Where did all the fools Go

Happy Sunday cross with this morning. You have Eric and Danille Bancroft with you,

and when we think of Eric, we think of Yes, God has

blessed Eric with a tremendous amount of fruitfulness in Eric's ministry at castle View's Church

where he was discipling our very own Richard Cobb, all the way to his

church plant in Miami, where God is continuing to just bless Eric's ministry there,

and that fruitfulness is an encouragement to me. Please welcome Eric as he

comes and brings the word this morning, Well, thank you, glad to

meet you and for us to spend it together, our time and the word.

I just want to say for those of you who need a Bible or

need a bulletin, to raise your hand and one would be provided for you.

That's the public service announcement. If you're here, raise your hand and

and I see the hands, it's like an altar call already responding. Lord's

moving in your life. Or you'd like the Lord just move in your hands

with the word or a bulletin, feel free to raise that be here with

you this morning. Your pastor was kind, wife and thankful that they are

a part of a church that supports their pastors being supported here through sabbaticals,

and so I just commend you for that pastoring a church that provided that.

I was very thankful for that. For those of you who I have not

had a chance to interact with, maybe in a kind of a private moment

this morning, as I have with Hayden this morning, which was a joy

to do. So the VIP on the on the platform screen being baptized.

Love seeing that picture. My wife Danelle is up front here. You can

feel free to have her sign your Bible afterwards. She did bring a pen.

I did ask her. And in Richard Cobb, whom I love dear,

had the privilege to be with him in ministry. Liz and Danelle and

I had together in California, and then Danelle and Liz and Richard and I

in Indianapolis. I had the privilege to marry Liz and Richard twelve years ago

yesterday. Yeah yeah, yeah, look at this slah wow. I don't

get people yelling out like that. For me, the approach to know you,

Richard, Pastor Josh gave me an opportunity to come preach to you the

summer and gave me a number of dates to pick. I purposely picked this

weekend because I wanted to be here for the Cobbs anniversary. But I tried

to like convince them to like go away for the weekend and Dannelle and I'd

watch their kids and we could just it would be awesome, and they wouldn't

do it. So I'm not sure what that says. But anyway, all

that to say, I'm glad you're here. Also thankful to finally see you

in person. I say this because I know your pastor Josh, have known

him for years, love the man, Thankful for his ministry here in San

Antonio to you and to other elders here. But I knew the church that

Pastor Josh was from in Austin, and uh, and have some dear relationships

there at that church in Austin. And now to shout out to you guys,

a lot of cheering. I don't like his first service, not as

much. We're still waking up, hadn't had all their coffee yet. You

guys are a few cups in already, So we're gonna we're gonna be good

because we're gonna be here all afternoon. Great Josh said, it was okay,

So anyway. But I'm really glad to see you because again I've prayed

for you and not having seen you in person, now being able with you

in as an answer to prayer. So please pray for your brothers and sisters

in Miami, the country of Miami, also the southern part of Florida known

as Miami. We planted Grace Church in Miami. I say we as myself

and Dennell on about fifteen other people four years ago in Miami, and Goddess

continued to sustain us. We're thankful for that. And they've been worshiping this

morning, and now we get to worship our time together here in the Word

of God. If you've got those bibles, I trust you do open them

to the Book of Acts Acts, chapter fourteen. If you're new to the

Bible, and this is a space where you can be new to the Bible

and be welcomed here. That's a good place to be in a church,

just teaching you the Bible. The Book of Acts is like Luke Volume two.

I think of the Gospels that's in the New Testament. Towards the end

of your bibles, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John four different accounts

of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, who is and indeed the

son of God. Then Luke is one of those writers, a physician himself,

writing to a friend named Theophilis, and then Luke, and the Book

of Acts is just continuing to write what happened to the church after Jesus resurrected

and ascended. What happened in Acts captures that story. Our text this morning

is going to be primarily an Acts fourteen verses twenty to twenty three. We

need to set the scene. We need to know what's gone on, and

soon nineteen or excuse me, one through twenty or one through nineteen will do

that for us, if you would fall along in your Bibles as I read

to you Acts fourteen one to nineteen. Now at Iconium, they referend to

Palm Barnabas entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that

a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed. But the unbelieving Jews stirred

up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against their brothers. So they remained for

a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord who bore witness to the word

of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

But the people of the city were divided. Some sided with the Jews and

some with the Apostles. When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews

with their rulers to mistreat them and to stone them, they learned of it

and fled to Lystra and dirt cities of Laconia, and to the surrounding country,

and there they continued to preach the gospel. Now Astra, there was

a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth

and had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking, and Paul, looking

intently at him, and saying that he had faith to be made well,

said in a loud voice, stand up right on your feet, and he

sprang up and began walking. Or when the crowds saw Paul had done,

they lift up their voices sang in Laconian, the gods have down to us

in the likeness of men. Barnabas. They pall Zeus and Paul Hermes,

because he was the chief speaker and the priest of Zeus, whose temple was

at the entrance of the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and

offered suffice with the crowds. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of

it, they tore their garments the crowd and crying out, men, why

are you doing these things? We also are men of like nature with you,

and we bring you good news that you should turn from these vain things

to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth, and the

sea and all that is in them, and passed rations. He allowed all

the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself

without witnessed, for he did good by giving you rain from heaven and fruit

seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness. Even with these words,

they scarcely restrain the people from offering sacrifice to them. Verse nineteen. Jews

from Antioch and Iconium came, and, having persecuted the crowds, they stoned

Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.

Let's just stop there for a minute and make sure we've left no one behind

in this text, so that you understand the scene that's but for our eyes

and the word of God. Paul and Barnabas are no amateurs when it comes

to ministry, but they were not raising Christian families. They themselves former non

Christians. Paul evan himself as persecutor of the church. God reached into his

dead heart and removed that heart of stone and gave him a heart of flesh

and opened his eyes to the truth. At the very message that he was

trying to suppress, he actually believed in, and he became a follower of

Christ, Jesus of Nature with the risen Savior. And he is spending his

time, in his effort, his energy taking that same message to people in

different towns and places, met with a variety of responses. You can see

that even in verse five they're being run out of one town because the people

were applying to kill them. Another town in verse thirteen and following wants to

him. It's a diversity of responses misunderstanding what it is that they really are

teaching and who they really are. And what's so shocking is to see how

committed people are to hating Paul in his visage in this geography is maybe lost

in you, but here's the reality of this. The people that are referenced

in verse nineteen have walked. These Jews have walked one hundred miles from their

hometowns to get to this town to find Paul. Embarnamis where they find that

they're at in order to kill them. And they're so successful in this that

they take a crowd who originally wants to worship them and now is going to

assassinate them. That's how persuasive they are and convincing the crowd to follow them

in their belief about who Paul really is. Friends, you and I have

never had somebody hate us as much to walk a hundred miles to convince a

crowd to kill us, so you can steer in the attacks nevertheless committed.

Why look what happens now verse twenty through twenty three. But when the disciples

gathered about him, he rose up verse nineteen. Supposing he was dead,

He's actually not rose up and he entered the city, and on the next

day he put on from Barnabas with Barnabas to Derby verse twenty one. When

they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they

returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening to the disciples,

encouraging them to continue in the faith, saying that through many tribulations we must

enter the Kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elder for them and

every church, with prayer and investing, they committed them to the Lord in

whom they had believed. Friends, listen to me. Let this sink in.

Paul goes back. He goes back to the place that you would least

expect. He is presumably dead, But why would he go back to the

town because he wants to tell the people about Christ? Now why is this

significant? Well, if i'm let's just take a step back from the text

two thousand years ago and consider our time present day. It doesn't matter where

you look globally, nationally, personally, and privately, problems surround us.

It looks in Europe to be like on the edge, if you will,

if you can understand the economic realities, the political bounds of what's happening with

Russia and Ukraine, and not just like, oh, this schoolyard fight happening

over there in Eastern Europe. Friends, it is greatly affecting what's happening in

that part of the world, and how it's shaping what's going on in Europe.

Oh, but you could just turn from the right to the left and

look over, if you would, at the pace of China and what they're

thinking and saying about how that's position in the United States. Right to left.

We see problems, but we don't have to go global. We can

just go national. There are friends that used to have a few years ago

that don't talk to you today because you have not decided what they would have

decided. You've not taken the views that they would. You've made a few

comments on their Facebook post, and you have been now anathematized, perhaps personally.

It's not what happens outside these walls and what happens inside your heart.

You are experiencing a treme in this amount of fear, anxiety, worry,

depression is ready to be at an all time high. Friends, the amount

of see movie where you look in today's time, globally, naturally or locally

even privately, the problems surround us and the question is what should we do

about it? Some of you have seen the movie. My wife and I

do to see it soon. Someone just gave us free tickets to go see

it. The Sound of Freedom I can pretty much guarantee you I will just

cry the entire time a movie about the horrors of human trafficking. Here's the

question before us this morning, what do we do with all human suffering around

us? That question is not unique to our time to our place. It's

been existing since the beginning of time. And what we find here in the

text is, perhaps to some of our sensibilities, disorienting, is certainly appropriately

directing, because the reality is, for Christians, there's so much we could

be doing. We could be helping improve job skills and digging wells and setting

up medical centers and establishing great schools, and working for better crop fields and

working to reduce, if not remove, illiteracy. And all of these are

indeed expressions of loving Christian care. They illustrate a love for neighbor that's needed

at times in very sacrificial ways. But ironically they very little resemblance to what

we see in the text. As one author writes, the Church's mission is

more specific than common people doing uncommon deeds is see friends. For thousands of

years, God's people have been seen as odd at best, and weird and

concerning scandalous at worst. From the old Testament, where there's dietary laws and

expectation of circumcision of its infant males. During the New Testament, a shared

love and possessions for each other, believing in a resurrected person to be the

Son of God. We have often been misinterpreted at best, misrepresented and even

perhaps persecuted at worst. And the temptation for us today is to want to

get our voice back to be seen as reasonable, rational, responsible, respectable.

This is a temptation even for us as churches to want to accommodate,

to shift a message from a crucified savior to an unfulfilled life. Jesus becomes

your ultimate life coach, promising you a better day, happier tomorrow. And

yet the Word of God Acts fourteen is calling us back to renew our vows,

to our mission, the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And

that's what we see here in the text. To do this, I want

to kind of put before you two questions that each of you have to answer

for yourself. I can't answer them. Your spouse, your friend can answer

them, your roommate cannot. You've got to answer them for yourself. Question

number one am I committed to the mission? Am I committed to the mission?

Go back to the text, specifically in verse twenty one. Let's look

at the progression of what happens verse twenty one. They had preached the gospel

to that city and had made many disciples. So verse twenty one says,

many disciples are made. Verse twenty two, they go to a different town,

strengthening the soul to the disciples. They are encouraging to continue in the

faith, and therefore many disciples are matured. And then verse twenty three,

what does it say when they had appointed elder for them in every church with

prin fast, and they committed them to the Lord and whom they had believed.

So many churches are formed, Disciples are made, disciples are matured,

and churches are formed. This is what many tree is about. This is

what you want to see here in your church and what you want to do

with can keep planting churches and praying for the churches that churches would not lose

the mission. The gospel is being proclaimed. Those who have respond to the

gospel of being matured in Christ, and those who are mature in Christ are

going out to plant more churches. Could keep that mission going. This is

your ministry as Christians to bleed together as a church. Why is the gospel

preached well? To say, gospel has preached for new converts, for mature

Christians and established churches. Do you and I care about humans suffering? Yes?

Do we and are recalled to love people? Absolutely? Can we find

ways that we personally as Christians interacting as citizens in our society to show care

for people and be involved in volunteering organizations, for sure. But we care

not only about human suffering. We care about eternal suffering. And that means

we are going to do something that even our nicest, kindest, most committed,

loving non Christian neighbors will not do. Bring the Gospel. That's what

we're called to do. That's what Paul was doing. Now to those ears

here, let me make sure we're all in the same page. There are

perhaps somebody here who does not understand and recognize that the God sometimes is gonna

be like this password to use in the Christian fellowship. You say it,

You're like, I'm not sure what that means, but that's how I get

accepted here. The Gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ, that God

see man and his rejected, rebellious state against his holy, providential creating,

divining word. Man is under judgment, and God does not leave us in

our condition. He does with us what he did with Adam. He does

not leave him in a state, and he goes after him. Like he

asked Adam the question, Adam, where are you? Which is not a

geographical question, it's a relation on one. So he asked us the same

question, be yourself rebelling against me? And look what I had provided.

My son, Jesus Christ, who has fulfilled the law perfectly where you and

I have not, has died sacrificially to receive upon him the wrath that we

otherwise deserve, and has been buried physically in the grave for three days and

resurrected literally from the grave, appearing to witnesses just like you and me.

More than sit in this room. Everyone convinced it's him, He really is

alive, that all those would believe in him for the forgiveness of their sins

by faith alone, in him alone, because of his grace alone, would

be adopted, forgiven, love, pardon, and promise to return for them

in the future. That's the good news. That's what we're about. People,

but profound life, eternal shaping truth. Paul says the said Crithians Chapter

five, verse twenty and twenty one. We are ambassadors for Christ, God

making his appeal to us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be

reconciled to God for our sake. He made him to be sin, who

knew sense that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Now at

this point I can acknowledge the reality some of you might be thinking, Okay,

I'm with you. The gospel is important and good news. We're with

you. We're trying to be faithful as God's allowing to be faithful as a

church to do this, and we are thankful that God gives godly elders and

pastors like Josh Suns who are helping lead us in this respect. So we're

good, good, right, We're good. Okay. That leads us our

sin question, and this gets us into the heart of the text. The

first question that you were asking was not only the reality of trying to reflect

on am I committed to the mission, But now the second question, do

I have the right mindset? Do I have the right mindset? Let's go

back to verse twenty track with verse twenty. So again verse nineteen, stoney

the dragged him out of the city, leave his body of presuming his death.

Verse twenty. He rose up and entered the city, ragged him out

of and the next day he won with Barnabas to Derby town he came from

in verse six. And when they had preached the gospel to that city and

made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, the other town in verse six,

and to Iconium the verse one. It's like, Paul, is your

GPS not working? You are going the wrong direction. Friend. We've been

here, We've done this. This is not seemingly you are moving in the

wrong direction. There Jesus themselves said something about dustin sandals and shaking it off,

and yeah, you're conscious, You're good. You tried. They didn't

listen. That's on them. You gotta keep on going. And yet Paul,

under the conviction and guidance of the Holy Spirit, goes back to where

Yes, even some Christians like you and me would say, I'm not sure

that's the wisest choice, Paul. My wife and I have some dear friends

who are missionaries in another country, been doing so for over a few decades,

and we remember talking with the wife. She said one of the hardest

hurdles to get over to get to the mission field was other very well and

ted Christian moms who politely sincerely her that she was making irresponsible decision with her

children to take him to a place she could not guarantee them quick healthcare,

She could not guarantee them safety and seatbelts. They acknowledged God wanted those people

to hear the Gospel, but not at the expense of the safety of her

children in healthcare or in seatbelts. Again, I'm not trying to malign the

motive of such individuals, but I am trying to highlight a shortcoming thought process

as to a triaging of ultimate value and importance. The reality is some people

will call you reckless when you are just being radical for Christ. Paul who

was doing something two thousand years ago that many others continue to do today to

be a fool for Christ. For examples from the scriptures, Paul anothers thought

the New Testament Acts chapter book We're looking at Verse forty and forty one says

when they had called in the apostles, they beat them, charged them not

to speak in the name of Jesus and to let them go. And then

they left the presence of the counsel. The drew some council rejoicing that they

were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name, to share in the sufferings

of Christ. Later on an act traver seventeen, not before Jerusalem audience,

but now a Jewish audience, a Gena audience, Paul, speaking of them,

says in verse eighteen of chapter seventeen, some said, what does this

babbler wish to saying him names? And then later on verse thirty two,

it says when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked him.

Today we are a therapeutically oriented society. We put a lot of feelings,

a lot of weight on our feelings, and if someone hurts our feelings,

Wen, we kind of push against that. That's obviously bad. Stop

that. I wonder what they'd be like to be like in a small group

with Paul. Paul, you can just pray for me. What's happening.

Um, I was at work and you know, I'm just trying to try

Onno the Lord Paul's like a man. People say some things and it hurt

my feelings. Is I'm sorry. What's like? Is that a Greek word

for like your arm or something? What is that? What is it?

What do you mean by feelings like they broke your bone? He's like,

no, no, not like my my but I felt inside of me like

that hurts my feelings. And Paul's like, I mean they said something you

didn't like. Well, I mean yeah, I mean they were rude.

Yeah, they're rude, so they mocked you. I guess you could say.

He's like, welcome to the family. Welcome to the family. What

are you worried about? He's just like, man, this is what we

do send Corinthians, chapter twelve, verse ten, for the sake of Christ.

And I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and

clammies. For when I am weak, then I am strong. This isn't

unique to the personality of Paul, this tag team. Apostle Peter says in

First Peter twelve to fourteen, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery

trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening

to you. Rejoice in so far as you share in Christ, sharing that

you may also rejoice and be glad when his glories revealed. If you are

insulted for the name of Christ, you're blessed because the spirit of glory and

of God writs upon you. Paul says, in summary fashion First Corinthians four,

verse ten, we are fools for Christ's sake. Fools for Christ's sake.

Now I realized some of you might be like, well, new guys

here, a little over the top. He's got friends in foreign countries,

you know, people like maybe Pastor Josh and Pastor maybe they get together and

like watch X games in the weekend and just kind of go for it.

But I'm more of a reserve person. It's not kind of where I roll

how I am, friends, Paul is not committing by example or by instruction,

a personality profile for every Christian. Rather, it's about a perspective for

every Christian. This isn't about craziness. It's about conviction. This isn't some

bizarre form of self glory. It's about a loving, sacrificial example of a

love for Christ and a love for neighbors. So here's the question that you

and I have to answer for ourselves this morning. Will you be a fool

for Christ? Now? I submit to you. That answer has already been

given by most of you the day you said young years ago. In recent

days, I'm all in. I acknowledge I have no way for God to

accept me. I think it's foolishock like there's not even a God. It's

like a little kindergarten trying to play hide seek by covering his eyes so I

can't see. Therefore, you don't exist. Now, I know there's a

God, and I know that I am in rightful rejected, or rather rebellion,

and he'd be right to judge me. But I have believed in his

only son, the Savior. I surrender my life to him in that moment.

In that day, you became a fool for Christ. You said that

this world has nothing to offer you. It's all momentary and passion pleasures that

will not satisfy. Only Christ will satisfy. And then that came a fool

for Christ. I'm simply saying, by God's word. In Paul's example on

Acts fourteen, let's renew our vows. People, Let's renew our vows.

When you chose to follow Christ, you chose to follow a savior who wins

by dying. You will not impress the world. You will increasingly be seen

as outdated and disconnected. You will be labeled a communicator of hate speech who

teaches others to do the same. You will give your money to support both

here in your local church and around the world, to people that you will

never meet the side of heaven. Some of you've already had to make decision

between family and friends. It was even mentioned by one of your elders in

the pastoral prayer. Why why are you experiencing all this? Why willing to

do this? Because you believe a man that you have never met in person

was and still is the Son of God. And you believe ultimately this because

he came back to life and a resurrection of what you've never seen happen again.

Who's a fool? Now? The world says you're a fool to what

you would say, guilty has charged I am a fool. For Christ,

we gathered together. We gather people that were not related to by birth or

by adoption. We gathered yet we refer to each other's brother and sister.

We weep with those who weep, or rejoice with those who are rejoiced.

That's even just days ago, were strangers to us. But now we feel

like family in the reunion. We sing songs together, we read our Bibles

together, We repent of sin together, We praise God together. We learned

the Word of God together. We're commissioned to go together into the world and

see people know Christ. Because when you became a Christian, you somehow turned

off your heart to suffering. You're not tone deaf to sin and its consequences.

You know the reality of the bitterness of the fall. Since Adam,

you've tasted the bitterness of sin. Some of you have seen, maybe experience

of tragic sexual abuse. You've seen families ripped apart, perhaps even the one

you grew up in. You are embarrassing me. You know it's like to

be ensnared in your own anger or self righteousness, or greed, or pride,

or gossip and more. Some of you know the shame of your own

abortion. You have perhaps been incarcerated for crimes against people that you've committed.

Perhaps you know it's like in the past, I've even mocked Christians for their

faith, only for you to believe in the Christ yourself. And yet God

saw you Lazarus dead in the tomb and called you forward. He said live,

and you lived. He said believe, and you believed. He and

the words of the Ephesians Chapter two, verse four made you alive while you

were dead in your trespasses. To God be the glory of his glorious grace.

And you are now a fool forst to think about the reality of life.

Families, singles, marriages, children, grandchildren. He's a young man

two and twenty three years ago. You know, he's not going away to

college. He's not being stationed at some of the military base in the country.

He's not moving to another part. He's actually going to get on a

boat and travel for months to go to a country named India. He has

never been to to eventually move to a country Burma, and he is going

to be there as a missionary. On the very eve of his departure,

he meets a young woman named Anne. He likes Anne. Anne likes him.

Ah Man, Anne are India, I says, I want both.

Anne wants both to answers. You got to talk to about dad, all

right, so Ada Niram writes a letter to Anne's dad. I want you

to sit here and listen to these words. I want you think about you

receiving this letter and I want you to think about not how he processed it.

I want you to think about how you would process it, because this

is what he wrote his father in law to be. As he asked for

his permission to marry his daughter, he says the following, I have now

to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring,

to see her no more in this world. Whether you can consent to her

departure and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life. Whether you

can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal

influence of the southern climate of India, to every kind of want and distress,

to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can

you consent to all this for the sake of Him who left his heavenly home

and died for her and for you, for the sake of perishing immortal souls,

for the sake of Zion and the glory of God. Can you consent

to all this and hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory,

with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the acclamation of praise, which

shall redound to her savior from heathens, saved through her means from eternal woe

and despair. They are all fools for Christ at a niramis and is Ann's

dad, is An's mom is They're all fools for Christ. Why because they

love something more than this world's comforts and pleasures. Now, friends, just

to be clear, just to kind of make the connecting reality for you,

This is as much a sermon for me the preacher, as is you the

person sitting there. I am a father, father of three sons. I

love my sons, My wife loves our sons. We love these boys.

They are twenty three and two twenty year olds. They're not twins. You

can solve that riddle later. The reality is to marry. In my hopes,

this vision of a future, I'll be together. Lord would provide children

by doctors and kids together unthinkable. He liked prayed in fast and so our

counsel and decided to go to Colorado. It's moving to call where do all

the missionaries households come from? I hear enpirement story and I'm like, that's

awesome. Just don't take my kid, don't by Lord Lord, I believe

people sit here the gospel, but just give up my comfort. Don't ask

me to give up my sense of security, my sense of financial well being.

Don't ask me my aspirational future of this Suss family. The reality is

see here that's so significant as God is calling everyone who is in Christ to

live as an ambassador for Christ. The mindset that Paul had and Barnabas had

An asked fourteen into other disciples was a mindset where he wanted them to see

Christ is worth more than anything else, anything else. Now, to be

clear, unless you misunderstand the takeaway here, being a fool for Christ doesn't

simply mean moved Afghanistan or permit those you're related to to do so. Being

a fool for Christ is not only the point of what you become a Christian,

it's also continuing to live as a Christian. I want you to think

in the micro, not the macro, to think the day detail, it's

not the life location. So let me explain to you. You are a

fool for Christ when you keep practicing forgiveness to someone who keeps slandering you,

When you keep serving those who won't express thankfulness for your service to them,

let alone serve you back. When you dig deep into the joy in Christ,

even though you have lost your job and you don't know how you're going

to finally provide for your family yourself, when you trust the Lord's plan for

your life. When as a single another friend announces their engagement while you can't

even announce your date night, When you are in a marriage that seems unfair

and exhausting, but yet you want to serve the other not by your strength,

but by the part of the Holy Spirit. These types of behavior,

these ways of thinking, are labeled by the world unhealthy, irresponsible. What

I'm saying is that their spirit filled Christ honoring ways of pursuing the world.

But the witness of Christ, you would be like Paul and Galatians, Chapter

two, verse twenty. I have been crucified Christ as and longer I who

live through Christ, who lives in me, and the life I live.

I live by hope in the Son of God, who loved me and gave

himself up for me. It's Christ and me the hope of glory. This

is not something a biography of a bunch of few religious zealots a few thousand

years ago doing some radical things, or some biographical examples and people like out

an arm, Judson or other people as well. This is for any one

of us in this room who self identifies as Christian, as follower of Christ.

It's not just me I'm asking you about. It's the mindset. It's

the mindset, and this is an opportunity for us. It's warning to link

arms with those throughout history, link arms through those in society, link arms

those sitting in these chairs to be reminded of what really matters. I subscribe

to a voice of martyrs. It comes every month without fail. I look

at this magazine. I am reminded in this magazine that I am a kindergartener

for Christ as I look at the pictures of people who have how their houses

burned down, have had their husbands beheaded, who have been chased out of

their towns, and they have a smile that you cannot manufacture on their face

because they believe that this world is momentary and the pleasures found in Christ are

for an eternity, and for you to recognize that, to see that that

you want that more than anything else in life. Paul gets the last word

and Colossians chapter one, verse twenty four. Now I rejoice in my sufferings

for your sake, and in my flesh I'm filling up with His Christ's afflictions

for the sake of His body. That is the of which I became a

minister, according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you

to make the word of God fully the mystery hidden for ages and generations,

but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known,

how great among the gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery,

which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Hey, we proclaim,

warning everyone, teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone

mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his enter He

powerfully works within me.