Power to Judge Sin

It's a great mystery. Think about it. The founder of the church, Jesus Christ, had no reputation for the beginning of his life. He was a blue-collar worker, a craftsman. He only taught a few people for a few years. And they themselves were of no reputation and very few had an education. These followers, They, and Jesus himself, were rejected by the authorities, by the religious leaders. We are the followers of a man who died like a criminal. He died on the cross, which is the most shameful punishment for a criminal. And what was his crime? He claimed to be God. He claimed to be God's Savior, the one who came to save us from our sins. He claimed he would rise again from the dead. You see, if the story ended with death, with Jesus dying on the cross, there would be no church today. If Jesus Christ did not rise from the grave, there would be no church today. But here's the good news as to why we're gathered. Jesus is risen. He's risen. He's risen, he's risen indeed. Let's try that again. He's risen. He's risen indeed. That's why we're gathered. that there would be no church if that important, defining event in Jesus' life and in the church's life did not happen because His resurrection demonstrated He is who He said He was. He's God Almighty. He's a God who became flesh. He's a God who died as a sinner in the place of sinners so that He could bring forgiveness, and then He rose. See friend, if you're not a Christian this morning, I want to challenge you with this particular point. Why does a church exist today? How is it that there's millions of believers gathering every week celebrating Jesus Christ? How is it that this few people who were persecuted and challenged early on, they persevered through the laying on of violent hands on them? Either they believed in a lie and died in vain, or Jesus is risen. See, Jesus Christ, he didn't come and start a new movement like many do. He didn't seek to overthrow a government. He didn't bring a military action. No, Jesus came and brought forgiveness, grace, and peace. Jesus came to bring restoration, reconciliation, and healing. And now the church, we're called and empowered to do that same work. This morning we're going to see how the church does that work of restoration and healing. We're going to see how the church perseveres through persecution. This morning we are in Acts chapter 11, beginning of verse 19 to the end of chapter 12. That's found on page 920. This section is all tied together beginning in 932. What Luke has done is draw our attention back to Jerusalem. And what we've seen is God's moving out from Jerusalem. Here we've moved back to Jerusalem to focus on those believers as they're hearing and understanding that God is doing a mighty work elsewhere. And soon the church is gonna move from Peter to Paul, from Jerusalem to Antioch, from being a primary Jewish movement to seeing how God is bringing in the Gentiles. We're gonna look at three specific stories. How the church goes to Antioch, how the gospel proclamation goes to Antioch and Gentiles are converted. Then we're gonna see how there's a famine predicted and how the church gives in order to provide for those who will suffer through that famine. And then we're gonna focus on the longer section that Patty just read. There's a persecution, and this persecution has many parts. Herod Agrippa, he's going to lay violent hands on members of the church. We're gonna see Peter rescued, and then we're gonna see God's judgment on Herod. Let's begin. Chapter 11, verse 19. And what we see here is that the church grows by faithful proclamation. The church grows by faithful proclamation. Beginning in chapter 11, verse 19. Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists, or actually I believe that's the Greeks, the Gentiles also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came, he saw the grace of God. He was glad. And he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit, and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. Now here, Luke takes us all the way back to the first martyr Stephen, which you can read about in chapter 7. And beginning in chapter 8, we saw how this was pivotal to first spread those Jewish Christians out to Samaria. who were half-Jews, half-Gentiles, and they believed. And then we saw the Gospel go down to Ethiopia through the Ethiopian eunuch who was met in the desert to hear the Gospel. Then Peter goes to Caesarea, and the Jews are convinced and confirmed that the Gospel goes also out to the Gentiles, their co-heirs. The Gospel's spreading, and now Luke takes us up north. The Gospel's going north to Phoenicia. A region defined by the two important cities of Tyre and Sidon. To Cyprus, the island of the Mediterranean Sea, to Antioch, the most northern city on the coast, what we would consider Syria and Turkey. Antioch is the most northern city. It's the capital of the Syrian province. The third largest city of the Roman Empire at this time. The gospel's going out. It's going north, it's going west. And notice there that they were speaking only to the Jews. There weren't many Jews in these cities. And then what's very important for our text, verse 20. But some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, when coming to Antioch, they spoke to what the ESV translates Hellenistic, it really should be Gentiles. They began to preach the gospel. Hellenists are Jews who had adopted Greek culture and language. Gentiles are not Jews. I believe the significance of this story, where it lands after Cornelius, how it is approached by the Church of Jerusalem, it's not the Hellenists, it's the fact that the Gentiles, they're hearing and they're believing. Even the message is a message for the Gentiles. It's not Jesus is the Christ. It's Jesus Lord. He's the one God from whom every knee must bow. We see here the gospel is going out. Now look at how the church in Jerusalem responds. The report came to the ears in the church of Jerusalem. So they sent Barnabas, verse 22. Now they didn't send the inspector this time. Remember whenever the gospel came to Samaria, they sent the apostles to inspect what was happening. Is the gospel saving people who are not Jewish? And it was confirmed, yes. Gospel was confirmed for the Gentiles. It needed to be inspected. This is what God is doing. Is it new? Yes. They don't send an inspector this time. They send Barnabas, the encourager. They send the faithful friend who's going to go and encourage them. And notice what it says about Barnabas. They send him, he came, and he saw the grace of God, and he was glad. Now we need to kind of just pause there for a moment because what does it mean to see the grace of God? What does the grace of God look like? And it's an interesting phrase here because grace is something spiritual. Grace is something done by the Holy Spirit who is invisible. So what does it mean to see the grace of God? I think here we can go back to what Christ taught us. You know a tree by its fruits. You see grace not in the fact of what its energy is actually doing, the power of grace, you see grace in the fruit that it bears. You see, grace is at work in the mind and in the heart. The grace is at work to bring about new desires and new thoughts that are more glorifying to Christ, that are more aligned with the word of God. And you see grace when you see a change take place. You see repentance of sin, you see rejoicing in Christ, you see new life, you see new obedience. So what we see is the fruit of grace at work. The repentance, the commitment to being more Christ-like, the hungering for God's Word, the depending upon Him for prayer. There's nothing like seeing the grace of God. That is why we gather regularly. That is one of the great benefits of being part of a church is that we get to see the grace of God and it makes us glad when we see it. We need to realize that in order to rejoice and to be glad of the grace of God, we do have to be dependent upon grace. Those who are not walking in grace and depending upon grace, they don't rejoice in grace. Self-righteous never rejoice in grace. They try to figure out what's wrong. In order to be glad about grace, we ourselves must be dependent upon grace. And secondly, it requires presence. It means we have to regularly be with God's people, saying, I want to see what God is doing, I want to be part of what God is doing. And the third thing, if we want to be glad and see the grace of God, it really requires being intentional. It requires us to say, I want to focus in and I want to pray for the Holy Spirit. Let me see, God, what you're doing. It's not always obvious to us. It's something that we have to intentionally seek to recognize and encourage. It's not a natural thing to walk by grace. It's not a natural thing to see the works of grace. But it's something that we learn to do as disciples of the great, gracious God. Now look at verse 23. He saw the grace of God and he was glad. And then he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with a steadfast purpose. Barnabas has come and he's seen what God is doing, he's seen lives changed, and so he exhorts them, be faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. This is the demonstration that this isn't just a simple, it's not something you simply put in your pocket and move on with life. Grace isn't just this one time event that changes everything, fixes everything, and then you move on and you no longer need grace. No, it's something that you must continue. It's a lifestyle now, it's a movement, it's the way you walk and live. That's the beauty of that Jude reading. That God who keeps us, he calls us to keep the faith. He calls us to persevere. Grace calls us to faithfulness, to have a steadfast purpose to love and obey God. If we kind of back up and see the bigger picture here, what's the greatest command? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul. That isn't God saying, feel good about me. That isn't God saying, have a strong affection for me. It's God saying, be committed to worshiping Me, God says, with all of your strength, with all of your life, with all of you. And why would God ask that? Well, first of all, He's worthy of our greatest love. But as we need to think about it, He's given us the greatest love. We love God because He first loved us. We love God because he first loved us. We're called to be faithful because we've received such a faithful love. We are called to have a steadfast purpose because God has said, I'm going to set my steadfast purpose on you. I'm going to die for you. I'm going to give you forgiveness. I'm going to give you perfect love. I'm going to give you a new life. And that calls for us to turn our lives to having a steadfast purpose. Now why is it important for Barnabas to say this? Well, it's pretty simple. The Christian life simply is not easy. The Christian life isn't always easy. It requires a constant reminder of what God has said, and what God has done, and what He's committed us to. Being faithful is not easy. That's why Christ commanded us to love Him. That's why Barnabas commands these Christians to be faithful. Now, Luke continues. You can tell Luke is a big fan of Barnabas by the way he describes him throughout the book. They were good friends. Look at verse 24. Why does Barnabas say this? For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit, and of faith. Well, we see here that Luke is given the reason why Barnabas was sent, and why Barnabas is given this message, and it's a really interesting declaration. He's a good man. He came and rejoiced, he came and exhorted because he's a good man. And this is kind of confusing if we step back from all the scripture. Because the book of Romans says no one is good, no not one. So what does this mean? It doesn't mean that Barnabas is sinless. We know that can't be true. So what does it mean to be a Christian good man? This is important for us because every man I know wants to be known as a good man. Everybody wants to be a good man, and so what does it mean to be a good man when we're all sinners? Well, Luke qualifies it for us, doesn't he? He's a good man, meaning he's full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. A good man is someone who is dependent upon God and is faithful to God. He trusts God. A good man is someone who is committed to trusting God's power entrusting his promises and his commands. To be full of the Spirit means he's not full of himself. To be a man of faith means he doesn't trust his own power, he trusts God. So men, less committed to being good, Christian men, full of the Spirit and of faith. You know that by his faith and his actions. Now this is something else that's fantastic about Barnabas, verse 25. Barnabas sees what's ahead of him, he sees that he's there to encourage and exhort, so what does he do? He goes to get help. He doesn't want to do it alone, so he goes to Tarsus and he looks for Saul. Remember their friendship began in Jerusalem? When Saul originally went to Jerusalem, no one would talk to him because he was known as a persecutor, so Barnabas goes out and brings him into the church. He befriended him, and so now he goes and he says, I need your help. This is 10 years after Saul's conversion. Ten years later, Saul's in Tarsus, and he's brought to Antioch, and they teach and proclaim Christ together there. The last thing we see from the passage that we'll need comment on is that they're first called Christians here. This is what we call ourselves regularly now in our culture, but up until now, we see that they were disciples, they were believers, they were on the way. But here, it's first in Antioch that they're called Christians, and that means a little Christ, or a Christ follower. It's another way of saying a disciple. Someone who denies themselves, takes up their cross, and follows Jesus Christ. Before we move on, I want to just highlight here that the church grew because the Word of God was proclaimed. Those faithful brothers from Cyprus and Cyrene and Barnabas and Saul, they proclaimed the Word of God. And it was received. See, we can hear the Word of God, but it must be received. And so the first thing we see is that the Word of God must be proclaimed. It must be taught with a confidence and a boldness that says, this is God. It's His Word. It's true. He's always good. It can be trusted above everything else. Those believers in Antioch, they were saved because they heard it. They believed it. We have to hear the Word of God and we have to treasure that Word of God. I met a Christian here this morning. Here's what you have to hear. We're all sinners in this room. Every single human being has refused to obey God. We've all refused to worship God the way He deserves. We've all rebelled. And God is a good and holy God and He will bring about a wrath on all sinners because He's a just God. It's not just the really, really bad people that we think deserve judgment. It's all of us. Because we've all rejected the one Holy God. And He looked at us and He saw that there was no way we could be good enough to fix ourselves and to make up the great amount of debt that we've built up in God's eye. So God the Father sent God the Son. That's Jesus Christ. He became like us in every way, yet he had no sin. And he lived a perfect, holy, righteous life. And then he died on a cross. He died as if a sinner, but he was not a sinner. He died as if a sinner so that we who are sinners can look to him and we can put our faith in his death for our sin and we can be declared no longer guilty. We have to first realize we're sinners. We need salvation, and Jesus Christ is the only one who can save us by his powerful death on the cross that washes away our sin. You see, you've heard that now, but you must believe. You have to believe that yourself, that Jesus Christ died, he rose again, and now you can have a new life, a forgiveness, a new love in God. I pray you'll believe that today. I pray you won't leave without talking to someone near you today about that gospel. Church, I want us to hear that in order for us to grow in grace, godliness, and number, we have to hear that great declaration from Barnabas. What he says there to those new believers is true for every church at all times and every place. Be faithful to Jesus Christ with a steadfast purpose. Be committed to Jesus Christ with a steadfast purpose. Do not be distracted. Do not be overturned. Be steadfast in your purpose to being faithful to the one Savior. Listen to that next section, which was read during our offering. The church grows with a generous care. In those days, a prophet came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. Notice it's coming down. Jerusalem is not much of a mountain, but it's a mountain. If you're Jewish, Jerusalem is everything. You're high, and you're always going down, no matter if you're going north or south. You always go down from Jerusalem. You go down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of the men, his name was Agabus, he stood up and foretold by the Spirit there would be a great famine over all the world. And this took place in the days of Claudius. So disciples determined everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judas, the Judea, and they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. The church is growing, and here we have this prophet Agabus, and we will see him again in Acts 21. He's the one who warned Paul that he would be put in prison. Agabus has a gift of being able to foresee what's going to happen, and here he's telling the church there's going to be a famine. And the disciples responded to that by saying we should all give according to our ability to help those who are going to be most affected by that famine. One of the things we want to be encouraged by is what I mentioned last week. The church begins to be a new kind of family. There's a new kind of identity and commitment and unity the church has and where they're willing to sacrifice their own financial income for those who might speak a different language. These are brothers in Antioch going to give help to the Jerusalem church, a different kind of people by birth. a different province, a different language, and they're going to give out of their financial funds. They're going to give out of their own funds to help those who are going to suffer in the church because they've all been bought by the same precious blood of Christ. Notice what they do with those funds. They give them to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. So the funds, they're brought to the church in Judea, and the elders receive them. Now, you would think after Acts 6 that the deacons, those men who were set aside to deacon tables receive this, but no, they offer it to the elders. They say that they're gonna put the trust in the elders to know how to divide this properly. We don't know what happened to it after that, but they're all trusting that God is going to use these men to use their funds for his glory. Now church, we don't know of a famine that's about to happen. But we as a church have adopted a place that has had a financial hardship for some time. This is our partnership in Mercado. There's a church there. Mercado is in the capital of Ethiopia. Mercado is the red light district of the capital of Ethiopia. And what we decided to do as a church was to adopt this one church that was helping children who would be orphans. So we give, those who have sponsored a child give $38 a month, and that provides an education, food, and gospel proclamation to all those children who otherwise would be orphans. If you wanna know more about how to actually help this kind of ministry, here especially at Jefferson Park, please talk to me or someone near you afterwards, and we would love to get you involved. This is important for the church to recognize there's a great need elsewhere and to partner those even though we may never meet them. We see the church grow because they're giving generously. Now let's do the heart of the text. Luke likes to make sure we recognize the important events by giving us more time, giving us more details, giving us more text. And so we see here that the church grows, not only by proclamation, the church grows by giving, the church grows under God's protection. That the church is growing despite persecution. And the next story is longer, as you heard it read earlier, and there's four parts. There's the introduction to Herod, There's Peter's being freed. There's Peter's interaction with the church and then fleeing. And then there's Herod's judgment. Luke draws attention because of the space he gives. And we see this from time to time. There's been a lot of attacks from within the church. There's been trouble with Simon the Magician. There's been trouble with Ananias. God has resolved those problems. There's been attacks from the Sanhedrin. Now we have an attack from the king of Judea. This probably takes place around 44 AD. That's when we believe Herod Agrippa dies. Pentecost happened around 30 AD. So if you've been with us the whole time, 14 years prior was Pentecost, 14 years later, now the king of the Jews is taking up arms. Josephus also reports of this death that we're about to read. Herod Agrippa is the great, I'm sorry, is the grandson of Herod the Great. He was sent off to Rome as a young man for education, and two of his future, two of his classmates were future emperors, which is why he actually is given so much power and privilege to be king of not only Judea, but Syria as well. He benefited from these relationships, and he becomes the king of Judea, serving Caesar. Now let's look at the introduction we have. Chapter 12, beginning in verse one, and the introduction of Herod is verses one through four. He laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. It describes in a way that Herod himself is killing them with his own hands. It's a personal attack for Herod. He killed James, a brother of John, the brothers of Zebedee, with a sword. And when he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also." Now, Herod Agrippa, he's Jewish by race, but he's fully committed to the empire. He's fully committed to Caesar. And this always brought tension in Judea because the Jews wanted a ruler from among them to care for them. And there's a couple ways the different kings would try to put down rebellions. One was to attack the Jews themselves. But here we see Herod Agrippa, he's got a really nice easy way to make the Jews happy. He's going to attack those the Jews don't like. Christians. The Jews were in opposition to Christians. The Sanhedrin, the powerful priests and the Pharisees, they did not like Christians because they were losing followers by conversion. So Herod Agrippa recognizes he can attack Christians and gain favor. Now, notice he pinpoints the apostles. He kills one apostle and he arrests Peter. Now, if we look at this arrest, it's quite surprising as we're gonna get into the details of it more. Peter is not a violent criminal. He's not a man of the sword. Remember, Jesus told him to put his sword away, and we don't ever know if Peter having a sword again or using it. Peter's a man of words. Peter's seized, he's put in prison, he's guarded by four squads of soldiers, that's 16 men. Peter's a professional fisherman. He's up there in age, and they've already surrounded him by 16 men, and he's in shackles. This seems like overkill to try to keep Peter in prison, but as we're going to see, it's still not enough. Look at chapter 12, verses 5 to 11. Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. When Herod was about to bring him out on the very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains and centuries before the door with guarding the prison. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him. And a light shone in the cell, and he struck Peter on the side and woke him up. Get up quickly and get dressed." We see this, and I want to be clear, this is a humorous story. We could have done Psalm 2 for a scripture reading. Where the kings of the nations are raging against God, and he laughs. God is not threatened by the powerful kings of the nations. He makes a mockery of them. So here we have Herod. He's got 16 guards on Peter. He's put them all to sleep. And then he sends an angel in and he pokes Peter. Get dressed, get up, we're gonna get out of here. There's what happens next here with Peter. He went out and followed him. He did not know what was being done by the angel. He didn't know if it was real. Maybe he thought he was seeing a vision. So Peter, he's sleeping. One, you can see that he's at rest in jail. He's asleep in jail, he's trusting God, he believes in the resurrection, and then he gets poked awake, which is gonna be significant here in a moment. He gets dressed, and then it appears as if he's just kind of stumbling through the jail trying to figure out, is this real or not? He's just following the angel of light. This is not Jason Bourne escaping on his own power. He's surrounded. This is demonstrating the power of God and how these nations can do nothing to change the plan and the will of God. When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate, the great powerful gate leading to the city. It opened for them on its own accord. They went out, went along one street, and the angel left, and then Peter came to himself. He finally woke up. After the angel had brought him out, after the angel had led him, after the angel had woken him and gotten him out, even though he didn't really understand what was going on, he finally comes to himself, now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all the Jewish people were expecting. It's most likely Peter was going to be brought up to be executed, and now he's able to rejoice that God has saved him by his own power. What happens next, the third scene. When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose name was Mark. And they were gathered, and they were praying for Peter. What does Peter do? He knocks. And the servant girl comes, and she hears his voice, and she doesn't open the gate. She runs away. Again, this is somewhat comical. Why doesn't she open the door? He's knocking. He just got out of jail, he's a wanted man, and he's left there knocking on the door, and there's no quick action here. She runs and reports it's standing at the gate, verse 14. They then have a long discussion. You're out of your mind. No, it's his angel. But Peter kept knocking. When they finally opened it, they were amazed. The church had been praying for Peter to be saved. God saved him miraculously. Peter's knocking on the door. They're debating what's happening. All along, God has answered their prayer. God is mighty to do what he wants to do, and that's the beauty of being in the church, is that he wants to love you. Everything he does is for our good and for his glory. Verse 17, but motioning to them in his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought them out of prison. He said, tell these things to James, this is probably the brother of Jesus, who we know later is the elder, is one of the elders at Jerusalem, in the Jerusalem church. And then we see Peter departs. He's in danger in Jerusalem, and so he goes elsewhere. Now, Luke wants us to connect verses 18 through 24 to what he's just told us. Now when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers what had come to Peter. And after he searched for him, he did not find him. He examined the sentries, and he put them all to death because it was embarrassing. Verse 20 is still connected. Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sodom. And they came to him with one accord, and having persuaded Blastus, the king's chamberlain, they asked for peace because their country depended on God's on King's country for food. On an appointed day, Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. And the people were shouting, the voice of a God and not of man. Caesarea was one of the cities that Herod the Great built. It was on the coast. It was one of the great cities of Judea. They would also sometimes have games there in honor of Caesar. And here is probably one of these days where Herod the Great is coming out and he's in his shining silver costume is what he would wear sometimes. And he gives a great oration and the people shout, the voice of God and not a man. And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down. The word struck there is the same word for the poking that happened to Peter. Just as the angel struck Peter, Maybe the same angel. The same angel that's going to save Peter by poking him awake is going to strike. This man is attacking the church of Jesus Christ, and he falls dead. As Luke says, he did not give God the glory. The way that I believe this is supposed to be read as well, and the way the church has interpreted it, is that this is God showing he's the avenger. He's the one true God of justice that the church can trust in the midst of trial. It did not come quickly, justice, but it came certainly. As we look to this, I want us to notice what the church was doing. Verse five, they prayed. They're praying for him. We see when Peter shows up, they're praying. This is the power of the church. In the midst of persecution, in the midst of trouble, this is the power of the church. This is how we can trust God. You see, when there's trouble, we typically wanna take things in our own hands, and what we do is we typically mess things up even more. because we have sinful, dirty hands, and when we try to fix trouble with our sinful, dirty hands, we typically make it more sinful and more dirty, but when we stop and pray, we're saying, God, with your mighty right hand of power and salvation and grace and goodness, you can reach down and you can fix it. So the church doesn't try to fix its own problems before looking to God and say, God, how are you going to fix the problem? Because whenever we're persecuted, we don't try to say, how am I going to justify or defend? We look to God and say, God, you're the avenger. What are you going to do, the great God of justice? He truly has the power to resolve the problems. Herod died and was judged. Why? We go back a few chapters, and if you were with us, Remember Saul, God approaches him and says, Saul, you're persecuting me. And remember what happens to Saul. He's saved. He receives grace. Herod is persecuting Christ in his church, and he receives judgment. What's the difference? God, in His infinite wisdom, God, in His grace, chose to call Paul to salvation and to service. And God, in His infinite power and grace, He chose to demonstrate His judgment on Herod. That's the difference. Do you remember what happened there in the moment of Saul being called? God said, I'm going to use him to reach the Gentiles and kings. God said, I'm going to use Saul, who we know later as Paul, I'm going to use him to reach Gentiles and kings. You know, in our thinking, we would think, you know, if you're going to use somebody to reach Gentiles and kings, I would have chosen King Herod. He's a king. He's very friendly with the Gentiles. He's been educated with the Gentiles. It seems like our most logical choice. But that is not how God works. Because God chooses the ones from whom He's going to receive the most glory. He chooses the ones that are gonna help demonstrate His power, not the ones that seem to be the most logical fit. As we consider this, remember, God is merciful. God loves His church. Our call is to pray to Him. Our call is to trust Him. Our call is to trust His mighty right hand. He's the Avenger. He's the one who's going to protect us. Our call is to pray. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you for this word, this testimony of your word that your gospel goes out to many people and we believe we turn to you and we thank you that we've received the grace to hear and believe. We thank you that we receive the grace to trust you and to pray to you. I pray that we would be a persevering people that are faithful to you with steadfast purpose. because we know that you have loved us with the greatest love, that you have committed your steadfast purpose to us. Help us, Lord, to trust your mighty right arm that is good and right. In you we will trust, amen.