He Only Knew John's Baptism
First B Jackson
2013-12-29

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

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Thank you. Amen. Well, Christmas having passed, I am Back to Acts. We've been in Acts for a pretty good while now and we're in Acts 18. Acts 18 is one of those chapters that when I looked at it, I thought, in Acts 17 is so awesome.

I mentioned that was one of my favorite places in scripture. Of course, I said that seven times last year. It is one of my favorite places and it's such a big huge thing when Paul speaking to those guys at Athens and he's speaking to the stoics and Epicureans and I think, oh, it's just great. It's so good and then Acts 18 is like a travelogue. It just goes, No.

He goes here. He goes there and it's not as apparent what the message needs to be when it's just talking about he was here and he was there. So, I did a little more digging probably than I usually do. Maybe not. I did a lot of digging though and I was looking for significant sinners and then I thought where the place that this message today needs to be.

I got to about Thursday night I think maybe Thursday night or Friday night and I figured out, okay, this is the place. I'd study the whole chapter over and over and over and over. All types of commentaries, gone through all the grammar, I love the grammar, gone through all of the historical significance, all that sort of stuff. But after I went the other night somewhere, I just was convicted about sin. And I'm like, oh, gracious.

I've been preaching from John. It's all the gospel of belief. It's about grace and belief and love. My goodness, Jesus is so lovely in that book. You can't read it and not see how good he is and then all through Acts, we've been seeing how God graciously protects the unity of church.

Oh, that's all good stuff. The seminary that I went to had four, five, standing stones. Four of them, I preach all the time. There are five standing stones for Columbia University. One of them is prayer and faith.

Absolutely. Prayer and faith. Amen. Good stuff. The next one is authority of scripture.

I'm absolutely. Authority of scripture and antics. Great. Authority of scripture to for our lives. Absolutely has authority.

No doubt about that. World evangelization. How often do you hear the missions theme repeated in the Bible and in this pulpit? It happens all the time because it's in the Bible all the time. So those three, absolutely 100%.

I'm gonna forget one. I knew I would do this. When it gets down to the very end of evangelical unity, that's the last one. Evangelical unity, those four, you hear it all the time when I when I'm preaching, I'm telling the Ephesians jokes about evangelical unity, unity among believers. I think that all is very very apparent but there's one of them that I hardly ever spend a lot of time on and it's victorious Christian living.

That's the last one. Victorious Christian living. Basically, it is exuing or putting off sin and putting on Christ and I don't ever want to be accused of being soft on sin because I'm not. I but I believe that if you push all of those other things, this other naturally follows but it was apparent on Thursday evening when I lay down and when I woke up time and again that night that this was the message for the day. So, Acts 18, I'm gonna go go through it because I promised y'all to begin or promise myself.

I'm gonna go through it verse by verse the whole time. I'm gonna go through the first part of this chapter in a hurry. So, don't be worried about it. Let it wash over you. There will be no test at the end.

Don't don't worry about it. So, I'm gonna let go and I will point out. I'll interject some points along the way. We've got plenty of time to get through this. Acts 18.

I'm gonna go through the whole chapter 18 today, but I'm gonna concentrate on the last four verses. But Paul, last time we heard from him, a few weeks back, we were talking about him being in Athens and speaking to the Scopes and that experience. And Acts 18 starts off, then Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he became acquainted with a Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently arrived from Italy with his wife, Priscilla. They had left Italy when Claudius Caesar deported all Jews from Rome.

This is Luke being Luke. He is an accurate historian. There's no doubt about when this happened. He tells us exactly and he's right. Suetonius tells us about it in extra biblical sources and actually lots of different sources confirmed this.

They left Italy when Claudius Caesar deported all Jews from Rome. And actually the Jews that were deported from Rome, it was because Suetonius tells us of an ups uprising among those who followed crestice. Christians. Christian Jews. Paul lived and worked with them or they were tent makers.

Actually, word there is leather workers just as he was. Probably tent makers. It's a good translation, but he was a leather worker For Paul to be a Pharisee before and to have a trade, they normally had a trade if they're Pharisees and they were teachers, they normally had another trade anyway and they did not receive just for being a rabbi, they wouldn't receive a whole paycheck for that normally. So Paul was a leather worker. It was pretty cushy gig if he's getting people to bring their lambs into the temple and slaughter them and then he's buying hides off of them.

Right? That's a little cynical, but it's true. Each Sabbath found Paul at the synagogue trying to convince the Jews and Greeks alike. And after Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, you know, Paul went ahead of them. After Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul spent all this time preaching the word.

So he was a tentmaker, but when they arrived, they must have arrived with a gift, and he mentions that in a couple of other books of the Bible. When they arrived, they arrived with a gift and it gave him time to just preach the word. He testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. But when they opposed and insulted him, Paul shook the dust off of his clothes and said, your blood is upon your heads, I'm innocent. From now on, I will go preach to the Gentile.

Paul was kind of feisty and fiery. Do y'all get that? When you read Paul, do you hear sometimes it just seems to be like, okay, enough. I've set it up a piece of count to three. I'm out of here.

Shakes the dust off of this close. I'm innocent of your blood. That's calling back to Ezekiel. He's saying, you have heard the message. You...

You've been up under a good sound teaching on this. Now it's on you. Then he left, and he went to the home of Titius Justice, a Gentile, you can tell from the name, who worshiped God and lived next door to the synagogue. I love how Paul was so strategic. Crispus, the leader of the synagogue and everyone in his household believed in the Lord.

Many others in Torah also heard Paul, became believers, and were baptized. One night, the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision and told him, don't be afraid. Words of Christ in red here. Don't be afraid. Speak out.

Don't be silent. For I'm with you and no one will attack and harm you for many people in this city belong to me. Now, where is he? He's in Corinth. We know the book of Corinthians.

First and second Corinthians, we know that. Many in this city belong to me. A lot of them had already accepted. They became believers and were baptized there. So Paul stayed there for the next year and a half.

This is the longest time we've seen Paul stay anywhere so far, eighteen months, teaching the word of God. But when Gaudia became governor of Achaia, which is where Corinth is, it's like the the territory where Corinth is, some Jews rose up together against Paul and brought him before the governor for judgment. They accused Paul of persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to our law, and that's in quotes. That's exactly what they brought. That was the charge.

But just as Paul started to make his defense, Gallia, who's the governor, turned to Paul's accusers and said, listen, you Jews. If this were a case involving some wrongdoing, a misdemeanor, or a serious crime, tell me. I would have a reason to accept your case. But since it is merely a question of words and names and your Jewish law, take care of it yourself. I refuse to be judged in such matters.

And he threw them out of the courtroom. This is this is one of the purposes that Luke is writing to Theophilus. Now, I've told you all along through the book of Luke and through the book of Acts. That is an evangelical book. He is sharing with them the good news of Christ.

He's sharing the good news of Christ through Luke and through Acts. That's what he's doing. Trying to give an orderly account but he also mentions multiple times throughout Luke and multiple times throughout Acts that Christianity is innocent before the state. He is basically preaching a doctrine of the separation of church and state. And the crowd literally right there is everyone then grabs Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, now that Crispus is no longer leader of the synagogue because he's a Christian.

Sosthenes, they grabbed him and beat him right there in the courtroom, but Galileo paid no attention. This is the other place we see Sosthenes in the first letter to the Corinthians verse one one. This letter is from Paul chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and from our brother Sosthenes. Isn't that cool? Sosthenes and Crispus, both leaders, Paul went there and he explained and explained and explained to the Jews and if they had ears to hear, they listened, and they accepted the truth that Christ is the Messiah Jesus.

So Paul stayed in court for some time after that, then said goodbye to the brothers and went to the nearby centurion. There he shaved his head according to the Jewish custom marking the end of the vow with my face this morning. I've had several people that have called me out on it. If I had ended the Nazarite vow or something, no. It's just happens to coincide here.

Then he set sail for Syria, Priscilla and Aquila with him. They stopped first at the Port Of Ephesus where Paul left the others behind. While he was there, he went to the synagogue to reason with the Jews. I thought he just said he was going go to the Gentiles. Well, he did but that was in Corinth.

He was saying, alright, enough of y'all. Those of you who are going to be converted, that's great. The rest of you, it's on your head. Time going to the Gentiles. He stayed eighteen months after that But when he went to a new city, as was his custom, he went to the synagogue for reason with the Jews.

They asked him to stay longer, but he declined. As he left, however, he said, I will come back later. God will do it. Then he set sail from Ephesus. The next stop was at the Port Of Caesarea.

From there, he went up and visited the church at Jerusalem, probably for a fest... Festival holiday of some sort, and then went back to Antioch. After spending some time in Antioch, Paul went back through Galatia and Phreesia visiting and strengthening all the believers. Now that marks right there, it's not apparent. It's very apparent where the second missionary journey starts cause that's where Paul and Barnabas split.

And it's very apparent where the third missionary journey ends. That's very apparent. But it's hard to see. In some maps, you'll see them in different places, but right there where that red line is, that's the end of the second journey beginning of the third journey. That might not matter to many of you, but if you're a geography person, maybe it does.

So this is what the second missionary journey looks like. Paul has gotten loose from... It starts at Antioch, he goes overland route when Barnabas and John Mark went to Cyprus. He goes overland. He was stopped from going into Asia.

He was stopped from going into Bithynia and he went through Mysia, saw the Macedonian vision right there and he goes across to Philippi. We see the Philippian jailer, the demon possessed girl, and Lydia all become saved there. Then from Philippi to Thessalonica, Berea, and on down to Athens where he has a a great speech to the Epiphanian Stoics. This week he comes over to Corinth and then to Ephesus. Now isn't it cool that God allowed him to get back to the place where he blocked him from going before?

We talk about stepping through open doors. God had closed the door to Asia before, but now he's opened the door to Asia. And so he gets to go to Ephesus. He did not stay there long. He was on his way to Jerusalem and in a hurry, it says.

But he was able to break ground, form a beachhead as it were there at Ephesus and he would come back and he'd stay in Ephesus longer than anywhere else. We'll get to that next week. But that's for you geography folks. That's over 1,500 miles that this guy did either on foot or on the ship. That's a long way.

Alright. This is complete this is complete change of pace here. Calvin Coolidge. American president Calvin Coolidge was known for his brevity and he was known for saying a few He's a lot of little aphorisms and witty sex. He's kinda like the Yogi Berra of American presidents.

I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm. He didn't say much. Just didn't say much at all. He didn't have a whole lot of public hearings because he believed I have never been hurt by what I have not said. When he opened his mouth, he felt like he's gonna be splitting his mouth and so he just didn't say much.

Well, he went to church on Sunday morning and when he came back from church, his wife who had been ill was not able to go. Actually, she had a back problem. So she was not able to go to church that morning and she said, well, what was the message about? And he said, see him. And she said, well, you can go a little further than that.

What was the message about? Because what what the preacher said about sin? He said, he's a ginner. That's it. That's the short message for today.

Okay? Sin. I'm against it. I know that's a big surprise for a preacher, but the reason that I'm against it or the reason it comes up today is from Acts eighteen twenty four to 28, and I'm gonna borrow from Luke again. I I mentioned this same passage last week.

Luke twenty seven and twenty eight, I mentioned it last week, but I'm gonna bring it up again. So this is the passage for today. All the rest of that was just introduction. Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos, an eloquent speaker who knew the scriptures well, had arrived in Ephesus from Alexandria and Edith. Now this is after Paul had already departed.

This... We get so in the groove of of the first part of Acts is about this, the second part is about that, and Paul is what most of this part of acts is about, but Paul is nowhere around at this point. He's not anywhere around. He has been through Ephesus, and there are believers there. Meanwhile, the Jew metaphors.

So he is a Jew. He's an eloquent speaker, and he knew the scripture as well. And it says he's from Alexandria and Egypt. Alexandria was the place, and it was one of the top three cities, biggest three cities in the world at that time. And Alexandria was known as a place of learning.

It was a university town. So the Old Testament in particular was studied there, and among the Jews, the Torah would have been paramount. It was it was something that they would have known very, very, very well and that's what that's what he did because he developed his people. He had been taught the way of the Lord most likely there. The word is for Jehovah.

Yahweh had been taught the way of Yahweh and he taught others about Jesus with an enthusiastic spirit and with accuracy. So there has been nothing said about him this bad so far. You see Apollos' name and everything that follows is a glowing relief. He must have been some kind of speaker because he had people hanging on every word. However, he knew only of John's baptism.

That last part is the reason that sin comes up today. He only knew about John's baptism. Only the baptism of John. If we look back to Luke three, we'll see, about John the Baptist. I...

I'm gonna just quickly. I did not put it in the slides. Now the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, all of Luke's normal stuff. While Amos and Caiaphas were the high priest, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias in the wilderness and he went into all the region around the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah, the prophet, saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.

Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his path straight. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough way smooth and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. That's Isaiah quoting...

I mean, that's Luke quoting Isaiah. Then he said to the multitude that came out to be baptized by him, oh, brood of vipers, Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones and even now the axe is laid to the root of these trees.

Therefore, every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So the people asked him saying, what shall we do then? And he answered and said to them, he who has two tunics, let him give to one who had none. And he who exclude, let him do likewise. Then tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, teacher, what shall we do?

And he said, collect no more than what is appointed for you. Likewise, soldier asked him, and what shall we do? So he said to him, do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely and be content with your wages. There was precedence in the Old Testament for absolutely everything John preached. Absolutely everything that John the Baptist preached, he got from Torah.

He got from the old books of the law and Old Testament. And what he was preaching was repentance. We had wandered far away from God. Now, I'm coming home. Prone to wander, lord, I feel it.

Yeah. Bring me back. Liked up better. Bind my wandering heart to you. This is what John the Baptist's whole message was.

In Luke three, he said, it characterizes John's baptism as one from repentance from sin and a turning toward God and agree with him about our own sins. He has given us all a conscience and within our conscience and through the work of his Holy Spirit, he can and does convict people of sin and convince among God's rightness and their selfishness. It also has to do with intentional good works towards others. And so Apollos is definitely against sin. He's against it.

He's against it as Calvin Phillips would say. Billy Sunday was revival preacher in The United States and he was very very fiery. When you hear the fire and brimstone, that's they're talking about Billy Sunday. Jonathan Edwards and a few other guys but Billy Sunday had a lot of things. He was very animated, a lot more so than I am but he would raise his hand and shout and thump the bubble on the table and pound the pulpit and that sort of thing and he would say, he would talk about sin and he would point to people about their sin specifically and there were reporters and different people that are talking to Billy Sonians.

You can't do that. You can't point people out for their sin in church. Don't be scared. I'm not gonna do that. Specifically.

Anyway, it's more general than that but Billy Sunday. So, said, Bill, you just can't do that. He said, you're stroking the cats further wrong way. Nobody's gonna come to hear a message like that. You're stroking the cats further on plate.

He said, well, the cat is headed towards hell. And if he would turn around, he'd be headed the right direction. I would be petting and stroking his fur just as easy as can be. So he only knew about John's baptism. When Priscilla and Aquila, who Paul had met at Carm, when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, now they were the Jews, probably Christians that were expelled from Rome.

They heard him preaching boldly in the synagogue. They took him aside. Actually, they invited him to dinner. It's a good translation of that too. They pulled him aside and explained the way of God even more accurately.

There was great accuracy to what he was teaching. There was great accuracy to what he was teaching about Jesus, but it says, about Jesus. There are a lot of denominations. There are a lot of Christians today that would push and have for the last century pushed the social gospel. The social gospel is doing good work.

That's what John was saying. Give the tunic that you have extra to somebody else. There are a lot of folks who would say we need to be doing that and you know that we built schools in Mexico for the deaf. We felt like that was a need and we wanted to meet that need. I think it's a both end.

Don't get me wrong about this. About Jesus. He said, I've come to set the captive free. I've come to give sight to the blind, caring to the deaf. I've come to seeking to save those which were lost.

About Jesus answers the question like in his steps, Sheldon's book that's on every pastor's wall. It's on every pastor's shelf in his steps. It talks... Basically, it's the the new way of putting this is what would Jesus do. It's considering who Jesus is and what he would do in any situation and trying to answer in the gentle Jesus, me and my giving and good, loving God.

How do we do that? Being generous and careful towards people about Jesus and that's good. That is accurate. That is all true about Jesus. But when Priscilla and Philip heard him preaching boldly, this message maybe like Billy Sunday, who knows?

They took him aside and explained the way of God more accurately. They didn't say don't do that. They didn't say, don't preach what you've been preaching because what he had been preaching was accurate. Why would they need him to take him aside? Because his understanding was incomplete.

It says he only knew the baptism of John. If he only knew the baptism of John, he had no idea that Christ Jesus was actually the Messiah that he knew all about from the Old Testament. He knew all about that, but his understanding was incomplete about Jesus. He preached powerfully about the need for repentance and people were convicted and people were convicted when John the Baptist was preaching too, right? Out in the wilderness, when he come back to the Jordan, he was baptizing people like crazy for repentance because they knew within themselves, they knew that they had wronged God.

I don't think any of us in here. Well, scripture says, never mind. It's a fool who has said that there is no god, and you're a liar if you say that you have no sin. He preached powerfully about the need for repentance. What he preached was the Old Testament law, Torah, but it lacked the redemptive price that was paid by Jesus, and it lacked the Holy Spirit's power.

Now John the Baptist had a Holy Spirit power from the time he was in his mother's womb, but all of those people that were hearing his message knew that he was calling them into a repentant mode to turn around so that God could do his work. So in short, John baptism was about preparing the way of the Lord. The Isaiah quote said, make it straight the way. High places made low, cricket places made straight. It's about preparing a way.

My question this morning is what is the baptism of John without the cross of Christ? Think about that for just a minute. What is John's baptism which prepares the way for Christ without the cross of Christ? It's just futile sin management. And this, I couldn't put all this down.

This is what woke me up the other morning. So I'm going to go through this and it's just a rift. It is not a great three point and a prayer at the end. Tied to the incarnation of Christ that we saw last week in Luke two and tied to Jesus' statement, which I'm gonna read in just a minute. Jesus is read on sin management.

And tied to this where Priscilla and Aquila wanted to instruct him, and they did so without shaming him and without arguing with him. They just showed him more accurately the way things were. I appreciate when people come to me and show me more accurately the way things are. Pet sins are not cute or innocuous. They're horrible.

In the economy of God, there are no accidents. So anything that has happened up to this point in your life that some thing that that tweaks you right here that gets you in the heart that you know you need to turn from is not by accident. God can use what you've already done against his will. What he does, he does for a reason. God sent his son to die.

He would not have done that if there were human way to conquer sin. No. Jesus' prayer in the garden. Lord, if there be any other way, let's do that. But if not, I surrender my will to yours, Lord, and I will do this.

And God did not give him the other way. There was no other way. He walked in complete victory. He was completely without sin. And I think that that part of his teaching about Jesus is how good he was and how great he was.

It's hard to find anybody who who will say that Jesus was a bad guy. Jesus was a good guy. He's a great guy. Good man. He proved that it could be done in human flesh.

He had emptied himself of his divine attributes in a sense and proved that walking in perfect life in human flesh could be done, but it goes deeper than that. A lot of different denominations that preach a sinless perfectionism like once you become a Christian, you can achieve a life of complete sinlessness. I think that's heresy. But Jesus did prove that it could be done and that you always have the option. You always have the option.

There is a there's a a twisting of a verse in Corinthians that we use a lot and we say it a lot. Well, God's never gonna put anything on me that I can't handle. That's not true. Not that way. It's not true.

God's never gonna put anything on me that I can't handle. Nope. You might actually be murdered for your faith and that's not handling things very well, you know? For his glory, it is handling things very well. Depends on how you look at it But you might actually be murdered for your faith.

So you can't say, God never put anything on me. What it says was, God will never tempt me beyond that which I'm able to walk away from. Does that make sense? It is that I'll never be tempted in a way that I have to give in to sin. He will not put me in that position.

Now it may be sin or die, but death is the greater option at that point according to Torah and according to God. The strongest language that Paul ever uses in the New Testament, he uses a few words that might be dirty in different places. Just dirty. Not not curses, but just kinda dirty. Y'all don't wonder what that is, aren't you?

Sorry. Screw you though. Dumb. He uses that a couple of different times. But the strongest word he ever uses in the New Testament is is which means may it never be.

God forbid. And when he uses that, he's talking about the people who have decided that it's okay to sin because it just makes God's grace more gracious. If our sin is worse, then God's grace is greater and so why don't we just go for it? Megan Ortho. May it never be.

God forbid. But sin management, if you're just trying... Well, let's see what Jesus says. This is Jesus' ribbon on sin management. Luke eleven twenty four to 26.

When an evil spirit leaves a person, this is when... And it's in Matthew also. When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert searching for rest. But when it finds none, it says, I will return to the person I came from. So it returns and finds that its former home is all slept in an order.

Then the spirit finds that seven other spirits that are more evil than excel, and they all enter the person that lived there. And so that person is worse off than before. That's what happens when you try to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do it all on your own. The reason Alcoholics Anonymous works is that higher power. It really is the higher power that works.

It really is Jesus Christ that works. This is the Scofield Bible. I've got... I'll keep King James Scofield Bible on my desk, and this is just picture of what it said. It's the Matthew version of the same thing as KJB.

But when the unclean spirit has gone out of the man, he walketh through dry places, and he rests and findeth none. Then he say, I will return into my house from which I came. And when he has come, he findeth that empty, swept, and garnished. You can put a lot of trappings on trying to rid yourself and say, not gonna do that anymore. I'm never gonna do that again.

I'm not gonna do that anymore. I have done... I'm not doing that anymore. I'm just gonna walk away from it. And you can say that to yourself over and over what you've done is swept, emptied, garnished, but then go eat and take it with himself, seven other spirits more wicked than himself may enter in and dwell there.

In the last day, the man is worse than the first. Even so, it shall also be like this in this wicked generation. And this is the place from last week. You remember I said that you can be more blessed than married. This is the place where Jesus was speaking and the woman crowd out and said, God bless your mother.

The one for which you came in the breast that nursed you and Jesus said, but even more blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice. The putting it into practice I mentioned last week was keeping it. Keeping it. I think that Apollos would have taught this message so far just about like I have as far as keeping it. He would say, oh these things are wrong.

Don't do these things. Here's the list right here and I started to put in the list from Romans one and a couple of other lists from different places in the New Testament. These things are sin. Don't don't try to get away from this actually being sin. No matter what our society says, in Greek, it is sin.

It's wrong. Don't try to get away from it. Drunkenness is wrong. Don't try to get away from it. I heard that sermon every other Sunday the whole time I was growing up.

Keeping it. But there's only so much you can do as a human being to keep away from that. You do have an enemy. When Jesus mentions that about the evil spirits, there's a... There's an enemy, and he is at work.

He's got his minions that are at work, and they're tempted us all the time, but God gives us away. Surrender your will to God's will. He has plans to prosper us. Well, how would we work against those plans? Why would we choose to sin?

Because what we're doing is choosing to suffer. I realized that I have the capacity as a Christian at every turn for failure by choosing to do that which is against the Holy Spirit living in my life. And I also realize that I have the capacity for great victory, victorious Christian living at every turn by recognizing that the Holy Spirit is there, listening, yielding, and obeying. The heart is deceitfully wicked in all of its ways. That's why we have to trust in the cross of Christ, what he has done.

It's not just the perfect life that he lived, although that secured him the right to be able to die a sacrificial death. Listen to this. After Apollos was instructed, this is the twenty seventh, twenty eighth here. Apollos had been thinking about going to Achaia. Now if he had gone to Achaia before, he just would have been another preacher telling not what not to do.

Apollos was not even a believer. He he didn't even know about the cross of Christ. He not ever trusted in the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. Apollos was not a believer. Was a great teacher, eloquent words, wonderful speaker, knew the whole Old Testament, which was the Bible at that time.

New Testament not been completed yet. He had been thinking about going to Achaia. Now that he's a Christian, now that he knows the truth about Jesus, praise God, see what he does. And the brothers and sisters in Ephesus encouraged him to go. They wrote to the believers in Achaia asking them to welcome him and when he arrived there, he proved to be of great benefit to those who by God's grace had believed.

Paul had preached in Corinth and had people believe, right? But he'd also shaken the dust off and he was gone. God closed that door for Paul, but he opened it for Apollos. And Apollos probably had a better understanding of the Old Testament. He had a better way of presentation, and he wasn't Paul.

He reviewed the Jews with powerful arguments and public debate. And using the scriptures, he explained to them what? That Jesus was the Messiah. He was the promised one, the only one, the only one that's able to make good on the payment for sin. Today, you might see me up here and just feel like, well, he still have told us how we do it.

The just will live by faith. It's by faith in the one who has saved you. He has done it. He has redeemed you. He is the one who will allow you to walk day by day not taking that drink, day by day not looking at those images, day by day not doing whatever it is, snap backhanded comments, whatever it is, lying, stealing, whatever your deal is.

We've all been given a proclivity towards sin. But through Jesus, we have all been given the opportunity to escape that sin. I wanna read a poem slash prayer by Michael Cloist. He's a French cleric, and it's a translation from French, but it to me is really, really, really good because we all have this in our lives. And because I'm a preacher, that mean I'm immune from it because you're, you know, Christians that sit in the pew forever, that mean you're immune forever either.

This is a very, very honest prayer and then the father's response to that prayer. And Bam wants to come on up, y'all can come on up. We're gonna sing how great the father's love for us. So this is a prayer. You might just wanna close your eyes on it.

I have followed, Lord, once more. I can't go off. I'll never succeed. I'm ashamed. I don't dare look at you, And yet I struggle, Lord, for I knew you were right near me, bending over me, watching.

The temptation blew like a hurricane. And instead of looking at you, I turned my head away. I stepped aside while you stood, silent, sorrowful, like the spurned fiance who sees his loved one carried away by the enemy. When wind died down and suddenly it had arisen, and when the lightning ceased after proudly streaking the darkness, all of a sudden, I found myself alone and ashamed, disgusted with my sin in my hands, just sin that I selected the way a customer makes his purchase, the sin that I have paid for and cannot return for the storekeeper is no longer there. This tasteless sin, this odorless sin, this sin that sickens me that I have wanted but want no more, that I have imagined and soft, flaked with, fondled for a long time that I finally embraced while turning coldly away from you, my arms outstretched, my eyes and heart irresistibly drawn.

This sin that I've grasped and consumed with gluttony, it's mine now. It possesses me as a spider. As a spider web holds captive the map. It is mine. It sticks to me.

It flows in my veins. It fills my heart. It has slipped in everywhere as darkness slips into the forest at dusk and fills all the patches of light. I can't get rid of it. I run from it the way one tries to lose a stray dog, but it catches up with me and it bounds joyfully against my legs.

Everyone must notice it. I'm so ashamed that I feel like crawling to avoid being seen. I'm ashamed of being seen by my friends. I'm ashamed of being seen by you, Lord, for you love me, and I forgot you. I forgot you because I was thinking of myself.

And one can't think of several persons at once. One must choose, and I chose. And your voice and your look and your love hurt me. They weigh me down more than my sin. Lord, don't look at me like that.

I'm naked. I'm dirty. I'm down. I'm shattered, and I and I have no strength left, and I dare make no more promises. I can only lie bowed before you.

And then the father's response. Come child, look up. Isn't it mainly just your vanity that's wounded? Do you think there's a limit to my love? Do you think that for a moment I stopped loving you?

But you still rely on yourself. You must rely on me. Ask my pardon and get up quickly. It isn't falling in the mud that's the worst, but staying down on the ground. Amen.

Kevin Cooltower. Right? Would you stand with us and sing? And if God's speaking to you today and there's a specific thing, I I started to try to think of a way that we can get a specific thing today. For the write it on index card, mail it in, drop it in a place, mail it to the cross.

I don't know. But if there's something specific and you wanna take a step, tell somebody about it. Tell somebody about it. Okay? Now, if you heard this today and got...

Mostly, this message was for Christian, but if you heard this message today and you said there is a difference, there is a difference in the depth of what that saying. It's not just that I don't wanna do this anymore. It's that that person has a savior that pays attention, listens, obeys. If you have never given your life to Christ, he did live that perfect life, and we could preach about it and show that over and over. But he died a sacrificial death.

He's the only one that's been ever able to do that. He did so for whosoever will believe. Accept that and in repentance, turn towards him, agree with him about your own sin, about his own righteousness, and ask him and he will be there for you forever. Amen. I don't know if that was as heavy on y'all as it was on me this week.

But I pray that the peace of Christ will dwell richly in our hearts and that we will know that he has made that substitutionary payment for our sin. I pray that we'll rest in that and they will go and just like a beggar who has found a place that has bread, we will tell others. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen.