that are humble. Anyway, this time would you turn with me in your Bibles to Galatians in chapter number one. Galatians in chapter number one as we continue our exposition through the book of Galatians. We find ourselves this morning in the passage verses 11 through 16. It's really a transition in the book that Paul has In verses six through 10, he's now going into a section where he's actually going to use himself as an example to make a defense or to make an argument, kind of in a similar way that a lawyer would make a defense or bring their case about and call his exhibit A, if you will, in this case. So again, Galatians chapter number one, and if you're willing and able, would you stand with me in honor of reading God's word this morning? I'm going to read verses 11 through 17. Verses 11 through 17. The word of God says, for I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel, for I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism and how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus." This is the word of God. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word and we pray that You would bless not only the reading but the hearing of of it to our hearts, and God, that you would help us now to rightly divide your word, that God, we would rightly apply it, and Father, we just pray that you would speak to us today. Lord, may every word from my lips be accurate and precise, Lord, for your glory. Lord, this morning, I just pray, as your servant, you would cleanse me of sin and empty me of self, fill me, God, with your spirit again, and we pray, Lord, that everything would be a blessing to you, and Father, that you would be acceptable in your Son. We pray all of these things. life defense by a changed life Paul again was picking up here in Galatians 1 with his his astonishment that we've seen in verse 6 there was a perversion of the gospel and an accompanying drift that those who had received the gospel that Paul and Barnabas had preached to the churches here in the area of Galatia, they are now, he says, I'm astonished that you're quickly deserting him. Not only were they deserting the gospel, but they were deserting God. They were deserting the God of the gospel. And so this was an astonishment to Paul, and this was an astonishment to those obviously who were with him, that Paul had accompanied there. It says in verse 2, and all the brothers who are with me. So this is not Paul himself. Paul is leading the way in bringing up these things and exposing their errors. And then not only exposing their errors, but he also pronounces a curse on a false gospel and not just the false gospel. But again, we noted well that Paul was pronouncing a curse on those who would preach a different gospel. And we looked at that word in depth that he literally is calling God for destruction. Brian Borgman, a pastor that I just so am thankful to listen to and to study under in a lot of ways, he said this, you cannot value the truth of the gospel and not confront the errors that threaten that gospel. In other words, if we have a desire to express our love and value of the truth that the gospel is, we must also have a passion to defend that gospel. And we must be willing to, as the Apostle Paul says, to pronounce a curse upon anyone who would preach another gospel, because we know that there's no salvation to be found in any other gospel. We know that any other gospel would diminish and take away from the glory of God. And so for all these reasons, these are very, very pressing and important matters, not just for Paul to the Galatian churches, but in the day in which we live. And we talked about different religions and and faith systems, if you will, and the errors that are found there. And again, we don't want to overlook. We want to emphasize that what Paul is arguing for is the that salvation is by the scriptures alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. Specifically, the doctrine that he is addressing in Galatians is the doctrine of justification by faith alone. That is to say, we can add nothing to the finished work of Christ. There's no circumcision, no ceremonial law, no Mosaic law, no any kind of law. the finished work of Christ. And then Paul also there in verse 10, he challenges the pretense that anybody would bring against him, that they would say that Paul was just doing this for the favor of someone else, that he would say one thing one place and another at another place. But Paul's actually gonna show us how that's not actually the case, and that he confronted error as often as he's seen it. But now as we get into verse 11, He's very passionate about this argument, and as we should be as well, but he's also coming to them in a spirit of love. Notice the first phrase in verse 11. He says, It's a term that associates them with the fact that he has not given up hope, right? We talked about the drift of apostasy, that you can in fact become an apostate, and sometimes it seems as though that's a process that is fast or slow. In this case, Paul is seeing the drift, he's seeing the deserting of the Galatian churches, but he's not ready to just discredit them. He's addressing them as those who are in the faith. And he gives here a statement of clarification, a statement of clarification, and also confirmation. In other words, when he says, for I would have you know, he is demanding their attention. He wants them to understand. and he says that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel nor did I receive it from any man nor was I taught it so there's three qualifications that the Apostle Paul gives to the message that he has received and he again he starts with the man's gospel. In other words, Paul is denying origin with himself and he's denying origin with any other man. In doing so, he is also saying this didn't come from the other apostles, this didn't come specifically from the Jews, this is not a gospel from the Gentiles, this is not a gospel from the rabbis or the Pharisees, the Sadducees, this is not a gospel that originated from any man. And then he says, and I did not receive it from any man. In other words, Paul is superseding all man's involvement in the gospel in which he has heard and that he has received. It was not given to him or passed down through any kind of tradition whatsoever. He did not receive it from any man. And then again, the third qualification, nor was I taught it. Paul was a, he was a student within the rabbinic and he's destroying any notion of institutional instruction concerning the gospel that he received from God. And so all three of these qualifications that Paul gives to the gospel itself are actually blows against the Judaizers. He's actually fighting fire with fire because everything that the Judaizers were saying to the people in the churches of Galatia, those things all fit their that when the Pharisees, or I'm sorry, when the Judaizers come from Jerusalem to the churches of Galatia, they had, in fact, the message that they were bringing, that you needed to be circumcised, and that you needed to follow the ceremonial law. Those were, in fact, from men, right? They were taught those things by a man, and they received it from men, okay? So Paul is actually, he is, that these men could not say the same thing. Everything that they were preaching, everything that they were insisting upon, the churches of Galatia actually fit these qualifications that Paul says, the gospel that I receive, the gospel that I proclaim, None of those things apply. It didn't come by man. It wasn't from a man, and it wasn't received by a man. It wasn't taught by a man, these things. Instead, he says, When Paul makes this statement that he received it through a revelation, the word revelation, we have an entire book in our Bible, the last book in the Bible, that has given that title, and the word in Greek is apokalupsis, apokalupsis, and it's simply, in its basic form, it means an unveiling. It's taking something that was once covered, something that was once hidden, and exposing it, unveiling. Jesus Christ. So Paul states that he receives this gospel that is the gospel through the unveiling of specifically the person Jesus Christ. And we've seen this in Paul's life in Acts chapter 9, and in verse 16 specifically, it means that God reveals to Paul that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God, and Paul is declaring that he received it, that is the good news, which is Jesus Christ. So we can literally make this statement with assurance and connection that the gospel is not only from God, but the gospel itself is God. The gospel is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the gospel. And so Paul, he's making this claim, and he's sure about it. What Paul is saying here, he is calling for a very, very In other words, Paul's first line of defense, as we're looking back, he is saying, I'm establishing my argument on this basis, that what I have received, it came from an unveiling of Jesus Christ himself. Now, Paul's experience was unique. Not many people have a testimony like the Apostle Paul, but again, he is claiming authenticity of the gospel itself source and saying that what I received the message that I brought to you was revealed to me by God in Jesus Christ and he emphasizes that again in verse 16 when when he, what was pleased, that is God, was pleased to reveal his son to me. So God was the one who gave Paul the revelation of Jesus Christ, that he would see him. And then, so Paul, what he's gonna do now, he's going to come at this argument, his line of defense is gonna come from three different angles. He's gonna first start with his pre-conversion Paul, or better known as Saul of Tarsus, right? Saul of Tarsus before his meeting the Lord Jesus Christ, before the unveiling of the gospel. And then secondly, he's gonna look at specifically the conversion itself, what happened on the Damascus road. And then his last line of argument is going to come from everything that took place after that, post-conversion of the Apostle Paul. So in verses 13 and 14, we see the pre-conversion 15 and 16 we see the conversion of the Apostle Paul and then verse 17 through the end of the chapter we see this first. Now we're only going to look at the first two of those things this morning. We're going to focus on his pre-conversion and his conversion. So he's claiming authenticity to the gospel itself and then in verse 13 he's going to make a contract. contrast between specifically his actions. Now, again, we have stated over and over again, and we'll probably state it a thousand more times till we get to chapter six of Galatians. I don't know how many weeks we've been here, but we've been here a while already. We didn't get very far. But this is gonna be heard over and over and over again. That justification, salvation, okay, however you wanna term it, is by grace alone, by faith alone. And Paul is going to contrast his life, his testimony with what he is saying by where he was and now who he is, okay? In other words, when we say that justification is by faith alone, we are saying absolutely positively that nobody, nobody adds an earthly thing to their salvation except the sin that made it necessary. But Apostle Paul is going to show them that there is in fact a contrast between one who was once lost in their sin and who has been revealed, who has received the revelation of Christ, has come to receive the Lord Jesus Christ, and how they walk in newness of life. In other words, there is a changed life, and this is Paul's defense. Notice what he says. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism. So just pause there. Paul wants us to look back and notice he says, you have heard of my former life. In other words, the apostle Paul was well known among the Jews. Paul was a prominent figure in the church in Jerusalem. Paul was a prominent figure of Judaism itself. And we could go to Acts chapter nine and we could read about his conversion there. But I think the better place is actually, if you turn with me to Acts chapter 26. And Acts chapter 26, Paul gives a detail of just how well known his former life was. And he's actually bringing it up as his Acts chapter 26, Paul is before Agrippa, and Agrippa in verse one gives Paul permission to make his argument, to make his defense, as Agrippa is the judge over him. So Paul, verse one, he stretches out his hand, and he made this defense. Verse two, I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I'm going to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews. especially because you are familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews. Therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently. My manner of life from my youth." Now, notice where Paul's defense begins, from my youth. He goes all the way back to his childhood. That's how well known Paul's life and testimony was, my manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem, is known by all the Jews. They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify. In other words, he's pointing out a relevant variable in this conversation. There are people that know things and pretend like they don't. Do you know what I'm talking about, right? Oh, I don't know what you're talking about. No, you do know, and Paul is saying, these people know all these things, they know it well, but if they're willing to testify, if they're willing to admit that, that according to the strictest party of our religion, I have lived as a Pharisee, and now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers. You see a pattern of Paul's life? He was constantly ridiculed and put under pressure because of his position on the gospel itself. In other words, this idea that you become a Christian and suddenly your life is just easy, good grief. What a lie. And furthermore, who in the world ever came up with such a thing? Paul's life was difficult, but it was worth every battle, every ounce of the difficulty because of his hope in the promise made by God to our fathers. Verse seven, to which our 12 tribes hope to attain as they earnestly worship night and day. For this hope, I am accused by Jews, O King. Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? So one of the things that Paul was on trial here was because he was preaching the resurrection. And the resurrection is the hinge of our salvation. If Jesus just died on the cross, that was, you know, that was no different than thousands of other people who were crucified on the cross. But the resurrection was the hinge by which everyone else could not, would not, did not. And Jesus was rose from the dead. to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And then Paul's going to now describe what he was doing. This is the contrast of his actions in verses 13 and 14. Listen to what Paul did. He says, And I did so in Jerusalem, not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. and in raging fury against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities." In other words, Paul says, I persecuted them here, I persecuted them there, I persecuted them everywhere. That's for Dr. Seuss week, right? He was after them anywhere they went. Paul was after the Christians. He wanted nothing more than to make them suffer and to destroy what they were doing. Verse 12, in this connection, he says, I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven brighter than the sun that shone around me and those who journeyed with me. And when we had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice say to me in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? for you to kick against the goods. And I said, who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. In other words, all the persecution that the Apostle Paul was doing to the church was literally an act against Christ himself. I want you to look at what kind of a rotten, filthy sinner I was. And these things are going to serve to support the evidence and why it's so convincing. How I persecuted the Church of God violently and tried to destroy it. Now, there's a lot of rabbit trails I could run in this text, so I've got to be careful. violently and try to destroy them. Now, the point in which the Apostle Paul is writing this letter, and furthermore, the majority of the persecution that he's talking about here, the Church of God, he's referring to both Jew and Gentile. And you say, well, why do you have to make a distinction of that? We all know that. Well, because there are times when people want to separate I want you to see that I'm not implying anything I'm not reading anything into this text I am showing you that he was he was talking about the Church of God and when you attack one side you attack the other side and furthermore there is only one side because it is a single church and so he says I was persecuting the Church of God and he was going so in a violent and excessively persecuting way so much so he says I tried to destroy in other words I Paul's mentality and his devotion was not just simply to make the church angry or not just simply to make the church crippled in some way. He wanted to destroy it. He wanted this man, Jesus of Nazareth, to be spoken of no more. He wanted to completely erase him from everyone's memory and from everyone's mouth. And so everything he was doing, his excessive persecution, his violence towards them was to destroy. He wanted them gone. And furthermore, when we read of his account, Paul did in fact inflict much damage on the church. I mean, people literally died because of the Apostle Paul and his zeal to persecute and to destroy and to go against Christians. He hated them with a passion and he wanted to destroy it and he says, I tried to destroy it. And again, I just have to smile and rejoice because his efforts We're in pain. Can I tell you that many have tried to destroy the church and all of them have failed. Paul says, I tried, tried to destroy it. We live in a day today when there are people unashamedly so trying to destroy the church. Do you realize, do you realize that people that that hate God, those who live in constant immorality and perversion against their creator, they hate you and they hate God. Don't tell me the Buddhist loves God. Don't tell me the Hindu loves God. Don't tell me the Islamists, extremists love God. They don't. And they prove it because they want you and I to be erased, and to be shut up, and to be shut down. And they're trying to destroy, and they never can. They can never. Not because of who we are, not because we're more clever than they are, not because, certainly not because we're that I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And again, Paul says, I tried, I tried, but in his efforts to try to destroy the church, praise God, he becomes part of it. He tries to persecute the church, tries to permanently inflict wounds upon it, but notice he also says he had an agenda, he was advancing He was advancing, verse 14. He says, and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people. And he was extremely zealous for the traditions of his fathers. So Paul was on, he was on a mission and his mission was to be known. Paul's mission was to be at the very top, and he made it abundantly clear that the way to the top was to destroy everyone in your way. So Paul's path has been traced, and he is on his way to continue to persecute the church, and he's on his way to prominence. He's on his way. Every time a Christian is persecuted, every time Paul's getting a notch in his Bible, if you will, for what he's doing. And he was extremely zealous. He was extremely zealous in a dangerous way. There's a lot of people today that are extremely zealous. even Christians are extremely zealous and sometimes in a dangerous way. Why? Because it says he was zealous for the traditions of his fathers. Now, what that means exactly, we don't know, but we can assume and deduce from everything else in Scripture that he was obviously interested, he was zealous for the outward observances of the law itself. But he was also zealous that the traditions of the father is likely a reference to pharisaical, unwritten traditions. In other words, there were oral things that you would have only known if you were a Pharisee. I think of, I've never been part of, praise God, I don't know much about it, but I'm told there are secret societies. in our communities and there are oral traditions in those things and the only way you'll find them out is if you're part of them. And I don't use them as an example for something good. I use them as an example of there are things that are simply known orally that aren't written down specifically. And Hall was zealous for these things. He was zealous for the traditions of his people. I find it extremely concerning. One of the things that we can become extremely zealous for as Christians is our preferred Bible translation. And this past week, I came across a preacher, a clip of a preacher, and he was going on and on about his preferred Bible translation, and he said this. I wish I was kidding. He said, I can correct the original Greek. Do you hear what I said? He said, I can correct the original Hebrew, then he went on to say the Hebrew as well. He can go on, he can correct the original Hebrew and Greek with his King James Bible. Now can I tell you, that man was extremely zealous. And he was extremely zealous for the traditions of And I also say that somebody that thinks that is extremely confused, no matter how passionately you believe such a thing. Amen? Let's be careful, right? Because we can get extremely zealous about the wrong things. We can get extremely zealous about good things in a wrong way. Paul was extremely zealous for the traditions of his fathers. Why is Paul sharing all these things? Well, he wants us to recognize how completely unlikely it was that God would reveal Jesus Christ, the gospel, to someone who had such a passionate hatred toward Christ and to those who were following him, right? That's what Paul is trying to show them. Do you realize how unlikely it was that the Apostle Paul would become a Christian? He had a very infamous past. This is a point where we can make an application to ourselves because some of us have a past. Some of us have things that, I don't know about you, but there's things that are in my past that I wouldn't want anyone to know. Am I by myself this morning? Amen. Do you have a past? open about his life. He had a past, and his past was not something that you would want to go around telling people, right? But he's actually using his past as a testimony and a demonstration of the power that the gospel itself has upon anybody who's living in a lifestyle who's passionate about not only despising Jesus, but killing those who would follow him. And when we look at his life and he's showing to us, look at the contrast, look at where I was, what I was doing, who I was running around with. And then he says, persecutor the hater the despiser of Jesus verse 15 but but when I love the butts of the Bible but when he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace was pleased to Paul says, I had this divine appointment that I knew nothing about. As a matter of fact, I was separated to God himself before I was even in my mother's womb. That phrase there, who had set me apart before I was born, if you look at the literal interpretation of the original language, it means separated before the womb of his mother by God. There's a word for that. There's a word that we use for that. And there's a lot of people don't like that word. There's a lot of people get uneasy when you say that word. But it's absolutely positively what the Apostle Paul is saying. We've had some discussions recently about this word. He was, anybody want to say it? Starts with a P. Yeah. Yeah, can anybody come away with anything else from that text? Can anybody suggest something else? But when he who had set me apart before I was born, he was predestined, he was separated by God. And then in time, the same God who predestined him, this same God calls him in time. Right? So the predestination reveals itself in action, in real time, in real space. This same God who set him apart calls him. And notice, it's not because of him, but in spite of him. Right? When we look at verses 13 and 14, and we get to verse 15 and 16, and we say, oh, well, it's no wonder God called Paul. Right? Wrong! Why on earth would God call Paul? Paul was rotten. Paul was a wretched, he describes himself as a wretched man, a sinner. And so when we read verse 15, it should say, whoa, what on earth happened here? How in the world do we go from this man who hates Christ to this one who God chose before the foundation? Let's not go that far. Let's just say what it says. Before he was even in his mother's womb, by God, and then he was called. And notice again, the phrase that follows. He says, when he was, who called me by his grace, not according to his works, not according to who he was, not according to what he was doing, but God calls him by his grace. And then if you're following along with your outline, it goes separated, called, and appointed. And this morning I had to go back on my notes and correct it, but the bulletins were already printed, I wasn't printing them again. But there's a third one before appointed, and it's revealed. Revealed. He was separated, he was called, and there was a revealing, right? It was revealed. It says specifically that what the grace entailed was, in verse 16, let's read it together. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace. Notice this phrase, was pleased to reveal his son to me. He was pleased to reveal his son. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't, again, I don't ever want to read anything into this text, but we have to embrace what is there, okay? Paul is making a statement here, and we don't want to miss it. He could not, and therefore he would not, revealed it to him. Can I get a witness in the house this morning? It was because God was pleased to reveal Jesus to Paul that Paul would know who he is. And we know this because Paul obviously knew who Jesus was. Amen? Paul obviously knew what Jesus said. And Paul obviously knew what the people were doing who were following Jesus. So it wasn't for lack of knowledge that Paul did not believe in Jesus. Can we agree on that? And the text says that it was when God was pleased at the right time, at the right place, in the predetermined manner, right? Paul didn't say, well, someday I wanna grow up to be a Christian and get converted on the road to Damascus. That's when it pleased God to do it. That's when it pleased God to reveal himself. So we absolutely, absolutely positively stand on texts like John 644 that says, no one can come to the Father except he draws them. Now, the reason, again, I want to make It was unique, and I don't know anybody else. I know some pretty wild testimonies, but I don't know anybody else that was so unlikely to become a Christian as the Apostle Paul. I do know some people. I actually have a preacher friend who, he regularly has said this to me. He's like, you know, my testimony's kind of boring, if you think about it. This guy, his dad is a preacher, he's a pastor, His daddy was a pastor. He was born into a family of preachers. One of his sons is now a preacher, and he was on the church pew nine months before he was born, right? Three times a week, no doubt. And he never rebelled against his family life. He never rebelled in his walk. He wasn't perfect. But he says, when I think about how God saved me, he's like, it's kind of boring. When you look at someone else's testimony, like the Apostle Paul, he's like, wow. Actually, I heard a young man one time, he was acting a fool, and somebody called him out on it, and he said, I'm just working on my testimony. Oh dear, please don't do that. Anyway, it's abundantly clear was not seeking God in the sense that he wanted to follow Jesus. The opposite is true, amen? Now this is good because I want you to see this, that this idea of God sovereignly exposing or revealing himself to whosoever he wills, whenever he wills, Him is actually a comfort to me because of this. God has commanded us to do two things specifically when it comes to the salvation of the lost. One of them is that we would pray for the salvation of the lost. He's called us, he's commissioned us to pray for the salvation of the lost, and he's also commissioned us to pray for gospel preachers, right? Pray ye therefore the master of the harvest that he would send forth laborers, amen? He wants us to pray for the salvation of the lost, he wants us to pray for God to call more people into gospel ministry, but then he also calls us to actually preach that message. And here's the good news, that when we are faithful to do those things, he is faithful to save whosoever, right? That's clear. Let me show you in Paul's other writing. Turn to Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10. This principle is so clear to us, but yet we hesitate on these things. Romans 10 verse 14 says, How then? Well, back up, back up. Let's go back to verse 10. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame, for there is no distinction Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him. Amen. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Verse 14, how then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord who has believed what he has heard from us. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the word of Christ. Listen, when we are faithful to do that, God is faithful to unveil Christ. to them, amen? And that's so comforting to me, because again, it's not about how much someone knows. It's not about that. They have to see Christ as the gospel. They have to see Christ as their only option for salvation, and that, in fact, is a divine work of God's Holy Spirit, and it comes through the proclamation of his word. What end was it pleasing to God to reveal His Son to me in order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles? Paul's conversion, again, is truly unique. Few people have a testimony like the Apostle Paul, but the basics of his salvation are indeed universal. in terms of how God brings a person to saving faith in Christ. Paul is not overlooking his salvation for what it was, that he received this gift of eternal life and the forgiveness of his sins by grace through faith, but Paul also was well aware of the fact that his salvation was not simply an end in itself. God's purpose in Paul's life far exceeded his own salvation. Paul's salvation would be the means that God would use to bring many people to the same Paul was chosen by God, set apart before his mother's womb to be the apostle to the Gentiles, so that you and I would have books like Galatians and its companion Romans and the entirety of scripture, right? So that we would have these things God has chosen at different times and in different ways to work through these men that God had just used them, not because of who they were, but in spite of who they were, but not only to save them, but so that others would come to know. This is something I think we often overlook, right? We love that personal salvation. Oh, I'm so thankful God saved me. But listen, God didn't save you just as an end in itself. Praise God he did. But he also commissions us, he uses us to reach others around us. And I don't know about you, but I know a lot of people that don't believe in Jesus. I know a lot of people that know the name I know a lot of people that actually have read the book, but out of those people that know the name and have read the book, there's a lot of them that are no different than the Apostle Paul was pre-conversion. They were lost in their sin. They're lost in their sin. And by the preaching of the gospel, as it pleases God, he will reveal himself through that very thing, through the preaching of the gospel. Listen, I can't think of anything in my life. I want you to seriously think about this. I can't think of anything in my life that is more sure than this, that if I do X, it will equal Y. And I'm putting a big burden on myself by saying this. I want you to understand. according to His Word and by His Spirit, He promises He's going to save people. And it's not gonna be because of me, amen? It's gonna be in spite of me. Do you believe that? Do you believe it, not just for me, do you believe it for you? Do you believe that you can lead somebody to faith in Christ? Do you believe that you can go and do the work of an evangelist and share the good news? It's hard. It's scary. What a promise. What a promise we have. There's nothing else. You can fail at a lot of things. Young people, you can flunk your test this week. that seed lives inside of you amen and you don't have to be you don't have to be a straight-a student tell them what God has done in your life I am I am always cautious about testimony time because you know a lot of times testimony time turns into a pat yourself on the back time I seen a lot of people like the Apostle Paul, that he has snatched you from the flames of hell in a most miraculous way, you ought to tell somebody about it. Amen? As a matter of fact, some of the most profound, spirit-filled, God-blessed testimonies were ones where people were in a place that there was no way that anybody could have gotten them out of that situation, that place. by God, and we rejoice in this. Let's pray. Father, I praise you today for your amazing grace, and I thank you, Lord, that no matter how profound our testimonies are, whether they're extremely exciting and amazing, and the contrast between dark and light is so vivid, or Lord, we just simply were embraced by your grace and you revealed Christ to us and we believe by faith, we're baptized and have followed you in a most ordinary way. In either case, God, we know, we know that it was because of your grace and you're pleasing to show us, to reveal your son. we would see our depravity, we would see the judgment of our sin, but we would see our Savior, that God, you would by your love pull us and constrain us and draw us to Christ. And so Lord, for everyone that's here today who can name the name of Jesus as Lord and Savior of their life, Lord, I pray that we would just pray And Father, I pray also that you would continue to develop a burden in our hearts. God, you would continue to convince us that, Lord, we too must preach the gospel. We know, God, that you are the one who ordains the ends as well as the means. And everything in between, God, you are at work in these things. And so, Lord, we pray that you would help us, knowing fully that whoever calls on your name And so, Father, we just pray and ask that you would use us and glorify yourself in us. Lord, if there's one here today who's never trusted in Christ, I pray that today is the day that you would open their eyes. Lord, if there's somebody here today who, Lord, has a family member, a friend that they've been praying for a long, long time, Lord, I pray that you would instill in their hearts not to give up, to continue to be faithful, to continue, Lord, to proclaim the truth, to continue to live the truth, God, we pray for your work in their hearts, that you would save them for your glory, for your honor.