God Is Still in the Business of Saving and Changing Lives
First B Jackson
2013-11-24

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Good morning, everybody. Gorgeous morning. It is. It's so cool to look around and just see this this frost that covers everything, and it's absolutely gorgeous. And it's a work of God.

And and that's the thing is when we see these things, we should see God just it's it's him painting a picture. And it's great and should direct our attention and our affection toward him. So as we sing this first song, let's let's just sing after our Lord. Let's stand up together.

Remind me if I forget kids. Thank you very much. The connect hour. Renzy's getting clever. Connecting.

Legos. The connect hours between services, between ten and eleven down the hall, snacks, coffee, conversation, getting to know one another. Down the hall to the fellowship hall, it there'll be food and drinks and things like that down there too. So, that's the connect hour between. High school will not meet this Friday for breakfast.

There are special arrangements that are being made. Actually, today though, they're doing something. It'll be the next slide, I think. Junior high will meet here at 04:30 in the afternoon to help pack shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. So, there's a big packing party today.

Casey McCooey, I saw her in here. Would you stand for a second? This is Casey McCooey. Yep. If you would, if you have any questions about that, you can talk to her but you can see there's a pile of shoe boxes and stuff down at the other end.

We're going to they're going to get together this afternoon. I'll probably be here too. 04:30 to pack stuff together and get it ready to go for Operation Christmas Child. The missions committee met this morning and we were talking about our Samaria area giving. That's for us.

Samaria is Billings and New Mexico and also Tom and Barbie Stanfield live in Denver but they travel in and out of Mexico. So, those are the three Samaria area giving opportunities and the the missions committee met this morning to say that match gives up to $1,500 for that Samaria. Instead of a thousand, it went up to 1,500 this morning at the meeting. So, just so you know that, all you have to do is put it on the memo line of any check that you'd wanna go there. Samaria Area giving.

There is going to be a ladies Christmas luncheon, December 4. That is Wednesday, December 4. That'll be next Wednesday, not this coming but Wednesday week as we'd say in Georgia. Twelve to one at first B right here. Lunch, fellowship, worship, and teaching about the true grift of Christmas and there's childcare provided.

Very good. Welcome to First B. Glad y'all are here. The band will bring you back together in song. If y'all stand up and greet one another, please.

Amen. Lord, thank you. Thank you for being our light and our salvation. Thank you God for the hope that you give us and you that no matter what the circumstances, we can still look to you and cry out to you. They give us peace, a deep sense of peace, God, that the the world can understand, and I won't understand unless it knows you.

So thank you God for that. We praise you. It gives us great pleasure to be able to worship you, and to express our our, our hope in you, our faith in you, our trust in you, our joy in you. So for that we thank you and we thank you for your son. Thank you God that you have lived among us.

You've dwelt among us. You got in line behind us and you died for us to give us new life and you you've forgiven our sins, past, present, and future. And what a gift that is, and how we celebrate it, and we celebrate you. Amen. Lord, how good it is what you have done for us.

Thank you God for your finished work that we can be fully secure in the work of the cross, that you have taken our sin, you've paid it in full, past, present, and future, giving us right standing before God, and that we can rest securely in that. Lord, we confess that day to day we fall. We falter, we fall, But we thank you and we praise you for grace. Lord, if it weren't for grace, where would we be? So I wanna give you thanks this morning.

I wanna rest in the grace that you've offered to us so freely, and then live our lives for you. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Y'all could be seated. I should have put a note up there for the children to remind me about the offering. The frontline team's coming forward, and I'm gonna ask Doug Walker to pick him up and

are lots of biblical admonitions about money. One of my favorites though is is where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. God desires our heart. Our treasure is merely a reflection of the status of our heart. Let's pray.

Lord, you've blessed us financially and beyond any peoples in the history of the world. And yet, your real treasure is our heart. May our giving, may our attitudes reflect that desire. Thank you for the opportunity to wish worship with our gifts. In Jesus name, amen.

Big ideas. Big ideas that should inspire awe and thanksgiving. That's what I've been thinking about and there are a lot of them. We could list, you know, count your blessings one by one. We could list little things, big things.

I've got a few throughout the sermon today. Things are gonna come up. The two main ones that I'm majorly, majorly thankful about and just have concentrated a lot of effort on in the last week just thinking. I talked to my brother earlier in the week and he said, hey, God is just so good. He's overwhelmed by it and that's a great great thing.

He goes, I mean, and he goes into explaining really big awesome kind of stuff and he says, and God's so much bigger than that. But these are the two big ones that I think of Thanksgiving. Almighty God is still in the business of saving and changing lives. He has not changed. He is still in that business and that he accomplishes his business in the real world.

He still does it. It's the real world by using people who are dedicated to his glory and seeing his kingdoms advance. That's the way he works. Last week, we talked about oh gracious, the maps are small. I know the maps are small.

We talked about them leaving Antioch. It was Paul and Barnabas. He says, Barnabas, let's go. Let's check out those churches on that first missionary journey. Let's do this.

Barnabas says, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I'm bringing John Mark. Oh, no. So, last week, after the sharp disagreement that we talked about at length, Paul and Silas go north and Barnabas and John Mark go south. Sailed to Cyprus.

And from then on, we follow the story of Paul and Silas. We don't hear about Barnabas. We don't hear about John Mark. Now eventually, we get the gospel of Mark out of that deal. Mark writing down the story of Jesus, and we know Barnabas just encouraged people along the way, but the story line we follow from here is Paul and Silas.

So when they left Antioch, they took the overland route. They went up. This is only the introduction. Don't worry. I'm not gonna stay in the maps the whole time.

Antioch, up towards Tarshish. If I were Paul, I'd stop in and get barbecue. I mean, Paul's probably not going for the barbecue, but when I'm in my hometown, passing through my hometown, I stop and I meet up with some relatives. I get some good food. He goes on from there to Derby.

You know what happened to him in Derby and Lystra? They've had troubles in these places. He goes to Lystra, and at that point, that's where they added Timothy to the mix. Timothy is alongside now Paul and Silas. They're they're a gathering band is what they are.

This week, most Americans are going to celebrate Thanksgiving. I don't you know, people protest holidays all the time, and I'm not doing that. Very few people protest Thanksgiving. They might protest some of the history lessons learned. They might say, well, that's revisionist history and there those people were not really concerned about that and pilgrims were not all no, that's what they were concerned about.

Thanksgiving. Almighty God is still in the business and my quote up here, the who are the people he uses, the people who are dedicated to his glory and seeing his kingdom advance. Have you all read this before anywhere? Having undertaken, and it was about a voyage, having undertaken this present voyage, they wrote this on a boat for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. Y'all know where that's from?

Mayflower compact. This is a famous painting of that event. They're all looking heavenward with their hands thrown up. Having undertaken this voyage for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. This is their stated purpose.

They all got together and they were agreed. This is why they came. This is what they were doing. Now a lot of them would die in the next year or so, and there were very few that would live through several winters. But that's the beginning of the Mayflower compact.

I see in parallels between that and this chapter. So this was kind of the original title list, prevented to prevented by the spirit to preach and encouraged by a vision to reach. This is about Paul and Silas and Timothy now as they're traveling along. Now, when we left the story last week, we were at Lystra and that's where he picked up Timothy and this week, verse six of chapter 16 says, next, Paul and Silas traveled through the area of Phreesia and Galatia because the Holy Spirit had prevented them from preaching the word in the province of Asia at that time. So you see Asia right there, they got all over Galatia and all over Pamphylia.

It's really more like this probably. City to city, and they carried, but it says that they were prevented. So that's the black line there. They were prevented from passing on into Asia. Why?

God did not choose to tell us. Why? He stopped that at that time. It just was not his time for Asia to receive the word. Later on, we hear from Peter that he was thankful that Paul had not gone into some of the areas that he got to go in first.

So, maybe God was running a little interference for Paul so that Peter could go in and carry the gospel. He may have had the message. All of them have the same message, but he he may have had it the way they needed to hear it. We don't know. Then coming to the borders of Mysia, that is Mysia right there.

Then coming to the borders of Mysia, they headed north for the province of Bithynia, but again, the spirit of Jesus did not allow them to go there. Don't go there. I don't know exactly how God transmitted that message to them. A lot of times, it's an impression that we feel we ought to do, and we know that the just shall live by faith. You go with your impression.

You talk to the people that are around you. You let your circumstances dictate. In some places, it's law. Some places, it's it's your circumstances that help out in that. But the spirit of Jesus did not allow them to go there.

Although they had planned to go there. That makes sense. He had it in in his intent and was going. But the spirit of Jesus did not allow him to go there. So instead, they underlined they for a reason there.

They went on through Mysia to the Seaport Of Troas. Now, there's Troas and my accent y'all all make fun of anyway but I'm I'm not positive about all the pronunciations. A lot of this is dead language stuff, but Troas is the way a guy from Shiloh, Georgia would say it. They went on to the mist through Mysia to the Seaport Of Troas. But what do they do when they get there?

They've been prevented from going to Asia, which is directly south. They've been prevented from going to Bethany, which is directly north. So they're sitting there in the seaport of Troas, and that night, Paul had a vision. A man from Macedonia in Northern Greece was standing there pleading with him, come over to Macedonia and help us. So that's Macedonia in the big red circle up there, there at Troas.

So we decided to leave for Macedonia at once. Now who's writing this? This is Luke and Acts volume one, volume two. Who's writing this book? Luke.

Gentile physician. We've talked about him before, great historian, and he said they in the last verse and he's saying, we in this verse. What does that tell you? Luke's with him now. Luke was hanging out apparently at Troas.

There are some commentators that will go so far to say as the Macedonian man was Luke. The vision that he had was him saying, no, come help us. I think that's naturalizing the supernatural. Paul had a vision of a man from Macedonia. How does he know?

Have you ever had a dream you don't know how you knew somebody was left handed or you dreams are weird like that. You just know. He's Macedonian. Did he have Macedonian stamped on his forehead? Did Macedonians look just like guys across the sea?

This is, you know, Turkey today right across that straight there. Greece, around there. Anyway, he had a vision. So, we decided to leave for Macedonia at once. Having concluded, that's all of them together, having concluded that God was calling us to preach and the word therefore preaches to proclaim the good news there, the gospel.

That's what they had as their vision. When they set sail on their voyage, they set sail with the glory of God in mind and the advancement of the Christian faith. Now, another parallel that I see here is when they got on this path from here to here, this is one continent and this is another. This continent is Europe. The pilgrims left Europe to come to North America with the same exact goal in mind.

The glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. So we boarded a boat at Troas and sailed straight across to the island of Samathrace. I don't know if that's how you pronounce that. Samathrace is right there. That island is out in the middle of this Aegean Sea, and it has a mountain that rises up from sea level 5,500 feet.

It's a pretty easy landmark to spot, and the winged victory of Samothrace is one of the most probably well known Greek, the Hellenistic sculptures in the world, and that was there. And I I mentioned that. I know that's probably because I'm an art nerd, but I mentioned that because this was there when they were there. This was probably made about between a hundred and fifty and two hundred BC, and so this would have been on that island right there. And to me, it just connects things to the real world.

In my definition, said, he still works in the real world using real people, skin and bones on them to advance his purpose. Almighty God is still in the business of saving and changing lives. He was before that. He was during this time and he still is, and he accomplishes his business in the real world. It's not some ethereal thing, it's not just a state of being in your own mind.

It's not that. It's in the real world. God is in the business of saving and changing lives. So we boarded at Trois and sailed straight across the island of Samothrace. And the next day so they spent the night at Samothrace most likely on the beach.

It's a beautiful beautiful place. There are lots of cruises that go there these days. From there, we reached Philippi, so Luke is with him, a major city of that district of Macedonia, and a Roman colony. And we stayed there for several days. Neapolis.

Neapolis, not Minneapolis. Neapolis is where they landed in Philippi. So that's the geography lessons. This week, Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday but what's weird about this year is this week, Jews all around the world will also start celebrating Hanukkah. Wednesday night at sundown starts Hanukkah and it overlaps with Thanksgiving and that had my mind reeling.

Christine's got a huge smile on her face. That's so cool because Hanukkah is a celebration, a praise to almighty God for what he has done, for how he has provided, and Thanksgiving is the same thing. It's a praise to God almighty for what he has done. Thanksgiving and Hanukkah go hand in hand. In fact, Yada.

Yada. Yada. Yada. Close. Yada.

Figuratively, actually literally first, it's to throw or to cast or even to shoot like an arrow. It's to cast something upward usually. And the reason it came to be is because of this. It's throwing your hands upward. Throwing your hands up before God and saying, God, you are mighty.

God, you are lovely. You are wonderful. I praise you, oh Lord. Oh sovereign lord, who's made the earth and the sea and everything in them. It's the throwing up of your hands, not the throwing up but the throwing up of your hands.

To praise God and giving thanks is a yada. I have something that I debated back and forth, back and forth, back and forth about whether I mention it or not because I did not think there was a gracious and graceful way of expressing this in our society today but I'm going do it anyway. A yada is a Thanksgiving, a blessing, and it is serious. It's sincere. It's not something that's just a quick thing.

In fact, in the Hebrew, there is no difference between thanking and praising because this happens to God. To thank someone does is not to praise them. There's not that same correlation. The Yada, a praise, and a blessing, a Thanksgiving goes together. You are acknowledging God's almighty hand and you are thanking him for doing what he has done.

So there is an old one. I did not put it in the slides. There's an old Jewish blessing that comes from before the time, probably about the same time as the wing victory of Samothrath. A couple hundred years before Christ. And it's for males, especially rabbis, and orthodox Jews still use this blessing as part of the dawn blessings each morning.

And as a male at this time, Paul probably as a Pharisee would have prayed this prayer every morning when he wakes up. They start off something like this. It starts off. God, thank you. We acknowledge you almighty God that you have made the rooster understand the difference between day and night.

And there was a series of em, a lot of em and they really were about the way things are, about the way that God has made us, the way that God has made things but one of em causes significant trouble each time it comes up these days. Christine probably knows what I'm talking about. There's one that's a series of three and it says, oh Lord God almighty, you are worthy, you're wonderful, it starts off with that praise. God, I acknowledge you that you're almighty and you have made me like this and thank you. I bless your name that you have not made me a gentile or a slave or a woman.

Oh, that kills me. It's not meant to be divisive. It's not meant to say, oh, I'm better than them. It's actually meant to say to to say, I'm glad that you have made me who you have made me. In fact, the female equivalent is, oh Lord God almighty, I bless you and thank you forever that you have made me according to your will.

It's really the same thing. But at the time, rabbis had a greater access to God because they were able to go through certain rights, stand in certain places, do things. So he was saying, I thank you for the privilege you have been you have given me that I'm not restricted. Does that make sense? Was that as soft as I could pronounce that?

So, Yadah, to praise God and give him thanks. So Troas, Philippi, Neapolis, they're they land and they stick in Philippi, and what follows in the story are three vignettes. There are three vignettes I say of particular people, and those particular people will see right now. But I wanna do it one more time. Almighty God is in the business of saving and changing lives and this all three of these vignettes point this direction and he accomplishes by using people highlighted.

He accomplishes his will by using people to do it. Let's read on. The thirteenth verse chapter 16, Acts says, on the Sabbath, we went a little way outside the city to a riverbank. Where we thought people would be meeting for prayer. That's a good thinking.

Philippi was not a kosher city. If any Jews were in town, they would not have been meeting on the Sabbath in town. They would have been meeting outside of town because of purity. They would have probably needed water to go through purification. Right?

So it makes sense. They just get into town and it's kinda like, oh, I know where this is gonna be. The prayer meeting is gonna be right there. It's like rolling into town for an AA meeting. You can bet that one of the churches has one in the basement.

That's where it's gonna be. You know that it's gonna be there. That's the truth. And you can bank on that. You know that the Catholic church is gonna be facing a certain direction.

You can bank on that. You know how it is. Paul knew that if there were any Jews in town, they would be and his custom is always to go to the synagogue first, right? So, he goes, where we thought people would be meeting for prayer and we sat down to speak with some women who had gathered there. There was not a synagogue in Philippi.

That tells you how different this place is than all the places that he has been. In order for there to be a synagogue which means assembly. In order for there to actually be an official assembly, you had to have 10 Jewish men to meet. You know how often mission churches start with just women and children? It it's all the time, almost all the time.

But when they gather 10 men, it seems like they've hit a critical mass. That's that's from way back. With some women who gathered there, one of them was Lydia from Thyatira, so she was a merchant of expensive purple cloth who worshiped God. As she listened to us, that's Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke and maybe others too. As she listened to us, the Lord opened her heart and she accepted what Paul was saying.

Oh, Paul, with his argument, with his skills of rhetoric. No. He just had the truth. She was baptized along with other members of her household and she asked us to be her guest. If you agree that I'm a true believer in the Lord, she said, come and stay at my home and she urged us until we agreed.

She was persistent, persuasive. So almighty God's in the business of saving and changing lives. We see that. He accomplished it by using people. What did it say in the text that as she was listening to what we were saying, God opened her heart.

Oh, her heart, and she listened to Paul's message. So spiritually, Lydia of Thyatira, she was a foreigner. She was from across the Aegean Sea herself. That's where Thyatira is. She was spiritually a worshipper of God.

She was intent on worshipping the one God of creation. So probably along the Jewish lines of thinking, a spiritually, a worshiper of God and economically, she was wealthy. That she was a woman. So, Paul's prayer every morning and Luke's inclusion of her in this section too, I think. I think it probably just happened to be the truth.

They hit Lydia first. Upon hearing the gospel proclaimed, God opened her heart and saved her. She was baptized, and then immediately she displayed generosity wanting to take care of others within the body of Christ. I think that's cool. So, Lydia, here we go.

The next one, one day, as we were going down to the place of prayer, presumably from Lydia's house, we met a demon possessed slave girl. So, oh Lord, praise you and thank you that you have not made me a slave. She was a fortune teller who earned a lot of money for her masters. Now, for us, when we hear that fortune teller, we immediately or I immediately think, prophetess Mary, you know, red hand on a plywood piece of junk out in front of somebody's house along the side of the road in Opelika, Alabama. That's what I immediately think, fortune teller.

And I think charlatan, somebody that's not. But this this gal, it says she was demon possessed. There are advert there there is an adversary and there are some spiritual powers that we do not understand, but she was telling people's fortunes and earning a lot of money for her masters. Was she earning a lot of money? No.

She was not. She followed Paul and the rest of us shouting, these men are servants of the most high God and they have come to tell you how to be saved. Can you imagine day after day? It says, this went on day after day until Paul got so exasperated. Can you imagine?

Paul getting exasperated. Have you read Galatians? He's he's been exasperated before. He got so exasperated that he turned and said to the demon winner, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her and instantly it left her. Wow, there's a lot there.

These men are servants of the most high God. You know, a lot of times with church, it's not the program that's the problem. It's getting people to the program. Do you know what I'm saying? We throw a great, I don't know, missions conference or barbecue or babysitting night and it's fantastic.

It's wonderful. Everybody who comes is blessed but the problem is getting the word out. If you had somebody that would walk around behind you and say, these men are servants of the most high God. Here they are. Come with us.

No. For them, those of the people from this city that's basically a godless, well, not godless. They have many small G gods. For them to hear, these men are servants of, they would have heard. Jupiter, you know, these big old gods.

These men are servants of the most powerful, almighty, the most high God. We see that with a capital G because that's the way we know God. For them, that's not necessarily what they would have heard and they have come to tell you how to be saved. A lot of translations say, the way of salvation. This is a better translation of they have come to tell you how to be saved.

It's the the way that the grammar works there and it's always been a kind of a weird sticking point that why would they run her off? Why would Paul want to cast that out? If they were saying, this is the way to be saved and she's advertising for them. Free advertising. Why?

You never stop that. But what she was saying was not necessarily translating in the local to be in. This is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Salvation is something that everybody is interested in because everybody needs it. Throughout the ages, everybody has needed it.

But this went on day after day until Paul got so exasperated that he turned and said to the demon within her, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out and instantly it left her. So an unnamed slave girl. Spiritually, she was demon possessed, Economically, oppressed. But after this interaction with servants of almighty God, the ones who are dedicated to his glory and the advancement of his kingdom, proclaiming she was released from the demon. It's implied, although it's not explicitly stated, some tradition has told us that she was saved.

She was definitely though changed. No doubt. Which leads to another difficulty for Paul and his buddies or opportunity for God. So God saved Lydia. She was immediately baptized and became at least manifested generosity.

The slave girl was freed. Her master's hopes of wealth were now shattered. So they grabbed Paul and Silas and dragged them before the authorities at the marketplace. That sounds weird to us because marketplace is not where we do our court, but it was in that place in Philippi. They would have dragged her into the Agora, the marketplace.

I've grabbed dragged them into the Agora. The whole city is in an uproar because of these Jews, And that's how they said it exactly like that. Jews. They were playing on the people's bigotry. They shouted to the city officials.

They are teaching customs that are illegal for us Romans to practice. In a way, that's true depending on how you take it because if you said that Jesus was a god or that Jesus was lord, that would be alright in the Roman Empire. That's fine. It's when you say he is the only God. That's not alright.

That would not have been alright for them because the emperor was God to them, the Caesar. They're teaching customs that are illegal for us Romans to practice. A mob quickly formed against Paul and Silas, and the city officials ordered them stripped and beaten with wooden rods. They were severely beaten, and then they were thrown into prison. The jailer was ordered to make sure they didn't escape.

Isn't that what a jailer is always ordered to do? So the jailer put them in the inner dungeon, clamped their feet in the stocks. Around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. Suddenly, there was a massive earthquake and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors immediately flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off.

It doesn't tell us how many prisoners there were, but presumably, more than just Paul and Silas. It says that all of them but Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. Okay, these guys are in jail with us. This is a dungeon. It's not that.

It's crazy. Something's going on. These guys are praising their God. What is this all about? And apparently, was intriguing enough that when their chains fell off and when the doors opened up, they didn't run away.

They wanted to hang out and see what was gonna happen next. The jailer woke up to see the prison doors wide open and he assumed that the prisoners had escaped. So, he drew his sword to kill himself but Paul shouted, stop, stop. Don't kill yourself. We're all here.

We're having a prayer meeting and singing. The jailer called for lights and ran to the dungeon and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas, and then he brought them out and asked, sirs, what must I do to be saved? You think he would have known the charges? Why Paul and Silas were there? Yeah.

He would have known the charges. What were the charges? Well, they cast a demon out of a girl who was saying, these men know how to be saved. They're vignettes but they're connected. Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

That is the question for the ages and Paul's response is, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved along with everyone in your household. And they shared the word of the Lord with him and with all who lived in his household. And even at that hour of the night, the jailer cared for them and washed their wounds. Then he and everyone in his household were immediately baptized. He brought them into his house, set a meal before them, and he and his entire household rejoiced because they all believed in God.

That's why they were rejoicing, because they all believed in God. And what is God in the business of doing? Saving and changing lives. This little clicker is not clicking for some reason, Renzi. Can we go forward?

Philippian jailer. Spiritually, we are not told where he stands at the beginning of the story. He's just following order. So he's a man of integrity. Even the gonna thrust him his small dagger into himself shows that he's a man of integrity because he would have been losing those prisoners.

But spiritually, we don't know where he is. He's probably just doing his job. That's what he's doing. Economically, was doing okay. Philippi was set up as a place for retired soldiers to go.

So he's probably a retired soldier. Most jailers are retired soldiers, it seems. But after he asked the question of the ages, they shared the good news that believing in Jesus results in salvation. He believed he was baptized and he immediately showed generosity. There's a change in his life.

He shared a meal with him and the whole household who had also believed. And I wanna finish off the story. The next morning, the city officials sent the police to tell the jailer, let those men go. So the jailer told Paul, the city officials have said you and Silas are free to leave, go in peace. But Paul replied, uh-uh.

It doesn't say that, but that's what he said. They have publicly beaten us without a trial, put us in prison, and we are Roman citizens. That hushes the room right there. Roman citizens had privileges and protections a lot like American citizens have. The American government will fight for you abroad usually.

That's that's the normal course, and you have benefits and privileges by being an American. They had, according to several laws, reaffirmed over the years throughout the whole Roman peace that Roman citizens were not to be beaten. Now they want us to leave secretly, they were not to be imprisoned without trial. Certainly not. Let them come themselves to release us.

So, they hung out at the jail. After the doors flung open, they hung out at the jail after they said that they could go because they wanted and I think Luke wants to say, hey, Christianity is there's no problem with Christianity and the government. There's no problem with that. If anything, there's a problem with the government has for with Christianity, but it's unfounded. When the police reported this, the city officials were alarmed to learn that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens.

The opposite of throwing up the hands in praise is ringing the hands. And that's what they were doing, is ringing the hands at this point. So they came to the jail and they apologized to them. Some say appeased, apologize is a better translation, but apologized to them. They then they brought them out and they begged them to leave the city.

When Paul and Silas left the prison, they returned to the home of Lydia. There they met with the believers and encouraged them once more, and then they left town. That's the end of chapter 16. I wanna go back to this, Thanksgiving. This is what we can be as Christians thankful for that God is in the business of saving and changing lives.

He proved it with Gentiles, slaves, and women in chapter 16. He's proved it all 15 other chapters of Acts two. He accomplishes his business in the world, the real world, by using people who are dedicated to His glory, seeing His kingdom advance. I wanna put the still back in there. He's still in that business today.

So if you are somebody, it can be anybody. The unity that we've talked about all throughout the book of Acts, the unity of the church triumphant throughout the ages, the capital c church. It is an open invitation. Open. That's why it's good news.

It's open to any and every one of you. Jesus Christ. His perfect life allowed him to sacrificially give up his own perfection and traded in for your sin and my sin. And the way to be saved is to put your trust in His blood. Put your trust in Him.

For those of you who are already believers, already Christians, and already believers, this is the cool part. I'm interjecting here a little parenthesis. God accomplishes his business in the real world by using people. Who are those people? People who he has saved and changed.

We are no different except for in present and past. He who has saved and changed, been saved and changed, and are dedicated to his glory and seeing his kingdom's advance. That's it. Carl, would y'all come on back up? If you are here this morning and you have not ever trusted in Jesus, you don't have to come up to me during this song.

You don't have to see with our elders just fine standing up for just a second. You don't have to see them during this song right during this service, but I want you to know who these guys are. They're elders at the church and all of them know. They all have the same message as Paul. They have the same message as Peter.

They have the same message as Jesus, and if you want to see your life saved and changed, God is in that business. Those guys at least know that. So, if you would like to talk to one of us, we're gonna sing, whom shall I fear? Would you stand with us as we sing? Of saving and changing lives and he's in the business of doing it with those whom he has saved and changed.

Would you go do it? Would you go just proclaim? I did not get into kerygma. Kerygma, the word for preach is really just tell what you know. Proclaim it.

Proclaim it. Shout it from the mountaintops. We're moving towards Christmas. Go tell it on the mountain. We can do that literally here.