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It's a huge honor for me to be able to uh speak to you guys this morning, to preach to you guys the first sermon that I've actually ever preached. Um, this is my first time to do something like this, and I'm pretty excited about it. Um, mainly because I get to do it with y'all. Um, y'all are my family. Um I've just really loved being a part of this community for the last four or five months. And so I'm honored that you guys would entrust me with being able to teach you guys this morning. So thank you. Um as it's my first time this whole week, I've been thinking, okay, I've got to do a great job, I've got to do good. I can't stumble up my words, and everyone has to be like thinking that I did a great job. And honestly, none of that really matters. Um, the most important thing that I could do this morning would be to point you guys to the Word of God, to point you guys to Jesus and let the Holy Spirit do what he's gonna do. So, really fast, uh, I'm just gonna pray for that and uh we'll keep going. Lord, um, it is only your word, it's only your spirit that any of us really need. God, none of my wisdom is gonna change anybody's heart this morning. Um, it's only as we look to your truth, to your word, that God, we can be changed. So I pray, Lord, that you would help me speak clearly, help me speak truth, God, and that you would just give us eyes to see the truth of your word and to see your beauty. Pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, so today we're starting a new series called Road Trip. And Jackson did that, and I think it's really awesome. Jackson's so talented. He made that graphic. We're starting a new series called Road Trip. And basically what we're going to be doing is we're going to be opening up the book of Acts, and we're going to be traveling around and seeing all the different churches that we see in the book of Acts. All the churches that Paul, uh, Paul and Barnabas, any of the other early disciples planted. The reason we're doing this is because we want to learn what it looks like to engage in mission, what does it look like to be the church in the context of what God's actually given us in the Word? Um, Jesus said this. These were the last words Jesus spoke before he ascended into heaven. This is the last thing he said to his disciples. A lot of us that have grown up in church are familiar with this verse, but Jesus says, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. So we as followers of Jesus are called to be on mission. And Jesus doesn't leave the definition of what missions is vague for us. He says, missions is these three things. You're going to go to all nations, to all cities, all villages, every workplace, every neighborhood, and you're going to make disciples. You're going to share the gospel of Jesus. Then we're going to baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. Then we're going to teach them to obey the gospel. We're going to teach them what it looks like to live the Christian life. But God's good in that He didn't just tell us this. Jesus didn't just give us this command and leave it there. God actually inspired Luke to write the book of Acts so we can actually see what it looks like to have missions put into action. We should learn what it would look like through the lens of the early church. So that's what we're going to be doing in the book of Acts. We're going to be seeing how did Paul plant churches? What did these early churches look like, and what can we learn from them? And the first place we're going to be talking about today is one of the biggest cities in the ancient world. It's actually the city where Paul and Barnabas called home. It's a city that commissioned them on their first missionary journeys. It's a city called Antioch. I learned a lot about Antioch in the last few weeks. I learned a lot about geography and politics and buildings. But really, at the end of the day, none of that really matters. History lessons aren't really gonna be that fruitful for us this morning. But suffice to say, I think the best way to understand Antioch is consider it to be a lot like Austin. Antioch was very, very large, like half a million people 2,000 years ago, which is huge. There's a lot of different cultures, center of a lot of business. It's just a big multicultural melting pot. Kind of like the city we live in is. So if you know what it's like to live in Austin, you could probably get pretty well what it's like to live in Antioch. So here's some backstory on the church that we're gonna be talking about today. Now, after Jesus was crucified, he raised from the dead, and he spent about 40 days with his disciples, teaching them about the kingdom of God, getting ready for them, for him to leave. He was getting them ready for him to leave. And so, you know, he goes up to the hill, he says, Go make disciples of all nations. Jesus leaves and says, wait here in Jerusalem for uh 50 days, 40 days of Pentecost? Pentecost is 50, right? Thanks, Nick. He says, wait for 50 days, and I'm gonna send you something super awesome. And so the disciples are holed up in a in a top room, they're praying, and God sends the Holy Spirit. So he sends the power of God into his disciples. And so the first thing they do is they leave their upper room and they're walking all over Jerusalem, preaching the gospel, and seeing actually, literally, thousands of people a day come to believe in Jesus. The first sermon ever preached, 3,000 men and who knows how many women and children came to believe in Christ in like a 10-minute sermon. Like the gospel was exploding in Jerusalem. It was crazy. And this really, really freaked out the power in Jerusalem, which was the Jewish religious leaders that had had Jesus killed, that it stirred up the crowd to have Jesus killed. They were really freaked out by this. And not only because they were losing their power, their religious influence in the city, they really believed that what these Christians were doing was wrong. And so they viewed it as their duty as very religious people to kill and imprison these Christians. They were like, how are we gonna nip this new movement in the bud? And so what we see them doing is they take the opportunity to kill a guy named Stephen. Anybody ever read the story of Stephen? Familiar with it? Lots of nods. Great. So Stephen was a leader in the early church. He was not one of the twelve disciples, but he was very, very respected and very beloved by the church in Jerusalem. They put him in charge of stuff. He's a great teacher that says he's filled with the Holy Spirit. He's teaching in the temple and evangelizing, and it's just a guy that everyone in the community really, really respects. So what the Jews do, the Jewish leaders that don't believe in Jesus, because we know that a lot of Jews were believing in Jesus, this is a small group of the leaders, they say, okay, we're gonna arrest Stephen, and we're gonna come up with some charges saying that, you know, he says the temple should be destroyed, and he's speaking against Moses, which are all lies. So they they have this trial, they make these up these lies about Stephen, and they basically have Stephen killed. Um and that is what begins this huge exodus from Antioch. Um just to say one of the men involved in the stoning of Stephen was a guy named Saul, who, as we know, is eventually gonna become Paul. But before he gets saved by Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul is gonna become probably the biggest persecutor the church has known. Like he is gonna spend all of his days searching for Christians, arresting them, throwing them into prison, and killing them. So Christians started experiencing severe persecution right after the death of Stephen. They scattered all over the region, all the way 300 miles up to Antioch. It was a very, very long journey. It's not next door. They fled a long way to get away from this persecution. And so we're gonna pick up the story of Antioch here in Acts 11. Let's read this together. Those who had been scattered as a result of the persecution, it started because of Stephen, made their way as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the message to no one except Jews. But there were some of them, Cypriot and Cyrenian men, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Hellenists, which basically just means Greeks, Gentiles, non-Jewish people, proclaiming the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord's hand was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord. Then the report about them was heard by the church that was at Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to travel as far as Antioch. When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and encouraged all of them to remain true to the Lord with a firm resolve of the heart, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and large numbers of people were added to the Lord. Then he went to Tarsus to search for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for a whole year they met with the church and taught large numbers. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. So there's a lot there to unpack, but the first thing that I really see that's a truth for us as a church as a whole, the truth that we see through the lens of Antioch is that the church is fueled by persecution. Now, what's crazy about that is that the church in Antioch was not planted by professional church planners. It wasn't planted by pastors, they hadn't raised support to make the trip to Antioch. They didn't have titles, they weren't called missionaries, they were Christian refugees. They were fleeing religious persecution in Jerusalem, and they were running away from prison and death. But that persecution is what first took the gospel outside of Jerusalem. It was that persecution there that led the church to begin fulfilling the great commission that Jesus gave. I think it's really encouraging for us to see that these Christians aren't hiding when they get to Antioch. They didn't stay quiet. They had seen the cost of following Jesus in Jerusalem. They saw Stephen get stoned, but they didn't stay quiet. They shared the gospel with people. And like I said, these are normal men and women. These aren't super Christians. Some of them have probably only been followers of Jesus for a few days when they have to leave to go to Antioch. The church is very, very new. Weeks, weeks or days, these people have been following Jesus. They don't have any special training, but we see large numbers of people coming to follow Jesus. And they didn't just restrict their teaching to what we would think of as comfortable. They didn't stay just with their friends. They didn't just teach people that were like them, people that were Jewish. They weren't just keeping it secret. They were telling everyone. Now, what's crazy to me is that a lot of the people they're sharing the gospel with are people that a few weeks before, they wouldn't have even gone into their house. In Acts chapter 10, Peter talks to Cornelius and is like, you know, normally I wouldn't even come inside your house, but the Lord has told me to take the gospel to the Gentiles. So these baby believers are risking, knowingly risking death in Antioch, telling people the gospel, and they're telling people that two weeks ago, before they met Jesus, they wouldn't have even given the time of day. And I think that's incredibly brave. I think it's incredibly inspiring to read that, just to see how brave our brothers and sisters in Antioch were. And, you know, it's easy to read over the phrase, they began to proclaim the Lord, and large numbers came to Jesus. You know, our our our eyes skip over that, but that phrase is absolutely astounding. That the church in Antioch was founded by baby Christians that were bold enough to risk death, even though they've only been Christians for a few days or a few weeks. And what that shows for me, um for us this morning here at Point is that, you know, we have a lot of ways that we like to train people in how to do mission effectively. Our mysiology, our theology of mission is really advanced. We have conferences on what it looks like to share the gospel. We have initiatives like Love Where You Live, and those are all fantastic. And God uses all of these things to get people more equipped to share the gospel. But I think it's important to note that all of that is secondary to the power of the Holy Spirit. It's all secondary to the power of the Holy Spirit and the life of a man or woman following Jesus with a bold heart. So for anybody in here in this room, I mean, there's a couple hundred of y'all. I know a lot of us probably feel like we're not qualified to be on mission or we're scared to share Jesus. We're afraid we don't know enough. We're afraid people are gonna ask us a question we don't know the answer to and we're gonna be ashamed. We think we don't have the spiritual gift of sharing the gospel. But the truth is that no believer in this room is unqualified to engage in mission. Because all of us share the same Holy Spirit. We're all qualified by God, but we're also none of us are exempt from that call. The Great Commission is for all of us. So if you've been a believer for 15 years or 15 minutes, it doesn't matter. We all share in the same Holy Spirit that these brothers and sisters in Antioch did, that they had just received days prior. So don't believe the lie that you're not smart enough, prepared enough, or gifted enough to share Jesus. All you need is the Holy Spirit and a knowledge of the gospel of Jesus, and people can be saved, and people will be saved. So while we're talking about persecution, um, I want to share a quote I really, I really love with you guys. It's by a guy named Tertullian, who was a guy that lived a long time ago. He was a church father, like a few hundred years after Jesus. This is his probably most famous quote. He says, The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. So as the blood is spilled, the church flourishes. As people are persecuted for their faith, the church grows and is made more healthy. That was definitely true of Stephen. The men of Jerusalem who killed them thought they were doing damage to the church. Their goal in killing Stephen and throwing Christians into prison was to intimidate them, to get them to stop sharing Jesus, to fill them with fear, to get them to be quiet. But in fact, God was preparing to use the death of Stephen to spread the gospel massively throughout the region, throughout the world. The death of Stephen was actually part of God's foresight and plan. So killing Stephen backfired in a huge way for the leaders in Jerusalem, for the spiritual leaders. They were trying to stop the gospel, but God, in fact, used this persecution, he used this danger to spread people out massively and in a massive way. And what's cool is for the rest of the book of Acts, we'll see Paul and Barnabas and these other Christian leaders, they're going throughout the region. They're going from Greece, um, all around Israel, hundreds and hundreds of miles in every direction. And the Jewish leaders are always chasing after them, trying to shut them down, trying to catch up, but they can't. Like Paul and Barnabas in the Church of Jesus is always a step ahead. Like this moment here when Stephen was killed and the church started to disperse is the moment that Christianity became out of reach of the people that were trying to shut it down. Because God used it. It was basically like a Big Bang. Like hundreds and thousands of Christians just going everywhere sharing the gospel and they couldn't shut it down. So when Tetullian, when he says the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, what he's saying is that persecution has this incredible power to make us as Christians be more bold. It inspires when non-Christians see us enduring persecution with joy, counting our lives as less valuable than giving honor to Jesus, they stand up and they take notice. When people willingly suffer for Jesus, it doesn't really make sense to the eyes of the world. And the reason that it doesn't make sense is because the world thinks that this life is all we have. It doesn't make sense that somebody would say, I'm gonna lay this life down for this higher cause. They're like, why would you do that? This life is it. Why would you willingly endure persecution? Why would you willingly sacrifice? But when we do, when we do endure persecution for the name of Jesus, when we do sacrifice, we look really weird and we make the gospel look really, really beautiful. And so what it has the power to do is when people that don't know Jesus see that, it looks like nothing they've ever seen before. And if God opens their heart to the gospel, it will they can become saved. They can meet Jesus because they've seen the gospel so clearly portrayed in our lives, and we endure suffering and persecution really well. In fact, it's actually the gospel, if you think about it, because Jesus, nobody understood what he was doing on the cross. The Jewish leaders that killed him thought they were winning. They were like, we're going to kill this man and we're gonna shut it down. But it was through Christ's suffering, through his death, through the persecution that he endured, that he has made a way for us to come to God. Through Christ's persecution, God was glorified. And so when we suffer for Jesus, we are actually giving a small picture of his work to the world. I think about the church in China. It's a country where being a Bible-believing Jesus follower is illegal. Now there is a church in China, I think it's uh, this could be wrong, I think it's called the Church of the Threefold Path or something like that. But the reason why that church isn't great is because their doctrine, their theology, and their teachings are all controlled by the state. Okay, so anything, any theological belief that we would have that would conflict with the party line in China, they'll shut it down. You're not allowed to preach it or believe it, and they'll put you in prison if you do. And so the church in China that's made up of Bible-believing Christians, they're literally meeting in secret, in small groups, in basements, and houses. They're not meeting in big buildings, they're meeting in groups of ten. Their pastors are getting thrown into prison. When they get caught believing in Jesus, they're going to jail. But in this situation, a situation where there's no megaphone, there's nobody preaching to thousands of people about Jesus, there's not a Christian programming on TV or a radio station, they don't have Caleb in China. But these groups of ten people, these small groups of ten persecuted people hiding, are seeing tens of millions of people in China come to faith in Jesus. Now tell me that's not the power of the Holy Spirit in persecution. Refining and inspiring and using the church. It's beautiful. Same thing's happening in the Middle East. The same thing's happening among Muslims in the midst of a country that is totally dominated by Islam. The people are coming to Jesus, and the fire might be small in number in the Middle East, but the Christians there burn very, very hot. Because just to say that they're gonna follow Jesus, they're instantly disowned from their family and they're instantly under penalty of death. They know what they're getting into when they follow Jesus, but these men and women are doing it. That's awesome. I think it's important to remember that like these believers in China, like these believers in the Middle East, the Christians in Antioch were being persecuted for something very specific. It wasn't that people really thought they didn't like it when they sold their possessions and gave to the poor. They weren't being persecuted for their Republican or Democrat beliefs or their Second Amendment rights. No one didn't like their Jesus bumper sticker on the back of their donkey. They were being persecuted for a very specific reason. They're being persecuted because they're preaching the cross of Jesus. They're preaching Jesus. And when we preach Jesus in the same way, with the same clarity and the same passion that the church in Antioch did, the same thing, but this persecution will happen to us. Typically, people will respond to the gospel in one of two ways. So they hear the teaching of Jesus, and they can either believe and be completely changed from the core of their being, they're changed and made a new creation, as Paul would say, or their hearts are gonna further harden and they're gonna utterly despise and reject us for believing such nonsense. Now, we normally don't get that reaction, sometimes it's because people are just too polite to say that, but a lot of times I think it's because we aren't necessarily sharing the whole gospel, or we're just afraid to say some of the harder truths of what we believe as Christians. So when I say things like, Jesus is God in the flesh, people are gonna be like, some people will say yeah. Some people say that's a little weird. I don't think Jesus is God. Now, if I stand up here and I say, God cannot tolerate sin, and man stands guilty apart from Jesus, probably more people are gonna be mad. People don't like being called sinful. They don't like when we start criticizing their behavior or calling them to change. If I was to say Jesus is the only way to God, ooh, people really don't like that one. People don't like exclusive claims of truth, especially not in our world, especially not in Austin. If I was to say, those who reject Jesus thus reject God and his forgiveness. When I say things like that, people are going to get uncomfortable and they're gonna get mad. Or they could be saved and come to a knowledge of Jesus. So when we say things like Christ loves you, that is absolutely true. It's a necessary thing to speak and a necessary thing to say over people, particularly people that don't know Jesus. But it's not the whole story. We've got to know what does it mean that Christ has loved us? What does it mean that he died a suffering death for us? Because if he had not done that, we would have still been under sin. We've got to put Christ's sacrifice in context. Because when the gospel is preached, that people can actually be miraculously changed. I'm definitely not saying this morning that our goal is to offend people, that we shouldn't seek out offending people. It's not even to invite persecution. What I'm saying is that when we share the gospel, it's gonna offend people for itself. Much of what we do as a church, specifically in America, is I see, and this is true in my own heart, I see us seeking to minimize pain, to minimize risk. But these are the things that Jesus guaranteed that we would experience, and also the things that he called us to. He warned us beforehand trouble is coming. And he actually said it, Lennon preached this earlier, he mentioned it in John 16. Jesus guaranteed us, he said, in this world you will have trouble. It's not you might have trouble, it's that we will. We absolutely will have trouble. And Peter writes further, he says, 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, but rejoice, insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you're insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed. Because the spirit of glory and of God rests on you. So when we see what giving up everything for Jesus looks like, that we know he's worth giving everything up for. This trial. Well, Paul's prayer is he's praying, Lord, use this trial. He says, God, while I'm in prison, I'm in here for a purpose. I'm going to preach the gospel to everyone in this prison. Every guard is going to hear the gospel, every fellow prisoner is going to hear the gospel. He embraces his suffering because he knows that God uses our suffering to glorify himself. God always has a purpose in our persecution. There's a reason for our suffering. Because when the world sees how we respond in joy, when they see that having God is enough for us, man, it looks crazy. But people will see the beauty of God when we do that. The greatest danger for us as followers of Jesus isn't the risk that we'll be hated for what we believe, or discriminated against politically, or imprisoned, or killed. The greatest danger for us is that we live anemic, comfortable lives, never touched by persecution, because we never obey the call of Jesus. This life is temporary, the next is eternal. Now, the call of Jesus doesn't only lead us to suffer physically, not just physical persecution. There's also emotional cost to following Jesus that we're going to count this morning. Leads us to this other lesson from Antioch that I see that the church is familiar with saying goodbye. Now, what do I mean? Let's turn to Acts 13. I'm going to read what it says here. In the church that was at Antioch, there were prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius the Cyrene, Menaeon, close friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. As they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart from me Barnabas and Saul for the work I have called them to. And after they had fasted, prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them off. So Paul and Barnabas loved these people. They had spent the last year of their life with them, day in, day out, getting to know their needs, their wants. Paul was even learning alongside them more deeply the gospel. I mean, we see them coming back to Antioch over and over in Acts in between their journeys. Antioch's kind of their home base. It's their people, you know. It's kind of like I would view this church as my people. So if I was to go out on a mission trip, I would want to come back to point and tell you guys how it went and rest and be refreshed with my family. That's exactly how Paul and Barnabas viewed Antioch. But we don't see them hesitating to leave the comfort of that community when God calls them. But more importantly, we don't see their community trying to hang on to them with tight hands. We see their community actually blessing them and encouraging them to leave. So for me, uh the clearest example I can give is uh for the people in the room that know Jacob and Faith Kohler. People know them? Nods? Yeah. They're gone right now because um Jacob was called to Arizona for four months for his job. And after that four months in, that four months ends, they don't exactly know where they're gonna go or what they're gonna be called to. And, you know, I love them. I love Jacob and Faith. Jacob is such an encouraging guy. He's a man of God, he's a good dad and a good husband. And, you know, y'all have seen Faith up here many times leading songs, playing keys. She's been a part of this church before it was point. Um, they are special, special people. And personally, you know, if someone asked me, and if I had control over their life, I'd be like, yeah, I want you to stay in Austin. I want y'all to stay, I want y'all to hang out with me, let me babysit your son all the time. And uh, you know, that's what I want. Leaving is hard. And I've only known them a few months. I mean, there are people in our life that we have to say goodbye to after years and years. So if God leads Jacob and Faith away from Austin permanently, and I'm not celebrating God's call for them and praying for them and commissioning them, I'm being disobedient to what God is calling me to do in their life. And the reason is because in Christ, we know as believers that we're gonna inherit eternal life. I'm gonna be with Jacob and Faith and renegade for eternity. So when they leave, you know, the mindset of the world is if people leave, we're missing out on something. We're losing them. Because if this life is all we have, we get really, really fearful of loss. We hold on really tightly because we don't want to lose things, we don't want to lose people. But when people leave for the gospel, when people are called away in Christ, we know that we actually haven't lost anything. When we hold on too tightly to people leaving for the cause of Jesus and we don't support them going, we reveal that we actually think this life is all there is. I think of my daughter Nora, you know, it's gonna be really hard if she wants to go on a mission trip overseas and she's 16. Because I'm gonna want her to be safe. But in Christ, the risk is worth it. Because this life isn't all she has. This life isn't all I have. Jacob and Faith have to be obedient to the call of God. And if they're gone, if they're not here, I haven't really lost anything. Because I'm gonna be with my brother and sister in the kingdom of God for eternity. Now, Paul and Barnabas could have lived fruitful lives in Antioch. They could have stayed there, pastored the church, been probably megachurch pastors, they'd say in Antioch. You know, staying isn't sinful. Staying in your home, staying where you're at, isn't sinful. You'll notice that not everyone in Antioch was called to leave. Just Paul and Barnabas were called to leave. But some of us are gonna be called to go. Some of us are gonna be called to go overseas. That's overseas missionaries. Some of us are gonna be called to move to a different city. Some of us are gonna be called to move neighborhoods. You know, the hardest thing I would think is some of us are gonna be called to split our life group that we love so that more people can come experience the community of Jesus. And that's really hard. Like that we shouldn't minimize that. It's hard to say goodbye to people that we love, but it's part of mission. Missions is costly, but it is worth it. Because what do we gain? We gain, brothers and sisters in Jesus, that instead of spending eternity apart from God, they're gonna spend eternity with us. And that's worth it. So far, we focused on hard stuff. We focused on the hard stuff about being called as the church to follow Jesus. And enduring persecution and following God's call are and can be really, really difficult. But the beautiful thing about being a part of the church is that we aren't meant to endure alone. God has given us community, He's given us the body of Christ, He's given us the church. And even Nick said this before, he said, we're a family, a family of Jesus followers. There's another word I want to talk about. It's that we are a family of priests. That if you're in Christ, you are a priest, part of a family of priests. Now, the language of that is probably really confusing for a lot of us, uh, especially if anyone in here grew up Catholic. Um the definition of priest is gonna be very different that I'm gonna talk about than a lot of people would think of as a priest. Um a lot of people in the world, a lot of people that grew up in the Catholic Church would say the priest is one who speaks to God on our behalf, or the priest is God's representative on earth. This is what Peter says a priest is, and this is what he says you are. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. So we see in Antioch, it was just the regular people that were hearing from God and talking to God. When it says they laid their hands on Paul and Barnabas to commission them, and the Holy Spirit spoke to them, the Holy Spirit wasn't just telling Paul and Barnabas to go. The Holy Spirit told their friends in Antioch very clearly that it was time for Paul and Barnabas to leave. There's another story in Acts about a guy named Agabus, his name is Agabus. He stands up in the middle of a worship service and is like, God told me there's going to be a huge famine, so get ready for that. And it was true. He had heard from God and he spoke up. And you know, Agabus wasn't the lead elder, he wasn't the lead pastor, he was just a guy. And he was a guy that heard from God. And what's awesome is that for everybody in this room, every single person in this room that's a believer in Jesus, doesn't matter how mature you are as a believer, how long you've been a believer, if you're following Jesus, you have the same access to personal, intimate relationship with God the Father as those guys in Antioch. Super awesome. Jesus says this in John 16, it's one of my favorite verses in all scripture. Jesus says, In that day you will ask in my name. And I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. You are a priest, believer. You don't need someone to speak to God for you, and you don't need somebody else to declare your sins forgiven. Christ has already done that. So as priests here, we are not just customers of Point Community Church. Nick kind of alluded to this earlier. We're not just here to gather and hear a sermon, enjoy the child care for two hours, as great as that is, to enjoy some good songs and to pay our 10% membership fee. That is not what being a Christian is about, and that's not what God's church is about. We are called to something much deeper. And we're called to endure these trials that we've been speaking about today together, to bear each other's burdens, Paul would say. To encourage, lift up, pray for one another. Now, how does Jesus say the world we're gonna know, the world will know that we're his disciples? By our love, right? By our love for one another. We're called to be priests to each other. We're called to be priests to one another in our trials. So, you know, not everyone in this room is a Christian. I mean, just statistically, I know it. You're not a Christian, you might even say, man, Alex, you really haven't made Christianity look all that appealing. You're telling me there's persecution, I gotta say goodbye to the people I love, and I might die. And uh, yeah, that's what I'm saying. That is the Christian life. That's what Jesus told us it was gonna be like. He said, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. Here's the thing: it's when we're willing to lose the world that we actually gain life, that we actually gain something of real eternal value. It's when we're unafraid to die, that we can really live. And Jesus is enough for us. He's given us a mission, he's given us his spirit, and he's given us one another. That's more than enough. So if you don't have Jesus this morning, there's always an opportunity to receive him because look at the story of Paul. Look at the story of Paul and the church at Antioch. The church at Antioch commissioned Paul. They sent him off as a missionary and they loved him. And that same church was started because Paul was killing their friends. God saved Paul miraculously and used this man that had been doing incredible evil, and he used him to be the greatest evangelist the world has ever known. So, whoever, wherever you're at in this room, no one is beyond the reach of God's grace. God has loved the world so much that he came down here himself and he suffered in our place, the death that we all deserve. It's true, we all have deserved death apart from Jesus. But God loved us enough that he came and made a way for us this morning in Christ. So if you're not in Jesus, I want you to pray, ask God to reveal himself and to reveal his truth to you. My prayers that the Holy Spirit, even now, would be stirring us as believers and as unbelievers to see the beauty that is Jesus. So no one in this room too far gone to experience the grace of God and to live a life that's on mission. Let's pray. Lord, you have called us to difficult lives. You have called us to suffer, Lord. Now that can look a lot of different ways for us. It doesn't just have to look any one way, Lord, but you did say that in this world we'll have trouble. And so, Lord, I pray that you would remind us this morning that you're enough for us, that no matter what we're going through, that Jesus, you're our comforter, that we don't have to be afraid, because we have eternal life in Jesus Christ. We have forgiveness, we have love, we have comfort, not only through you, God, but through one another as the church. So, Lord, use us in our hardship, use our persecution, fuel us. God, I pray that we would be priests to one another in our trials, that we would just be there for each other. And God, as we say goodbye and as we have to leave, Lord, I pray that we would follow your call boldly. And that you would use us to glorify Jesus in this city and in this world. Do that in Christ's name. All right, guys. Um