Mission Sent

Ordinary People Doing Small Things Change Everything

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Names most people skip are the ones holding the story together. We open Romans 16 and discover a hidden blueprint for real church life: ordinary people doing small, faithful things that God uses to build something eternal. Phoebe’s courage to carry Paul’s only copy to Rome, and Prisca and Aquila’s quiet correction of Apollos, reveal a pattern that still shapes healthy communities today—discipleship over spectacle, character over platform, obedience over applause.

We talk honestly about our culture’s addiction to fame and why the gospel calls us to a different scoreboard. Events may draw a crowd, but it’s conversations at dinner tables that grow a soul. Parents get a loving push to catechize their kids, ask harder questions, and create safe spaces for doubt and truth. We look at the slow work of sanctification, the power of showing up, and the joy of being known not for a brand but for faithfulness. This is a call to bend to Scripture instead of bending Scripture to us.

Then we pivot with Paul to a sober warning: growth attracts wolves. We explore how to guard against division and trend-chasing without turning minor differences into battles. Sound doctrine matters, and so does the way we hold it—humble, clear, and firm. Paul’s own sacrifices remind us why the church is worth protecting: he traded status for chains, comfort for risk, and still sang. The question comes home to us: if the world keeps spinning, will anyone remember our names for faithfulness, even if our stories stay small?

Listen for practical ways to practice everyday obedience, mentor with courage, protect unity, and invest in the people God has already put in front of you. If you’re ready to choose substance over sizzle and Scripture over trends, this conversation will give you a next step. Enjoyed the message? Follow the show, share it with a friend who serves in the shadows, and leave a review so more listeners can find it. Your small act of support goes a long way.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. Amen. And hopefully you can see why I recorded that. Because y'all have heard me read in some of them names, like that would not have gone well for us. So I'm going to open with prayer now that we've read it, and then we're going to jump in. Father, we thank you so much for your word, and I ask and I pray, God, that as we study it this morning, that Father, you just speak to us through it. That it not be my words, that it not be my opinions, my thoughts, but that God, it is your very word that cuts to our heart, that transforms us from the inside out. Father, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, so we got two messages left for the book of Romans. Alright? We have this week and then next week we close it out. And that's a huge milestone because we've been in this for quite some time. We actually started our study on the book of Romans September 9th in 2023. Alright? So we that was 799 days ago, or 2.1 years ago, or 114 sermons ago. Like we've been in this book for a minute. And then we get to this, and as you guys heard as he was going through and reading through this Romans chapter 16, there's a lot we have to get through. And I know some of you are like, wait, hold up, I've seen you like with one word and it stretched into like two, three weeks. And that's true. And there's 23 verses here, and I'm looking at the clock and I'm going, I hope some of y'all packed a lunch. Like some of our kids were walking around with like some Cheerios. Y'all might have wanted to keep those for yourselves. I'm just throwing that out to you. But I want to start this message by reading the very first line in one of the commentaries I used as I worked through the book, and he says this despite the great popularity of the book of Romans, chapter 16 is often neglected by preachers, teachers, and Bible students. It has almost no explicit teaching and includes several lists of people, many of whom we know nothing about except what little, if anything, is said of them here. See, it's real easy, and I don't know about you, but when you start reading through and you get to passages like this, that it's just like an entire list of names. And you kind of will just at that point go on autopilot, and we'll kind of just go ahead and skim through. And if we happen to see a name we know, we're like, oh, cool, they made it in here. However, if we're sitting in this room and we believe what the Bible says is true, then we have to look at this list of names that seems to have no like bearing on the text whatsoever under the context of 2 Timothy 3.16, which says this that all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. Here's what that means: these names are not just fillers. That means that the Holy Spirit, through Paul, went, write these down. These are important. You need to know this because it's going to have an impact. And again, I get it. Most of those names, I've been studying this a long time, and most of those names were not very familiar to me. Like some of them we know nothing about. Some of them we know a lot about. But for the vast majority of them, we really don't know anything except that their name was, and Paul asked the church at Rome to greet them. But we're gonna start first by looking at Phoebe. Phoebe is the first name that Paul mentions here. She got three whole verses dedicated to her. So Phoebe must be some kind of an important person. Like we can gather that just from the context of how much Paul actually talks about her. Now it says that she's from the church at Syncria. That is a daughter church of the church at Corinth. So Paul plants the church at Corinth, the church flourishes, it actually becomes one of the biggest churches that Paul actually started, and then they start planting out churches. I was like in my 30s before I realized churches have to start. And I and we can giggle at that, but like I'm telling you, I was like in my 30s, and I went, what is planting a church? Like, what does that mean? Because think about it, from the time I was little, and I was born and raised in church, but churches just always seem to exist. And when you drive by, especially you know, when you're little and you see these buildings that you can tell are very, very old, and I don't mean that in like in a derogatory way, some of them are absolutely gorgeous. You could just know they've been there forever. And it was like, oh, that church has just always been there. Never once did my little brain ever stop and go, how did that church get there? But see, this is the model we've seen. This is why we exist. Those of you that have been here from day one, you were with us when we were in another church in Lake Mary. So, I mean, we didn't just spring up out of the blue, we went through a whole training process on how to do this. Our goal will be to one day have a daughter church of our own. To be able to go, hey, like, look, there's too many people here, we need to go ahead and break off. Some of you guys in here, your goal should be to go, hey, I want to be that guy that goes out. I want to be the guy that goes and plants that next church. And some of you women in here understand if your husband comes to you with that, you have no idea what he is asking you to do. It's going to be a hard life for you. Now, that being said, though, she is part of this church that is a daughter church to the church at Corinth. She most likely is the person that actually hand delivers this letter. See, remember, Paul, when he's writing this, he doesn't just walk out to the mailbox, stick it in the mailbox, and then the postman takes it to the church at Rome. What would have wound up having to happen is as he finishes his letter, he rolls up the scroll, he hands it to someone, and then it's their job now to take this letter and go all the way to Rome. Now that means you're gonna have to cross over bodies of water, that means you're gonna have to walk through the wilderness, that means you run the risk of getting robbed, that means like there's a lot that goes into that. And think about it, if if like we print out some worksheets for the kids, and then oops, there's a spill at the table. And those sheets are now what? They're ruined, right? It's very easy for us to go, okay, control P, and then print out some more worksheets. Phoebe, on the other hand, is holding the only letter that Paul wrote. If something happens to this on the way, there is no, oh, just hit control P. Like these letters would have taken a lot of time to write, and back then, paper was like very expensive and usually like a dead animal. Like they didn't have printing presses and stuff like that. Every single word we've read throughout this study was handwritten. And when they got to the church at Rome, what would happen is they would read the church or the letter out loud, and then they would have scribes come along and go, hey, copy this down. And then when you got done copying the entire letter, you would have to count each single character on the paper. And when I say character, that means spaces and punctuation and everything. And they had to match exactly. And that was copy one, and then copy two and so on, so they could pass it out. But Phoebe here, anybody in here familiar with her? But yet she's given this awesome responsibility to go, hey, carry this letter to the Church of Rome. Then the next two names we want to jump out at, or that should have jumped out at us, is this Prisca and Aquila. Now, it would not shock me if most of you in this room are like, oh, okay, that sounds kind of familiar. They've been around. We've actually seen them before when we studied the book of Acts, because they also appear in Luke's letter to Theophilus. They didn't get fame though, right? Like, yes, some of us, especially if you're like a Bible scholar, you may have picked that name out quick. Some of us, though, are like, I mean it sounds familiar, but I'm still not 100% sure who they were. So we're gonna jump over to Acts 18. And it says this, starting in verse 24. Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. Alright, so here's what's happening here. Apollos, now this is the same Apollos that people like compared to Paul. Alright? So Paul would famously say this as people are like, hey, who should we listen to? You or Paul? Like you guys both, or uh you or Apollos. You guys both seem like you know what you're talking about. And Paul's reply was this listen, I planted, Apollos watered, but God ultimately does the growing. In other words, listen to both of us. Right? Now, should you be careful about whose words go into your ears? A thousand percent. I'll tell you all the time. Don't just go, oh, Josh said this. Go home and read for yourself. If you're sitting here going, hey, but I I need something else to like read, I don't understand what I'm reading, let me know. I can point you out to a thousand different commentaries of people who are a lot smarter than I'll ever be who sat down and went, hey, here's what this said. But don't just take my word for it. And see, and what Paul is sitting here saying is he's sitting here going, hey, Apollos, he's doing the thing. Listen to what he has to say. Don't make this about your favorite preacher. Because you know what happens? We're all men. And we will all fail. You put your faith and hope in me, listen to me very carefully. I will disappoint you. You don't believe me? Ask Debbie. And I love her with everything I am. And yet there are times I have failed and I've disappointed her. There are times I didn't stand up to where she needed me to be. There were times I was not strong enough to give her exactly what her heart needed and wanted. I'll do the same thing to each and every one of you if you put your faith and hope in me. However, greater is he living in me than he who is living in the world. And that's why our faith and our hope and our trust that everything isn't in me, it's in Jesus, because we don't put our faith, hope, and trust in people. Because people, I'm gonna give you all a secret here, suck. Every single one of us. And if you're like, uh, I'm pretty good, you obviously miss a big chunk of that. But what we see here is Apollo shows up and he starts preaching. And the Bible, Luke, describes him as an eloquent man, competent in the sh in the scriptures. In other words, he knows what he's talking about. This isn't just some Joe Blow who got up there and was like, hey, I want to give my personal testimony. This is a guy who's sitting here going, no, I know what I'm talking about. And yet Priscilla and Aquila, also known as Prisca and Aquila, go, hey, like they go, they listen to him preach, and then they go, hey, can we talk to you real quick? Because we got some things that we want to discuss with you. Because you you got some holes in your learning here. And these are the same people that we just read about in Romans 16. And every single name we read, I don't know everything about every person that we just read, but every single name we just read could have a similar story. Because, and to show you what we really need to take about from this is this is most of the people we just read about were listen to me, regular people doing regular things, living their life. See, we love heroes. We love heroes, and and and and just think about it, what was Tuesday? Veterans Day. And thank you guys so much for you guys that texted and you were like, hey, thank you for your service. But I can guarantee my father-in-law, myself, Eric, like we didn't go into the military because I was hoping that one day I would get someone to say thank you. Like I just went, honestly, you want to hear my benevolent heart and why I went into the military? I went, I want to marry Debbie. It'll pay for our house, it'll pay for our college, and eventually when we have kids, it'll pay for the the birth and all of that, too. That was my benevolent like reason to go. I know I can't talk. That's why we recorded the message, okay? Or the verses. But see, we love those heroes, right? Last night, JT and I unfortunately stayed up late to watch a very boring fight. Oh, it was terrible. I mean, if I wanted to watch two guys lay on each other for 25 minutes, like there was actually no fighting. But like in between some of the fights, it was thank you, veterans, thank you, veterans, thank you, veterans. Why do we do that? Because they're heroes to us, because we sit here and we go, they gave us our freedoms. Like they're the reason why we can gather today. We love heroes in our society. We love those people that are gonna stand up against the oppressors. We love having heroes, and we've built this up that in order to be a hero, you have to what? Be heroic. Like, Captain America without the super soldier serum isn't a hero, is he? Like, no one at the beginning of Captain America the First Avenger, when he's small and scrawny, is rooting for Steve Rogers to save the day. It's once he gets the super soldier serum and he goes from this little scrawny up to this giant mass of, hey, you can tell that's definitely got some um medicine in it. That's when all of a sudden we're like, that's Captain America. And we do the same thing. The people that have a microphone, the people that are loud, those are our heroes. The people that have a stage, the people that can get thousands, if not millions, of views on social media, those are our heroes. Those are the people we should be looking up to. Those are the people that are successful, those are the people that know what they're talking about. And what the Bible is arguing here is this it was the regular people who did regular things and led regular lives that should be the heroes. That's why Paul is sitting here telling them, hey, greet these people. Greet them. Let them know, hey, good job. Hey, you know what? Your name may not go down in the annals of history. Josephus may never, and for those of you who don't know, that's just a uh a Jewish historian, he may never write about you. But you know who did? God. The Holy Spirit inspired Paul enough to include your name in a letter that is 2,000 years old. And here we are, 2,000 years later, talking about them. Why? Because without each and every one of them, guess who wouldn't be in this building right now? Any one of us. See, that's what made them heroic. We have bought into the lie that we have to make a name for ourselves in order to be important in the world. In Galatians, Paul would ask it like this Am I looking to please man or God? Do I want to hear applause from you or do I want to hear well done, good and faithful servant? See, it would be very easy for me to craft different messages. I know. I I hear you guys all the time. I may not be very happy all the time. Understand, I am just preaching through what the Bible says, though. I'm just sitting here going, I just want to be a mouthpiece for Jesus. I can care less if I make you feel butterflies and good when you leave out of here. Because sometimes that conviction is a good thing. Because guess what? Your life needs to bend to the Bible. The Bible doesn't need to bend to you. And when we understand that and we're honest with ourselves, we can then start to go, hey, I need to do this hard work. We know what we call that in the church? Sanctification. And so we bought this lie that I need to be great in order to be someone. Guys, I want to go all the way back to Genesis for this one. You ready? In Genesis 11, 4, it says this Then they said, Come, let us build a let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its tops in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. You think this is new to you? You think this is new to our generation? Just because we got these fancy little rectangles that apparently are tethered to our hearts and we can't be without? This ain't new. Way back before the flood, they went, hey, you know what? We want to make a name for ourselves too. And I said before the flood, I didn't mean that. I meant right after. They went, we want to make a name for ourselves. We want to build a tower to the heavens. We want to be with God. We want to show God we don't need Him. And we do the same things. What do I need God for? I got 400 followers on Instagram. I can snap with the best of them. And I'm pretty sure that's not how that app works, but I don't have it. And some of us, what's the first thing you grab when you wake up in the morning? We just grab that little rectangle, right? Because that's what's gonna wake us up. And some of us, we do it under the guise of, well, I do my scripture reading first thing in the morning. And I'm gonna go ahead and tell you, I doubt very seriously the Bible is the first thing you're opening up. We're checking our emails, we're checking our social media, we're checking this, we're checking that, because we want to see while we were sleeping who missed us. We want to see while we were sleeping, like how important we were. We want to make a name for ourselves. And I go, for what? What do you care that Jeff in South Carolina liked your post? When was the last time you saw Jeff? And yet that's what we build our life around. I go, we we just started marketing, okay? And y'all should see me try to figure all this out. So far, I've ran two ads very, very wrongly. We've gotten a bunch of messages from honestly, conspiracy like like I thought JT was bad with conspiracy theories. We got this message that no lie is like this long the other day from this guy in Colorado. And let me tell you, I know there's a lot of legal stuff in Colorado, and it shows in his message. And I go, I'm not saying that there might not be any truth in what he's saying. What I'm saying is he's gonna need something way bigger than Mission Scent to help him out with his problems, okay? Because apparently when I ran this ad, it was for get more messages. But anyway, when I run ads, it's like you can target like people who like your page and similar pages. You can target like all these different people to run these ads for. And I go, no, I'm just gonna make a circle. And it's gonna be 15 miles from our building. And that's as small as I want it. And and Meta keeps telling me, hey, you need to make it bigger, you need to make uh you need to like make it more broad than that, because you're only gonna reach a certain number of people in this. And I went, there's a hundred thousand people that live in this city alone. Those are the only people I'm trying to meet. Because I can care less what Jeff from South Carolina thinks about my preaching. Because here's the thing. I'm more interested in can I sit and talk to you about what we preached. Because if you think that just this is gonna give us everything we need, man, we are missing the boat big time. That's why we do the last Wednesday QA. That's why we have, hey, if you have questions, text them in. Because that's where we'll actually grow. This is just to set the stage for that. To give us an idea of, hey, where do we need to grow in? But we have to understand being recognized and being famous are not things that should matter to us. Let me ask you this. How about what would your life look like if you were just faithful men and women, faithfully doing the things that Jesus put in front of you to do? What if instead of worrying about all the world out there, you went, I'm gonna worry about the world that's in my house around my dinner table? What if if you're a parent in here, you actually took the discipleship of your kids, like literally? I get it. And and and trust me, we have plenty of parents that have reached out and went, well, what do I need to read to them before they go to a Christian school? And I go, hey, fair point, I get it. When was the last time you sat down and asked them what they learned in the Bible? Because I'll tell you right now, we have some kids here that could probably run circles around their parents when it came to the Bible. Now that's not a dig on anyone, but I'm sitting here going, but have you engaged them in conversation about that? Like if you're a parent in here, when was the last time you sat down with your kids and went, hey, who is Jesus to you? When was the last time you tried to like trip your kids up in that conversation? Mine was Tuesday. And I do it all the time. Because understand this if I can mess my kid up in a safe environment of my house, what's gonna happen when they step on a college campus? What's gonna happen when they have a professor who not only disagrees with what they believe, but is hostile toward what they believe? Like, think about this. What happens when all of a sudden the the churchy answer you gave your kid to answer that question isn't deep enough to actually answer that question? What happens? But see, that's what faithfulness is. Is it sitting here going, these are the people God has placed in front of me? Am I being faithful with what God has put in front of me? Am I doing the things with the people in front of me that God has put in front of me? Because these people on the list, that's what they were doing. They didn't get books named after them, they didn't get the notoriety, but without them building churches and preaching the gospel and fighting against the darkness, none of us would be sitting in this room. Because this is built on faithful, everyday things, not big grand events. Here's the thing December 13th is coming up, right? I'll tell you right now, if you've never done a Christmas parade, it's a lot of fun. And this year I'm gonna see it from a different perspective because I'm gonna be alive during the whole thing of it. Because I've already decided I'm not wearing a costume and dancing down the street. I bet that changes between now and then because there's just something in my bones that likes that, but you know what's never happened? We've never done a Christmas parade, and then all of a sudden people were just lining up waiting to come in. It's a big event though. You're in front of thousands of people. We got signs and we got this and we got this, and this year somehow they're rigging up something to like make the whole town smell like gingerbread cookies. Like we are, not the city. Hopefully it's gonna work. We don't know because we're not scientists, but we're gonna try. But no one's ever showed up from that. November 25th, we're passing out 50 free turkeys, right? Whole turkey dinners. We've done that before, guys, right? We do that every year. How many people have come back? None. The only emails I've ever gotten for something like that were this. Hey, are y'all doing that again this year? Because if you are, I need another free turkey. To which I go, Yeah, you need a turkey? I'll get you a turkey. See, we don't do it in the big. We do it in the small, everyday faithful. You want to know how you meet Jesus in the small, everyday faithful. The woman at the well in John chapter 4. What was she doing? She was just going to get water. She wasn't going to synagogue. She wasn't like, hey, you know what? I need to get my life right. I need to find a life coach. I need to, like, I got some things I need to work on. That would that wasn't what she was doing. She was sitting here in the middle of the day going and getting water. You know what's like hard to believe? Why would you go get water in the middle of the day? That's the hottest part of the day. And now you're gonna carry gallons and gallons and gallons of water, which weighs 7.86 pounds per gallon, which means you're gonna be doing a lot of work in the hottest time of the day. And anyone in here knows that is not how you work, right? Especially you guys that work outside. When do you do your hard work? First thing in the morning. You knock out all your work orders by eight, and then you just drive around looking for hot spots throughout the day, right? In the air conditioning, in the truck. I know city workers suck, man. That's why nothing ever gets done. And I only say that because I was a city worker, so if any city workers hear this later, I wasn't digging on you, but you know it's true. But what happens is while she is being faithful and doing the everyday things, she encounters Jesus. And it completely changes her life. This wasn't some revival. This wasn't some special event. She was just doing the everyday. So let me ask you before we move on, if this world continues to spin on for another 2,000 years, is your name gonna be in a letter like that? Are you gonna be one of the faithful that someone's like, hey? Like, do you think your name pops up in any of the emails I send out? Like, hey, you should meet Kevin. If not, why not? Is it because you don't want to be a part of that? Think about that. Then in verse 17, and this is very jarring, right? Because Paul is sitting here and he's like, greet these people. These people are amazing, they're faithful and everything. And then he's like, boom, I appeal to you, brother. To watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught, avoid them. I only laugh because a couple of weeks ago or a couple of months ago at our QA, that was one of the questions, right? What do we do with people like that disagree with us, that aren't open to listening to us? Well, the Bible will tell you this avoid them. Now, does that mean I don't enter into conversations with people who disagree with me theologically? No, not at all. I do that all the time. I go out of my way to find people who disagree with me theologically because I enjoy that. That's fun for me. Like I've invested a lot of time learning about this. I want to have a chance to use it, right? And see, and what Paul is talking about, though, is this, because it does seem out of nowhere, but we have to understand what is the church doing at this time? And when I say the church, I mean the church like just in general, not necessarily any particular church. What's the church doing? It's exploding in growth. It has literally started as this one guy and 12 followers in some backwater country of Galilee, and it is now going to the epicenter of the world, which is Rome. The church is exploding. And you know what happens when that happens? You don't really realize who's all joining in. In Jude 1.4, the Bible shows us this: that for certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. And Peter, he would warn about it like this, right? That they are what in sheep clothing? Wolves. In sheep's clothing. In other words, they look like, they sound like. You won't pay attention, you're gonna miss the fact that a wolf just just came into the flock. Now, how many of us, that's what we think of when we think of growth? But see, you gotta understand a lot here. One, Paul is not a casual church attender. Right? He ain't like, hey, I make it three out of four weeks a month. You know, every once in a while when I'm feeling a little crazy, I throw 20 bucks in. Maybe, just maybe, I might even work children's church. That's not who Paul is. Oh, and by the way, and this didn't make it into the announcements, but uh, you guys start praying about who does want to help out with children's church. And I'll tell you more about that later. But that's not who he is. Paul is this guy that went, I've devoted my entire life to this. I quit my job, I cashed in my retirement, and I've devoted everything I am to this. Now, as someone who understands that, and as someone who puts in 80 plus hours a week at this, I'm gonna tell you right now, I value this more than everyone else. Why? Because I put in more than everyone else. Now that's not a dig on anyone. What I'm saying is we have to understand what Paul's talking about here. Because when you value something that much, when you've poured that much time and energy and effort and money and all the things into something, it becomes very, very important to you. And you want to what? You want to protect it. See, Paul is sitting here going, there will be people who want to ride in on the coattails here. There'll be people that will come in and go, hey, I want some of this for myself. You gotta watch out for that. Why? Because they're ungodly people. They're here for no other reason than to cause division. Some of you in here, you may have been in part of churches like that, right? Because do you does anybody in here know how most church plants happen? Just a little funny. What was it? Splits. It's not like a good gospel thing, like, hey, we're growing and growing and growing and growing, we run out of room, let's plant another church. It's normally I don't like so-and-so. And because I don't like them, we're gonna go start our own. Does anybody in here know how many softball teams the city of Deltona has? And it's not because every team is slap full of girls. In fact, most of them don't even have enough girls to fill the entire team. But you know what happened? Well, the coach didn't play my daughter. He obviously doesn't understand who he has in her. We're gonna start our own team. Come on, guys. And that's what happens. Same thing with Pop Warner, same thing with anything. I can do it better, so I'm gonna go do it. And we have to be careful for that. Some of us, you've you've been a part of churches that were like that. In fact, we delayed our planting for a year because we had a situation that came up at the church we were at before that was very similar to that. And I go, and we have to guard that because we love that. Because if you're one of these faithful people who are being faithful in everything, that means you're faithfully giving. Remember last week we looked at this, right? And when I say giving, do I just mean money? No. In fact, that's the easiest thing for you to do. Time. Time is your like that's how you know how serious someone is. Are they willing to give up their time? I can care less about your checks. And I mean that. I don't need your money. We have a school that pays for everything. Now, should you still give? 150% you should still give. Why? Because the Bible tells you to. But I'm talking about your time. And when you are invested like that, you're gonna guard it with ferociousness. Paul in 2 Timothy 4 says this for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itchy ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. Guys, open your eyes and look at churches around. Tell me that this isn't already happened. And if you really want to, I can sit up here and name names. Or you can come talk to me after service because Debbie violently shook her head, no, don't do that. But this has already happened. And what do they do? They accumulate for themselves. Instead of sitting here and going, hey, I want to bend to the Bible, they go, No, let me find those guys that will bend the Bible to me. They show up at church and it's a spectacle. And I'm not saying you shouldn't have things that grab attention. You absolutely should. However, should I ever come flying in from the rafters? No, I shouldn't. Good job, one person. Should we ever see our praise team up here just like doing backflips and dancing? No, we shouldn't. Because that's not what we're here for. We're here to encounter Jesus. And I'm and and some of you are like, well, you know, what if that means, look, there is a pastor, and I'm not, well, and I'm not even gonna call him a pastor. There is a motivational speaker who came out and went, we will do everything short of sinning to save the lost. Uh-oh. You think they drew a hard, fast line and went, this is what sin is? I'll go ahead and tell you another day. How do we know that? Well, he posts everything online. It's very clear. People have made a mockery of what we call sacred. And yet some of us, you watch it. Some of you are like reposting it. Some of you are like, ooh, amen. Look at the spirit in here. And understand, thank you, because that's where I was going. Not all spirits are from Jesus. And I sit here and go, we have to watch this. Paul is warning us because he loves the church, because he devoted his life to this. Here is Paul's life before Jesus. Ready? He's rich. How do we know this? Well, he comes from Tarsus. It's a port city. He's educated. You know what it took to be educated back then? It was more than you just signing up for step up. Your parents had to pay the money for that. And you know what would happen when you got in trouble at school? Here's all they would do: don't come back. Oh, and we're keeping your money. It's a lot like college now. And I go, he gave that up for a life where he had to travel around with a doctor because he was getting beat everywhere he goes. He gave that up for a life where he was constantly being arrested for nothing else than preaching the gospel. He gave that up for a life where he's bound in the bottom of the prison. Some of you that have been in my Bible class know. But does anybody understand the irrelevance of that? Guess what they didn't have in the first century? Indoor plumbing. So when it says in the bottom of the prison, understand that the prisons were built like a bowl. So the cells were up here. So when you would go to the bathroom, it would just flow down to the bottom of the bowl. And then they can take water and dump it on that. When Paul is contorted in the church of Philippi, when the prison guard is extra mean to him, contorts his body and then chains him and puts him on the bottom of the prison, he is literally laying in human excrement. And what does he do? What's he do? He starts singing and praising God. Anyone in here? Stephen, when you're in the bottom of a lift station, are you like, you know, Lord, I lift your name up? No, you're like, this is absolutely disgusting. But yet, in the faithful, I expect to get that text this week, right? Video proof. But in the faithful, Paul goes, no, this is what I chose to give my life to. And so he becomes very, very protective of it. The question is, what about you? Are you awake? And I'm not sitting here going, hey, let's split hairs. Some of you you get really nervous when that word predestination comes up. Others of you, you're like, we're about to get into it. I'm not talking about stuff like that. I'm literally talking about the things the Bible argues hard about. So as we close, I'm not sitting here going, do we go on a theological witch hunt? Do we just look for every theological difference that could possibly exist between the two of us? I'm not sitting here going, hey, do you think infants should be baptized? Why or why not? Do you believe that speaking in tongues is still something that the church should be practicing? Why or why not? Do you believe the Bible was serious when it used the word predestination? Why or why not? Should we have those conversations with one another? Absolutely. We should. Because sometimes we do find out, uh-oh, just like Apollos, maybe I didn't have the whole understanding here. And the best way to do that is to challenge yourself while you're challenging someone else. But I'm not talking about a theological witch hunt. I'm talking about literally the church accepting darkness instead of pushing back against it. The church being too worried about losing people that will compromise the message of the gospel just to make someone happy. That's why, and this is the third time in this message I'll say this we are to bend to the Bible, not the other way around. Thomas Jefferson had his own Bible too, and he literally cut out lines he didn't like. And it's called the Thomas Jefferson Bible, and you can go read it. And for some of you, you may go, I like this one better. Because that's what we do sometimes. But we can't. Because I can't just get rid of the stuff I don't agree with. I have to wrestle with that in my heart and go, uh-oh, do I need to change on this? So as we close again, if there was a letter 2,000 years from now, would your name be in it? Would you even get one of those mentions? Who cares if no one else knows anything else about your life? Would you be known as being faithful till the end? Are you helping guard the church? Or are you allowing darkness to seep into it? Are you sitting here going, hey, like we need to like stand and unite? Are you sitting here going, I need to dig deeper into that? If you are sitting here today and you're like, hey, I don't know what my next steps are, come see me before you leave. If you're sitting here today going, hey, I got questions. JT, put it up there real quick. Write down the number and text it. And then show up on Wednesday to talk about it. Not this Wednesday, but the 26th, I think it is. But if you need to pray, I am here. If you're sitting here going, hey, I got some heart work I need to get done, I am here. But we just gotta start taking it serious and be faithful. Father, I thank you so much for your faithfulness. And I ask and I pray, God, that through your faithfulness, that God, you give us a heart to be faithful men and women of God. That God, in the everyday little things that you put in front of us, that we can be faithful. And as your word says, if we can be faithful in the little, you will give to us a lot. But Father, I ask and I pray that that's where we start. That God, we work so that our name is written not only in your book of life, but that God we we are remembered as faithful servants of Jesus. Father, we ask and we pray that if there's work we have to do in our heart, that God you start it and then you complete it. But that God you allow us to go along with that. Father, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.