That is to repent, you had to have something presented to you. You had to have a word given to you. And when that word came to you, what followed behind that word was that you thought differently about yourself or about your ways or about a person, someone like Jesus. You used to think of him this a way, but Peter stood on Pentecost and preached a message to the people. And they used to think of Jesus as being a problem, a troublemaker, and that he deserved what he got. He was punished by God. But Peter stood up and said, no, this Jesus is the one God approved. This Jesus is the one who took upon flesh and lived this life. And God approved who he was when he raised him up from the dead. And he's both Lord and Savior. And the scripture says that when they heard that message, their hearts were moved. They were pricked by the Spirit. And they said, men and brethren, what should we do? And Peter said, repent, repent. After you hear behind that word, now you're to think differently about who this Jesus is, about your life, and about God's offer of grace to you. And he said, repent, repent, repent. So repentance is a rethinking A reconsideration based on something that came to you and after you heard it, behind it, you think differently now. All right, but look, won't you take the revelation you brought with you. If you don't have a Bible, look in your phone or on the pew near you and turn to Acts chapter number 11. Chapter number 11. We're up to chapter number 12 in our reading right now in the book of Acts. It is rich and good and something you wanna keep in mind that you wanna remember there's much more going on in the body of Christ right now. As what you're reading, we have an account, a record of what Jesus was doing through His Spirit within His people as the message was spreading from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and the utter ends of the earth. He started out the message that way when he told them that they were to be witnesses. They were to be witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the utter ends of the world. Now there's a lot that has been going on. A lot that has been happening that we just don't have a record of. What we do have is what the Spirit has given to Luke to pen for us of what took place in some of these areas. Like when the Spirit fell in Jerusalem, and then the Spirit fell upon them in Samaria, as well as Judea, and then with the Gentiles in Cornelius, and where we up to now in Antioch. But a lot of these things were happening all over. And we just don't have a record of them because the Spirit didn't see fit to leave it for us. It was just so that we could have a common tool to look to to see what God was doing and how he was doing it and why he was doing what he had promised he would do in the life of his church. And there are a few words, words are important. And all God's people said, especially words from the Lord. One, God never does anything accidentally. You wanna remember that. As simple as that sounds, it is as theological of a word that you can hang everything else on in life is that God never does anything accidental. Everything He does is intentional and purposeful. And we will never walk by faith accidentally either. That is faith cometh by what? hearing and hearing a word from the Lord, but words really do mean something. And we want to grab a hold of some of the words. When I say some, all of the words, but some particular today, we're going to look at of how the scriptures describe us that belong to the Lord that have been born again made a new creature in Christ Jesus, who are disciples of the Lord, who are witnesses of the Lord, who are believers, who have trusted, who are persuaded that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that our lives belong solely unto him and that we are at his mercy. And the Bible in Acts alone gives us some of these terms or some of these words that help describe us. And we see one of these or several of these in chapter number 11. So I'm just gonna start reading verse number 19 because we wanna take it within its settings so that we can get a good grip on it. If you write things down in your Bibles, it'd be good to put right above verse number 19 or around 19. Acts 8.1, because this is a continuation of Acts 8.1. What happened in Acts chapter 7, we know what took place. Stephen proclaimed a profound word. He gave us a picture of this covenant keeping God who came to rescue us from ourselves. It was another chance for those in Jerusalem to put their faith in the Lord Jesus that had not trusted him, but had crucified the Lord. And Wednesday night, we talked about it 58 times in chapter seven, in Stephen's message, he referred to God, Jesus, the Spirit, the Lord, 58 times in that message. So we can say it was a God-centered Word, amen? Why? Because here's a man full of the Spirit, a man full of faith, a man full of good works, a man full of Jesus, and he can't help but talk about God as he preaches the Word and God's faithfulness with his people. Well, through that persecution, what did God do? He spread his people out. They were concentrating in Jerusalem at the time. They were staying there. They probably would have continued to stay there as things continue to go. Why? Because what were they doing? They were learning. They were learning about this Jesus that they didn't know a lot about other than the fact that he has rescued them. He is the anointed one, the Christ, the Messiah. He is their answer for life. But they begin to glean from the apostles' teaching. And that's what it says. They stayed there. People from all over the provinces, people from all over the world came in and were at Jerusalem for the Pentecost. And when the spirit fell that day, these people gave their life to Jesus. And we get to a point where Stephen's preaching, we know at minimum, there was 5,000 plus we know that were saved and all those people stayed. Many of them had homes in other places, had residents in other lands, but they didn't leave. Why did they not leave? Because they met daily and they met from house to house. They broke bread with one another and they learned everything that they could learn about the Lord. But God told them he wanted them to be witnesses in Samaria, Judea and to the other ends of the world, but they stayed. So God allowed the persecution of Stephen to push them out and to go places. And what we read about what's going on in Antioch was actually happening in other places because these disciples went out after that persecution and preached Jesus everywhere they went. So verse number 19 says, now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only. And the word preaching there is a word used for talking. That is to say something. So it's not in the sense of like what I'm doing here today with us teaching and preaching the message. It is saying that everywhere they went in their everyday conversation on the job, in the community, in the home, what did they do? They talked about Jesus. They just talked about Jesus. That's the word that that word preaching there used. They just talked about Jesus, whether it be on the campus at MCC or the campus at Scuba or Kemper Academy over in Sumter or in Meridian or up in Tuscaloosa or Columbus, wherever they were at, DeKalb or Porterville or at Briggs Chapel, they just talked about Jesus. And when you talk about Jesus, Jesus gets involved, amen? He's at work, and that's exactly what they were doing. They just talked about Jesus, but they only talked to Jews about Jesus. It wasn't talking to everybody else yet. That's coming for them. They started talking with the Jews only, verse 20. But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Grecian or the Hellenistic Jews. That was a Jew who was raised in a Greek world, in a Roman world occupied by the Romans and their authority, but a Greek speaking world. But these were still Jews that lived in these other places that were been spread out. Preaching the Lord Jesus, verse 21. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. Now that's a word right there, isn't it? And the hand of the Lord was with them. Wouldn't you want that to be descriptive? And the hand of the Lord was with Brother Shannon. The hand of the Lord was with Jacob. The hand of the Lord was with Brandon and Lisa and Marcus and Lydia and Carol and the rest of us, amen. And when the hand of the Lord is upon you, that is saying that God's delight, that God's authority, that God's approval, that God is with you and he's with us because he's for us and he's using us, amen. And the hand of the Lord, the authority, the approval of the Lord was with them and a great many believed and turned to the Lord. Verse 22, the news then comes to Jerusalem. the church, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch, and they sent Barnabas because Barnabas was a believer. He was a Levite of the tribe of Levi. God saved him. He's a Greek-speaking Jew, and so they send him to Antioch, this Greek-speaking world, to bring some help to them. Verse 23, and when he came, what did he see? He saw the grace of God. Why? Because God's grace is recognizable. When you know it, you could see it. And he saw it. He saw the hand of God, he saw the grace of God at work and he was glad and he encouraged them that with purpose of aim or heart that they should cleave or continue with the Lord. That's simply saying that they would stick and cling to Jesus. Just stick to Jesus, amen. When you stick to Jesus, Jesus will stick to you, won't he? And then he could see it, and he, from there he went on, he was a man good, a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord. Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to go seek out Saul, that would be Paul. And when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was for a whole year, they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called Christians there in Antioch. May God bless our time today and the reading of his word. Well, look, how many of you ever heard that term Christian before? Y'all know, personally, you're not gonna hear it a lot from me. And you know why, for those that have been around long enough. I don't use the word Christian much. Now I do use it from time to time and it's usually at a teaching point of how I use it and when I use it. And the reason I don't use it is one, is the main reason because in our modern day it's used so much and it's used in so many ways that it's obscure exactly what that means in a world that we live in. It's not a good term to use to describe the body of Christ or the church. And I'll tell you exactly why that is. You know, the term is only used how many times in the scripture? We talked about it before, how many? Three times, three times. The word Christian, and it means those who follow the anointed one, little anointed ones, those who follow the anointed one. The Messiah, the Christ. It's used three times, and when it's used, this is what you wanna pay attention to, it's used here, it's gonna be used again in Acts 26 by Gerippa, and it's gonna be used by Peter and 1 Peter. Now, why does Peter use it? Why did Gerippa use it? Why does the Spirit now tell us that in Antioch, they first started calling them this? Well, number one, you wanna keep in mind Who did they call Christian? Number one. Who are they? What does our passage say? What were they? Disciples. Disciples. That's who they called Christians. Who called them Christians? An outside world in a derogatory term referred to the disciples as being Christian. Those who followed the anointed one. But it always came from an outside world who saw these people as being unique and different following this anointed one, these disciples who were learners and followers of him, and they labeled them as Christians. And when Peter uses it, he's the only one that uses it this way, Peter said if you suffer as a what? Christian. If you suffer as a Christian. He says, don't think it's strange that you have to go through a fiery trial because the world around you is gonna persecute you and why will they persecute you? Because the world around you are gonna see you as disciples and they are gonna identify you as what? Christians. So you don't find in the scriptures, you don't find in the scriptures the people of God speaking in a positive light for believers who are Christians. They describe us as what? Disciples of the Lord. There's a world of difference there. Now what I want to do today is just give you some terms in the book of Acts that describe us and how many times it does describe us in these ways and I think it'll speak to us and we'll look at a few other terms that will help us with this because we want to be vessels that the hand of the Lord is upon and that people can recognize grace upon our life and that we are the disciples, the learners, the followers, the determined, diligent follower of Jesus that a world around us don't know what to do with us other than persecute us because we're so different than them, amen? So I've got to see this and I've got to recognize this, not that we go out looking for the trouble, no, we go out bringing life to people, the trouble inevitably will find us, amen? because of living the life of Jesus. And Jesus even tells us, hey, if I suffered, you will what? Matter of fact, he told us that the Christ would suffer, he would be persecuted, he would be killed, and he would rise the third day. And the message of the Older Testament in affirmation of the New is that message, that the Christ would suffer, he would rise the third day, and that the Christ would proclaim light to both Jews and Gentiles. How is he doing that today? He's doing that through who? the disciples, amen? The disciples. Go to chapter five real quick. Acts five and just on our way to chapter number one and two, I want you to see how even the Spirit as the angel sent the disciples. Look in 520. Notice this is just another affirmation of how important words are for us. 520. Great message to cling to. The disciples always are going people, aren't we? Always the people and always the places with a purpose. He said, go stand in the temple and speak to all the people, the what? The words of this life, the words of life. So are words important? Yes, they're important. Is teaching important? Yes, it's important. Is doctrine important? Yes, and the word doctrine means teaching. So if I was to ask you anything about Jesus, you would have to, whether you acknowledged it or not, to accurately teach me about Jesus, you're gonna have to teach me doctrine about Jesus. If I wanna know who Jesus is, amen? So if you're gonna be a disciple that's gonna help other people know Jesus, you gotta know the doctrine, the teaching about Jesus. And anytime you talk about Jesus, if you're gonna talk about him accurately, you're gonna teach doctrine about him. Because you wanna teach him, Accurately, right? Well, so do I, and so do we. So go to chapter number two, or chapter number one. I'm just gonna give you a few words that we could look at. A few words. What we see in the book of Acts, if you look in 1-8, this is the idea. Jesus at work, through the Spirit, His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, doing what he promised he would do, we see it unfolding in this book. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be what? Witnesses of me or to me, for me, in where first? All right, we see that. And in all? Judea, we see that, we see in chapter eight, they go to Samaria, and now we see it in our reading, they go into the ends of the earth. And praise God, it made it over here to America, amen. Praise God. So we see that this is what this is unfolding for. So let's look at that word. We're not gonna go through every time it's mentioned, but I'm just gonna give you some numbers on it. The word witnesses mentioned here, which we are. What's the responsibility of a witness? What does a witness do? Tell the truth. Or to give the facts that they have, right? You can't have a fact and that fact not be true, right? But a witness just gives, let's just say this word, evidence. The evidence that they have. How many of you ever had to go in a court of law as a witness to a wreck or a crime or anything else? Anybody had to give you testimony as a witness on the witness stand? What did they ask you to give? What you've seen, right? The evidence of what you have. Well, that's what a witness does. They simply give away the evidence that Brother Shannon has seen things I've not seen in this life. I've seen things that Brother Shannon hadn't seen. Brandy has seen things I've not seen. But as a witness, we get to testify of the evidence that we have of Jesus. Your evidence won't be contrary to my evidence, but it may be more extensive than my evidence. You may have seen God do things that I didn't see him do, but what I give in evidence won't be a contradiction. It will all tell a story and that story will exalt and magnify and edify the Lord Jesus Christ. if they're gonna be evidence of the truth and we declare it as his witnesses, but he's gonna take Tyson through some things and Charles through some things and Kate through some things and Karen through some things that we may not all experience. But see, when we come together as witnesses and testify to the evidence that we have, you know what happens? Christ is magnified and the church is edified, amen? And the lost world gets to hear about Jesus. That's why we give witness. That's why we give evidence. That's why we share testimony. Well, I went through and looked, and the word witness or witnesses in the book of Acts is used 11 times. If you're taking notes, I'd write that down somewhere because these words are gonna be significant when we look at the number of them in a moment. Witness or witnesses, because if you belong to Jesus, If you've been born again, you are his witness. You are his testimony. You are evidence of his saving grace. And you therefore get to bear that record before the world. Praise God, amen. I had always been a witness for Jesus. It wasn't many years ago I didn't know anything about Jesus nor anything about his word or anything about him. I couldn't sing these songs that we get to sing. I didn't know these hymns that Marcus and brother Greg has led us through through the years and brother Bill when he was leading us. I didn't know them, I couldn't sing them. I didn't know the message of the songs that we sing around Christmas time. Y'all remember singing those songs? about the Christmas story that we sing in hymns and you had no idea what it was really about. You just knew it was a Christmas song. It applied to Christmas, but you didn't know the details of what all that meant and how it was telling the story. It's simply like, go tell it on the mountain. Y'all know that one there? Go tell it on the mountain. I've heard that song as a kid. I heard other songs as a kid, but man, I didn't know what it meant. I had not the meaning of it, but you know what? God's made me a witness, amen. He's bared evidence in my life. He's become my testimony. And now he says, Nick, you are my witness. So we as the people of God that belong to him are witnesses. And how many times I say it's used in Acts? 11 times, 11 times. Okay, look in verse number 15 of chapter one. Let's look at this word. And in those days, Peter stood up in the midst of who? The disciples, the disciples. The word disciples in the Bible as a whole in the newer Testament is used 269 times. That's a pretty vivid description, wouldn't you say? 269 times the believers are referred to as disciples. In the book of Acts alone, the disciples are mentioned 28 times. How many times I say Christian was mentioned in Acts? Two. Three times total, but only two times in the book of Acts. And anytime Christians were referred to, it was always talking about who? the disciples. And what is a disciple? A follower. Why do they follow? Because they want to know everything they can about the one they're following. They are a student. They are a pupil. They love their teacher and their master and what they wanna be like is like him. That's what a disciple is. And that's who we are as believers or disciples. So how many times is it used in the book of Acts? 28 times in comparison to two for the word Christian. All right, look down in verse number 16. Men and, what's that word? Brethren, brethren, brethren. It is used in the book of Acts 56 times. If you referred to a brother, why would I refer to somebody as a brother or brethren? They had something in common. They were connected nationally or relationally, a brother, the brethren. The Bible refers to us in the body of Christ as brothers and sisters in Christ. And all God's people say it. Why? We are family. Matter of fact, even Jesus refers to us as his brothers. that he being in the flesh, a Jew, came in the flesh to rescue his brothers, people who were in the flesh who needed a Savior. I needed a Savior, amen? And he came and took upon flesh and did what I could not do for myself, lived the life that I couldn't live, to die a death that I couldn't die, that I might live the life that he lived. by simply putting my faith in him, amen? And 56 times in Acts, it refers to the word brother. Now, sometimes it's referred to as nationally. Tyson, when he would be talking to the group of Jews, matter of fact, at Pentecost, when Peter stands up and preaches, and normally he would refer to as men and brethren. He's saying those who are Common like us we're of the nation of Israel. We're all of one blood Coming from the Lord then he goes in to say but I want you to become a brother in Christ Jesus with me I want you to become part of the family of God But 56 times the word brother or brethren is used how many times Christian is used in Acts? twice 56 times for being a family member 28 times for being a learner in that family. How many of y'all remember seeing the word the way? The way. Where did we see that at? Persecuting the way. Y'all remember reading it? Let's find it. Go back, go look in chapter number nine. The way is very similar to the word Christian. It's always used in a derogatory way. That they called the disciples, before they ever called them Christians, they referred to them as being part of the way. This new group of people who were doing something different than what we've always known, and they referred to them as a way. And even referred to them, those that were of the way were called to be part of a sect. A different group of people. Look in chapter nine, when Paul's testimony, he says, then Saul, still breathing threats, verse one, and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus so that if he found anyone who were, what, of the this way or of the way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. It's used that way four times, and it's always used from the perspective of an outside world wanting to persecute those who are of a different way, of living a different way. So four different times. Same way with the idea of Christian. How about the word saint? Have y'all seen the word saint? He called them saints. How many times is it used? Four times. What does the word saint mean? Set apart for a purpose. Holiness. Uniquely different. The Bible refers to the church or the people of God, these witnesses, these disciples, who are part of the way, this sect of people, as holy. as saints set apart for purpose. What's another word we see used? The word church. Church. Remember we saw that in Acts 11? It's used how many times? It's used 24 times in the book of Acts and 20 of those 24 are specifically referring to the body of Christ who's been set apart for God's service in his work. Four times, it's the word assembly that was referred to in Corinth when the whole city come out together and they refer to as the assembly, the crowd, who were together and they were going to persecute the people out there that day and a pro-council stood up and stopped them but it still refers to them as an assembly. Why? Because it's somebody who's been called out to come together and we are the what? The church who's been called out of the world to come together as the church who are uniquely different saints who are wholly set apart for the purpose of the glory of God, who are witnesses of the evidence that they have and disciples who learned everything they can to walk with Jesus. Amen. That's how testament of the word of God describes us. Not how the world we live in flippantly uses the word Christian here and there on a regular basis. When somebody uses that term with you that they're a Christian, you wanna clarify, tell me what you mean by being a Christian. Because their idea and usually the Bible's idea don't always match, right? So that's why we wanna make sure we understand what that word means. The word saved, saved, the saved. is used 11 times in the book of Acts. The word believe, believed, or believers, it's used 34 times. 34 times in the book. So can you see how this clarifies a few things for us? That we are what? Believers. Man, it's pretty clear. 34 times we referred to as believing, as believers. Witnesses, disciples, saints, the church, the called out assembly. Man, that has a whole different message, doesn't it? Than simply just saying, I'm a Christian because I identify with some sort of belief. I want people to know me as a disciple who has the hand of the Lord upon him. That the grace of God can be seen and recognized upon my life. that I am a disciple, that I am his witness, that I am set apart for his service, that I am part of his assembly, his church, that I am a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and his message. Amen. I want to tell you, these words, they mean something. For an example, the word repentance. The word, what is the word repent? Let me give you a little bit of something you can use in our modern day. I was sharing this with the Wednesday night group. Repent or repentance, repent is a compound word that has a preposition before it. The preposition is the word meta. Anybody ever heard the word meta? Has that been in the news lately? What has meta recently done? They the ones who own what? Facebook. That's right, Meta, who used to be known as Facebook. Now, a company, Meta, has a social media group that's called Facebook, but what does the word Meta mean? Behind. We talked about this Wednesday night. Meta is who is behind the group. Meta is what's behind the social media organization called Facebook. It's a Greek word that means behind something, after something, or with something. So meta company is the one who's behind, and if we took the Greek word for it, is behind Facebook. Well, the word repent and repentance that we've been seeing in the scriptures has the word meta in it, meaning something that comes behind something, after something. And the word noia or noia is meaning to think differently behind something. That is to repent, you had to have something presented to you. You had to have a word given to you. And when that word came to you, what followed behind that word was that you thought differently about yourself or about your ways or about a person, someone like Jesus. You used to think of him this a way, but Peter stood on Pentecost and preached a message to the people. And they used to think of Jesus as being a problem, a troublemaker, and that he deserved what he got. He was punished by God. But Peter stood up and said, no, this Jesus is the one God approved. This Jesus is the one who took upon flesh and lived this life. And God approved who he was when he raised him up from the dead. And he's both Lord and Savior. And the scripture says that when they heard that message, their hearts were moved. They were pricked by the Spirit. And they said, men and brethren, what should we do? And Peter said, repent, repent. After you hear behind that word, now you're to think differently about who this Jesus is, about your life, and about God's offer of grace to you. And he said, repent, repent, repent. So repentance is a rethinking A reconsideration based on something that came to you and after you heard it, behind it, you think differently now. That's what repentance is. And you and I encounter a lot of people who use terms like Christian and claim to be a Christian, but one, don't even have a message or heard the message of Jesus, an accurate message of Him, have not repented based on that message, meaning come behind it, and responded to the Lord in a way, look in chapter three, we see the whole picture here in three, look in three. Chapter three, look in verse number 19 when he preaches this message. Remember, a message has to be given for anybody to repent. One, because repentance is a gift from God. Y'all notice that? God graces repentance, he grants repentance. How does He do that, Karen? He's got to speak to us. How does He speak to us? Through His message and His messengers. They bring His truth to the picture and now I see His truth how He sees it. So repentance is involved in faith. And you've heard me define faith before. How do I say what is faith? Faith is what? Seeing. agreeing and acting on what God reveals to you. You see it how God reveals it, you agree with what God's given, and you act on it in faith. Why? Because you've heard it. By the grace of God you heard You honoring it with your belief, you're heeding it with your trust, and now you are gonna hold it forth as a way of life. Why? Because following the message behind the message, you're rethinking everything about yourself and about the Lord in line with him, amen? It's a rethinking and a refocus. And look in verse number 19. Peter uses these words. Repent therefore and be what? be converted that your sins may be blotted out so that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. And all God's people said, why did he say repent? Because Peter just did what? He just preached Jesus to them. And now what would be the proper response in faith? That is to rethink what you thought about Jesus, how you thought about him. And then he uses the word, be converted. That word has a preposition in front of it, that is, I'm getting a little technical with Greek and I'll show you what I'm talking about in a minute. Greek words have prepositionals that come before them and this one has the word epi in front of it, means to take a position in a thing. When you take a position, you take a position to stand against something. That is, when you rethink this, When you rethink this and reconsider it, you then take up a position to stand against what you thought wrongly before. You stand in position to think in a way that now you are refusing the other way because you have chosen his way. That's the idea of be converted. It's the word that means to re Fuse to reject that which was opposed to that message, which we all when you repent, that's what you do, right? You reconsider, you rethink it in the light of God's revealed it to you, you see it how he sees it, you agree with it, and when you do, you reject the lie that you held to. And you position yourself against the lie and you line yourself up with the truth. That's how repentance works. But it don't stop there. Look over in verse number 26 of the same chapter. We see the whole picture here. As he stated here, refreshing from the Lord will come. But verse 26 says, to you first, that would be to the Jew, God having raised up his servant Jesus, he sent him to bless you. How would he bless you? In doing what? in turning away every one of you from your what? Iniquities. Turning away. That's one word in the Greek and it's the same word be converted but Karen, the prefix, the preposition is different. not talking about taking up a position, it's talking about taking a step and going to a place. It means movement toward a thing. That's where the refreshing comes from. It's saying that not only do you, what, rethink what he just said in line of what he's given you, not only do you reject what you used to believe out of lie, but now You asking Him to refocus your life to follow after Him and His teaching. It's in the plural. You keep following after Him and His teaching. And that is how God's repentance works. That is, He brings a message to us. We hear it in faith. We see it because we trust God. We agree with Him on it. Therefore, we have to agree that the lie is a lie. But we also agree He has our solution. So now I start taking, not only do I stand against the lie, but I take the proper steps to follow as a disciple the teaching of the Lord. And you know what he does in that? He refreshes me again and again, Brother Marcus, again and again. As I continue to what? Repent, stand against, and step and follow in him in faith. That's how faith works. What seeing, agreeing, and what? Acting on what God gives us. A great picture of it, look over in 2 Corinthians 7 before we go. 2 Corinthians 7. The words matter. Words matter. They matter. And they matter for us more than anybody in the world. Because we have the words of the Lord. to live by and to help other people recognize that repentance is this divine work of God's grace at work in us. Because if God didn't help us, we couldn't see it. I was blind to it, amen. God had to help me. So in faith, I get to see what he sees. Now I don't have to see everything, Charles. But I do need to see what he's revealing to me. and I gotta agree with it. But look in 2 Corinthians 7, when Paul wrote the letter of 1 Corinthians to the church there at Corinth, who were operating in carnality and in the flesh, he writes to them and he says this, verse number eight, for even if I made you sorry, that is sad, with my letter, I do not regret it. Now, even though I did regret it back then when I wrote it, for I perceived that the same letter made you grieve, sorry, though it was only for a little while. You see some people tell you that God won't create grief or shame in your life and they really don't understand how God works when he works godly sorrow. Godly sorrow gets in us that we recognize that I was clinging to a falsehood. I was clinging to a lie. I was believing an untruth and I was claiming it to be everything. But God exposed that lie to me, revealed His truth to me, and that created grief and shame and sorrow within me because of the light that God revealed. Notice what verse 9 says. Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, sad, but that your sorrow led to what? For you were made sorry in a godly manner that you might not suffer loss from us in anything. For godly sorrow produce repentance, leading to what? Salvation. Not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces what? Death. You see, when God gets involved, His light gets involved, it's a totally another picture. It's a totally another thing. It's just not shame over consequences. God's light shines and you see his light. And when you see his light, you reject the darkness and you then begin to follow the light. That is, you refocus and repurpose your life to follow after him. Verse 11, notice what goes on inside of us. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner, and what diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication, and in all things you prove yourself to be clear. in this matter. That is saying that godly sorrow produced something in you that was recognizable. You knew God was at work in you and you knew the only way sin could be vindicated is through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you rejected anything you held to and you trusted Him and followed after Him in life. Amen. So repentance is a rethinking, rejecting, refocusing, and repurposing of your life. You rethink what God has shown you, you reject what the lie is, and then you refocus your life to be refreshed and following after Him. What a gift, amen. And you and I come across a lot of people ain't never repentant. But see, we want to bring an accurate message, right? Because it's the message that's true, His light that shines light on the lie. And when that lie is exposed, what does He do? He changes people's lives. Amen. Man, did He do it for you? Oh man, He'll do it for them too. So maybe this gives a little more clarity on why you don't hear me use the term Christian all that often. I intentionally, purposely don't use it just because the average person when they hear it, they have their idea but don't really understand exactly what I mean when I say that. So I focus on words like disciple, being a witness, being a believer. being part of the body of Christ, being the church, the assembly that belongs to the Lord. Those witnesses that have testimony and evidence because the evidence of Christ has not just been established to me in word, but it's been established in me because of His grace, amen? And now I wanna go help other people recognize this light and His love and that He'll lead them when we, in faith, repent, rethink life in His light, refuse the darkness in His light, and refocus our life in His refreshing to follow after Him, amen? Man, do we repent one time? Oh, it begins, but do we live a lifestyle of repentance? And all God's people said, yes, that's right. It's a constant work, amen. Are you a constant work? Yes. Kyle, are you a constant work? Jimmy, a constant work? Amen. Josh, are you a constant work? Yes, sir. Karen, you a constant work? Yes. What about it, Greg? I'm a constant work. Martin? Lisa? Miss Barber, Mr. Billy, I'm a constant worker. He's always working on me, amen? And what a blessing, what a blessing. Seen a shirt of a little boy not long ago, it said on there, under construction, he's always working on me, amen? I'm under construction, he's always working on me. Praise God, praise God. Father, we love you, thank you. I bless you, I ask you to help us, be a help to those around us that we can accurately Share what you've done, just give evidence of what you're doing in our life right now, what you've done for us in Christ, what you promised that you are yet to do, and that we go forth and continue to tell. Just tell your story. We are your witnesses. We're your saints. We're your disciples. We're your church. Lord, we're your believers. Refresh us. Fill us. Send us. Keep anointing us to do and manifest that anointing to do your work. And we praise you and thank you. Set people free, in Jesus' name, amen. Will you stand? What we gonna sing, brother? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing but the blood. And all God's people said? Amen. Amen. Just keep that in mind. I'm sure you'll hear a little bit more things going on. You know, people, these companies are changing their policies and all that. That's why I brought that up about Facebook. They're changing some of their policies, and they're bringing different ones on their board with new administration coming in. So you'll see more about that in the news, and people are going to use that. We're people who redeem the time. That is, you take advantage of the opportunities that God gives you. And you hear them talking about Facebook or talk about Metta. You can bring in those ideas about repentance, that you know that's a word that means behind something. To think differently, to perceive differently behind a message. That's what repentance is. Meta, meta-noia, to think differently behind. And you can help somebody. It's just segue right on into a conversation. And ask God to give you people to talk to. and to send you away. And He'll send you to people. And He'll do it. Amen. He'll open that door for you. I promise you He will. You just ask God, send me places, send me to people, and give me a purpose to tell. And He'll do it day in and day out. I promise you. I know He will. I know He will. You be prepared. And be looking, expecting Him to do it. He'll do it. Y'all know I carry stuff in my pockets. I'm steady refreshing my pockets. Why? Because I'm always asking God to send people my way or send me to people and He gives me things to share with people about Him. So I encourage you to be prepared and He'll send them to you for sure. He's good. Amen? He is good. He is good. All right. Josh, why don't you close us with a word of prayer today. Lord, we come to this upcoming week. We just that we don't use this word today. Lord, I just pray that we'll just continue to look towards you. Continue to shine your light through everything that we do and just ask you for. Your forgiveness of our family prayer man.