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We are here today because God did something supernatural through his power of his Holy Spirit, through his people, to bring his church forth and to birth that church and to grow it and to extend his church. And so we are here to celebrate that, but we're also here to learn how do we how do we, as God's people, be the church, not just go to church, but be the church that God intends, because God never intended people just to go and sit in the service and soak and then to walk out the door and just wait until the next week and come back and do it again. Right? Rinse, wash, repeat, whatever. That's not how it works. The idea is that we as the people of God have been empowered by the Spirit of God to live on mission in all of life so that every person will have the opportunity to experience the life-changing reality of Him. That's what we hope for. And so, as we look at the book of Acts, we're teaching through it because the church has lost its way in some places. Not every church, and not every person who goes to church, but many people have lost their way. They've lost their understanding of what it means to be the church. Not just go to church, but to be the church, to be the people of God in the places and context that He has called us to be. And so, if you have a Bible, you can look with me in Acts chapter 14. That's where we're going to be camping out tonight. And if you don't have a Bible, there's some on the pews, or uh they're not pews. I haven't said pew in forever. Um that feels kind of weird. But there are these chairs, and there's some below them down there. You might see a Bible. And if you, as I say it every week, just so in case you don't know, if you don't have a Bible, take one with you, okay? We'd love for you to have it as a gift from us because we believe that God's Word will change your life. So read it, okay? Um, and there's a reading plan in the guide for you. In Acts 14, we're gonna pick up the story again where Eric left off last week, and we're gonna look at just the chapter 14, even though this week you're gonna read 14 and 15 if you're reading along with us. And uh it's really a great, great narrative, again, of seeing the apostles do what God had called them to do in the face of difficulty. If any of you in this room have really tried to live on mission, and if you're part of the core group that moved from somewhere, uh maybe that was Round Rock, maybe that was Houston, whatever, moved here to South Austin to help start this church, you know that when you try to intentionally live on mission, that there is going to be opposition. Because there is an enemy who wants to destroy the work of God. He wants to keep people from knowing the message, the liberation that comes in Christ Jesus. And so there's opposition that comes against that, right? Um this week we had the incredible opportunity, as you guys know already, to go to Mexico and to see God at work in some different ways and uh and just to see maybe some of these stories in the book of Acts, um, the power of God demonstrated, we saw some of that in a different way than we typically would see in our context. And it was encouraging, it was exciting. And I continue to believe that God is doing something in our day uh to demonstrate his power so that people would come to know him, they would see him, they would be, they would be um a part of his movement in the earth, to worship him as he deserves. And so, um, but part of being there, you know, is that uh several occasions I I uh we we got to take our youngest son, Cray, uh, who just turned 11 months today. Happy 11 month birthday to Cray. And uh and so he turns 11 months today. While we were there, like several times I look over at this guy and it's had these moments where I'm like, life is just good for him, you know? I mean, he just sits back and people come and they like, you know, talk to him and think he's the greatest. And it's just life is good. Like we feed him, we change his diapers, we put him to bed. Like he just gets to hang out and just rely on his mom and dad and everybody around him, like just to take care of his needs. Life is good, you know. You ever thought about that for these babies? I mean, they just, you know, it's not wrong, but sometimes you get a little envious as an adult, like this has got to be great, you know, just chill, right? I think I gotta go to the bathroom. I'm just gonna go to the bathroom and somebody I'll clean it up, you know? No big deal, you know? I'm hungry. You know, I'm gonna get fed. It's great. I'm tired. Um, you know, just rub my eyes a little bit. I'm gonna get put in bed. Um, so you just rely. But as you get older, uh, you don't rely so much because hopefully you grow up. Hopefully you start doing things on your own. Hopefully you go to the bathroom by yourself. Hopefully you feed yourself, right? Hopefully, um, hopefully some of the things that a baby has to rely on someone else to do, you learn to do. And that's good, right? Because I don't want my 18-year-old, I don't want my son who's 11 months old when he's 18 to still be relying on me for all those things. However, as they become independent in some of the practical daily functions and things of life, what we hope is that they grow in dependence on the Lord. You with me? So you're gonna grow independent in some of the tasks and some of the just things you have to do to get through life as we live, but you want to grow in dependence on God. So it's an opposite thing going on. We hope that there's a growth that happens in our son's life, and not just in his life, but all of our lives who call God our Heavenly Father. We depend more and more on Him. We rely more and more on Him. Let me ask you a question. Two or three people right there close to you, or four or whatever you let me ask you a question. I want you to answer this question together and then we get some answers out loud. When you think about this, um, when you have a need or encounter a problem, what is typically your first reaction? When you have a need or you encounter a problem, what is typically your first reaction? So Okay. Around the room, real quick. What is your typical reaction when you encounter a problem or a need? Okay, what's your first reaction? Somebody brave enough to answer? What's that? Fix it. Yeah. Good. How many of you are fix it people? Okay, that's good. Good. Alright, okay. What else? Call Harley. Man. That's what I do. 1-800 Harley. Harley, you gotta help me out. What else? What else do you do? Huh? Pray. Yes. I hope that one would come up, right? We hope we pray. Um what else you do? Worry. Oh, that's a good one. I see a lot of people worrying. Freakout mode, right? Oh no. What else?

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SPEAKER_00 6:14

Problem solver mode. Yeah. Analyze it. You know? Um start writing stuff down, figuring it all out, getting a game plan together, right? That's the fix it part, but kind of the analyzing it. What else? Anybody else? Ignore it. I was hoping I would get that one. We just ignore it and maybe it'll go away, right? The problem will just go away. Yeah. And usually it just gets bigger. Yeah. You know, the thing is, is that typically, if we're honest, our response to need or to problem is not go to God with it. That's not the first now. It may be one of our later responses, but typically our first response is anxiety, it's worry, it's fear, it's discouragement, it's oh no, what am I gonna do? Or if you again, if you're in a good mood and you've been doing pretty well for a little while, you might go into fix-it mode and initially try to try to just fix this thing. I'm gonna get this, I'm gonna pull myself up by my bootstraps, whatever it might be. And again, sometimes it depends on the size of the problem. It just depends on what's really going on. It depends on how desperate we are, doesn't it? You know, it's interesting to me that when we went into the Mexican context, and as we're there in the Mayan zone working among people, um, you know, they don't have a lot to depend on uh in the way of um of financial um you know capacity to to pay for some fix, uh some help. In fact, there was one village we were in and they have a water problem. Uh I I tried to get a picture on several times several times and I couldn't. I would love to show you the picture tonight, but there's there's this water that was there and it was nasty looking. Um I mean these guys who were there can vouch for us. It was gross. And they had somewhere around 70, from what I heard, 70 different bacteria going on in this water, and a number of the people in the village were sick. Now, if that was in the United States and that was our only water supply, that problem would be gone yesterday, right? Like we have the money and the capacity to do that. So we get there and they're like, we have no idea how we're gonna fix this problem, but we've got many people in our village that are sick. And so what do they do? They were praying, crying out, God, please, would you please just purify that water? And uh we even helped, we we even prayed with them. We were stretched out our hand towards the water and we prayed, God, purify that water. Now listen, when you're in that context versus our context, you approach problems a little differently. Because in the United States, we tend to do everything with our money. And not saying it's all bad that God is, you know, God is the giver of every good and perfect gift, and He's given us resources, hasn't He? But sometimes even our resources become a crutch that we can use instead of relying on God, can't they? In fact, I've heard stories of people who are old timers, people like my grandparents who I used to hear them share stories, and they would talk about how they would deal with sickness back in the day. It wasn't like they would just instantly go to the doctor. I mean, I pay more copays. Let me just tell you. I I, you know, I love insurance, but I pay more copays. Taking to our five, we have five kids, you know, and taking them to the doctor, and I'm like, man, it's like they sniffle and they get a fever, and like, bam, we're going to the doctor, and that's just what you do. It's just normal. And if we didn't take them to the doctor, we'd be bad parrots in our culture. Back then, what do they do? They just pray and just hope that God heals them. Because there's no hope of uh a doctor being able to fix the problem. You see, the sometimes the more resources we have, the more things we have, the more we rely on those things rather than God, right? And then without getting into the weeds, you know, we know God provides all these things. It's not bad, it's not evil, it's not wrong, it's not God bad that God has given us pure water or the capacity to make water pure so that we can drink it and not get sick. But we have to be careful, don't we? To be careful to not rely on our own things. And it's interesting because when we are in those positions where all we have is God, when we are in those positions, our backs are against the wall, the problem is too big, too great for our resources, for our intellect, for any of those things, in those moments we have to stop and say, God, we need you. We get to see God show up and do some amazing things. That's why I always say to people when they ask us about church planting or ask us about ministry stuff, it's like, listen, I want to live a life that requires God. And here's why. Because it's only when you require God that you get to see God show up and do amazing things. When you don't think you need him, you don't get to see those things. See, everybody loves the stories where God moves in power and does all these awesome things, but no one likes the circumstances that those stories happen in. Right? I mean, let's be honest. Think about the circumstances where you've seen God do the most powerful and amazing things. Think about the brokenness, the mess, the sickness, the, the, the, the grossness, the relational issues, all those problems. And think about how God moves in that, and we celebrate that, but we forget what people were going through before Christ showed up. Before God showed up. Now, I'm not saying we should pray for more mess, but I am saying this: that in those moments we have the opportunity to see God work if we will trust him, if we will rely on him, if we look to him. In Acts 14, I just want to talk briefly tonight about some things that we see through the apostles. Some things where we see them learning to rely on God. There's a lot of ways we could teach this text, but there's something that God just leapt off the page to me as I was reading it. And I want to read the first seven verses and then we're gonna talk a little bit. But let me just say this. I have to be honest tonight that when I answer the question that you guys talked about a while ago, I have to submit to you that when I encounter a difficulty, I tend to look inward rather than upward. I tend to look inward rather than upward. And the more inward that I look, and what I mean is looking towards myself to fix it, to do whatever, the more inward that I fix, fix my eyes on that gaze there, rather than looking upward, the bigger that problem becomes, the more stressed that I become, and the more death that is breeded in my life rather than blessing in life. But when Christ moves in, we get to see amazing things happen, right? So, um, here's what it says. The same thing happened in Iconium. And then what is the same thing? Well, they went and they had the same missionary pattern of going to the tabernacle or the synagogue and trying to share the gospel with the people that were there first. That's the first place they would go when they did mission work because they knew there might be some Jews who were on the cusp of believing in Jesus, and they could kind of rally them together and then form a group of people who then can go and take the gospel to the rest of the city. Okay, so that's where Paul and Barnabas would go as missionaries. The same thing happened in Iconium. They entered the Jewish synagogue and they spoke in such a way that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up and poisoned the minds of the Gentiles against the brothers. Man, that just makes me mad hearing it, right? That just makes me mad. They stirred them up and said, Don't listen to these guys. Poisoned, like that's a that's a strong language, poisoned their minds against the brothers. So they stayed there. This is so they stayed there for some time and spoke boldly in reliance on the Lord, who testified to the message of his grace by granting that signs and wonders be performed through them. But the people of the city were divided, some siding with the Jews, and some with the apostles. When an attempt was made by both the Jews or the Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers to assault and stone them, they found out about it, and they fled to Lyconia, in the towns called Lystra and Derby, and to the surrounding countryside, and there they kept evangelizing. Okay? So here's what I want us to see is that from this text we notice how the apostles rely on God. How the apostles rely on God. Five ways for you tonight. They're going to be up here behind me. And you can take notes there in your guide if you want to and come back to them later. The first thing that we see is that the apostles relied on God's timing. How many of you get impatient with God? How many of you have ever prayed and felt like God was not answering your prayer fast enough? I can raise both hands, both feet, right? There have been moments where I feel like, God, you need to move now. And God hasn't moved in my time frame. And I've said, why? In fact, if I'm wrong, if I'm real honest with you, I've prayed since we moved down here for some neighbors that we're trying to reach with the gospel, that we believe they don't know God. They don't know the gospel, the message. They've heard it now from us through different circumstances and have the opportunity to share it, but they don't know the gospel. They know about religion, they know about some of the things about Christian church, but they don't know the gospel. And my prayer has been, God save them. And so I'd like, God, you should have saved them yesterday. Notice what it says in the text here. It says that they stirred them up and they poisoned their minds. And it's kind of puzzling because you would think when you faced opposition, you would move on. In fact, Jesus even said, if you faced resistance or rejection, just dust the feet, you know, the sand, the dirt off your feet and move on. But in this passage it says, so they stayed. They stayed there for some time. Now, if there's one thing I could say about going on short-term mission trips, it's that you feel like, oh, if we could only stay longer and have another conversation. If we could just, you know, if we could just have more time. Now, the beautiful thing about the work we're doing in Mexico is that when we left, we left a man who's there named Atlai, and we're going to continue to pray for him and support him, encourage him, and we know he will continue those relationships, particularly at the university where we were working and interacting there in Jose Maria Morelos. But man, as a missionary, ah, I wish we had more time. Wish we had more time to have conversations. Wish we had more time to convince them and to talk about the gospel with them. But we didn't have that time. And so we have to just trust God with that, right? But here's the thing: many times in our life, not just in sharing the gospel, but just in life in general, when we pray, how many times do we get impatient with God in his timing? But the apostles, they show this incredible sense of ability to rely on God's timing. How about this? Let's bring this practical. Because maybe it's not always just about sharing the gospel. We know in our body here we've had some guys looking for jobs. It's frustrating when it feels like the timing is not working the way we wanted it to. I have been praying diligently for men in this body to get jobs. And I don't understand the timing in all of that. In fact, one of those men went with us on this trip, and we talked about it several times. And I wish that I could figure out why. But God's timing is not always our timing. And we may not ever know until this side of heaven what the timing difference was. Part of even the guy that uh went with us, um, Sean, I'll just say his name, because you guys know. Um I was so grateful he got to go on the trip, and if he had gotten a job, he wouldn't have gotten to go with us to Mexico. So maybe that was part of the reason why. But we don't know the reasons for God's timing is different than our timing. We just know he's God and we're not. And so we just we we pray and we submit to him our requests, and then we wait. Right? We wait on him. So they they relied on God's timing. The second thing is the apostles relied on God's wisdom. They relied on God's wisdom. What had God told them to do? To go and to be witnesses. Now, and notice in the text it says there, they relied on the Lord. That's where this whole idea of reliance on the Lord comes from. But they relied on the Lord who testified to the message of his grace, the message of his grace, which he's basically describing there, the gospel. He's using that terminology to talk about the gospel. Now, here's the thing. If I wanted to get more people to trust in the message that I have, or if I wanted to get more people to just adhere to what I'm trying to teach, um, I could tweak the message a little bit. I could mess with it a little bit and make it sound a little more enticing, like we have in the United States. For example, the gospel in the United States has many times become just simply add Jesus to your life. Keep doing what you're doing and just add Jesus to your life. Get his love and his joy and his peace, but keep living how you want to live. And so people will come to faith and they'll say, I want that Jesus. I'm all about that. The problem is that's not the gospel. You see, the gospel, the grace message of the gospel, requires us to understand our brokenness, our depravity, our need before a holy God, our separation from Him. And so they proclaim the message of the gospel in spite of the fact that it probably was foolish because one, it was going to get them killed, and two, because that message, as it says even in another passage where Paul writes, he says that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But to those who are coming to life, it is life. It is the message of salvation for all who believe, right? And so here they are, they choose, they choose to rely on God's wisdom, not their own wisdom. Even Paul, who is here in this passage later on in Corinthians, it says, I didn't come with the spirit of wisdom in of myself, right? I didn't come with all this wise and persuasive words. I came with a spirit's power, a demonstration of the spirit's power. A wisdom that's not just an earthly wisdom, a wisdom that's from God. Paul was one of the most intelligent men to walk the planet. He'd been trained in every way, but yet he did not dumb down the gospel. He didn't remove any of the elements to the gospel, he proclaimed it with wisdom, and he let people have to figure out am I gonna believe this or am I gonna go my own way? Am I gonna follow Jesus? Am I gonna trust Jesus or am I gonna keep living for myself? And that's why it was so divisive. And the gospel's still polarizing in our culture, isn't it? The gospel is still a message that divides people. It says in the text there, it says that they were divided. But they relied on the Lord's wisdom. This message of grace. Listen, the reason why grace offends us so much is because grace tells us that we cannot save ourselves. It's God's gift. Are you with me? The reason that grace is so hard for us to receive, you would think grace would be something like, oh, I want God's grace. Absolutely, I want God's grace. But see, here's the problem. When you can't add anything to the equation, you can't control God. You can't say, but God, I did this, and so you do, you need to do this. But grace says, no, God gave us everything and he asks for everything from us. And it's not unreasonable for him to ask for our lives. It's not unreasonable for him to ask for our money or anything that we need, we have, because he's given us everything in Christ Jesus. And so grace offends our sensibilities because it tells us we can't do anything to earn our salvation. It would be easier if he said, obey these ten things and you get into heaven. But he says, trust in the finished work of Jesus on the cross, in his death, burial, and resurrection, that he was perfect. And it's in his perfection that we can find life and hope and salvation. It's a different message, isn't it? Religion says, I perform so that God will accept me, but the gospel says Jesus accepts me because of who he is and what he's done, and now I live my life in gratitude and worship to him. Completely different, huh? And so they continue to proclaim the message of grace. The third thing we see here is that the apostles relied on God's power. They relied on God's power. Oh, can I just tell you? Like, I long to see God do the miraculous in our culture. We got to see some things in Mexico. Um, still trying to process some of all that God was doing. And uh I don't want to process all out loud in front of you tonight, okay? Because it's still in my head jumbled. But here's the deal when we read these stories in Acts, the question you have to ask yourself is do you believe that God can still do these things today? Do you believe that God can heal the sick? We just sang a song at the sound of your great name. Sick are healed, dead are Raised. Are we just singing that or do we believe that? I want to believe that. Right? I want to believe that sick are healed and dead are raised at the sound of God's great name. Does it weird me out? Absolutely. But God can do it. And see, the note, notice the thing here, it says these two things are very connected. Who testified to the message of his grace by granting that signs and wonders be performed through them? If you have a different version, a different translation, it even talks about how that God, in his grace, he actually supported the gospel through the signs and wonders. And throughout Scripture, if you if you notice this pattern, you'll never find signs and wonders, miracles of God that don't point people to Jesus, to their bigger need. Right? Because physical healing is great. It's awesome. And we celebrate that, but it's not our greatest need. And we're going to talk more about that in just a minute. So they relied on God's power. In fact, it says there that they saw these signs and wonders. And then in verse 8, which I didn't read to you well ago, it goes on to say that in Lystra, a man without strength in his feet, he was lame from birth. Okay? Like this guy had been lame all of his life. He had never walked. He sat and he heard Paul speaking. And after observing him closely and seeing that he had faith to be healed, Paul said in a loud voice, Stand up on your feet. And he jumped up and he started to walk around. What an awesome moment. Where did Paul get that kind of faith? From God. And God moved on behalf of Paul. This was the first healing that happened in Scripture through the apostles, not just through Jesus, but through the apostles. And he heals them. When we were there in Mexico, Jade and I and our daughter Auburn and then one of our translators, we had the opportunity to walk through some villages. And again, great reminders that we live in such affluence that we just get really caught up in our stuff. Okay? So we went in these places and they had nothing. And they were so happy to host us, to invite us into their nothing. And to invite us into their little huts where I'm looking up at the ceiling thinking, if it rains, they are going to be sopping wet. And it did rain the last day, and I'm thinking that whole, as soon as the rain started coming down, I'm thinking, man, I wonder what that family's doing right now. Because there's just holes all in their ceiling. And they're their older family. And I walk in, and the ladies just really kind and they're starting to talk and doing what ladies do and having all this conversation. So I just kind of step back and just kind of take the whole thing in. I'm praying and just asking God, you know, how do you want to use me here, God? So I just prayed over their home and prayed for blessings over this family. And uh there's a man sitting there and he's in his he's in his 70s, and he's sitting there swinging on a little hammock, because they like hammocks down there, they're everywhere. He's swinging on this little hammock. And I tried to talk to him a little bit with my very bad Spanish, and it wasn't going so well. And a lot of these people speak Mayan, uh, particularly the older ones, not even Spanish. So I thought maybe he just doesn't understand Spanish, maybe he just only understands Mayan, you know. Um, but come to find out the man was deaf and he was blind. So I'm sitting here trying to talk to him, and it's not getting anywhere, okay? And in that moment, I mean it was funny, okay? Not that it's funny that he's dumb that he's deaf and blind, okay? But it's funny that I'm trying to talk to him, right? And it's okay to laugh. God doesn't get offended. And uh so, but I'm sitting there trying, and so I just feel like in my heart I'm going, God, like you can heal this man. You can heal this man from his deafness and his blindness. But I didn't believe. At my core, I really didn't believe that. Like I believed it, I wanted to believe that, and I wanted to just pray over him and pray and see his eyes opened and his ears opened, but I didn't believe in the depths of my heart. And so I prayed some little lame prayer, like, God open his ears and open his eyes. And then I we just moved on. And I could not shake it for the rest of the day that I had missed an opportunity. I don't know if God would have opened his eyes and his ears. I don't know. But I told Jada later on, like, it just messed with me. That something in me said, God, you did it in Acts, but you can't do it now. You did it through someone else, but you can't do it through me. The same Holy Spirit that lived in the apostles lives inside of me. And every one of you who believe and call Jesus your Lord and Savior. And the same power that brought Jesus out of the grave is available to us today. But I'm convicted deep in my soul that the reason I didn't do that is because I didn't believe in the depths of my heart that God really could do that. Maybe I didn't feel I was worthy or whatever. Whatever reason, but it was unbelief. And I just say to us tonight, listen, we've got to rely on the power of God because we are gonna need some signs and wonders to bring our nation back to God. I believe that. Not a freak show, not a uh, hey, we're gonna pray so that everybody will show up and we're gonna have a healing service and elevate people, okay? I'm talking about Jesus Christ, his missionaries, his children going out into our places, praying for people and seeing people's lives change, and they come to Jesus and they worship Jesus, and they're saved by Jesus because there's power in the name of Jesus. And we need him. Right? So they relied on God's power. Third thing, fourth thing, the apostles relied on God's approval. They relied on God's approval. Now, the short of it here, I won't read the whole text to you, but you'll enjoy reading it this week because it's really a funny story. But when they see Paul and Barnabas, particularly Paul, he declares, man, you're healed. The man stands up and he walks, they're like wigging out, like, wow, this is unbelievable. I mean, you would be too, right? If you were there and this man gets up and he's been lame since birth, and everybody would have known this guy's been lame for forever, as long as he's lived. And he gets up and he walks. And then you know what they do? They do what humans do. They start worshiping Paul and Barnabas. They say, Barnabas is Zeus, and they say, Paul's Hermes, because he's the one that's talking all the time. All right? So they say, Paul, you're you're Hermes, and we're gonna worship you. In fact, they start just start, they start worshiping them. Uh it says the a priest of Zeus shows up, and he was just outside. He brings in an oxen and he starts getting the garlands out, and man, he's getting ready to throw a party to celebrate these people. Now, anybody ever watched Star Wars before? Hopefully, all of you, right? Because it's good. You need to watch that. I watched this with my son not too long ago. And there's this one moment where they're in the ewoks, they're with the ewoks, and and you got C3PO, and they see him and they think he's a god. And they start elevating him, you know what I'm talking about? Anybody watch this? You remember this? Okay, kind of dig back and remember if you haven't seen it in a while. It's a great, great scene. And they start elevating him, you know? And so they turn him, they they're just worshiping him, and then they're gonna actually sacrifice all of his friends, you know? Listen, that's kind of what's going on here. They see Paul and Barnabas and they start to worship them as God, and they're gonna throw them a big party, and they're gonna sacrifice and all these things. And listen to what Paul and Barnabas do. Because they were not only committed to not living for the approval of men, they were concerned and actually fearful that people would worship them and not the living God who saved this man and who healed him. Man, I want that kind of tenacity. Because here's the thing: I believe that sometimes God doesn't heal or answer my prayers because if he did, I would take credit for stuff. I would point people to me and not to him. Oh, what a dangerous place to be. But look what he says. It says that when they heard this, this is Paul and Barnabas, they tore their robes. They tore their robes and they said, Men, why are you doing these things? This is verse 15. We are men also. Don't you understand? We're just people. We're just men like you. We're not gods. We're the same nature. And we are proclaiming the good news of the gospel to you so that you can come to faith in Jesus. God did do these good things by giving you rain. He's the one that gives rain. He's the one that created, he's the one that brings the fruitful season, he's the one that satisfies your hearts, he's the one who gives you food and happiness. And then it says this at the end: even though they said these things, they barely stopped the crowds from sacrificing to them. Because people love to elevate people. Because they can see them. We had some interesting conversations in Mexico about this because we interacted with some pit, some men who claimed they could heal. And I believe they probably have seen healings. But where I got off the train is when they started talking about themselves and making it about themselves, because listen, anyone who makes it about themselves is robbing God of the glory he deserves. And God is not pleased with that. In your life, where do you need God's power display? Where are you trying to do something that God wants to step in and do something? Where are you trying to control where God needs to take over and take control? Okay? And here's the problem: a lot of people in the U.S. would say, you know, I just don't have any areas of my life that I, you know, that God needs to take control of. Everything's kind of good. I mean, I got money in the bank account, I got a good house, I got a wife, I got some kids. Listen, your day is coming. If life is all good right now, because you're humanity, a part of this broken and fallen world, your day's coming. And I'm not trying to be doom and gloom. I'm just saying every one of us will go through seasons of brokenness and suffering because that's reality. We'll go through hardships, we'll go through moments where we are disappointed and disillusioned with God, where we feel like he has not showed up, and we're going to need to rely on God's power, not ourselves, to pull us through. This is a fascinating story. But Paul and Barnabas, they were committed to pointing people to life in God, not, hey, worship us. Hey, look at us, look what we can do. We can pray for people when they're healed. They say, no, look at look at God. He's the one who heals. The fifth thing and final thing tonight I want to talk about is that they, the apostles, relied on God's protection. This is crazy. Crazy. Okay? Just telling you on the front of it, it's crazy. It says this in verse 19. Then some Jews came from Antioch in Iconium, and when they had won over the crowds and stoned Paul. Did you hear that? They stoned Paul. Not Paul was stoned, but they stoned Paul. Alright. They dragged him out of the city, thinking he was dead. And then I love Luke, who's writing this, and he's a doctor, by the way, from what we know. It says that he says, After the disciples surrounded him, he got up and went into the town. Just kind of like matter of fact. So he gets stoned, he's gonna die. They think he's dead, and then he just gets up after the disciples surround him and pray. He gets up and he walks into town with them. Not only that, but it says the next day he left with Barnabas for Derby. So he doesn't even take a day to rest. Like he just gets up, God supernaturally heals him, and he moves on. And later on, we hear this in Corinthians and another passage where he says, I've been stoned. This is where he's talking about. He was literally stoned. Anybody in here in the room been stoned and survived? Okay. Let's make it sure. Because that's pretty fascinating. Pretty amazing that God did that. But then notice what goes what happens after that. Because it says he's been stoned now for presenting the gospel, but they go to Barnabas with Barnabas to Derby, and after they had evangelized that town and made many disciples, not just shared the gospel, but made disciples. Again, that takes time. That's not an instant thing, but they made disciples. They returned to Lystra, to Iconium, and to Antioch. All these communities where they had already stirred up dissension and people wanted to kill them, they go back to those communities, right? They go back because they're trusting God's protection. Trusting in God's protection. You know what one of the most common prayers you hear when you pray with people is God what? Think about this. God, keep us safe. You guys pray that prayer? Have you ever prayed that? We were going ready to go on our mission trip. You know what? We prayed that. Do I think it's a bad prayer? No. But I think that many times behind that prayer, it's like, oh God, you know, like keep us safe. We don't have to deal with that hardship and that suffering and all that sickness or whatever. And it's not wrong to pray to a God who can move. It's not wrong to pray to a God who can act. But listen, do we trust God that He can protect us and that sovereignly He knows what we need better than we know what we need? Can we pray like Jesus prayed? Not my will but yours be done, God. I mean, these guys, it goes on here and says that after they made those disciples, they strengthened the disciples by encouraging them. And believe me, you think they had some authority when they spoke to this? This is what they said. They told them, uh, they continued in the faith and by telling them it is necessary to pass through many troubles on our way into the kingdom of God. Listen, I want to make sure and tell you again, in case you haven't heard me say this before, that if you have bought a lie, that if you follow Jesus, your life will get better and easier and more comfortable, you need to wake up that the disciples and the apostles, the ones who follow Jesus the most closely, who spent their lives with him, they suffered, died, and ultimately many of them were crucified for their faith. Now, I'm not saying that there is a gospel that we have to pursue suffering so that we can get into the kingdom of God, okay? If God chooses that path for us, that's in his sovereign plan, and we just have to trust him. So this is not a suffering gospel. It's not a gospel of suffering, if you will. It's not another gospel. I'm saying, though, that when we follow Jesus, there are no guarantees that your life is gonna get smoother. In fact, I would say to you, because when you start to live on mission with God, you're going to face opposition, you're gonna face barriers, you're gonna face difficulties, you're gonna, you're gonna get sick, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna have hardship, and you're gonna be able in those moments to say, God, I trust you even in the difficulty. And you will maybe have a stronger, no, not maybe, scratch that. You will have a stronger witness many times. In those moments of you trusting God even in the hardship, particularly in a country like we live in where everybody loves their comfort, everybody loves their stuff. Listen, Christ didn't call us to be comfortable, he didn't call us to be safe. He called us to follow him, whatever the cost. And these guys, they relied on God's protection. Let me give you two statements as we close out tonight. Two statements. Be ready to write these down, okay? Two statements. First one is this reliance on God begins where dependence on self ends. Reliance on God begins where dependence on self ends. That may seem obvious to you, but as I think about these apostles, I think about their lives. Like they went, they went for broke. Like, Jesus, we're following you, and we know that they crucified you, so we can expect the same for ourselves. Why would we expect any different, right? But when we choose to pursue Christ, listen, we have to stop relying on ourselves and we have to start depending on God. We've got to start relying on his work and his finished work, but we have to rely on his power, his wisdom, his timing, his approval, his protection, all those things we just talked about. And when we're not living in those things, guess what? We will find other ways to try to get them and other things that cannot satisfy, cannot meet. So we will circumvent God's timing, right? We will come up with our own wise strategies and plans. We will come up with our own ways to manipulate people into trusting God and to trying to show some power, signs and wonders, or whatever it might be. We will try to avoid, or we will try to get people's approval rather than avoiding that and focusing them on Jesus. We will say, hey, yes, this is why I do it, so that you'll like me. And which it cuts the boldness out of our life because we're worried about what people think about us more than a holy God knows who we are. And that we also many times will pursue safety rather than following Jesus. We'll pursue to be safe and protected. So we'll guard our lives, we'll put up all these barriers. Like, God, you can ask me to do anything as long as it doesn't mean blank. God, I'll go anywhere except for a place where it could be dangerous. I want to be a person who says, God, there are no restrictions to what you ask of me, because when you lavished your grace on me, there was no restrictions on what you did to Christ on the cross. I'm not there yet, but I want to be. And the last thing is this, the second statement. When we truly rely on God to meet our greatest need, we will begin to rely on Him to meet our lesser ones. Are you with me? What's our greatest need? If you're a believer in Christ, you know this, but if you're not, maybe you've not heard this, okay? But if you believe in Jesus and you believe in God's word, what is our greatest need according to the scriptures? Salvation, right? Redemption. We need a God to save us and rescue us because we are broken and fallen, disconnect connected from our God. And so we're gonna spend eternity separated from Him. And if we can rely on God to meet our greatest need, which He has in the person and work of Jesus, then we will begin to rely on God to meet our lesser needs, like wisdom, timing, power, approval, protection. And the list goes on jobs. Healing. See, God loves us. We never have to question that again because the cross says that once and for all. And as we receive that, we can now live in confidence in a God who will take care of us. And we can be like the apostles, we can live like they lived with reckless abandoned, knowing that God knows what is good for us and what's what we need. So when we truly rely on God to meet our greatest need, we will begin to rely on Him to meet our lesser ones. Who are you relying on to save you? Who am I relying on to save you and meet your needs? Is it you that you're relying on? Or the one who made you and loves you and crossed the universe to come and bring life to you? Who am I relying on? That's the prayer. That's the question I have to ask, and it's the prayer I have to pray, God, help me rely on you. Depend on you. I don't know how this applies in your life specifically, but I got some ideas. You know, one, just straight from the book of Acts, these guys relied on God for everything to accomplish the mission he called them to, to be the church, right? But in your life, there's some areas and there's some issues that you're facing where we have to stop and say, are we relying on ourselves? Are we depending on ourselves or are we depending on God? And one of the quickest ways we can discover is are we taking these things to God in prayer? Are we just trying to fix them? Are we trying to figure it out? Are we trying to come to God and say, God, we need your supernatural wisdom, we need your power to be displayed.