Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Acts chapter 8, focusing on the themes of persecution and the spread of the gospel. He emphasizes that even in suffering, God's sovereignty prevails, as seen in the scattering of believers who continue to proclaim Christ, leading to the salvation of many, including Simon the sorcerer. The sermon encourages listeners to recognize that no one is beyond the reach of God's grace and to remain steadfast in sharing the gospel, regardless of circumstances.
Welcome and Housekeeping
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. Amen.
Thank you, Choir, for singing, for you giving me just a moment to get my breath. And turn, we're going to be in Acts chapter 8 this morning.
If you have a child who wants to be dismissed to Children's Church, they can be dismissed at this time. Acts chapter 8 is where we'll be at today. First 25 verses through Acts chapter 8.
Thank you again for worshiping with us today. I know it's an early morning. I know it's an early morning service. And some of us are typically just now getting up on a Sunday. And so it's my voice as well.
It's not quite warmed up like it normally is. And some of those high notes were getting me a little bit.
You may have heard it. I apologize for that. But it's just how the cookie crumbles this morning.
And so Acts chapter 8 is where we're at. What a blessing it is to be in the Lord's house on Resurrection Sunday. And it's a great day. Every Sunday is Resurrection Sunday. But it's always a special one when we get to celebrate Easter and the first Resurrection Day.
That those women, as I said this morning, came to the tomb. Came to the empty tomb. And got to see an empty tomb of no one there. And the anxiousness, the worryness that was on their face.
But then the excitement that came after that when the angel said, There's no one here. Why are you seeking the living among the dead? And so Acts chapter 8. We're continuing our series in Acts. And looking at what the Lord has for us here this morning.
I've titled it Scattered, Still Saving, and Sanctifying. This morning, Acts chapter 8. If you have your place there, we'll stand and read the first 25 verses this morning. The Bible says that we ended with reading this verse last week. Saul agreed with putting him to death.
And on that day, a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem. And all except the apostles were scattered through the land of Judea and Samaria. And devout men buried Stephen and mourned deeply over him. Saul, however, was ravaging the church.
And he would enter house after house, dragging off men and women and putting them into prison. So those who were scattered went their way preaching the word.
And Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. The crowds were paying attention to what Peter said as they listened and saw the signs that they were performing.
Miracles and Joy in Samaria
For unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who were possessed and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. And so there was great joy in that city.
A man named Simeon had previously practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the Samaritan people while claiming to be somebody great.
They all paid attention to him from the least of them to the greatest and said, this man is called the great power of God. And they were attentive to him because he had amazed them with sorcery for a long time.
But when they believed Philip as proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. Even Simon himself believed.
And after this, he was baptized. He followed Peter, Philip everywhere and was amazed as he observed the signs and great miracles that were been performed.
When the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them.
After they went down there, they prayed for them so that the Samaritans might receive the Holy Spirit because he had not yet come down on any of them. They had only been baptized in the name of Lord Jesus.
And then Peter and John laid hands on them and they received the Spirit. Verse 18, now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on the apostles' hands, he offered them money saying, give me this power also so that I may lay hands on anyone who received the Holy Spirit.
But Peter told him, may your silver be destroyed with you because you thought you could obtain this gift of God with money. You have no part or share in this manner because the heart is not right before God.
Therefore, repent of this wickedness of yours and pray that the Lord that if it possible, your hearts may intend to be forgiven. For I see you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by wickedness.
Pray to the Lord for me, Simon replied, so that nothing you have said will happen to me. So after they had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they traveled back to Jerusalem preaching the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans.
Lord, we pray that you would have your will and way on the word that we read this morning.
I pray that you would help us this morning as we look at the resurrection, as we look at the what Christ has done, even in this community here in Acts and what you're doing in the community here at Pleasant Grove. I pray God that you just continue to be with us this morning.
Personal Anecdote and Humor
In your name we pray. Amen. You may be seated.
My wife told me that if I look up and no body is in here, it's because I've went too long and you've got up and left. And so promise I won't be too long this morning.
And the Lord has been good to us and we've worshiped this morning and I believe you have as well. And so we're going to jump right into it in the early 2000s.
I'm going to refer to this man as Pastor B, keeping his name out of this, according to confidential reasons and security reasons. He's still a minister and a pastor in this country.
He lived close to a country where Christianity was illegal. He wasn't always a pastor. And in fact, he hated Christians. He was raised in a strict religious family. You probably could think of what this denomination would be and taught from an early age that Christians were infidels who corrupted his nation of faith.
So he made it his mission to expose the church and report pastors to the authorities. Many believers were in prison because of his efforts.
One day, a missionary came by and gave him a Bible. He was trying to set this man up and he was curious at what he was really going to say. So he could disprove it and later turn him in. But as he received that Bible, something amazing happened.
He took that Bible home and he began reading it and he couldn't stop reading this word.
And for the first time, he encountered a God who wasn't distant and wasn't angry, but a God who was holy, a God who was merciful and full of grace. And over the course of the next several months, he secretly began studying the word.
He surrendered his life to Christ and when his family found out, they disowned him.
His family even went as far as to turn him into the government. The government arrested him and he spent the next years in prison, abused, forgotten, and get this, labeled a traitor. But that's not where the story ends. The prison didn't stop the gospel.
The prison couldn't stop the gospel. It began to spread while he was locked up. He goes on to report that he led over 50 prisoners to Christ. He baptized them in bathtubs.
He formed small groups inside this prison. And he preached in the whispers and in the corners of the prison until he was finally released. And when he was released, he didn't stop. He went straight back to the underground church that he was more passionate about than ever.
Today, he helps plant house churches throughout the region and is now proclaiming the word free and out in the open. What started as persecution led to proclamation.
The Gospel's Unstoppable Nature
What looked like the end was really going to be the beginning. The gospel was not changed, but it was charged to go out and to change lives. And in Acts chapter 8, this is what it's about. Stephen had just been killed.
The church was in an uproar. The church was under fire. They didn't know what was going to happen. And the Bible says that the people were scattered about. There was nervousness. There was anxiety. There was all types of uproar that was going on. And it looked like, from the outside,
that Satan was winning. It looked like at this moment that Satan had taken over and that the church was going to be extinguished. And in the middle of all that, the gospel began saving even the worst, reaching to the outsiders and confronting the pride and began transforming lives.
You see, you can scatter the church, but you cannot stop the gospel.
The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ goes beyond our human capacity of what we think we can stop.
And the church may look different now than it did 2,000 years ago. And it may look different 10 years from now than it does right now. But the gospel is still the same thing. It still has power. It's still saving people. And it's still changing lives today.
So if you would join with me, verses 1 through 3, we begin to see that God's reign even in the ruin. The ruin was happening here. We looked at last week where Stephen was killed.
Stephen was preaching and proclaiming the gospel and was serving the people. And in that moment, he was killed. And there was ruin. There was change. There was uproar. There was confusion.
And yet God said he's still in control. The first thing I saw as I looked through this was God's sovereignty in suffering.
We often go through suffering. We often go through trials and tribulations. And we ask ourselves, why is this happening?
Stephen, as a martyr, I can even imagine as he's preaching and as they're pulling the stones out, in his mind, in the back of his mind, he's thinking, Lord, I'm doing this for you. And I'm saying forgive them. But I just don't understand why.
Why at this moment? I'm just starting to minister. I'm just starting to go on. Persecution's breaking out.
And in that moment, God is not absent. God is there with him. And God is advancing his plan.
And oftentimes, God's plan looks a whole lot different than our plan. But when our story begins to intersect with God's story, it tells a whole much better, greater story than we'll ever imagine. We have our life planned out.
Oftentimes, if you were a young person or even now as an older person and you're retired,
you begin to plan out some stages of life where you want to have this done in five years and this done in 10 years. And you figure out as you begin to go through life that it always doesn't work out the way you have planned. Sometimes things happen.
A debt comes in or a possibility of a hospital bill comes in.
And all of a sudden, your plans are put on the back burner. And God says, when that happens, I get to step in into your plan and work through those things in a way that you never even thought possible.
In the world right now, and even in Catawba County, there is, or Caldwell County, there's fires that are going out. Forest fires are everywhere and things are breaking out. And in Idaho, there are oftentimes where massive fire fires, forest fires, not fire fires, forest fires that would happen in Idaho.
And you would see as you're riding on the road, this side of the road is just completely burned down. And this side's green as could be.
And the way the fire would come through and just destroy and ravage things, I'm thinking specifically as we would go to camp in Idaho, there was a place where it was always dry and forest fires would happen.
And we would see that as we went through the springtime, wintertime, summertime, that the fires would happen.
And then in the winter, as the fires went out, there would be this lush grass.
There would be this forest that had happened that had come up after the fire had destroyed all the dirt and the deadness that was there. And oftentimes, as I'm reminded, as I look back at those things, that it's after the destruction happens, new growth happens,
new life comes in to prepare that ground for something new that's about to happen.
And oftentimes, this is what happens in our life. Suffering happens and persecution happens in our life. And God is preparing our lives for something new, something great, something better that we never even thought possible. But oftentimes, we resist it.
Oftentimes, we step back and we say, God, I don't want the suffering. I don't like the suffering.
I don't want to be around this. And God says, if you'll just let me tend to your needs and take care of these things, you'll begin to see a season of life that is greater than you ever thought possible.
Oftentimes, we have to think of ourselves and ask ourselves this question. Has there ever been a season of personal loss or suffering that when we look back on hindsight, we see God was in that story the whole time? And oftentimes, as we look through this story specifically,
Saul was coming in and he's putting Stephen to death and severe persecution broke out.
He's coming in and he's taking people out of their houses, out of the churches and throwing them into prison. You can imagine the uproar and the ruins that would be thought of. But then we begin to see God's salvation for sinners. God's salvation for sinners.
I even put like this, even the worst of them all. You see, we see the foreshadowing here of Saul the persecutor. Saul being introduced, the man that was killing the Christians, that was throwing them into prison, that was doing these horrible, unthinkable things. And yet, God is preparing to turn a killer,
someone who is a murderer, into someone who is going to be a preacher that is going to proclaim the word of God, that is going to write over half of our New Testament. Over half of what we have in Scripture is written by this man that agreed to put the first martyr to death.
If I were writing the story, I wouldn't have picked Saul.
I would not have picked this man named Saul, who was the guy that was the villain of the story that was coming in to kill the church. This is not the guy that I pick. And yet, when God looks down from eternity, he says, that's the guy I want.
And oftentimes, when God looks down from eternity and he sees us, he says, that's the one I want to go and to tell the neighbor across the street. That's the one that I want to go across the street and tell that other person about Christ, because Christ is here for all people.
And Christ is here preparing us to turn us into someone who is going to tell others about the grace that God has given us. Are we willing to step out?
Are we willing to tell the person next door about what Christ has done for us?
As I was thinking through even the worst of us, my mind went back to a man that we grew up together. His name is Andrew. And Andrew's a dad now. He's in the military. He's in the army. And he's got two beautiful children. He's married.
And we grew up together. But Andrew was the guy in the youth group that was the rebel. He was the guy that was always causing fights.
I'll give a fun story. He got kicked out of public school because he got so mad in a soccer game that he turned around and punched the metal post and broke his hand. That's how mad he got.
And so we were constantly praying for the Lord to work in Andrew's life and for Andrew to come to know Christ. He was professing that he didn't know Christ and that he didn't want to have anything to do with church.
But yet his mom and dad brought him and he had these anger issues and he got kicked out of public school and went to Christian school. Almost got kicked out of Christian school.
But the Lord began working in his life. And as we prayed for Andrew, as we prayed for the Lord to work in a mighty way, and as his mom, Teresa, prayed often for him and would pray for him, there was a tragedy that happened in their life. His nephew, whose name is Brody,
at the age of four years old, went outside. And they were swimming and they were having a good time and they went back in on a summer day. And he wanted to still swim.
And so he had just learned how to open the gate. And he went outside to the pool that I had swum in many times and opened the gate and got in the pool by himself without the family knowing.
And that night, the mom was looking for him and ran outside and found him face down in the pool. Dead. Dead.
The tragic happening there and the funeral was miles and miles long of people that came to this young boy's funeral. And in that day, in the suffering that happened in that day,
the Lord worked in that little boy's life that the mother had prayed for often, that God use my son in a mighty way to reach people. And Andrew gave his life to Jesus that day. Someone who was a rebel, someone who was out to destroy the world,
the Lord used this tragic incident to save hundreds of people that day. Because of one person's life who came,
oftentimes we look and we write them off as too far gone. There's no potential in this person. There's nothing that they're going to do and we're just going to write them off.
God's Grace for Everyone
And God says, I have a plan for that person. God has salvation for sinners.
And I'm here to tell you this morning, you are never too far gone for God's grace. You are never too far gone for the goodness that God has for us.
But not only do we see the God reigning in the ruins, but God begins to scatter the people and it begins to strengthen the church. Think about this.
The church is moving in different directions and yet it is becoming stronger than it's ever been. The persecution pushes the proclamation of Christ.
The persecution that comes in leads to the preaching that leads to the gospel being spread.
And the Bible says this. I love this verse. I haven't been able to get this verse off my mind as we were camping in Stone Mountain this week as I was studying and preparing.
Acts chapter 8 verse 8. It says that when there was preaching and when the Lord was doing great things, it says there was great joy in that city. The persecution was happening. The church was being scattered and yet this joy unspeakable and full of glory came in.
And it says the people received great joy because of the preaching, because of the proclamation of the gospel. You see, there is joy in our salvation.
This morning, as I got up this morning, as I'm riding down the road, I told the kids, I said, we're going to play. I'm a southern gospel guy.
If you don't know me, I love southern gospel music. If there's a southern gospel concert going on, I'm going to try to be there. I love Gold City and the Kingdom Heirs and the cathedrals and all the old gospel music, southern gospel music.
And this morning, as I was getting ready, an old song by the Kingdom Heirs was in my mind, Good News from the Graveyard. And I said, kids, we're going to listen to Jeff Chapman. We're going to worship this morning as we go. And good news from the graveyard. He's not there. He's alive.
He's risen. We listen to it the whole way here. And Bernie goes, Dad, are we going to sing that this morning, church? I said, I wish.
I'm not good enough to sing it and to lead it. But as I was thinking through it, I thought about, man, this is the good news, the great joy that comes into the world because of the crucifixion. What the world thought was going to kill the Christianity, was going to kill the gospel.
God said, I'm going to set it up to be a springboard to go throughout all the entire world.
The church began to be strengthened as it was scattered. In verses 9 through 11, we see the hold of Satan. This man that we see, the Simon, who was the sorcerer. He was bewitching people with power, but yet it was a counterfeit.
Oftentimes, Satan will use a false wonder to blind people to true worship.
He'll bring in something that is a fake, an illusion, a magic trick to bring someone in. And then they're blinded by the truth.
Have you ever been to a magic show? And as you're watching the magic show, and as your magic show is going on, you begin to see and figure out what's going on, how the magic is happening. How the card tricks happen, or you know how they're levitating something.
And once you begin to see how the magic happens, it's not so magical anymore, right? It's not so wonderful once you know what it is.
When we see real transformation, when we see lives being changed and the gospel being spread, it turns from entertainment to deliverers. It turns from people who were entertained by something that was just fake and artificial to something that was glorious and real.
When we begin to see that, we begin to see the hold of Satan being broke. And then in verses 12 through 13, we begin to see the hope of the gospel. Philip preaches Christ, and people believe and were baptized.
The Bible says that even Simon himself believed, and his heart still needed transformation, but the light was breaking through the darkness.
This morning, as we were in our graveside service, and we're preaching Christ, and the empty tomb, as we're standing out there, the sun began to come up, and the clouds were in the way, but the sun began to pierce through the clouds.
And of course, my back was to it, but I could see the sunlight on my notes, and I could see the sunlight breaking through the darkness.
And that is what happens when people begin to see the power of the Lord, the power of the light of the gospel begins to penetrate our heart and begins to work through the deepest, darkest crevices of our life.
And oftentimes, when we hear the truth of Christ, and the world hears the truth of Christ, they begin to respond by turning away from their sin, because the light exposes the sin that we have. As we continue on in verses 14 through 17, we begin to see the Gentile spiritual awakening.
The Gentiles begin to receive the Spirit. This is us.
God begins to write us into the story. Up until this point, it's the Jerusalem church. It's the church that was the Jews that had received Christ, who were coming to know him.
And now in this moment, he begins to look through Scripture. And in verse 14, he writes in James Seyfried. He writes in the Seyfried family. He writes in Pleasant Grove Baptist Church.
He writes in your family, because this is where the church begins to expand its borders and go to those who were least likely to hear the gospel. The Spirit comes upon the Samaritan church, and Peter and John lay hands on them.
And this is a transitional moment showing that the gospel is going from Jerusalem to the uttermost parts of the world. Just as Jesus said in Acts chapter 1, go to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the world. This is where it's at. It is going to the uttermost.
This is not a second blessing theology, but a confirmation that the Gentile church is now receiving the Spirit and is now having this, what you could say, an approval of the life of Christ coming into them.
If you think back, I wasn't alive during this time. I don't think I was alive. When the Berlin Wall came down. When Gorbachev called down the walls, a little history class. 1989.
So I was a baby. I was just a couple months old. He called for the walls to come down.
And if you've seen those videos of when the East and West Germany and you began to see brothers and sisters that were on both sides of the walls come together. And they began to see that once was on the outside and once was on the other side is now part of a family.
This is what the gospel does. The gospel mends those hurt relationships and brings people together.
People that we wouldn't necessarily include in the kingdom. The Jewish people did not want the Gentiles in the church. But yet God said, I want everyone.
I want the uttermost parts of the world to come into this kingdom. There's people in our family.
There's people in my family that I pray for daily that the Lord will work in their heart. It's a heavy heart on my life because I've got family members that I believe don't know Christ. That don't love Jesus.
That are serving themselves. And when I see that, it breaks my heart. Because I know that if the Lord were to come back today, they wouldn't know Christ. And I want them to be included in the body of Christ. I want them to be included in the gospel.
And that should be part of our life. We should be thinking of our families and those that are around us. But then we should even go a step further and be thinking of those that are surrounding us and our neighbors and our neighborhoods of who doesn't know Christ and how we can share the gospel with them so that
Confronting Corrupt Motives
they can be included in this kingdom as well. And then we begin to see the last moment. This is the confrontation of corrupt motives.
As the gospel goes out, as people are being changed, as lives are being changed for the sake of the gospel, we begin to see a man here who wants to buy the Spirit. Who wants to buy this power? Who wants to buy the apostleship?
And Peter looks at him and goes through some things we're going to look at and says, You cannot buy the Spirit. The Spirit is here for you to partake of freely through a heart transformation, through a life that is rooted in loving Christ.
And we have to ask ourselves, What are we doing for the sake of the gospel? And what are we using our salvation for? The first one is Simon's request. In verses 18 through 19, Simon says, I want this power that you have.
I want this to be in my life because you remember where he comes from. He was selling these good gifts. He was selling these things in order to make money and trying to win people over to serve him. And his life we see is still rooted in pride and control.
And how often is it in our life that we want to grab onto the steering wheel and we want to control our life. And God says, I cannot work in your life if you don't let go of the steering wheel.
I can't work in your life if you don't let me have control of it.
You see, there's these people that are prosperity preachers and religious leaders that crave power rather than presence.
They would rather have the power of whatever it may be versus the presence of the Lord, versus knowing an intimate Jesus that came and died on the cross for them, that rose again three days later in a tomb.
That this is the Jesus that gives us the presence that we have. And oftentimes, church, I believe that we would rather have what Christ can do for us rather than who he is.
You see, Christ calls us to be a holy, separated, called out people, an ecclesia, a church that is for him.
And yet we often use him as a genie in the bottle. Times get tough. We pick him up and we say, God, I need you today.
Where God says, I need you every day. It should be a moment by moment, day by day, waking up and looking to Christ and saying, Christ, I can't take a step today without you. I can't go a moment in my life without you. And I'm completely dependent on you.
This was the opposite of what Simon did. Simon saw this and he said, I just want the power.
I just want the glory. I just want the fame. I just want people to worship me. I just want a crowd that's gathering. I want to do what Philippus is doing. I want these things.
And then we see Peter look at him and Peter rebuked him. Look at what Peter says here. He said, your heart is not right before God. Peter told him,
you have the wrong heart. Your heart is wrong. Your heart is wicked. Your heart is deceitful. You do not control this. See, this is a profession of someone who totally isn't regenerate.
If you're following in the news right now, you know that you've got to have a real ID before you travel, right? The yellow star on the top of your license.
Before you could have a license, but now they're going through all these other steps. But I remember as a kid, I never partook in this.
And I've been honest, I never did. But people used to have fake IDs, right? Have you ever seen a fake ID? No one's.
A couple people have seen a fake ID. You would get these fake IDs and it would have a wrong date of birth.
You could go to the store and you could buy a pack of cigarettes or you could buy some alcohol.
And it even lets you get into a club so that you could go out with your friends and you would have these fake IDs. And a fake ID might get you into a club, but a fake ID with Christ will not get you into the kingdom of God.
This is what was going on here. Simon said, I think I've got Jesus.
I think I know what's going on, but my heart isn't truly regenerated. My heart truly isn't turned into a revelation of knowing who Christ is and what he's done for me.
And we have to ask ourselves, is our faith genuine this morning? Or is it just an external fake ID trying to play the part?
Are we truly believing that Christ is the son of God that came into this world and died for our sins and rose again three days later for our salvation? This is what Paul and Peter and, or eventually Paul, but Peter and John were preaching with Philip here.
And they were preaching and they were allowing the spirit to move. And I love Simon's reaction, verse 24 and 25. He asks for prayer, but he never actually repents. He only fears the judgment.
The apostles, look at what they do. As, as Paul is seeing this, he, he says, pray for me. And Paul just continues to testify.
Call it. Paul just continues to preach the gospel. He's unshaken by what's going on. He's completely focused on proclaiming the truth because he understands that the truth of the gospel is what changes lives.
It's not something that I can do for someone. It's not something I can give them. It's only by telling them the truth of the gospel and allowing the gospel to change people's lives. The responses are mixed. The responses are varying, but yet they keep on preaching.
They keep on telling the good news of the gospel.
When we are encountering our life with the spirit, when we are encountering our life with the gospel, are we humbling ourselves and saying, Lord,
what is it that you want me to do? What is our reaction when the gospel is preached? And how do you want me to respond? As Terry comes and begins to play for our invitation,
I just want to ask us a couple of things as we begin to go into this moment is asking ourselves, when suffering happens, are we allowing the gospel to penetrate our hearts so much that the gospel advances through
our suffering? That the gospel uses our suffering in a way that tells other people about this good news? Are we allowing the strongholds of life?
We all have strongholds. We all have besetting sins. We all have things in our life that hold us back. And are we allowing the spirit through the word of God to overcome our strongholds?
The third, fourth thing I was thinking about is, are we allowing outsiders to come in?
Are we allowing ourselves to be vulnerable enough to let other people come into our lives? To let other people pour into our life, to let other people say some things that aren't the easiest things, but they're good, beautiful words that change our life.
As I preach and as I go through things, I often will send my messages to people. And my friend that was here last week, we got to talking this week and I said, Zach, I said, how was the service?
How were things? And he said, can you give me some liberty to give you some hard critiques? I said, absolutely, Zach.
And so he began saying, hey, these are some things I would see. These are some things I would do. And he said, I don't want you to get mad at me. I said, Zach, I'm not going to get mad. I love it. This is great. I want to get better.
I want people to pour into my life. I want to be changed for the sake of the gospel.
And oftentimes, if we don't allow outsiders to come into our life and to pour into our life, we'll never grow in our faith. And that's what Christ wants us to do. He wants us to grow. And then the last thing is, are there false motives in our life?
Are there things in our life that are for ourself and not for Christ?
We must ask ourselves, are we resisting the gospel like Saul?
Saul agreed to put him to death. That's how it started. He was resisting the gospel. He was pushing the gospel away from him.
Or are we like Simon, who is captivated by the gospel, is captivated by the show.
It's like, I want to be a part of that show. Or are we going to be like the repentant people here in Samaritan and say, I want to receive the truth. I want to receive what God has for me. I don't care the cost.
I don't care if it puts me in jail. I don't care if it causes me my family. Honestly, I just want to be close to Christ.
Because that is what Christ is asking us to do. Are we growing in our sanctification so that we're growing so close to him? And maybe you're here and you're like, Pastor James, I just want to start this relationship.
Invitation to Accept Christ
Today would be a wonderful day on Resurrection Sunday to start that relationship with Christ.
As Terry plays, and I pray we're going to go in our time of invitation. Father, we love you. We thank you for what you've done. God, you are so good to us. You are working in our lives in a way that we don't even understand.
We'll look back 10, 20, 30 years from now and say, it was that day that you did something great.
And it was because of that day that you allowed the gospel to be spread in a way that we never even saw fit. And God, I pray that you would help us through our suffering. Help us through our strongholds that we have.
That we would give it all to you. And that you would be Lord of all and not Lord at all. Help us to trust in you more. In your name we pray. Amen.
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