tent making degree, for this very reason, comes from this very passage.
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The idea is there, I had a pastor, I think, Brother John's, Jim, didn't he have to sell furniture? I remember he telling us that story, that he was called to a small church.
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This guy was a very good pastor, preacher, had come out of a larger church, but this small church up in Georgia had called him.
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And they couldn't support his family, but he felt God calling him to go to this place that wasn't able to pay him at all what he was making when he left the church that he left.
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But he felt God's direction to that small church, and he said, well, I'll sell furniture to support my family.
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And that's what he did.
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He sold furniture and he preached the gospel until such time as the church had grown to the point where they could support him, and it did.
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And I only mention that because what you see here, Paul is making tents, not just because he wants something to do.
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Paul is making tents, I believe, because at this point, he has depleted his funds.
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He's at a point where he hasn't connected with the men that he came from for a while.
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And notice this, I want to show you this in verse 5.
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We're going to jump past verse 4 just real quick.
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In verse 5, it says, when Silas and Timothy arrived in Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word.
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In the ESV, that's a terrible translation, because that's not what it means.
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It doesn't say was occupied, it says he became occupied or became wholly absorbed, is the better for the Greek.
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He became wholly absorbed in proclaiming the word.
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And why? Because at that point, they were bringing him some sustenance.
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He could now not have to do that second job anymore.
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Now he could focus on the word.
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Now he's able to do what he needs to do.
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Paul didn't make tents because it was fun, Paul made tents because eating is a good thing to do if you want to survive.
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These men come, they bring with them probably an offering from Philippi, because there was an established church there.
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They come to him, now you have some support.
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And this is a way that God encourages him.
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That's right.
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Because he had been making tents during the week in verse 4, and he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath.
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Now I'm not saying Paul only preached on Saturday, because it was a Sabbath.
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But I'm saying this, his ministry was held back by his having to work.
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These guys come in, wholly devoted now.
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He's back at it, and he's ready to go.
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It's just an interesting little side note here.
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God knew he needed encouragement.
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And what did he need encouragement to do? To get back at it.
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You ever need that? You ever just feel beaten down, and you need encouragement to get back out there and do what God's called you to do? And God gives you that little nudge, or that little help to get you past whatever it is you're facing.
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That's what Paul is here.
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And he pushes him forward.
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Now, I think I'm going to wait for next week to deal with the next part.
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Because what happens next is interesting.
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Because it says, when they opposed and reviled him, he's preaching to the Jews, and now he's on fire.
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He's back at it.
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He's 100%.
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He's occupied with the word.
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He's out there, and he's ready to preach.
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And now he goes into the synagogues.
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He's preaching.
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And they are reviling him.
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The word here from the Greek is blaspheme futon, but that's from the word blasphemous.
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They were blaspheming him.
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They were reviling him.
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They were hating him for preaching the gospel to them.
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And what does he do? He said, your what? Your blood be on your own heads.
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I want to show you where that comes from, if I might.
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Because I think this is an important thing that Jews would have understood, probably better than the Gentiles, perhaps.
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And we're going to go to the Old Testament, and I'll end with this passage.
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Go back to Ezekiel 33.
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Ezekiel 33.
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The word of the Lord came to me, son of man, speak to your people and say to them, if I bring the sword upon the land and the people of the land take a man from among them and make him their watchman, and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, that if anyone hears the sound of the trumpet, does not take his warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head.
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He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning, his blood shall be upon himself.
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But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life.
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Verse 6.
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But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand.
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Many of you have heard this before.
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Perhaps some of you have heard it as a reason for evangelism.
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Maybe somebody has preached this passage to you, saying you're the watchman, go and preach the gospel and leave it be, because if you preach the gospel and they believe it, great, but if they don't, their blood is on their heads.
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Maybe you've heard that phrase.
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But I think that this is exactly the point that Paul is making reference to when he says to the Jews, your blood be on your heads.
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Because in a sense, Paul is the watchman who's been set by God and sent by God to these people to preach the gospel to them, and they have the very scriptures, the word of God in front of them that tells them who Jesus is.
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Paul is connecting, as it were, the dots, saying look here at Psalm 22.
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Look here at Isaiah 53.
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Of course, he wouldn't have said it that way, but he's showing them the scriptures.
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He's saying look here, the Messiah born in Bethlehem, and he shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
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Isaiah was talking about Jesus, Moses was talking about Jesus, David was talking about Jesus, and he's pointing these people to Jesus, and they are blaspheming him.
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They are saying liar, charlatan, false teacher, heretic.
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And Paul as the watchman says this, I have warned you, I have given you the gospel, you have rejected it, and now I am innocent.
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From this point, Paul will turn his attention to the Gentiles.
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He won't stop preaching to the Jews.
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Some people think that at this point he stops preaching to the Jews.
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No, he doesn't.
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But he does, and later in the scriptures in Acts 13, or rather Romans 11, he says I am the apostle to the Gentiles.
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He specifically makes it a point to say that that's what God called him to do.
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But never you think that Paul, when he said this to those Jewish people, that they didn't understand what he meant.
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They would have understood what he meant.
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He's referencing the fact, I am the watchman God has sent to you.
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I am calling you to repentance and faith.
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What you do with that will be between God and you.
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But I am innocent.
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Beloved, this is for us a word of encouragement regarding evangelism.
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Because I know that some of you, and myself included, we have family and friends that we have pleaded on our knees with to come to Christ.
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And I'm not saying wash your hands and walk away.
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I'm not saying Paul is necessarily giving you that example.
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But I will say this.
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If you have been honest, if you have proclaimed the gospel to them, you can be confident that that responsibility has been met.
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And you can't change their heart.
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I know some of you don't evangelize because you're afraid of failure.
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Beloved, I imagine in a city of 200,000, Paul had a lot of people who rejected what he had to say.
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You are never a failure if you're preaching the truth.
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So whether or not you have discouragement, and we're going to go on a little further next week on this, but if you have discouragement in evangelism or ministry, know this.
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If you are preaching the truth, if you're proclaiming the truth of the gospel, whether you see one convert or a thousand converts, you're not a failure because God is the one who converts hearts.
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You are the one who simply tells the truth.
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So let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for this opportunity to see this situation with the Apostle Paul.
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And next week when we see him receiving converts and we see him, as it were, setting up shop right next to the local synagogue and the battles that come from that and your promise to sustain him, I pray, Father, that we would remember that our ministries, whatever ministries you've given to us, our ministries always come down to our faith that you are the one who converts hearts and changes lives.
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We are but your messengers.
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You are the king.
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And we praise you and thank you.
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In Jesus' name, amen.
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Beloved, we are now coming to our time where we celebrate communion together.
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It's an opportunity for self-reflection for the believer and it's an opportunity for the unbeliever to be faced with another reminder that you should turn your heart to Christ.
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Let's stand and sing as we think about these things.