SMSS October 25th 2020

Whitten Baptist Church iconWhitten Baptist Church

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Acts 27 this morning. Acts chapter 27, and on your papers,
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I went ahead and outlined the whole chapter for you. Actually, I just stole some of the notes from the preparation for Wednesday night, but I'm going to actually start on the back of that front page,
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I'm going to start where it says Killers of Hope in verse 20. Let me kind of set the ground work, if you will.
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Once again, the historical and the archaeological evidence of this particular part of history and this particular narrative of the book of Acts is well documented.
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There are so many time stamps and there are so many names given that are both traceable in extracurricular historical accounts and legal accounts and historian accounts of those times.
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And it's really awesome. And it's not awesome just because we are seeing something of late antiquity.
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It's awesome because I believe it gives us a sense of hope. Guys, what does
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Christianity mean to you? I mean, and don't give me some stupid church answer.
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I'm talking about really. What does Christianity mean to you?
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It's not rhetorical. What? Something worth living for.
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Okay. Follower of Christ.
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All right. Going home someday. Telling others about Jesus.
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I agree with all of those. But you know, for me, it changes depending on where I'm at emotionally, spiritually, physically.
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I'm in a weak place right now. I don't have a lot of strength in my body or in in my heart right now.
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And so I tend to in those weak moments of my life, I tend to look towards God's word and what he has done for me.
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And I look at it looking for hope, you know, hope, man. And if you look and if you think about the gospel of Jesus Christ, Christianity is a message of hope to a world who has rebelled against its creator.
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It is still God through the death of his son, providing hope for people that do not deserve it.
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Look at me in verse 20. Paul has been arrested. He was brought before.
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If you've been with us on Wednesday night, you kind of know what's going on for chapters 22 and 23.
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He has been arrested, let's say, in Memphis. And then he appealed to the courts in Shelby County.
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Then he appealed to the state courts in Tennessee. And finally, Paul just simply said,
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I've had enough. I appealed to Caesar. Now, what's really cool about that is this.
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Once again, this is not a silly Bible story. This is following in conjunction with what we know with Roman history.
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If you were a citizen of Rome, you had massive, massive rights.
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Huge rights. Now, most of Rome, the nation of Rome, or I should say the
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Roman Empire, was made up of, you know, the number one demographic in Roman times were slaves.
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In Rome, there were over a million people living there at the time, which was insane.
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Most people were still living in wooden huts. Rome had columns of marble and science and plumbing and everything else.
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But most of the people in the capital of Rome were slaves. They had no hope.
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They had nothing. They were simply there as property of the
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Roman citizen. Ah, but the Roman citizen had rights, man. You could not arrest, a lot of our laws in the
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United States are based on this, you could not arrest a Roman citizen and hold him or it was illegal to bind them.
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If you actually bound their hands together, if you put handcuffs on them, it could cost you your life.
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You didn't get written up by your supervisor. You forfeited your life. A Roman citizen could not be held without proof of his crime.
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A Roman citizen could not be beaten or have a fine impressed upon him.
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But one of the most powerful things about being a Roman citizen was this. If you disagreed with any judgment that anyone in a lower court case gave you, you had the right to go to Caesar.
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You could go to the emperor of the entire empire and say,
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I was wrong and he would listen to you. Paul had done that.
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Paul was a Roman citizen, albeit a Jew. He was a Roman citizen and he finally got sick of everything and finally just said,
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I appeal to Caesar. But what's really cool, even though Paul said that, that was already
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God's plan. Look here in verse 20. They get Paul, they put him on a ship, they're sailing around and they're trying to get to Rome from the
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Middle East there and they're getting there and they're getting in some trouble with the wind and the waves.
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So verse 20, for many days, neither sun nor stars appeared and the severe storm kept raging.
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Finally, all hope that we would be saved was disappearing. I'll be honest with you, man, this past year, there has been many opportunities for myself as well as a lot of other folks to say, man, all hope was disappearing.
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Are you in that place this morning? I mean, hope of finances, hope of health, hope of our country getting back together, hope of the future, hope of what?
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It seems to me that a lot of folks today are losing hope and a lot of Christians are losing hope.
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And I tell you, one of the most detrimental things to our individual hope is this, is it just keeps going.
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You know, you ever heard the phrase, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired? Storms are bad.
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Storms that keep going are worse because it just seems like there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
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I think about brother Robert. He had that surgery last week and for the first time in four years, a doctor was able to tell him something good.
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Can you imagine that? Four years of surgery after surgery after surgery after surgery of getting horrible diagnosis.
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And for the first time in four years, someone actually said, hey, the surgery went as better than expected.
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Man, extended storms give war out, don't they? Get tired.
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Here's one that I hear often. I cannot, I cannot get my relationship with God right.
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Or every time I try, I fail. And people will actually,
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I know this sounds weird to Witten folks, but you know, there are Christians out there that actually just quit trying.
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They just give up. They go through the motions. They'll go to church, but they don't read the
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Bible for any other reason than when they're sitting in church. There's no joy in their life.
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There's no peace in your life. Guys, that has got to be the most miserable situation.
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Has anybody know anybody like that? Yeah. There's a bunch of y 'all in here.
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I can always tell when I start saying something to people that do this. Guys, hope can be absolutely butchered.
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But I want us to read and I'm going to give you three things this morning on how to restore some hope.
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Read verse 23. Read verse 23. It says this. I'm sorry.
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Yeah, here we go. Paul sits there and everybody had lost hope.
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And Paul said for this night, guys, relax for this night and the angel of God I belong to and serve stood by me.
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And he said, don't be afraid, Paul. You must stand before Caesar.
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And look, God has graciously given you all those who are sailing with you.
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Guys, let me first talk to you a little bit about this. I want to talk to you about but God.
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When it says in your world that you are absolutely a loser, you're divorced, your kids are in rebellion, your dog hates you, your job hates you, everybody hates you.
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I want you to remember those two words, but God, because no matter what situation you find yourself in this dimension and this pseudo reality,
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I am telling you, there is a reality greater and it belongs to the title but God.
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Oh, but Brother Jeff, you don't understand. No, son, you don't understand how great the sovereignty of God really is.
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Guys, we're living in a world. We're living in a world where people are deciding whether they're male or female and the scientists and the masses are agreeing with them.
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And you're going, oh, my God, the world's coming to an end. But God is in control.
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He hasn't batted an eye. He hadn't lost a minute of sleep. He's not going, oh, my gosh, Gabriel, what are we going to do?
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Because it's coming exactly like it's supposed to be. Here's the number one thing, first of all, or the first thing that you need to do to get that but God mentality and restore hope in your life is you need to understand your position in the middle of the storm, your position.
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Well, pastor, what's my position? Read Paul's words again. Read it again. Watch what it says.
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Verse 23. It says for this night, an angel of the of the
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God I belong to and serve. You know what's going to help you in your life?
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First of all, let me give you just a little bit of counseling advice. Here are the number two reasons.
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Here are first reason and second reason. I believe most people at Wynton Baptist Church, because I know you guys,
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I don't know everybody. But here are the first and second reasons I think we experience anxiety and depression.
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You ready? After polling a lot of people, number one is procrastination. And that fits with the national data as well.
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Procrastination is the number one thing. The number two thing is pride.
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Now, here's what's wild. Pride is really not true. What I see in most people that I counsel, pride is nothing more than a thin veneer covering up the rotten wood that's really hiding underneath.
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And you've got to a point where you're sick and tired of pulling up that mask and holding up that mask.
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But your entire identity, self -worth is wrapped in your opinion of yourself.
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And you sit there and keep heaping that same weight upon you until a point to where it becomes absolutely exhausting.
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Word of God tells us, humble thyself in the sight of God and he will lift you up in due time.
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Guys, some of y 'all don't want to walk through the storm. Some of y 'all want to be out of the storm.
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You've got to remember that your position in God is this. You belong to him.
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He does not belong to you. You are a slave of God. One of the worst things, vernacularly, that we have left out of the teaching because of our cultural idiocy of slavery.
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By the way, let me just stop you right here. In any case, I want to give you a little apologetics.
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I learned this the other day. Have y 'all ever heard of the 1611 or is it 1609? Y 'all haven't heard this?
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Oh my God. I found a lot of stuff out about myself these past two weeks. I'm a colonizer.
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A colonizer. Did y 'all not know that? I am a colonizer because I am on Native American land.
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Did y 'all know that? Y 'all all looking at me like I'm crazy. Roll on this or you'll get more smoke.
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Listen to me. I'm a colonizer and I, right here, me,
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I am responsible for slavery in the United States of America. And so I should repay everyone who was a slave their descendants money back.
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Sweet. Okay, watch this. I demand the same thing. First of all, the United States of America did not exist as a country legally until 1783.
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So you're about 150 years off, bud. Number two, I know my family lineage.
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We're called Mutts, right? I was, my family was kicked out of every other place in Europe because, well, we were dumb, poor, white trash.
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By the way, Americans owning slaves, listen, Americans owning slaves, guys, it is this big compared to the nation.
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Name me one culture or civilization in the entire history of the world, geniuses, who did not own slaves.
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Name me one. Anybody. No, the
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Jews did. Africans did. Greeks did. Romans did. Everyone did. Guys, why am
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I saying this is important? Because of the stupid cultural movements that I see in our world today, we don't like the word slave.
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But that is one of the number one words God refers to us as in scripture.
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Do us. Christian, are you one of those people running around talking about your rights all the time and how you're offended all the time and how somebody did you wrong and something blah, blah, blah.
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And you got to stand up and you're gonna tell them how you are going to struggle with depression, anxiety for the rest of your life.
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And you're going to be a worthless piece of lint in the pocket of Jesus Christ. Unless you get your attitude right that you are nothing more of a slave and you deserve nothing more than hell and damnation for eternity.
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It is only by God's grace you're anything else. See, when you get the proper mindset of who you are, what it does is it makes the storm in direct proportion to who you are.
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Because here's why. I'll be honest with you. A lot of the storms we go through are of our own making.
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But we'll get to that in a second. So the first thing in restoring hope in your life is getting the proper perspective of what your position is in God.
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Now Romans 8 tells us that we can yell out Abba, Father, because we are his children.
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But never mistake the fact that you are still subordinate to the only begotten Son. That you are, yes, a son of the living
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God. You are a son inherited in the kingdom, but you ain't there yet. And until we get there and that inheritance, that beautiful beam of seed of Christ is given, you are nothing but a slave to walk this world and to have the humility of what
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Christ really did. Second thing is this. Not just the position of God. We've got to start being understanding the plan of God.
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How many of y 'all are looking for a wife and a husband right now? One, two, tomato, tomato.
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You know what I'm saying? Okay, well, lady is.
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So any of you single guys, you're single, so you are. I don't know a 20 -something year old man or a woman who does not want to be attached.
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And I don't mean in some sick twisted way. I mean the validity of thing fulfillment.
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And here's what people always do. They always want to pray to find the will of God.
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Great. Pray. But let me help you with something in giving you hope.
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You're not going to know the will of God if you don't know the word of God. You see, you want to rub a magic talisman or you want to pray and dance around, but you don't want to submit to the plan of almighty
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God. I was worried about Jeremiah. Still am. I mean, he's he's got a wife and a girlfriend already,
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Rolando and Christian, but I was
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I just in my brain, I was like, who in God's name would be dumb enough to marry him?
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I'll be honest with you. I thought that about Josiah. I really did. I mean, who wants to feed that person?
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Have you ever watched Pastor Josiah eat? It is both nauseating and scary at the same time.
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I mean, I really I want to wear chain mail gloves around. I'm afraid I'm going to reach for my tee and lose a pinky.
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Yeah, right. Yes. I prayed it for every one of my children.
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Now I'm trying to find a husband for my daughter. Don't care what color.
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And at this point, I really don't care about anything else either. You know, somebody marry her so I can have grandkids.
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That's Sandra's granddaughter. I want one. All right, guys, seriously, listen. Guys, we see things and we lose perspective on God's sovereign in his plan.
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We start looking at things that are stacked against us. We start looking at things that seem insurmountable to us and we forget that God is still in control and still has a plan.
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Look at verse 24. God doesn't get caught off guard. It says, don't be afraid.
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You must stand before Caesar. And look, God is graciously giving you all that are sailing with you.
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Guys, do you understand this? Now I want you to wrap your head around this for a second. God had decreed that Paul was going to go to Rome and Paul was going to speak to Caesar the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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We have Passover. This storm was really bad. And that boat was a hooptie, man. I didn't think that boat was going to get there, you know.
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And let me spill the tea on you on this. Paul was a prisoner going there.
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He was out of control. He didn't know what he was doing or how he was going to get there. By the way, three years later, guess where Paul was?
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Watch this. Come here. Let me help you out. Here's God's plan for Jeff Shipley's life. 100 % sure of it.
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I am going to stand in heaven one day as a redeemed child of the living God. Oh, but pastor, you don't understand.
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I am going home one day. Like, but pastor, you're fat, you're old and you had heart surgery.
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Yeah. And I could drop dead before this next sentence ends. But I'm telling you this right now, look into my eyes and see if I'm joking.
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I'm going to be at home with my God. No matter what happens in this election.
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I mean, I got a guy who told me the other day, do you have any 223 because I'm worried about the election?
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I didn't answer. I just looked at him and go brother. Do you know what's going to happen after this election?
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Either Harris or Trump are going to be president. No, that was not a misquote.
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Either Harris or Trump are going to be president. But you know what that matters to me and my eternal destiny?
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Not a thing. What are you going to do to me? Someone could stand up and shoot me and kill me right now.
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I mean, like in real life, this isn't emotional hyperbole. You could kill me right now.
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And look, the fantasy in which you think I cease to exist in this world becomes the most powerful reality.
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For the first time, I will really be free. Guys, do you believe that?
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Look at me. Some of you have been lulled to sleep by religion and your sense of reality.
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And it's a prison for you. If this would happen, I would feel better if this would happen.
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This would make this much better if I could do this or if I could do that. And you're living as a slave to this world rather than a slave to Jesus Christ.
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God's plan for you is you're going home one day. If you're really a Christian, if you're a church person, you're going to go straight to hell in a hand basket.
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But if you are a child living God, no matter what happens, like Paul, he heard
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God's word. You're going to be here. Romans 8 says this. Those whom he justified, he will also say glorify, please, for me.
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So I won't feel like I'm at Bellevue. Glorify. Sanctification, justification, glorification.
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Learn them. Those in other words, those God saves, he's going to bring home. And the last thing is this.
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It's not just the position of God. It's not just the plan of God. It is the parameters of God.
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Yes, they're all peas. Guys, what's this for a second? Some of the storms you're in are not because of your fault.
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They're not like covid. I always love when I hear all the media people go. Well, if President Trump, it's a pandemic.
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Really? I mean, you think he went like, oh, look, a pandemic will take an order of that.
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I mean, come on, man. It's a pandemic. It's happened like several dozen times in the history of the world.
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Nobody's been able to stop it yet. I'm sure Obama could have.
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But anyways, a little bicycle helmet wearing nerd, guys, some of the problems you can't control.
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But guys, listen to me. Some of the problems y 'all are in some of the storms that you're dealing are of your own making.
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Come here. Listen, come here. Come here. Wives, your husbands are big, big, stupid losers.
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Right. And you're just oh, my God. It's just. You married them, you married.
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No, no, no. Some of you like chicks, they're just got all uppity.
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Come here. Your arrogant self -righteousness and your refusal to humble yourself before God is why you're so miserable all the time.
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And if you're one of those dorks that are just sitting there going to go, well, what do you how do you know? What if he beats her up?
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Walk up here. Walk right here. I promise you this is the safest place in the entire United States of America right there.
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Ain't no one going to hit you. Come on. And don't use that as an excuse. Listen to me.
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Some of y 'all are miserable because you're looking across men. Same thing to you. Well, if my wife lose 20 pounds, she'd look good.
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They'd be looked in the mirror lately. I mean. I rest my case.
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Guys, listen to me for a second. Some of your misery and depression has nothing to do except with self -pride and not getting what you think you want.
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You know what? The parameters of God are this. Come to me, all you, the heavy laden.
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Die well and come on home. Everything else is just great. Guys, we're born in the
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United States of America. That's a lot of grace. Watch this. Watch. Y 'all ready?
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I can do that today. Right now, someone in the world stopped doing that.
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Every time I snap my fingers, somebody's done right now. I'm still here. That's great.
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You need to readjust the parameters of why you're in the storm that you think you're in. Guys, here's another thing.
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Listen to me. Here's another parameter thing. Paul sat there and said, Look, guys, we're in the storm and we're going to stay here.
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The answer sometimes is to stay right dead in the middle of that storm.
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Paul said, Fear not. He didn't say, God's fixing to make the storm go away.
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Paul said, Stand fast. How many of y 'all are having struggles at work?
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How many of you are having struggles at home? How many of you are having addiction struggles? How many of you are having emotional struggles?
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You have a choice. You can trust in the Lord your God and keep moving forward, or you can start making excuses constantly about how it's everyone else's fault of why you're in there.
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And then all that's going to do is turn that little mindset into bitterness and angry, and you're going to be an angry little elf.
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You're going to be an angry elf, and it's going to be everyone else's fault but yours. You stiff neck, arrogant heathen.
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And here's what's going to happen to you. You are going to grow old and die. The most miserable human being in the entire world.
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I watched my dad do it. I watched my dad do it for 63 years. At the end of his life, he was just bitter and miserable.
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And it was everyone else's fault. Some of the storms you're in of your own making.
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Girls, stop dating insecurity. And then when you advertise for less than and get less than, then don't whine and expect him to be anything else other than less than.
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Some of you chicks with, I need a bad boy image? Really? Find a Christian guy, and if you got to, have him call you a poo -poo head every once in a while or whatever it takes.
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But quit dating lost people. Stop it! Because you're the same idiot who's going to be crying down here going,
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I don't understand why God did this to me. You're stupid.
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You're insecure. You're prideful. You made a dumb decision. You touched the stove.
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Don't go, I have a burn mark on my hand or on my heart. Stop doing something.
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Keep the parameters. Stay in the storm. Understand that you've got to tough it out.
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But the next step you make is when you get out of that storm, don't start looking for storm clouds to drive right into another one.
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You know? And please, please, please, please don't be one of those people who say, pastor,
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I need counseling. Okay. And you come into my office. We talk.
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You go, hmm. The next week you come into my office and repeat the same stupid thing you said the week before.
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You didn't apply any of the wisdom of God's Word or your pastor, and yet you're expecting a different result.
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Because I'm just designing stuff in my head while you talk. I'm thinking about the problems of the pygmies in China or something.
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I ain't really even listening to you anymore. And eventually I'm just going to say, yeah, you probably need to go see a psychologist because they get paid to listen to your idiocy.
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If you want things to be different, change your parameters of obedience.
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Learn what it is to be a slave of the living God. And last thing, look at verse 31 and and I'll be done here.
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Okay. Verse 31. Where's 31? It's right before 32. Here we go.
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And when they left, they talked with each other and said, this man is doing nothing that deserves chains and death.
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Well, that's great. Chapter 26. Let's try chapter 27 where I was. Sorry, guys.
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This brings me to the next point. Don't smoke crack. All right. Verse 31. Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, unless these men stay on the ship, you cannot be saved.
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Now, here's what's really cool. And you can get into this big neo matrix conversation if you want to.
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But watch this. God said, I have given everyone over into your hands, Paul. No one's going to die.
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Even in the midst of the storm, you're going to roam. Everyone's going to be safe. No one's going to die.
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These guys decided they were sick of staying on the ship. They wanted out of the storm. So their plan was to leave the big ship, get into a smaller ship and sail through the storm.
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Can you believe that? I mean, and they work for Mississippi. So that was their game plan.
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Right. Paul said this. Now, watch. Listen to me. Paul said this.
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If those men get in that boat, they are going to die. But wait a minute,
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Paul. We just read back here that no one's going to die. Watch this. God has a sovereign will, absolute sovereign will.
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I'm going home one day. All right. God promises that we're going to be more than victors.
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We're conquerors. God promises his grace and forgiveness. God promises a lot.
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Christian, the question for you is how much scar tissue you're going to make at home.
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There's no doubt about it. But how much scar tissue do you want to carry to the gates of heaven?
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Here's the next one. How much of your scar tissue do you want to pass on to your children?
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How much? Here, it's amazing. I talked to a young man about this yesterday. He has three children.
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And he says, I asked him, I said, are you going to be in worship tomorrow? Eh. Eh. Eh.
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You know what he told me a year ago? Pastor, I want to be the best father ever.
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And I mean, he was crying. He meant it. Son, all the insecurities that you and I have fought all these years, you're passing them on right now to your children.
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Oh, no, no. I'm doing it different than my parents did. And all it turns around is being job security for me.
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You want hope, guys? Focus what your position is in Christ.
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You are a slave. Understand the plan of God is to glorify his name and to get you home.
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But also understand the parameters in which you have to operate. You have a personal responsibility to learn from the storms of the past and not repeat the same dumb mistakes and then not translate those on to someone else.
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One of them, and I'll close this music people come up. One of the most powerful, and I've shared this with you before, one of the most powerful days in my life is going to be the day you people, right here, somewhere right about here, there's going to be a cheap metal or wooden casket right here.
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About right here. And it's going to be probably, you know, probably large.
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There's going to be a casket right here. And there's going to be somebody spinning up there, one of them
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Douglas boys or Bunny, going to have some soft, cute little chime music playing in the background.
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Personally, creeping death, battery, something like that. But anyways, it'll be playing back there, right?
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And then Gwen will be standing right here, somewhere right here, and she'll be like going,
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Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Freedom! You know, it'll be like Mel Gibson, you know.
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Kids will be scattered around, there'll be a line right through here, somewhere right here. And I'm not going to be here.
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This fine vehicle, this Corvette that has carried my soul through this life will be there.
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But I won't be here. But that's not what I'm talking about. Sexual abuse, physical abuse, alcoholism, drug abuse, violence beyond anything most of you people can even fathom.
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See, those guys, those things are now chained to my soul. But here's what's cool.
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Christ set me free. And when they bury my body in the ground, none of that will have been able to touch my children.
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I won. I won. My grandfather beat my grandmother and was a drunk.
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His father before him, and I won't share all my family skeletons, but going way on back,
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I won. Guys, I have a hope and a victory that some of your brains can't even comprehend.
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And it's not because you're stupid. It's because you're unsaved. You're really unsaved.
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You really believe in your heart that you're a good person. And at some point in your life, you prayed and asked
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Jesus Christ in your heart, but nothing changed in your life. You look right here, right?
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Watch this. You are not a Christian. You are not a
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Christian. And you won't hear that anywhere else, okay? But if anyone claims to know the truth yet continues to walk in darkness, word of God says you are a liar.
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And you're lying to yourself. Oh, brother Jeff, I'm a good— You are a godless heathen going straight to hell.
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Hey, giggle butt, listen, because I might be talking to you. Look at me.
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There are some of you in this room that are playing church. I want my hands clean of your blood.
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I want them clean of your blood. You have trusted in a stupid church or stupid religion your whole life, and you have no more drive, ambition, or love of God than you do of, oh my
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God, when can we get out of here? You don't love the fellowship. You don't love the word of God.
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You don't love being holy. You don't love trying to do what God's called you to do. You're just walking through the motions waiting for something else to happen.
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You live your life by events rather than an adherence to the word of the living God. And you've tricked yourself into believing this cultural church crap that's going in our nation today.
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There is a repentance and a prophecy that you need to hear from God Almighty. It says, come out from among them and be ye separate.
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Sayeth the Lord, touch not the unclean thing, then I will receive you.
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Guys, there's a reality to that. Love not the world, neither the things that are of this world.
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For the love of God is not in this world. The love of the flesh, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life are not of God but of this world.
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If you're in this room today and these words are resonating with you, I don't care how many times you've walked down an aisle.
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I don't care how many times you've been baptized. I don't care how many times you've asked Jesus Christ in your heart.
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If you know you're not a Christian, I beg you, by the mercies of God, do not leave this room lost.
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Number two, if you're one of those folks that you're more comfortable living your life the way you want to live it as a
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Christian and you don't need people all up in your business, you are one of those people. Go ahead and go and get you some of that triple antibiotic because you're going to have scars from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head.
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And here's what's better. You are going to jack your kids up and anyone else that gets around you.
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Mar my words. Mar my words. If you need help with that,
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I'm telling you, here's the help. You want hope with that, here's what hope comes with. Accountability.
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You need someone looking you and it can't be me. I got too many things to do.
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Plus, I probably don't like you. But we got a bunch of chicks here.
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If you're a girl, we'll get a girl to talk to you. Or Mercedes. If you're a boy, we'll get a boy to talk to you.
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But you need a strong Christian person in your life.
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Please. Please don't be stupid anymore. Number three. If you were baptized before you were saved, you did not get baptized.
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You took a bath. Alright? That's all that happened. Well, Brother Jeff, I feel in my heart.
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No one cares what you feel in your heart. God's word says. Believer's baptism.
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That's why it's called believer's baptism. Because it must take place after you believe.
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Okay? So, if you're in this room and you need to pray with someone. You need some help.
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The pastor's going to be up here in front. Guys, listen to me. I know this was a lot to throw on you today.
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But hope is not wishful thinking. And it's not you feeling encouraged when you leave here.
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It's you making good, healthy, spiritual life choices. Recognizing the sovereignty of God.
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And then pulling your side of the weight and sanctification. So that your life can actually change for the better.
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Whatever your place is today. If you're already a strong Christian, stand with me. If you're already a strong Christian, minister to someone who's not.
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Stand. Minister to someone who's not. Don't just sit there and look at the screen and mumble words.
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Find someone who could need and use your help. You minister, you come this morning. And God will hear you.
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You minister, you come this morning. You minister, you come this morning. And God will hear you. You minister, you come this morning. And God will hear you.