- Well, good morning. Good to see all of you here in this room and those that are worshiping in our lower gathering area. Delighted that you're here with us today as we unpack, really, another portion of the book of Acts. Before we do that, I'm gonna bow in prayer one more time and let's go before the Lord together. Father, thank you so much for the message that you've moved in our hearts and lives already today, and I pray as we open up your word that you would give us eyes to see your truth and hearts willing to obey as we begin to take a look at what it means to be the church that's scattered, and we thank you for the power of your word and the goodness of the gospel. It's in Christ's name that we pray, amen. A couple o' months ago, actually, the first part of November prior to Thanksgiving and Christmas, some of you know this to be the case, Lynette and I were invited to go teach over in Egypt, and we did so with some wonderful friends of ours. We were training ministry leaders and pastors and individuals that are over in Egypt and it was a terrific experience. I had a chance to teach with, you know, I only have a few friends in life and they were with me over in Egypt. One of 'em is Dave Rofkahr. You know his name if you've been at Rockpoint for a while. Dave and Michelle were part of our family. He was the director of recruiting for the Evangelical Free Church of America, a missionary in Asia and Dave just, well, a couple years ago, he took on a new role which was to become the executive director of the Center for Mission Mobilization and he ended up going to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Now, the Center for Mission Mobilization is known for a couple of things. They're actually known for a course that helps people understand God's heart for the world. It's a course called the Perspectives Course. Some of us have actually gone through that. Well, they're the driving genesis behind that, and they also focus specifically on training nationals to understand what it means to become a disciple of Jesus and then deploy them into countries that they readily identify with. So, they speak the language. They know the culture and they're oftentimes able to go into third world settings and communicate the message of Christ in places that you and I won't be able to go. Dave has actually spoken here at Rockpoint. He spoke here last year for our Rockpoint Reaching event. Many of you know that we take a couple o' weeks each year to talk about local and global missions. That event, Rockpoint Reaching is coming up by the way just so you can mark your calendars, February the 20th, and our theme this year is Faith at work, so it's how to be a missionary, how to take the message of Jesus Christ into our professional world. I hope you can be a part o' that. It's gonna be a wonderful, wonderful event. So, Dave heads up that incredible mission of training young leaders and sending them out all over the world. The other individual that I had a chance to teach with is another friend of mine, Dale Burke. Now he's spoken here at Rockpoint for Rockpoint Reaching and in other ways. He's the guy that hired me and Dale is the president of Leverage Leadership. He's written a couple of books and one of the books that he has written is the one that's been translated into several different languages, and that book was really the training book that we utilized as we were training pastors and leaders. As a matter of fact, it was translated for the first time in the Arabic language. So, we were able to present that to the individuals that were training, and really the focus of that material is we wanna train leaders and ministry leaders and pastors and others around the world. I've taught it in several different countries. I've taught with Dale, and it's to help them really develop a healthy spiritual life with God, how to have a healthy family so that you can grow healthy disciples and churches that can reproduce themselves not only within your culture and around the world, and it is a message that is desperately needed in various contexts around the world, so, we teamed up together with another individual who is Egyptian and I'll just give you his first name, although once I mentioned, once I mention his organization, you'll find him on social media, but his first name is Rafeeq. Rafeeq is the president of MAN, which is Message for All Nations, and the best way to describe this guy is he is an online apologist. He, two years ago, moved to Canada to join what is called the Alkarma network, and he is beamed into the Middle East 24/7, 365 on TV, social media, teaching, training, debating, I believe, and communicating the message of Christ, really, to three different groups. The first group are those that are interested by something that they picked up on Instagram, but they've never committed their life to Jesus Christ, and they come from a variety of backgrounds, including the Islamic faith. The next group that he reaches are those that have trusted Christ as Savior and Lord, but they've not made it public, and that's really, you know, important to understand because many of them still fear for their life, okay, so they're getting beamed through digital media an opportunity to grow in their faith as God continues to move in their heart and life, and then the third group are those that have committed their lives to Jesus. They've made it public. They're serving in a church. They're leading a church. They're doing whatever they can to continue this process. Well, just to kinda give you a glimpse of the platform that Rafeeq has that we joined with when we entered into Egypt, his YouTube social media page has over 330,000 hits. His Facebook page has 5.3 million. One video, it's less than five minutes had over a million hits. So, his reach and platform throughout the Middle East is stunning and God has really anointed his ministry to reach into the Islamic world. So, the four of us gathered and put together a pilot training program to work and train with pastors, and to help them have healthy lives, healthy families, healthy churches. We used Dale's material. We did some other things as well, and we had, I don't know, 50, 60, 70. I was told that they didn't want more than 70, but it was 120 that signed up and there was a waiting list, but the thing that was most exciting for me was, when I looked at those that attended, I would probably say 60 to 70% were 35 and under. That's what God's doing in this young generation in the Islamic world where there is a lot of opposition. As a matter of fact, Rafeeq just sent me a text yesterday, and it's interesting, God's timing. He was just in a certain country. I'll say it that way. I won't mention the country, and he was meeting with a group of strategic leaders, and he was telling me specifically, he said, "The church is growing among refugees, displaced Yazidis and Syrians, Kurds and Iraqis." He said to me, "The Persian church is growing rapidly." Now, please understand. Persia is the ancient name for Iran. So, when people leave Iran and they come to faith in Jesus, that's why we oftentimes say the Persian church, both in Iran, but also in other parts of the world is growing rapidly, and he was explaining to me that he just met with three Christian leaders, one from Syria with a Muslim background, an Yazidi and an atheist who is now a pastor. All three of them have committed their lives to Jesus Christ, and God is moving in a powerful way despite opposition. Now, I wanted to show you just a few pictures. You know, we were in Cairo, so I had to throw this one in. You know, I'm gonna see the pyramids, right, if I go to Cairo. You would too, and you know, yeah, I got on a camel again, which is not my favorite mode of transportation. We also decided, just a small team. Again, this was a pilot program. We wanted to see how it would go and now, begin to see if God is opening the doors through Rafeeq's ministry and Dave and Dale, not only in other cities throughout Egypt, but in other countries in the Middle East. So, we, you know, we got together as a team and we went around Cairo. This is outside of the oldest historic mosque in Cairo, and that's the city of Cairo, and so we just stopped for a moment there, got into a circle and began to pray for the city of Cairo, for people to give their lives to Jesus Christ, for those that are believers serving in the Islamic world. God began to move in our hearts and lives in ways that did surprise us, which is why I wanted to show you these two pictures. Two weeks before we left to go over there, we had a connection through Rafeeq with the Archbishop of the Conservative Anglican African Church. He is to my right. Now, whenever these pictures are taken, I'm always the smallest one in the picture. I don't know why, but I am, and he's to my right, and he is the Archbishop, very conservative Anglican church. They're solid on the gospel. That's why we can join in partnership with them. He's the Archbishop of the Alexandrian province of Africa, and that means he oversees the Anglican church in 10 African countries, had he received the first copy of Dale's book in Arabic. He's been reading it. We were invited into his office and we were able to talk about the challenges of the church, and hear from him. I've never been to an archdiocese before. So, when the bus pulled up with our little team and we got out, and here, it was a total new experience for me. This guy loves the Lord. He is just a genuine servant, an amazing ministry of what God is doing, and then, to your right, we actually had a chance to have dinner with Anglican pastors, believe it or not, from, I don't think it was just Egypt. As I looked around the room, I think they were from other places throughout Africa. We had a panel discussion. The interpreter was to my right. He actually teaches at the seminary there. Young guy who loves Jesus, that's another amazing story I could get into a little bit, but God is working in him as he's influencing these young leaders, and what I want you to know is this 'cause this is very strategic. When we met with the Anglican bishop, he actually gave our training his blessing, and so what that means is this. The Anglican church can go into certain countries in the Middle East that no other evangelical denomination can go into. If you are Anglican and part of the African Anglican church, you are able to go into countries that other evangelical, the Free Church could not go there, okay. Other denominations could not go there, but they are trusted even in Islamic countries. So, for us to have the ability to train these pastors now, and who knows what God's going to open up is incredibly strategic because those individuals are going to take the message of Jesus Christ to the cultures and settings we're never gonna get into. You see how significant that is. Then, at the conference where we were actually training, and this is one of the pieces that they sent out, promotional materials. I'd never seen my name in Arabic, so that was kinda cool, and then, that's me teaching, and what I want you to understand here is another strategic point. While we were there for one day, the vice director of all of the evangelical movements in Egypt actually attended our conference. That's really significant because anything that happens on TV, radio, print, churches, whatever it is, he's aware of it, and so, to have him come to our event, this pilot event, and then we had dinner with him, and he actually gave his blessing to what we're doing. So, he has now opened up the broader evangelical movement throughout Egypt in order to train individuals who know Arabic and know the Middle East customs and can float throughout other countries. It's not only the Anglican church now, but it's the evangelical movement. These are the leaders, young leaders, under the age of 35 we're training to really take the gospel and produce healthy lives and families and churches. It was a wonderful event, and then, I wanted to show you this because Rafeeq hired a media team to come in, recorded all of our sessions. They went on social media and all the broadcast stuff as he works with the Alkarma Network out of Canada, and here he is interviewing me because we had to put together two to three minute video vignettes that he puts out on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and all that kinda stuff to really grab individuals who are interested and then move them in the direction, if they don't know Christ, finding Christ, but then, obviously training, and you can really see how the digital platform is incredibly important. God is moving in and through the country of Egypt in ways that kinda blew me away because they're so strategic in connecting with the Arabic culture, the Islamic culture in various countries throughout the Middle East, and God is moving. God is moving in amazing ways. So, why share all of this? Because it fits in the book of Acts. I share it because, for starters, you know, you're a part of Rockpoint reaching around the world. I mean, you sent me out. We prayed for me, which one of our elders came up and did that in front of a church, and I had a chance to speak and teach in various countries, and when I go out, it's not just me. You're going with me. That's part of this global movement, and I want you to understand that I was teaching with missionaries that are supported by Rockpoint Church. These are my friends. These are individuals. We have people within Rockpoint who are heavily invested in serving on very influential boards in ministries throughout the Middle East. I mean, it is really kind of a, it's a great day to be alive at Rockpoint because of the opportunities that have come to us, and it's why I like to drip things like this throughout our time together. It's why we have Rockpoint Reaching because you're an extension of this, and God is moving and he's moving, yes, in spite of the opposition. You need to understand. Persecution is real. While we were there in Egypt, one of the elders was sharing the story that he has led someone to Christ in his area in recent days, I guess or it wasn't too far removed, and this man converted from Islam to Christianity. He went home. He told his wife. His wife informed her family and they came and they killed him, just like that. We heard of somebody being executed before we left and it caused pause, you know. Now, you're gonna hear in a couple of weeks from some other wonderful friends and individuals that we support here at Rockpoint because we were a part of enabling them and helping them, help translate the Bible in oral languages and they're going throughout Africa in some areas that are even more risky than Egypt. So, they'll have a chance to unpack their story. So, you're gonna see another connection here with Acts and what God is doing, and the church is growing. Now, the genesis of all, of what we're experiencing in our globe today is right here in the book of Acts. This is where the believers began to be persecuted for their faith and they were scattered, and I want you to understand this big issue. When you go back and you read in the book of Acts of the church experiencing persecution and being scattered, when they were scattered, they shared their faith with somebody and somebody shared their faith with somebody, and eventually, it got to the point to where 2,000 years later, somebody shared Christ with you because the church was scattered, and you committed your life to Jesus, and I committed my life to Jesus, and the genesis of that story was right here, and this is the passage we're gonna look at today, and we're here today, many of us who have trusted Christ as Savior and Lord because of what happened here, and when we get to the end of the book of Acts, it doesn't end. The end of the book of Acts is to be continued in your life, in my life and I want you to get a glimpse of what God is doing around the world because he's moving in incredible ways. And so, as we land in the book, in Acts chapter 8, we're gonna take a look at the church scattered, and this issue, when persecution arrives, and so, take your Bibles out and go to Acts 8:1, and no fear, we're only gonna look at four verses today, okay. So, Acts 8:1, grab your phone, iPad, pull out a Bible, the one in front o' you, the one you brought in here, and let's take a look at the birth of what I just described that I was a part of, you're a part of, because someone shared Christ with you and you came to faith and you took dollars well earned and you gave it to Rockpoint, and you're sending missionaries and people like me and others and you're volunteering your time, talents and resources so we can go train people to come to know Jesus, and then go to countries that you and I will never see. Here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna go to Heaven one day, if you know Christ as Savior and Lord, just like we saw with Stephen last week, and by the way, Heaven's eternal. I don't know if you figured that out yet. So, if you know Jesus, it's going to be a long time and you're gonna have thousands of years of hearing stories and connecting with people, and your brain's gonna work better in Heaven, no brain fog in Heaven, and you're gonna connect all the dots that the money that you personally gave to Rockpoint Church, you're gonna remember the day you prayed for me, the day you prayed for missionaries, the day you heard Dale and Dave and connected with Rafeeq. Maybe we'll even get him here to speak at one point, and you're gonna meet somebody in Heaven that is going to put together the pieces, and they're gonna say, "Wow, somebody shared Christ with me and this pastor was at some event with this guy, goofy name by the name of Fruits." And you're gonna say, "Wait a minute. I was a part o' that story. I was a part o' that." People coning to faith that you're gonna meet in Heaven, because you see your story in the story of the book of Acts. So, look at verse 1 because it says, "And Saul approved of his," meaning Stephen's "execution." He's drawing from chapter 6, where Stephen was hauled out after he met with the Council, the Sanhedrin, and they ripped off their garments and they laid them, it says in verse 58 of chapter 7 at the feet of this young man by the name of Saul. Now we, many of us, I will say have read the rest of the story. We'll come back to him in Acts 9 'cause God, you know, does a dramatic work in his life, changes his name, but it says here, "And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles." That's interesting. The apostles stayed back, probably because they had a responsibility to help care for this growing church. you know, the other thing that dawned on me is, these guys didn't fear anybody. I mean, go ahead, kill me. I go with Jesus. And they were performing signs and wonders, so that kinda makes you pause if you're gonna come after 'em, right. Verse 2, "Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him," because it was a loss here on earth. They lost a friend. Verse 2, "But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison." And then verse 4, "Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word." That is so significant, went about preaching the word. They were scattered, but they went about preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. You know, this is connected back with Chapter 6 and Chapter 7, where persecution finally begins to explode and Jesus didn't, you know, he didn't make false promises. He promised his followers that persecution would come. II Timothy, which was Paul's last book, he actually writes there in Chapter 3 verse 12 that, "Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." Now, it's important to understand the definition of persecution. It's not just the difficult stuff of life that we oftentimes go through. Persecution is action taken against you because of your stand or your faith in Jesus Christ. So, that's the key. That's what persecution is. And when we look at a passage like this, we begin to uncover how they handled it. Saul is a major part of this persecution. Stephen's death is here, but then all of a sudden, the church is scattered, but notice, they continue to preach the gospel, Now, in Acts 1:8, we find out that Jesus gave this promise that is now becoming reality, where the Spirit would come upon them and, with this power, they would be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, and now, this is beginning to take place, and it's taking place through the lives of primarily Hellenistic Jews who have converted to Jesus Christ. Now, a couple weeks ago, that's an important detail. We talked about who they are. These are Jewish individuals who were Hellenistic. They were influenced by the Greek world. They came from outside of Jerusalem and Judea by way of relatives or friends and family, whatever that was, perhaps even, like Stephen and Philip, who had Greek names, we know they're Hellenistic because they had Greek names. They were probably Jewish or their parents were, and then they converted to Judaism and they found Jesus, and he changed, dramatically changed their life. Well, those are individuals that are receiving intense persecution and now they're being scattered and it's interesting. They're going into Judea and the farther they get out, the more individuals are influenced by the Greek world. So, you get into the area of Samaria. You know what a Samaritan is, right? If you don't, here's what they are. They're half Jewish and half Gentile. They're of a mixed race, in some percentage, and as a result of that, they didn't like the Jewish people in Jerusalem, and they didn't like them, but they more than likely spoke Greek and were familiar with the Greek culture, and they were cosmopolitan, and so, what was God doing? He was taking individuals who could identify with them, so that they would share Jesus. It's the reason why we go into countries like Egypt and we share Jesus and how to make disciples with others, but we're sharing with those that speak the Arabic language and understand the Islamic culture, so that they can go into countries you and I will never get into. See, they can identify with them. They more readily identify with them. Well that model came right outta this book right here, as God was moving, and so, they were scattered and then they began to communicate the word of God so that it continued to grow. And I think we oftentimes think of these Christians as SuperChristians, but they weren't. They were just like you and me. Now I will say this. I don't think they were necessarily intentionally resisting going into these other parts of the world, but look, there wasn't much time between Pentecost and this timeframe that we're seeing now, and they were making disciples in Jerusalem. We see over and over again in the first part of Acts that the church was growing and it was expanding and it was changing and things were actually taking place, and yet, at the same time, all of a sudden, their businesses are being canceled. Saul is going from house to house, and he's hauling these people off to jail, breaking up their families 'cause it says men and women to jail. Well, what do you think happened to the kids, okay? He was a very mean mean mean person, kids, and he did some ugly stuff, and we'll come back to his story, and as unwelcome as persecution was, it drove them out to complete the gospel call, and so, what do we learn about God from a passage like this? What do we learn about God's plan, and what do we learn about what God is doing in us? Well, it reminds us first of his power is unending. When I come to a passage like this, and I look at Paul, who approved of the death of Stephen, I meet a guy who is a one-man wrecking machine. The word for ravaging the church that's found in Verse 3 is a word that describes a wild boar that is running through a vineyard, destroying the crop, and that's what Paul was doing. He was ravaging believers as they were meeting from house to house. He was going into synagogues and pulling people out and throwing them into jail, and yet the power of the Spirit was upon them to be witnesses because they prayed for boldness, which we found out in Acts Chapter 4, and by the time you get to Acts Chapter 5, the apostles were beaten, and they were told, "Don't you ever share about Jesus again." And they didn't care. They did it anyway. God gave them incredible boldness and here they are again. It says specifically they were scattered, and yet, they went about preaching because they had an unbelievable confidence in the person of the Lord Jesus. Faith is risky. It's risky by definition because you're stepping out and it is the object of the faith that matters more than anything. The object is essential. It's not optional. I mean, put yourself in their shoes. Here was the invitation that they were given. Come follow Jesus, and you'll go to prison. Would you follow that message? Come follow Jesus. You won't see your kids for a couple of months. Come follow Jesus. Saul's gonna wreck your life and your business. Well, that's in total contrast to the appeals that you oftentimes see today on TV and social media with certain personalities, selling what I will call the snake oil of a false gospel, where you have people telling others to just stand in front of a mirror and quote 10 positive phrases about yourself and you'll be able to influence your future and the list goes on and on, and oh by the way, send me a check and then you'll be healthy and wealthy. That is still going on today, and you can't find that anywhere in the Bible. Nowhere, just read the book. Now I think, again, honestly, these believers were comfortable, but they still were doing God's work, but isn't it fascinating that God moves according to his timeframe and not ours, because all of a sudden, he said it's time. It's time for you, I know you haven't finished it in Jerusalem yet. We'll take care o' that. I'm in charge. I got power, I'm gonna take, and then he begins to show up, and you know what? It's interesting 'cause God does his best work in the transitions, those difficult seasons and in those moments are the greatest opportunities to trust him, rely on his power, and also understand that his plan in unfaltering. He will accomplish it. Saul thought he was in charge. I mean, did you pick that up here? And you know what? Saul wasn't in charge. He thought he was, ravaging the church and doing all the stuff and, man, I'm telling you, we'll read more about it in Acts Chapter 9, but you know what? He was a pawn on God's chess board. God was directing him. God was moving, and it was through the power of the Holy Spirit God was accomplishing his plan of scattering the church to communicate the gospel. The word for scattering that is used up in Verse 1 of Chapter 8, and then also in Verse 4 has this idea of sowing seed. That's what the word means. The best way to illustrate this that I thought of, there's several ways to do it, but I'll give you this one. Well, a couple years ago, I was out at The Cove, which is the Billy Graham training center outside Asheville, North Carolina, and I was out there with Paul Cedar, who was the president of our denomination at that point, and we were there for an event, and the long and short of it is, one of Billy Graham's relatives was there as well, and so Paul and I got him to let us into Billy Graham's office. That was really cool. And Billy Graham wasn't there, but we got in his office, and I'm telling you, walking around looking at all these pictures and all the incredible things that he did, and I still can't remember though. Maybe Lynette would be able to tell me. I can't remember if I actually sat in his chair behind his desk. Something rings a bell that I did, but don't quote me on it, okay, and, but what was interesting was, when we walked into the first part where his secretary sat, there was a picture on the wall, and they explained to us that this was a picture, hand-painted, from the European crusade, one of his European crusades, and it was a picture. They painted Billy Graham with a bag of seed, standing in the middle of a field, scattering and throwing the seed, and I thought, what a great picture of what he's done, of what we should do, what the church was doing here in Acts Chapter 8. Despite the opposition, because God's power will go forth so that his church and his message will continue to grow. That's why Jesus said, in Matthew 16:18, "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I'll build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." A couple o' key points, first off, the rock is Jesus. I think you can prove that throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, however, it's combined with this. "I tell you, you are Peter," yes, "but on this rock," confessing me as Savior and Lord, then, you'll become part of, notice, it's Jesus' church. Not my church, not your church. Rockpoint's not our church. It's Jesus' church. The moment you confess him as Savior and Lord, you get placed into this church and then, look at the promise. "And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The gates of hell here actually refer to death. Now, if you come with us to Israel, I'll unpack the setting at the site he gave this, so you'll understand the color behind this. I'm not gonna tell ya that here, okay, so you're gonna have to go with us to Israel whenever we can get back over there again. But, it was a place of death and there's a reason for that, and what he's saying is, "I've come to give life, not death. I've come to overcome sin and death. If you confess me as Savior and Lord," Jesus is gonna resurrect from the dead. He's coming back and he's gonna offer you life, not death. Death will no longer prevail over you because you've put your trust and faith in him, and then you become part of this church that goes on the offensive to communicate this message to the world so others can join and others can have life and not death. That's the promise. His church will go on. His message will go on. The gospel will go out despite the opposition, and people will give their lives to Jesus Christ. Death will not reign. This is Plan A, and his Plan A, there is no Plan B, is to work through you and me to communicate the gospel to our world. That's why we are so committed to doing what we're doing, not only here, but in other parts of the world. Do you realize that 80% of the evangelical, those that believe in a gospel-centered movement of trusting Jesus as Savior and Lord. That's what we mean by that term. We hold to some similar doctrines of the faith. 80% of those that would classify or we would classify them as evangelical believers live on three continents, South America, Africa and Asia, 80%. Of those 80% believers, when you look at the pastors that are serving them, only 7% of those pastors have some form of a formal education, serving 80%. So that's why we do this. We go help them, Hellenistic believers we'll call them who can take the message to places you and I will never see and, in the persecution and difficult experiences, we learn from these believers of God's power and his plan is unfaltering, but we also learn that his process is transforming, because really it becomes an issue of trust. These believers when they came to Christ, life didn't get better, it got worse. Come follow Jesus and, you know, you're going to jail. And so, here are a few things to keep in mind when we do move into that zone in our world, and that is that God takes the good and the bad and he uses it for his glory. Now that applies to a lot of things in life, but specifically when persecution is coming because, you know, to the extent that your Judeo-Christian values influence a culture will determine the amount of persecution you face in that culture. We've had a privilege to be in this country, but that world is changing, by the way. So you better be ready for persecution to come. That's why we keep dripping it throughout the book of Acts, when I or others come up here and teach and give a message, but God takes the good and the bad, and God uses all of that for your growth and his glory. Great verse if you're not familiar with this, some of us are, Romans 8:28. "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." Couple o' key words, those that love God, they've placed their trust and faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. God then takes all things, the good and the bad. He works them together for good. Well, how do we define good? Well, we define it by this next phrase, for those who are called according to his purpose. What's the good? God takes everything, the good and the bad, the ugly, all that stuff, and he works it together for the good that is connected to his purpose. In other words, he works it together for the advancement of his purpose in you and in the world around us. In other words, he purposefully pulls together events in your life, even the opposition so that he's accomplishing his purpose in you and through you. The very next verse, in Verse 29 says that he is about the business of conforming you into the image of Jesus Christ. That's his purpose in you. Why is that the case? Because then, as you become more like Jesus Christ, reflecting his image, you go into your world and then he accomplishes his good purpose in communicating the gospel in your life and words to others who so desperately need him, and as he advances his purpose, we have to remember that God is not interested in your creature comforts, but cultivating your character. That's why we go through tough times. That's why Verse 29 of Romans 8 is so important, and I don't know about you, but oftentimes, when God drops us into those difficult seasons of life, that's when he is moving us, and I say this personally, out of our comfort zone, and those are the moments when he works his plan in ways that I could have never dreamed, and he becomes so personal and so real in those moments, when we wait upon him. Isaiah 40:31 talks about how he will renew our strength, how he gives us wings like eagles to soar above our circumstances, how he gives us the energy to run when we have been called to run into a world that desperately needs to know the message of Jesus Christ and keep going, but then he ends in Verse 31 In Isaiah Chapter 40, and he talks about walking. Why is that the case? Because when we walk, that's the normal stuff of life. Day in and day out, he gives us the strength to be faithful and to trust him and to put our gaze upon him because God allows, in the midst of this transforming process, he allows persecution, trials and difficulties to galvanize our grip on his glory. Now, glory can mean honor, yes, but glory actually means this. It is a word that describes the sum total of God's attributes. That's what that word means. So now, place that into what he's doing in your heart, because if it is the sum total of God's attributes, then as he works his good for his purpose in me, what's his purpose in me? That I reflect the very person of Jesus Christ in his glory so that as I am putting my gaze on Jesus and his glory and all he is, I'm finding him as the satisfaction for my soul and the joy of my life, and as I focus on him and his glory, he transforms me so that I reflect his attributes and image to my world, and I actually become the image-bearer that he's created me to be from the beginning of time. That's what he's doing. Billy Graham said, "If the glories of Heaven were more real to us, if we lived less for material things and more for things eternal and spiritual, we would be less easily disturbed by this present life." And then, the great apostle Paul says in Romans 8:18. "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." Jesus Christ, conforming me in his image right here right now, to be scattered at work, at home, my environment, wherever God leads to communicate his hope to the world. Where has God scattered you? Where has he placed you? He's put you there for a reason. He's moving in your heart and in your life, and if they were scattered, running for their lives because of Saul, and yet they preached the word and they communicated it and they didn't back down in the midst of opposition, then why am I so likely to be silent in a comfortable world and not communicate my story about finding Jesus? You ever thought about that? We're willing to give up in comfort what nobody else around the world is willing to give up in the face of persecution. And are you ready for persecution? Are you ready for these days to come? God is on the move. You can look at a passage like this from a negative perspective and say, Oh my goodness, oh woe is me, and you know, yeah, you need to pray for believers and that's all you get out of a passage like this. I look at it from the other side. Holy cow, what a time to live, running into it because it's in the midst of doing that that God is doing a work that we're gonna rejoice through eternity because of what he's doing, and you get a chance to be a part of it as you find your story here. And then, do you know Jesus? Here's where it all begins. Do you really know Jesus as Savior and Lord? Have you come to that point in your life where you've admitted your sin, where you've truly repented? That means no more excuses, God. I'm just coming to you as I am with all my stuff, whatever that might be, knowing that I have not committed my life to you, and in that moment, you turn and you trust in Jesus Christ as a person who has paid the price for your sin, and arose from the grave so that you might be forgiven. He paid that price, and you can be set free, part of his family, his church, taking his hope to the world. I hope you've come to that point of surrender and commitment, where you finally turned and said, "Jesus, I want you to save me. I want you to lead my life." Would you pray with me? Father, in these final moments, as we come now and sing this great anthem, Lord, I pray that there's not a person listening to this who has not committed their life to Christ, and Father, if they've not, they would make that decision right here right now by turning to you and confessing you as Lord, as Savior, and asking for your forgiveness and committing to follow you. But Lord, for many of us who have made that choice, we're your witnesses. Give us power to understand your plan and transform us and mold us so that we reflect your glory to our world as we find our satisfaction in you. And so now, as we close with this great anthem, Lord, we wanna confess what we believe as we leave this place as your people. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen.