WEBVTT 00:07.019 --> 00:11.484 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Sermon podcast from Church at the Well and Telsin Merlin. 00:11.884 --> 00:18.771 [SPEAKER_00]: To learn more about Church at the well, visit our website, thewellballtimore.com. 00:19.412 --> 00:24.797 [SPEAKER_00]: And now, here's today's Sermon from our pastor, Dan Carreway. 00:30.162 --> 00:34.985 [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're joining us for the first time, or if you haven't been for a while, we've been in this series called The Flip. 00:35.465 --> 00:44.230 [SPEAKER_01]: And in this series, we've been seeing how God flips situations, expectations, and lives, specifically in the book of Acts, and hopefully it's been meaningful for you. 00:44.570 --> 00:46.531 [SPEAKER_01]: Because a lot of this mirrors our lives. 00:46.571 --> 00:59.138 [SPEAKER_01]: There's been lots of times when we've been looking into this book, and we've been like, oh, wow, that's how I interact, not just with God, but with Jesus, you know, like, obviously Jesus is being God, but how I interact with the church. 00:59.778 --> 01:20.549 [SPEAKER_01]: how I interact with the world and even the perspective of how things are like my personal interaction with these things is kind of mirrors what was happening in this book and the challenge is continuing to be like how do I flip my perspective so God would use me to flip people's lives towards Jesus. 01:21.899 --> 01:24.260 [SPEAKER_01]: It's been very outgoing. 01:24.581 --> 01:28.923 [SPEAKER_01]: It's been very pointing towards what God would have us do in the world. 01:29.243 --> 01:43.090 [SPEAKER_01]: I think a big criticism, we're going to talk about that this morning, a big criticism of the world is that as you interact with believers or as the world interact with you, the skepticism, do you really believe what you believe? 01:44.175 --> 01:50.079 [SPEAKER_01]: It's the Jesus that you proclaim that you love and you profess and you identify with. 01:50.699 --> 01:51.960 [SPEAKER_01]: Is that really your actions? 01:52.020 --> 01:53.802 [SPEAKER_01]: Is that really who you are? 01:54.482 --> 02:07.671 [SPEAKER_01]: These guys, even some more, especially on my college folks and everybody, you're about to, some of you are already back in school and you enter your schools, even in Christian school with an identity. 02:09.123 --> 02:16.588 [SPEAKER_01]: and hopefully some Jesus, and part of your job socially is that you wanna portray who you are. 02:16.608 --> 02:25.013 [SPEAKER_01]: On my coach soccer and the other day someone, we were the guys talking me into going to the mall for lunch where we were at a tournament. 02:25.653 --> 02:32.918 [SPEAKER_01]: And the AD was with me, he's like, did you tell the guys that they have Perry Hall Christian school in their jersey so they represent the school? 02:32.958 --> 02:34.579 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, oh no, I forgot to tell him that. 02:35.807 --> 02:39.548 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, but I don't think anybody did anything crazy like stole some sneakers or something. 02:39.568 --> 02:44.229 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it happened, but I didn't remind them that this is who they are. 02:44.790 --> 02:46.210 [SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully they just remember who they are. 02:47.650 --> 02:49.191 [SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully they just like identify this. 02:49.391 --> 02:50.891 [SPEAKER_01]: You probably do this with your kids. 02:51.251 --> 02:54.412 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're sitting at kid to school here this week or last week or whatever. 02:55.033 --> 03:00.074 [SPEAKER_01]: You're like, I hope he doesn't do or she do something insanely embarrassing. 03:00.454 --> 03:02.675 [SPEAKER_01]: That's gonna like cost people to look at our family different. 03:03.485 --> 03:03.885 [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean? 03:03.905 --> 03:06.427 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't know about you, but in my home it goes like this. 03:06.467 --> 03:11.491 [SPEAKER_01]: Every time I go up to the school, someone starts with like, you're son, that's how most sentence starts. 03:12.311 --> 03:15.313 [SPEAKER_01]: You're son, or you're daughter. 03:15.813 --> 03:17.114 [SPEAKER_01]: And I hope it's some positive. 03:17.935 --> 03:23.158 [SPEAKER_01]: Because it's like, is it gonna cause me to put my hand in my head in my hand? 03:24.239 --> 03:26.301 [SPEAKER_01]: Because it's like a identity thing. 03:26.341 --> 03:27.742 [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, I call you in big church now, baby. 03:31.025 --> 03:35.269 [SPEAKER_01]: I thought about pulling them to the side yesterday, like, hey, but it's my promise. 03:35.289 --> 03:36.571 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to talk about your in-charge. 03:37.211 --> 03:39.293 [SPEAKER_01]: You're where I get most of the messages from you and your siblings. 03:40.194 --> 03:41.515 [SPEAKER_01]: This is how I've learned. 03:42.756 --> 03:43.117 [SPEAKER_01]: I'll try. 03:43.918 --> 03:45.099 [SPEAKER_01]: Not this morning, no, no promises. 03:46.712 --> 03:49.453 [SPEAKER_01]: But you give them saying, it's an identity thing. 03:50.273 --> 03:59.034 [SPEAKER_01]: And what we've been looking at, even last week, we went through the first fifteen verses of chapter sixteen of Acts. 03:59.635 --> 04:00.695 [SPEAKER_01]: And we meet a couple of people. 04:00.715 --> 04:04.416 [SPEAKER_01]: We meet Timothy who would become Paul's son in the faith. 04:04.476 --> 04:07.656 [SPEAKER_01]: We heard of God redirecting Paul's journey to Macedonia. 04:08.576 --> 04:10.237 [SPEAKER_01]: We meet a woman named Lydia. 04:11.317 --> 04:16.118 [SPEAKER_01]: The big idea that we had was saying yes, even before the ask. 04:17.010 --> 04:25.994 [SPEAKER_01]: that part of who I am, part of that identity is that my relationship with God is that he has my yes before he even asks for something. 04:26.654 --> 04:30.236 [SPEAKER_01]: You know people that you can call and ask for something before the yes. 04:30.296 --> 04:31.296 [SPEAKER_01]: I did this in Ryan this week. 04:31.336 --> 04:41.141 [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, hey, Brian, we got to pick up a big old baptismal tank, can it fit in your truck and Brian's like, well, make it fit, you know, like, so if you have a bigger trust in Brian, we may need you just in case, you know. 04:41.921 --> 04:46.203 [SPEAKER_01]: But like, people that you can call on, just got, do you have that relationship with God? 04:46.763 --> 04:48.945 [SPEAKER_01]: that there's a yes before the ask. 04:50.386 --> 04:54.229 [SPEAKER_01]: We commit ourselves to whoever and where ours will be talking about last week. 04:54.250 --> 05:01.376 [SPEAKER_01]: We do that because we're committed first not to the who or the what or the where but because we believe in the why. 05:02.276 --> 05:05.819 [SPEAKER_01]: Our church we would say that together we help people become followers of Jesus. 05:05.839 --> 05:09.703 [SPEAKER_01]: That's why we do what we do and the reason why we do this is because we believe this is God's 05:10.023 --> 05:14.066 [SPEAKER_01]: calling card, this is what he told us to do that we have to help people become followers of Jesus. 05:14.366 --> 05:16.807 [SPEAKER_01]: We're here to help people follow Jesus. 05:16.827 --> 05:23.011 [SPEAKER_01]: And we kind of work that into everything that we do and are giving the reason why we do that is because we believe in the why. 05:23.392 --> 05:27.334 [SPEAKER_01]: The reason why we worship is because we believe in the why we gather because we believe in the why. 05:27.394 --> 05:30.336 [SPEAKER_01]: The community circles we believe in the why. 05:30.416 --> 05:32.698 [SPEAKER_01]: That's what everything is geared towards. 05:33.438 --> 05:33.878 [SPEAKER_01]: Last time, 05:34.939 --> 05:44.451 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know anybody else but being committed to the why while being a beautiful calling to help people become followers of Jesus. 05:45.071 --> 05:46.013 [SPEAKER_01]: It comes with heaviness. 05:47.460 --> 05:52.083 [SPEAKER_01]: If I'm going to do this, if I'm going to be a part of this, it comes with controversy. 05:52.123 --> 05:53.324 [SPEAKER_01]: It comes with heaviness. 05:53.384 --> 05:59.689 [SPEAKER_01]: It comes with my identity being misgued or misviewed in the way that I would want it to be sometimes. 05:59.709 --> 06:06.154 [SPEAKER_01]: I'll have to feel like it's impossible to not be associated with God, calling that God has put on my life. 06:06.754 --> 06:11.796 [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I love going places where nobody knows me so I could just be dain. 06:11.836 --> 06:13.457 [SPEAKER_01]: And this is not not saying this, probably. 06:13.817 --> 06:15.537 [SPEAKER_01]: This is just what it is growing up. 06:15.658 --> 06:17.158 [SPEAKER_01]: And even like, I shouldn't say growing up. 06:17.198 --> 06:21.100 [SPEAKER_01]: But when I got involved in ministry, it was hard to be around my family. 06:22.660 --> 06:24.021 [SPEAKER_01]: We can like this Labor Day weekend. 06:24.701 --> 06:28.323 [SPEAKER_01]: I will go on and I'll be happy to see all my cousins and see uncles and grandparents and folks. 06:28.983 --> 06:34.225 [SPEAKER_01]: But the minute that I started being in ministry, I stopped being dain and I started to be the pastor. 06:36.175 --> 06:39.858 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry, I stopped being like when I walk in the room like the cussing would stop. 06:43.380 --> 06:52.707 [SPEAKER_01]: Even among my friends, I noticed that the pictures on Instagram and Facebook of Hangouts, and I was like, well, me and Anna were free. 06:53.627 --> 06:54.308 [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody even called. 06:56.650 --> 07:00.052 [SPEAKER_01]: I noticed that who I was associated with vocationally. 07:00.352 --> 07:14.960 [SPEAKER_01]: I've been saved for a long period of time, but I noticed that like who I was associated with and how I made my money and where I worked, it kind of changed the relationships with people, whether they knew me when I first knew Jesus or not. 07:15.841 --> 07:16.541 [SPEAKER_01]: It changed things. 07:16.601 --> 07:18.082 [SPEAKER_01]: It came with heaviness. 07:20.163 --> 07:25.184 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's just like, you know, my general interactions with people. 07:26.384 --> 07:29.025 [SPEAKER_01]: Isn't it true folks that the way that you interact with Christians? 07:30.025 --> 07:35.906 [SPEAKER_01]: It's often based on the last interactions with Christians you have, even if it was positive or negative. 07:36.326 --> 07:46.568 [SPEAKER_01]: So if you meet someone new who says they believe in Jesus, if you had a negative interaction or negative experience in a church or negative experience with Christians, 07:47.438 --> 07:49.459 [SPEAKER_01]: You kind of, it's kind of hard a little bit. 07:50.779 --> 07:52.940 [SPEAKER_01]: Those folks kind of start with a little bit of a brick wall. 07:54.021 --> 08:01.823 [SPEAKER_01]: For a while, I think we've kind of, I don't know if we still have this way, but our church was kind of like the church of the broken, the church of the church. 08:02.924 --> 08:10.827 [SPEAKER_01]: Like everybody kind of came in with the like, I like this church, but church in general, and it was kind of that. 08:12.990 --> 08:18.173 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think for a lot of people, like, well, you guys are different, but big church is not great. 08:19.414 --> 08:21.976 [SPEAKER_01]: Too many issues, too much hypocrisy, too much that. 08:23.196 --> 08:35.204 [SPEAKER_01]: And if you're on the other side of that, we're kind of the Christians that, you know, if you interact like colleges as you know this, you probably all have met someone who grew up in church, but is now deconstructing their faith. 08:37.458 --> 08:40.419 [SPEAKER_01]: and they're deconstructing probably not Jesus. 08:41.359 --> 08:49.460 [SPEAKER_01]: They may not even be deconstructing His Word, but they're deconstructing how Christians have chosen to live in light of that. 08:50.201 --> 08:58.162 [SPEAKER_01]: How they have ignored the grace and the mercy that has to be associated with who Jesus is and they just kind of lived out their life. 08:59.342 --> 09:02.423 [SPEAKER_01]: And you're kind of left to be the next person to step up. 09:03.575 --> 09:24.458 [SPEAKER_01]: Which we're going to read this morning is how you are to enter into that, how you're supposed to embrace having to be the representative in the hostility, how you're going to be the person that really the calling card, the call, the commission that God gives you is sitting in it. 09:26.815 --> 09:29.556 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I promise you, I wish it was more to this. 09:29.656 --> 09:34.338 [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to read this and you're going to think, well, the action step is just to kind of bear with it. 09:35.819 --> 09:39.001 [SPEAKER_01]: The action step is going to be just kind of be there for them. 09:40.881 --> 09:46.604 [SPEAKER_01]: The action step is going to just kind of be even when you may feel the freedom to go. 09:47.865 --> 09:50.546 [SPEAKER_01]: You may feel the freedom to do something else. 09:52.177 --> 09:58.702 [SPEAKER_01]: The call of Jesus is to kind of be there and by being there, you're going to bring freedom to somebody else. 09:59.082 --> 10:00.883 [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to bring salvation to somebody else. 10:01.444 --> 10:01.644 [SPEAKER_01]: All right? 10:01.984 --> 10:06.927 [SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to read in Acts up to sixteen versus sixteen. 10:06.967 --> 10:07.588 [SPEAKER_01]: I apologize. 10:07.628 --> 10:13.232 [SPEAKER_01]: I should have had this up on the screen, but I figured you guys love my reading voice so much that I'll just read it to you. 10:13.472 --> 10:18.155 [SPEAKER_01]: But if you want to look at it later or while you listen along, those are the verses for it. 10:20.106 --> 10:33.397 [SPEAKER_01]: Verse sixteen, it reads like this, as we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling. 10:34.547 --> 10:41.631 [SPEAKER_01]: She followed Paul and us crying out these men are servants of the most high God who proclaim to you the way of salvation. 10:42.431 --> 10:44.052 [SPEAKER_01]: And this she kept doing for many days. 10:44.332 --> 10:56.539 [SPEAKER_01]: Paul having greatly had Paul having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the Spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her and it came out that very hour. 10:57.379 --> 10:58.240 [SPEAKER_01]: Let me stop for a second. 10:58.260 --> 11:01.942 [SPEAKER_01]: So here's one of the things that we just got to kind of deal with, verse sixteen, 11:03.082 --> 11:08.507 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how you feel about this and may feel a little Harry Potter to you, but Satan and demons are real. 11:10.468 --> 11:11.609 [SPEAKER_01]: It's here. 11:12.109 --> 11:18.915 [SPEAKER_01]: Here in the passage, we've read other things and you remember the story where Jesus sends the demon into pigs and to pigs kill themselves. 11:19.235 --> 11:19.635 [SPEAKER_01]: It's real. 11:20.696 --> 11:29.363 [SPEAKER_01]: And here we have in this situation that they are, we see that while they're not all powerful, only God is all powerful. 11:30.564 --> 11:31.745 [SPEAKER_01]: We gotta give them some respect. 11:33.495 --> 11:37.338 [SPEAKER_01]: Like we got to respect the opponent. 11:37.638 --> 11:46.826 [SPEAKER_01]: We know who wins the game, we know how the story ends, but we can't ignore that there are powerful, dark forces among us. 11:48.607 --> 11:51.890 [SPEAKER_01]: Remember, demons work as a part of a dark organization. 11:51.930 --> 11:53.892 [SPEAKER_01]: They are very organized. 11:55.173 --> 11:56.314 [SPEAKER_01]: Very organized. 11:57.453 --> 12:00.534 [SPEAKER_01]: And so the communication would have been real. 12:00.874 --> 12:09.735 [SPEAKER_01]: And what happens is like, in my opinion, and I don't want to be the cultural like speaker, like, you know, I'm preaching Bible, not preaching against culture. 12:10.315 --> 12:20.257 [SPEAKER_01]: But when you get into these like, you know, fortune tellers or even like the guys that predict things, you ever watch the YouTube videos where the guys like able to predict things. 12:21.277 --> 12:24.138 [SPEAKER_01]: In my opinion, this kind of lines up with scripture. 12:27.127 --> 12:27.768 [SPEAKER_01]: We see it here. 12:28.708 --> 12:42.015 [SPEAKER_01]: This dark, like spiritual realm that is very real and is among us, demons are organized and that they're able to share information and by sharing that information can protect the future. 12:43.375 --> 12:48.278 [SPEAKER_01]: They're able to see things in the spiritual realm, right? 12:49.298 --> 12:52.500 [SPEAKER_01]: And we know this because of what happens here in the story. 12:54.591 --> 13:00.053 [SPEAKER_01]: So, communication was real and could be used to take advantage of people, especially folks who worshiped false gods. 13:00.433 --> 13:15.758 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, you could do the research here about the Greek gods and how this would have been, there would have been a history of folks that believed in the fortune telling Greek gods and how they would be able to know the future and be able to prepare things and in turn, they would worship the Greek gods and not recognize a holy god. 13:17.348 --> 13:40.241 [SPEAKER_01]: verse seventeen have you noticed that Luke has joined the journey like ever since like the this second journey it like he like includes we in the story so Luke before was was telling about what happened and and was like recounting of what would have been told to him but now looks in our witness now Luke is there you're going to see some specifics all the rest of the way through the book of acts here's a question for this 13:41.602 --> 13:42.383 [SPEAKER_01]: has a thing about this. 13:42.683 --> 13:52.511 [SPEAKER_01]: So it says that she followed Paul in verse seventeen, she followed Paul in us crying out, these men are servants of the most high God who proclaim to you the way of salvation. 13:53.271 --> 13:58.736 [SPEAKER_01]: Does it matter to you if you are recognized by the enemy as someone who is a servant of the most high God? 13:59.877 --> 14:00.517 [SPEAKER_01]: Is that matter to you? 14:01.578 --> 14:06.322 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I talked about the spiritual realm are the dark forces in the world. 14:06.982 --> 14:07.843 [SPEAKER_01]: You think they talk about you? 14:10.689 --> 14:17.455 [SPEAKER_01]: Like you think that you're seeing as an advocate of who their enemy is being Jesus Christ. 14:18.876 --> 14:20.958 [SPEAKER_01]: Do you think that they're on your calling card? 14:22.242 --> 14:33.071 [SPEAKER_01]: I want you to think about history, like, you know, I'm not even talking about the Billy Grams or big Christians that we would have talked about, but would it matter to them that you're there? 14:34.112 --> 14:37.054 [SPEAKER_01]: One of the weirdest, I should say this story for like Halloween time. 14:37.294 --> 14:40.137 [SPEAKER_01]: One of the weirdest experiences I've ever had in my life, Jen was there. 14:40.777 --> 14:41.738 [SPEAKER_01]: Anna was there as well. 14:41.938 --> 14:43.679 [SPEAKER_01]: We were, I want to mission strip an LA. 14:44.700 --> 14:46.882 [SPEAKER_01]: And if there's a place in LA, you could go visit it today. 14:47.382 --> 14:48.904 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm telling you this story, so you're ready. 14:49.784 --> 14:51.025 [SPEAKER_01]: It's called Skid Row. 14:52.225 --> 14:56.067 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, Skid Row, you can go and look it up. 14:56.828 --> 15:04.291 [SPEAKER_01]: Theologians, pastors, people that have the gift, the prophecy and all this, they would say it is one of the most spiritually dark places on earth. 15:04.972 --> 15:05.632 [SPEAKER_01]: And they are right. 15:06.673 --> 15:10.275 [SPEAKER_01]: We went on a mission ship there and they took us down like, let's go do some homeless ministry on Skid Row. 15:10.655 --> 15:15.938 [SPEAKER_01]: If anybody ever asks you to do that, I would caution you because you do not do homeless ministry on Skid Row. 15:16.218 --> 15:18.699 [SPEAKER_01]: You do drug addiction ministry on Skid Row. 15:18.719 --> 15:21.441 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not telling you not to go, just telling you what you need to know when you go there. 15:22.261 --> 15:27.368 [SPEAKER_01]: At the top of Skid Row, or the North Side of Skid Row, I should say, there's a place they call the black gate. 15:28.550 --> 15:35.400 [SPEAKER_01]: And once you pass over the black gate, I promise you, you can feel that something doesn't want you there. 15:36.261 --> 15:38.564 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not telling you a story I heard, I'm telling you what I experienced. 15:39.445 --> 15:40.806 [SPEAKER_01]: And you can ask the ladies if you want. 15:41.086 --> 15:42.987 [SPEAKER_01]: And in there are two separate small groups, you can ask them. 15:43.548 --> 15:45.409 [SPEAKER_01]: You can feel that something doesn't want you there. 15:46.250 --> 15:47.871 [SPEAKER_01]: We immediately got silent. 15:47.911 --> 15:51.073 [SPEAKER_01]: We immediately just felt like you just couldn't help but pray. 15:51.253 --> 15:53.895 [SPEAKER_01]: And we're walking down this, so we go down Skid Row. 15:54.938 --> 15:58.720 [SPEAKER_01]: And it looks like a homeless encampment. 15:58.740 --> 16:00.060 [SPEAKER_01]: There's people on either side of the road. 16:00.100 --> 16:02.481 [SPEAKER_01]: The road is dark because of dirt. 16:02.781 --> 16:09.824 [SPEAKER_01]: There's people like laying, like they have some of them have ten, some of them just has a chair and all of their belongings on either side of the road. 16:10.184 --> 16:14.106 [SPEAKER_01]: And as you walk down the middle of the road, I can hear people hissing at us. 16:15.367 --> 16:19.768 [SPEAKER_01]: I can hear people like the faces look this figure. 16:19.808 --> 16:23.150 [SPEAKER_01]: They would focus in on us as they were looking through us. 16:24.652 --> 16:28.898 [SPEAKER_01]: I remember walking close to a woman and just saying, hey, can I pray for you? 16:30.620 --> 16:39.392 [SPEAKER_01]: And the woman stopped looking at me and looked at one of our leaders, that was with us, and called him by name. 16:41.197 --> 16:42.959 [SPEAKER_01]: And I asked him, I was, I have you ever met this person. 16:43.119 --> 16:44.200 [SPEAKER_01]: But this, I'm sorry, guys. 16:44.400 --> 16:45.741 [SPEAKER_01]: Man, sit in the colon, sit in your here. 16:45.781 --> 16:46.141 [SPEAKER_01]: My bad. 16:47.563 --> 16:48.123 [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to church. 16:51.546 --> 16:52.267 [SPEAKER_01]: Call in my name. 16:52.307 --> 16:54.208 [SPEAKER_01]: Later I asked him, I was like, did you know that person? 16:54.429 --> 16:56.350 [SPEAKER_01]: He was like, no, sure didn't. 16:56.911 --> 16:59.133 [SPEAKER_01]: Again, not trying to tell you what goes story. 16:59.153 --> 17:03.276 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just telling you that this is, this happens. 17:04.077 --> 17:05.018 [SPEAKER_01]: This is in our country. 17:05.198 --> 17:07.000 [SPEAKER_01]: This isn't a story that I heard one time. 17:08.568 --> 17:11.310 [SPEAKER_01]: I also want to tell you that we let people to Jesus on that trip. 17:12.531 --> 17:15.573 [SPEAKER_01]: We prayed for people's freedom during that trip. 17:16.673 --> 17:25.819 [SPEAKER_01]: There's many women to this day that they live in the apartment that look overskid row and they wake up early in the morning and ask God to inhabit that place. 17:25.859 --> 17:32.504 [SPEAKER_01]: And that guy would tell you story after story about how God has pulled people out of there and have called them back in to do the same ministry. 17:33.965 --> 17:35.886 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's not all horror stories. 17:37.247 --> 17:43.691 [SPEAKER_01]: Demons not only recognize God, they recognize those who serve them, who serve him, excuse me. 17:44.791 --> 17:48.133 [SPEAKER_01]: And I wonder if the dark forces of this world would they recognize you? 17:49.274 --> 17:54.076 [SPEAKER_01]: Because here's who's never said that they've experienced any oppression or any opposition. 17:55.257 --> 17:56.598 [SPEAKER_01]: People who are doing nothing for the kingdom. 17:58.097 --> 18:08.344 [SPEAKER_01]: You know who doesn't have to deal with people hissing at them, or have to deal with a stronghold, Christians who just sit in church and do nothing. 18:09.865 --> 18:14.908 [SPEAKER_01]: Christians who were ineffective for the gospel, who were just kind of there by name only. 18:16.349 --> 18:23.254 [SPEAKER_01]: Folks that had just kind of signed their card, got baptized once they did nothing with the rest of their knife, but are just kind of waiting to go to heaven one day. 18:23.654 --> 18:24.675 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they don't have to deal with this. 18:24.955 --> 18:27.257 [SPEAKER_01]: So if you want to be safe from the whore in this of it, 18:28.306 --> 18:32.228 [SPEAKER_01]: just just live your life and wait for the clock to run out. 18:33.488 --> 18:37.810 [SPEAKER_01]: But you'll never have the satisfaction of being on mission for the one true God. 18:40.192 --> 18:40.752 [SPEAKER_01]: Like Paul was. 18:41.886 --> 18:50.508 [SPEAKER_01]: Um, verse nineteen, but when her owners saw their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. 18:51.048 --> 18:54.569 [SPEAKER_01]: And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said these men are Jews. 18:55.209 --> 18:56.649 [SPEAKER_01]: And they are just stirping our city. 18:57.170 --> 19:04.171 [SPEAKER_01]: The advocate customs that are not, they advocate excuse me, customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept their practice. 19:04.571 --> 19:10.813 [SPEAKER_01]: The crowd joined in attacking them and the magistrates tore their garments off them and gave them orders to beat them with rides. 19:12.073 --> 19:23.742 [SPEAKER_01]: And when they had inflicted, sorry, when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. 19:24.262 --> 19:29.726 [SPEAKER_01]: Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet into the stalks. 19:30.407 --> 19:33.289 [SPEAKER_01]: So Paul sets the girl free, right? 19:33.309 --> 19:37.732 [SPEAKER_01]: Like this girl who was being used as a slave, she was being taken advantage of. 19:38.453 --> 19:40.855 [SPEAKER_01]: And her owners are angry because their profits have dried up. 19:42.415 --> 19:44.379 [SPEAKER_01]: Like they were using this girl. 19:45.421 --> 19:46.903 [SPEAKER_01]: She was being used to make them money. 19:46.983 --> 19:48.586 [SPEAKER_01]: People were like, that girl's nose of the future. 19:50.149 --> 19:53.415 [SPEAKER_01]: We can gain something and people were like, yeah, pay us and she'll tell you about your future. 19:54.312 --> 19:59.374 [SPEAKER_01]: And then Paul comes and recognized darkness and it was stopping, you know, it was stopping. 19:59.414 --> 20:06.256 [SPEAKER_01]: And for some of us, we already see like, well, Paul, all she's doing is recognizing that you're with the most high God, like, what's the big deal? 20:06.276 --> 20:09.457 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, isn't that, are you ashamed of who you are? 20:09.477 --> 20:10.898 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think we could look at it like that. 20:11.178 --> 20:12.138 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's more like this. 20:12.698 --> 20:16.099 [SPEAKER_01]: Does your opposition recognizing who you represent? 20:16.340 --> 20:17.540 [SPEAKER_01]: Does that benefit you at all? 20:18.820 --> 20:20.401 [SPEAKER_01]: Does it, like, it's almost mocking. 20:21.892 --> 20:22.552 [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean? 20:22.852 --> 20:29.114 [SPEAKER_01]: That's like, if Brian enjoyed her watching the Steelers in Raven's game and Brian says, you know what? 20:29.454 --> 20:31.454 [SPEAKER_01]: TJ, that's one heck of a player. 20:33.194 --> 20:34.115 [SPEAKER_01]: But that means nothing for me. 20:34.135 --> 20:34.835 [SPEAKER_01]: You're a Raven's fan. 20:35.615 --> 20:36.075 [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean? 20:36.635 --> 20:40.216 [SPEAKER_01]: It's your opposite, it's probably deeper than that. 20:40.836 --> 20:47.277 [SPEAKER_01]: When someone who you are deeply opposed to recognizes that you're on their side, it's not a compliment. 20:48.478 --> 20:49.938 [SPEAKER_01]: It's your against it. 20:51.265 --> 20:51.965 [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean? 20:52.245 --> 20:57.207 [SPEAKER_01]: It's pointing out like something in you that they don't agree with. 20:57.668 --> 20:59.688 [SPEAKER_01]: They wouldn't have taken it as a compliment. 21:01.409 --> 21:05.531 [SPEAKER_01]: Verse nineteen, here's a truth that we have to be honest about. 21:06.211 --> 21:13.314 [SPEAKER_01]: If men in the Bible times could find a way to monetize dark spirits and demonic activity, why would that not be happening today? 21:16.275 --> 21:19.917 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like they were monetizing satanic work. 21:20.894 --> 21:24.175 [SPEAKER_01]: They found a way to use it, you know, further gain. 21:26.455 --> 21:28.716 [SPEAKER_01]: Isn't it possible that could be being used in twenty-twenty-five? 21:30.296 --> 21:35.297 [SPEAKER_01]: This isn't to me trying to tear down all of pop culture and saying that it, but we got to be honest. 21:37.098 --> 21:49.501 [SPEAKER_01]: We have to be honest that, like, that, that, that, you know, the prints of the air that, that same himself could be in the things that were willing to give our attention, our affinity, and our dollar bucks, too. 21:51.657 --> 21:52.737 [SPEAKER_01]: We just got to be honest about it. 21:52.757 --> 21:57.178 [SPEAKER_01]: And people are being used. 22:00.499 --> 22:02.299 [SPEAKER_01]: I could start name it off industries and things. 22:02.939 --> 22:05.500 [SPEAKER_01]: People are being used for this. 22:08.620 --> 22:14.822 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this slave girl, we don't even hear what happens, that she'd come to know Jesus. 22:16.042 --> 22:16.642 [SPEAKER_01]: She was freed. 22:18.488 --> 22:20.609 [SPEAKER_01]: But the guys are not worried about her. 22:20.829 --> 22:21.749 [SPEAKER_01]: She was a slave to them. 22:22.190 --> 22:23.170 [SPEAKER_01]: She was a source of income. 22:25.551 --> 22:26.271 [SPEAKER_01]: And now she's nothing. 22:29.493 --> 22:33.995 [SPEAKER_01]: I wonder if we can look at it from that perspective. 22:35.075 --> 22:39.077 [SPEAKER_01]: Whenever God's brings freedom, someone will be upset. 22:41.198 --> 22:43.099 [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to disturb business as usual. 22:46.040 --> 22:52.646 [SPEAKER_01]: When someone comes to know Jesus, it calls a disruption in how the world would spin as usual. 22:52.666 --> 22:56.789 [SPEAKER_01]: One of my therapists, there's Tony Evans, actually from Baltimore. 22:57.410 --> 23:11.662 [SPEAKER_01]: He talks about when his dad came to know Jesus how their whole family changed, how everything changed because someone was brought freedom, because things were different because of that. 23:12.711 --> 23:14.952 [SPEAKER_01]: things like business wasn't the same anymore. 23:15.012 --> 23:23.357 [SPEAKER_01]: He talks about like, we used to just chill on Sundays and now he's making us go to church and they said, we were kind of reluctant to it at first because business wasn't the same as usual. 23:26.219 --> 23:27.399 [SPEAKER_01]: Someone's always going to be upset. 23:28.420 --> 23:31.402 [SPEAKER_01]: The accusation of these men are disturbing our city. 23:32.582 --> 23:36.905 [SPEAKER_01]: It's one of the things that was said about them, that they're disturbing the city. 23:37.165 --> 23:39.987 [SPEAKER_01]: Notice that this accusation is both false 23:41.179 --> 23:41.920 [SPEAKER_01]: but it's also true. 23:42.600 --> 23:44.903 [SPEAKER_01]: It's false because they weren't creating chaos. 23:46.144 --> 23:50.147 [SPEAKER_01]: If anything like this, this demon possessed girl was creating chaos. 23:50.928 --> 23:52.810 [SPEAKER_01]: So it was false, but it was also true. 23:52.850 --> 23:55.132 [SPEAKER_01]: They were disturbing the kingdom of darkness in the city. 23:56.493 --> 23:58.055 [SPEAKER_01]: He told a demon to get out. 23:59.897 --> 24:02.759 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, like, I want you to just think about that for a second. 24:03.922 --> 24:16.725 [SPEAKER_01]: If, you know, one of the things that we save about our church is that, we want to be a church that's, that's four thousand, that's four, you know, this part of Baltimore, even like this side of Baltimore County is kind of the new language that we've been using. 24:17.225 --> 24:18.585 [SPEAKER_01]: We want to be for us. 24:19.526 --> 24:31.709 [SPEAKER_01]: If we were really able to live that out, if we were to kind of like help solve some of the problems in our community, if we were to help, like actually like move the needle on some things, like we try to do with backpacks, like we try to do with, like with helping in different ways. 24:31.769 --> 24:33.129 [SPEAKER_01]: If we were to actually move the needle, 24:34.009 --> 24:35.329 [SPEAKER_01]: Wouldn't that kind of disturb some stuff? 24:38.310 --> 24:50.392 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, if we were, like, I think about, you know, if there was to be, I know I've heard stories about churches in Chicago and folks that have been so successful in drug prevention ministry. 24:51.912 --> 24:58.333 [SPEAKER_01]: And like, frame people from alcoholism that drug dealers have showed up to their churches like, you're ruined in business. 24:59.574 --> 25:01.314 [SPEAKER_01]: You took all of our addicts away. 25:02.564 --> 25:08.987 [SPEAKER_01]: We've got to go to different neighborhoods and it's messed up our territory because you've moved the needle in helping people. 25:12.709 --> 25:20.973 [SPEAKER_01]: I promise you, the longer you follow Jesus is, the more that you believe that you're working for a sake of the kingdom, it's going to rub up against somebody. 25:22.694 --> 25:25.656 [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to rub up against the business as usual. 25:27.202 --> 25:38.757 [SPEAKER_01]: The thing about is, when it comes to the accusation that these men are disturbing our city or even these men are serving to the most high God, we can't resist the accusation, we got to embrace it. 25:40.299 --> 25:42.422 [SPEAKER_01]: Reason why it's proof that you're making an impact. 25:43.388 --> 26:02.056 [SPEAKER_01]: Let me keep reading verse twenty five after about midnight Paul and silence were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them and suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's bonds were unfassened 26:02.716 --> 26:08.960 [SPEAKER_01]: When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself. 26:09.440 --> 26:15.704 [SPEAKER_01]: Supposing that the prisoners had escaped, but Paul cried out in a loud voice, do not harm yourselves for we are all here. 26:15.744 --> 26:18.825 [SPEAKER_01]: I want you to call back to this from before. 26:18.865 --> 26:20.867 [SPEAKER_01]: Remember when Jesus was in the tomb? 26:21.907 --> 26:26.508 [SPEAKER_01]: And there was a big controversy where the guys were like, we got to come up with a lie. 26:27.288 --> 26:31.970 [SPEAKER_01]: Because there's no way that we had this big tomb rolled away. 26:32.030 --> 26:36.051 [SPEAKER_01]: And we got to come up with something, some lie we got to tell, pile it in them. 26:36.291 --> 26:45.453 [SPEAKER_01]: To come up with a lie about how he was able to get out of the tomb, we can't say that some angels showed up and kicked our butts and Jesus walked out. 26:46.713 --> 26:48.114 [SPEAKER_01]: like he had never been dead in the first place. 26:48.374 --> 26:51.355 [SPEAKER_01]: We gotta come up with something because this is gonna cost us our lives. 26:52.055 --> 26:57.197 [SPEAKER_01]: If we don't come up with some reasonable lie, this jailer kind of the same mindset. 26:58.058 --> 27:08.181 [SPEAKER_01]: No one's gonna believe that our earthquake happened in such way that it opened all of the, all of the prison torrents and all of them were free and it released the bonds from their hands. 27:08.662 --> 27:14.644 [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody's gonna believe that I mine as well just follow my own sword because my life's over anyway. 27:16.592 --> 27:18.134 [SPEAKER_01]: That's what happened. 27:19.415 --> 27:30.447 [SPEAKER_01]: Paul inside it's that they've been beaten and chained and the response wasn't to sit there and talk about how terrible this life followed Jesus where it's led them Paul at this point. 27:31.168 --> 27:35.213 [SPEAKER_01]: He's probably so used to getting like punished for this mission. 27:36.389 --> 27:47.777 [SPEAKER_01]: Remember at the very beginning of this, where Anna Nias is appeared to, and this is the guy who shared, who got sent a Paul to go and talk to you. 27:48.457 --> 27:52.280 [SPEAKER_01]: And Anna Nias is like, hey, this guy's Saul, Saul at the time. 27:54.041 --> 27:54.961 [SPEAKER_01]: He's kind of famous. 27:55.762 --> 27:57.263 [SPEAKER_01]: He's famous for killing us. 27:58.504 --> 28:04.748 [SPEAKER_01]: He's the guy that, all of my brothers and sisters in the faith are scared of, because he's been persecuting and hunting us. 28:05.782 --> 28:07.363 [SPEAKER_01]: This is a guy you want me to share Jesus with. 28:07.663 --> 28:09.365 [SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember what we said to Ananias? 28:09.825 --> 28:15.169 [SPEAKER_01]: He said, let me, I will show Paul how much he will suffer for my sake. 28:16.991 --> 28:20.293 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, the gospel is going to be taken around the world on his shoulders. 28:21.254 --> 28:22.395 [SPEAKER_01]: He's going to do the legwork for it. 28:24.256 --> 28:25.097 [SPEAKER_01]: But it's going to cost him. 28:27.839 --> 28:32.463 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like how many times have we read this part of Saul's story, Paul's story? 28:33.502 --> 28:36.984 [SPEAKER_01]: But he's in jail, he's stripped naked and he's beat up. 28:39.666 --> 28:42.427 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if I have it in me. 28:43.168 --> 28:54.455 [SPEAKER_01]: I think about Paul and I'm like, I don't know if I have it in me, the resiliency that he has constantly being beat up for his faith, constantly taking a hit after hit after hit. 28:57.018 --> 29:01.402 [SPEAKER_01]: Last year, sometimes Cole's soccer team. 29:01.422 --> 29:02.123 [SPEAKER_01]: This isn't about Cole. 29:02.423 --> 29:03.364 [SPEAKER_01]: He's just having a different sort. 29:04.845 --> 29:12.291 [SPEAKER_01]: Cole is playing his club team plays at a metalwood park, and where his field is, it looks over to the football field. 29:13.012 --> 29:14.293 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a youth football game. 29:15.014 --> 29:19.238 [SPEAKER_01]: Has anybody ever watched a youth football game before, like, ten or eleven year olds? 29:20.319 --> 29:21.640 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a terrible experience, isn't it? 29:22.810 --> 29:25.271 [SPEAKER_01]: Because this is every youth football game, tell me I'm a liar. 29:25.411 --> 29:30.672 [SPEAKER_01]: There's one team that's prepared and they look, they don't look ten or eleven, they look fifteen, sixteen. 29:31.393 --> 29:36.174 [SPEAKER_01]: And there's another team where all the parents are like, we don't play football, it's not safe. 29:36.434 --> 29:38.175 [SPEAKER_01]: So there's like only like eleven kids there. 29:39.215 --> 29:43.199 [SPEAKER_01]: And that was what we're trying to look over there and just see like a kid on the ground, like hurt. 29:43.800 --> 29:47.103 [SPEAKER_01]: You're like kids, like just lay it on the ground, look at the sky. 29:47.743 --> 29:55.151 [SPEAKER_01]: And it was just like, every play, every time the whistle, like blue, our eyes were training, like look for the kid on the field. 29:55.211 --> 30:01.096 [SPEAKER_01]: And here comes the coach, just getting his laps in, put a kid over, shoulder and walk them back over to the sideline. 30:01.697 --> 30:02.717 [SPEAKER_01]: And then they play the next play. 30:02.977 --> 30:04.378 [SPEAKER_01]: And then here comes the coach back in. 30:04.398 --> 30:05.938 [SPEAKER_01]: They're looking at the kid that was hurt the last play. 30:05.958 --> 30:07.439 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you gotta go in, Timmy. 30:07.979 --> 30:09.059 [SPEAKER_01]: Timmy's like, I don't want to go for it. 30:09.119 --> 30:11.320 [SPEAKER_01]: It's because it's one of like, eleven kids there. 30:12.140 --> 30:12.700 [SPEAKER_01]: And he's just taking it. 30:12.820 --> 30:17.962 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm throwing it up like, I want to know how many kids said, mom, sum it up for checkers. 30:18.322 --> 30:19.082 [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean? 30:20.262 --> 30:22.563 [SPEAKER_01]: Cause I can't, I'm not going to be Patrick Mohomes. 30:22.703 --> 30:24.924 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not like, I can't take this anymore. 30:24.964 --> 30:28.725 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I need a sport where I'm not getting hit every seven seconds. 30:29.875 --> 30:33.878 [SPEAKER_01]: I just wonder, like, I wonder if that feels like, if Paul ever had a moment like that. 30:34.398 --> 30:38.281 [SPEAKER_01]: Like for me, if I was Paul, that's what I would have been feeling like in the jail. 30:38.321 --> 30:39.542 [SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't be ready for worship. 30:40.083 --> 30:42.705 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna be ready to be like praying to God in the middle of the night. 30:43.085 --> 30:49.630 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sitting there like, this is the third time in the last year that I'd been naked, beaten up, and in jail. 30:50.871 --> 30:52.212 [SPEAKER_01]: For doing what God called me to do. 30:54.874 --> 30:57.676 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, like, I need, frankly, 30:58.897 --> 30:59.797 [SPEAKER_01]: And pastor, no pastor. 31:00.218 --> 31:03.439 [SPEAKER_01]: I need a little bit of earthly affirmation that I'm going the right way. 31:05.140 --> 31:06.361 [SPEAKER_01]: I need that. 31:07.462 --> 31:12.104 [SPEAKER_01]: I need a little light at the end of the tunnel if I'm going to keep doing this. 31:13.525 --> 31:14.185 [SPEAKER_01]: Anybody else agree with me? 31:14.245 --> 31:18.788 [SPEAKER_01]: If I'm going to be suffering like this, I need a little bit of a light at the end of the tunnel. 31:19.228 --> 31:21.029 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not ready for worship at midnight. 31:22.750 --> 31:25.771 [SPEAKER_01]: What you think about that midnight as a metaphor? 31:27.312 --> 31:28.373 [SPEAKER_01]: Have you had a midnight lately? 31:29.963 --> 31:35.404 [SPEAKER_01]: Here's what I mean, like, in my science grade, I didn't take Jen's class, middle schoolers. 31:35.844 --> 31:37.204 [SPEAKER_01]: Midnight's when it's supposed to be the darkest. 31:38.985 --> 31:39.405 [SPEAKER_01]: Right or wrong? 31:39.945 --> 31:41.385 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it just makes a real up. 31:41.505 --> 31:43.566 [SPEAKER_01]: The science people in the room are looking at me, you know? 31:43.586 --> 31:46.046 [SPEAKER_01]: It's supposed to be the darkest at midnight. 31:47.847 --> 31:59.429 [SPEAKER_01]: And here Paul and Silas are, when it's the darkest, when they're in jail, when they're still like, probably dealing with broken ribs, cuts, scrapes, 32:00.811 --> 32:07.394 [SPEAKER_01]: probably cold at midnight when it's as dark as. 32:08.174 --> 32:10.835 [SPEAKER_01]: That's when they're reaching out to the God that they just got their own in jail for. 32:12.556 --> 32:19.278 [SPEAKER_01]: That's when the songs that they would have learned, that they would have shared with all the churches that they helped plant it and encouraged. 32:20.179 --> 32:22.620 [SPEAKER_01]: That would have been like when they start singing those songs again. 32:25.100 --> 32:26.181 [SPEAKER_01]: You guys know what midnight's like? 32:27.958 --> 32:33.801 [SPEAKER_01]: Midnight is the fears in the stress and the anxiety that pops up at midnight. 32:36.263 --> 32:44.668 [SPEAKER_01]: Midnight is usually when you have the most time, I'm talking to every mom in the room right now, where it's just you up. 32:46.469 --> 32:50.951 [SPEAKER_01]: And when you're alone at midnight, that's when it feels the heaviest. 32:53.252 --> 32:53.953 [SPEAKER_01]: You ever had a midnight? 32:57.122 --> 33:07.644 [SPEAKER_01]: Men, dads, and the rooms, you know what this is like when finances and things aren't all lined up and you don't have it answered yet and you're trying to figure out the answer before you go and talk to your wife about it. 33:09.805 --> 33:13.346 [SPEAKER_01]: Have you had a midnight? 33:13.586 --> 33:18.747 [SPEAKER_01]: Midnight's the point in time like students where you have so much you got to get done. 33:20.008 --> 33:25.531 [SPEAKER_01]: project, personal life, I gotta go to work, I gotta do this, and it's all stacked on top of each other. 33:25.951 --> 33:35.276 [SPEAKER_01]: And all you could think about is that I should have done this better, how did I figure this out, how did I get this position, I'm so stupid for allowing this to all pile up and I'm dealing with it all at the same time. 33:35.857 --> 33:37.277 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's only on me to deal with it. 33:38.118 --> 33:41.640 [SPEAKER_01]: Like this is my responsibility, this is all of mine, and I have to deal with it. 33:41.960 --> 33:43.561 [SPEAKER_01]: I wonder if you've had a midnight. 33:49.400 --> 33:52.701 [SPEAKER_01]: Midnight is when people are dying. 33:55.702 --> 33:56.762 [SPEAKER_01]: And you got to deal with it. 33:59.702 --> 34:03.123 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, when you're no longer the kid, but you're the adult. 34:06.704 --> 34:08.104 [SPEAKER_01]: And you don't know how you're going to deal with it. 34:08.164 --> 34:09.925 [SPEAKER_01]: And you don't know how you're going to encourage people. 34:09.945 --> 34:11.865 [SPEAKER_01]: Are you going to tell your kids about it? 34:11.905 --> 34:13.526 [SPEAKER_01]: Are you going to help other people to deal with it? 34:13.566 --> 34:14.166 [SPEAKER_01]: Have you had that? 34:19.805 --> 34:22.987 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what it's like specifically, but I'm sure you've had that. 34:23.967 --> 34:25.948 [SPEAKER_01]: You've had the heaviness. 34:26.529 --> 34:30.311 [SPEAKER_01]: They didn't just throw them in jail, they threw them in the intermost jail. 34:30.851 --> 34:31.992 [SPEAKER_01]: They're really in the thick of it. 34:32.432 --> 34:38.315 [SPEAKER_01]: It's not just them there, but they're surrounded by other people that are going through it at well, at the same time. 34:41.720 --> 35:00.276 [SPEAKER_01]: And Paul and Silas did something that I would, I would love to tell you that when God wakes me up in a middle of the night, and I'm like, sometimes it's like, hey, Dana's time to go get on our knees and pray, and sometimes it's like the stress and the heaviness of the world of my life of all of everything that's going on, like it just, I can't sleep long enough. 35:00.897 --> 35:02.478 [SPEAKER_01]: I love to pretend like it's always spiritual. 35:03.038 --> 35:04.780 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, the Lord is welcoming up at three a.m. 35:05.160 --> 35:06.301 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's go to the Lord and pray. 35:06.521 --> 35:06.902 [SPEAKER_01]: I've had those. 35:08.481 --> 35:09.561 [SPEAKER_01]: more often it's the other one. 35:10.262 --> 35:12.282 [SPEAKER_01]: I can't deal with my life right now. 35:12.302 --> 35:14.563 [SPEAKER_01]: I can't deal with everything that's going on. 35:14.583 --> 35:16.484 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't have another choice. 35:19.165 --> 35:20.926 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm filled with it all. 35:22.226 --> 35:28.849 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm grieved by what's happening in my church and my family and my life and I'm just up. 35:31.310 --> 35:31.910 [SPEAKER_01]: That's midnight. 35:34.266 --> 35:42.810 [SPEAKER_01]: And I would love to be able to tell you that as the pastor of your church that like, that's when I'm turn on the Maverick City music, and I'm ready to go. 35:43.170 --> 35:44.891 [SPEAKER_01]: That's not my midnight. 35:47.412 --> 35:53.694 [SPEAKER_01]: More often than that, it's me telling God that I shouldn't have a midnight. 35:56.655 --> 35:59.837 [SPEAKER_01]: That I've been way too faithful to him to deserve this. 36:01.964 --> 36:16.833 [SPEAKER_01]: It's me telling the God of the universe how he's done a bad job that I've given him everything that I've moved my family that I've committed to his mission that I've given him everything so I don't deserve a midnight. 36:19.935 --> 36:21.116 [SPEAKER_01]: You ever had one of those conversations? 36:25.508 --> 36:40.037 [SPEAKER_01]: I've more often than that when it should have been praise and worship and it should have been praying to the most high God, it's been more of me giving God a review of how he put the wrong person in the innermost jail at midnight. 36:44.880 --> 36:49.483 [SPEAKER_01]: And here's the missed opportunity that I came. 36:50.564 --> 36:54.927 [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't realize that my private worship 36:56.059 --> 36:57.620 [SPEAKER_01]: could have become my public testimony. 37:01.904 --> 37:09.510 [SPEAKER_01]: Paul and Silas are in the middle of jail, surrounded by other inmates for whatever sin or whatever thing that they had done against the Roman government. 37:12.672 --> 37:15.955 [SPEAKER_01]: And while you're going through your midnight, people are listening. 37:18.871 --> 37:28.757 [SPEAKER_01]: There was a couple years back where my kids would have seen me depressed, sad, wearing all the way to the world, more than they would have seen me smile. 37:32.719 --> 37:36.001 [SPEAKER_01]: I was wearing the weight of the midnight. 37:39.303 --> 37:40.423 [SPEAKER_01]: There's points of times where I fall. 37:44.606 --> 37:46.687 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not saying like, fake it till you make it. 37:48.709 --> 37:50.571 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying, like, God allowed it to get dark. 37:52.232 --> 37:55.675 [SPEAKER_01]: And in that moment, in that jail sale, in that midnight. 37:55.695 --> 37:59.498 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's probably the best platform for your testimony. 37:59.939 --> 38:03.542 [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, I'm gonna go through it, but God put me here. 38:03.602 --> 38:04.983 [SPEAKER_01]: He is not forsaken me. 38:06.605 --> 38:08.506 [SPEAKER_01]: He is not forsaken me. 38:08.847 --> 38:11.349 [SPEAKER_01]: He put me here for a purpose. 38:11.449 --> 38:12.390 [SPEAKER_01]: Paul and Silas did this. 38:14.157 --> 38:30.443 [SPEAKER_01]: their loud prayers, their loud worship was heard in a preceded the literal being set free of not just everybody in the jail, but also the jailer. 38:33.464 --> 38:38.686 [SPEAKER_01]: Like you see how this happens, like the acceptance of it. 38:40.920 --> 38:45.941 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like this is why like what we can rescript your like, you know, rejoice when you have trials of many kinds. 38:46.101 --> 38:47.161 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, who wrote that Paul did? 38:48.102 --> 38:49.802 [SPEAKER_01]: Rejoice when you face trials of many kinds. 38:50.562 --> 38:55.683 [SPEAKER_01]: Like Paul got to a point where he realized like, let me get him beat up and strip naked and going through all of this. 38:56.023 --> 39:00.684 [SPEAKER_01]: It comes with a purpose because it's always proceeding somebody being set free. 39:01.644 --> 39:02.965 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm willing to take the hit. 39:03.065 --> 39:08.806 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm willing to go through it because it's going to lead to somebody like someone finding freedom. 39:11.200 --> 39:17.311 [SPEAKER_01]: and like Paul even Peter like he's telling the churches like hey listen like you gotta sit in in a little bit. 39:18.327 --> 39:20.628 [SPEAKER_01]: You just gotta wait and see what happens. 39:20.888 --> 39:21.408 [SPEAKER_01]: Go through it. 39:21.949 --> 39:22.829 [SPEAKER_01]: John wrote about this. 39:22.869 --> 39:29.512 [SPEAKER_01]: He's like little children who are from God. 39:30.552 --> 39:31.513 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna butcher this. 39:31.673 --> 39:31.993 [SPEAKER_01]: Never mind. 39:32.773 --> 39:34.614 [SPEAKER_01]: You are from God. 39:34.674 --> 39:36.835 [SPEAKER_01]: The world did not know Jesus, so it's not gonna know you. 39:37.055 --> 39:39.276 [SPEAKER_01]: There you go. 39:40.076 --> 39:43.097 [SPEAKER_01]: When we face those things, it's connected to who we are. 39:43.137 --> 39:44.498 [SPEAKER_01]: We just gotta sit in it a little bit. 39:46.232 --> 39:48.953 [SPEAKER_01]: It's as hard as it is for you, it's even harder to teach. 39:51.914 --> 40:02.138 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, Chase was trying to pass it slow and test this past summer and like the hardest thing is either the float or the tread water and he's like, well dad, like I just like, how do we make the time go faster? 40:02.278 --> 40:02.679 [SPEAKER_01]: You can't. 40:03.499 --> 40:06.740 [SPEAKER_01]: But you just got away water and you just got to learn how to sit in it. 40:07.180 --> 40:13.643 [SPEAKER_01]: You just got to learn how to do it and then like if you do it, you're going to get to the other side of this and you're going to get what you worked for. 40:16.798 --> 40:17.959 [SPEAKER_01]: And we see this play out, right? 40:18.259 --> 40:18.919 [SPEAKER_01]: Verse twenty nine. 40:20.400 --> 40:24.221 [SPEAKER_01]: And the jailer called for the lights and rushed in and trembling with fear. 40:24.261 --> 40:26.022 [SPEAKER_01]: He fell down before Paul and Silas. 40:26.502 --> 40:30.804 [SPEAKER_01]: Then he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? 40:31.657 --> 40:35.278 [SPEAKER_01]: And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. 40:35.578 --> 40:38.820 [SPEAKER_01]: And they spoke the word of the Lord to Him into all who were in His house. 40:39.340 --> 40:43.882 [SPEAKER_01]: And He took them to the same hour of the night and washed their wounds and He was baptized at once. 40:44.422 --> 40:45.182 [SPEAKER_01]: He and His family. 40:45.642 --> 40:48.303 [SPEAKER_01]: Then He brought them into His house and set food before them. 40:48.603 --> 40:52.325 [SPEAKER_01]: And He rejoiced along with His entire household that He had believed in God. 40:53.406 --> 40:57.649 [SPEAKER_01]: But when it was day, the magistrate sent the police saying, let those men go. 40:58.229 --> 41:02.993 [SPEAKER_01]: And the jailer reported that these words to Paul saying, the magistrates have sent to let you go. 41:03.533 --> 41:05.054 [SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, come out now and go in peace. 41:05.495 --> 41:10.919 [SPEAKER_01]: But Paul said to them, they have beaten us publicly, un condemned to men who are Roman citizens. 41:11.559 --> 41:16.063 [SPEAKER_01]: and have thrown us into prison and do they now throw us out secretly? 41:16.203 --> 41:18.305 [SPEAKER_01]: No, let them come themselves and take us out. 41:18.365 --> 41:24.090 [SPEAKER_01]: The police reported these words to the magistrates and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens. 41:24.571 --> 41:26.732 [SPEAKER_01]: This is going to be addressed later in the book of Romans. 41:27.533 --> 41:31.437 [SPEAKER_01]: So they came and apologized to them and they took them out and asked in the leave of city. 41:32.037 --> 41:37.262 [SPEAKER_01]: So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia and when they had seen the brothers that they encouraged them and departed. 41:39.110 --> 41:44.233 [SPEAKER_01]: earthquake shakes the prison open, pollen silice that could have just left. 41:44.993 --> 41:46.414 [SPEAKER_01]: It could have been, we're free. 41:47.314 --> 41:47.874 [SPEAKER_01]: God fixed it. 41:48.715 --> 41:49.175 [SPEAKER_01]: We're free. 41:50.296 --> 41:50.936 [SPEAKER_01]: This is our out. 41:52.317 --> 41:53.017 [SPEAKER_01]: This is our time. 41:54.578 --> 41:55.358 [SPEAKER_01]: We could have just left. 41:57.259 --> 41:59.860 [SPEAKER_01]: And they, like, just this God view of it. 42:01.301 --> 42:02.902 [SPEAKER_01]: You and I, I wonder, like, 42:04.310 --> 42:15.937 [SPEAKER_01]: after being beaten several times, after being in jail several times, that could have seemed like the outs, but they had a view of it that if we stay, this could mean the freedom for somebody else. 42:18.818 --> 42:24.101 [SPEAKER_01]: Are you willing to say when freedom is available, physical freedom? 42:25.302 --> 42:26.322 [SPEAKER_01]: Are you willing to stay in it? 42:27.703 --> 42:28.704 [SPEAKER_01]: When you have an outs, 42:30.133 --> 42:30.673 [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to go. 42:31.374 --> 42:33.115 [SPEAKER_01]: When I was thinking about this, I thought about a lease. 42:33.155 --> 42:36.858 [SPEAKER_01]: If you were here, we had one of the missionaries that we support, at least claw-witter. 42:37.578 --> 42:43.482 [SPEAKER_01]: And I never thought of somebody who could have had a clear word out from her ministry. 42:44.823 --> 42:45.504 [SPEAKER_01]: She has cancer. 42:46.804 --> 42:50.787 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, cancer that it's progressing again, right? 42:51.508 --> 42:58.953 [SPEAKER_01]: And as she spoke, like, well, I don't know when she first told us about our diagnosis, I was one of the passes that supporters says, hey, at least, maybe it's time just to go home. 43:00.377 --> 43:03.118 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, your parents have been on the mission field for, for forty years. 43:03.598 --> 43:05.238 [SPEAKER_01]: And mom's gonna take you to the appointments. 43:06.318 --> 43:13.360 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, good job, but it's kind of like the picture who's gone like seven innings and, you know, how do all these strikeouts? 43:13.420 --> 43:16.141 [SPEAKER_01]: And the manager comes out and says, hey bud, good game. 43:16.681 --> 43:17.441 [SPEAKER_01]: Give us the ball. 43:17.841 --> 43:19.021 [SPEAKER_01]: Let me send my closers in. 43:19.162 --> 43:20.002 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's wrap this thing up. 43:21.842 --> 43:29.084 [SPEAKER_01]: And I just sat here and I felt convicted because I was one of the pastors I said, we will, you know, like, like, nobody's gonna be mad at you. 43:30.127 --> 43:31.268 [SPEAKER_01]: If you just slow down a bit. 43:34.189 --> 43:36.451 [SPEAKER_01]: You can leave. 43:37.371 --> 43:38.972 [SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to stay on mission here. 43:39.332 --> 43:40.133 [SPEAKER_01]: It's gotten too tough. 43:43.395 --> 43:45.956 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you guys heard the same testimony and report that I did. 43:47.017 --> 43:47.877 [SPEAKER_01]: That's not our story. 43:50.259 --> 43:50.839 [SPEAKER_01]: Paul and saw this. 43:51.219 --> 43:51.980 [SPEAKER_01]: Chains are gone. 43:53.441 --> 43:57.303 [SPEAKER_01]: Jail sales are open and they stayed. 43:59.000 --> 44:04.788 [SPEAKER_01]: And because they stayed, they had probably one of the easiest evangelism opportunities. 44:04.928 --> 44:08.313 [SPEAKER_01]: Someone out far from Guy Kennedy says, what do I got to do to be saved? 44:10.857 --> 44:11.498 [SPEAKER_01]: Because they stayed. 44:13.611 --> 44:14.532 [SPEAKER_01]: I want you to think about that. 44:14.552 --> 44:20.519 [SPEAKER_01]: I want you to think about how the people that you know that you love and you care deeply about that are far from God. 44:21.360 --> 44:24.584 [SPEAKER_01]: And you're like, how do I do deductive reasoning with them? 44:24.664 --> 44:26.506 [SPEAKER_01]: How do I change their mind? 44:26.546 --> 44:28.568 [SPEAKER_01]: How do I make them more open to the gospel? 44:29.109 --> 44:29.469 [SPEAKER_01]: How do I? 44:29.509 --> 44:29.970 [SPEAKER_01]: How do I? 44:30.470 --> 44:34.215 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think sometimes God is saying, are you willing to sit in it? 44:36.817 --> 44:41.118 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't need you to go watch a million podcasts how to argue somebody to Jesus. 44:41.538 --> 44:43.978 [SPEAKER_01]: I need you to sit in the jail sale even when the chains are gone. 44:46.159 --> 44:50.780 [SPEAKER_01]: How many times have you dealt with somebody that is far from God and you see your outs? 44:51.980 --> 44:55.201 [SPEAKER_01]: You're like, man, it bothers me. 44:56.081 --> 44:57.121 [SPEAKER_01]: They're too oppressive. 44:57.241 --> 44:58.001 [SPEAKER_01]: They're too dark. 44:58.041 --> 45:01.162 [SPEAKER_01]: They hate my faith. 45:01.602 --> 45:04.903 [SPEAKER_01]: They hate so much of what I stand for and this is an easy out. 45:08.714 --> 45:11.536 [SPEAKER_01]: You may miss your opportunity to be a part of their testimony. 45:12.697 --> 45:17.400 [SPEAKER_01]: And not just my name recognition, could God use you in that way if you're willing to sit in it just a little bit longer. 45:18.841 --> 45:19.381 [SPEAKER_01]: Chains are gone. 45:20.602 --> 45:21.582 [SPEAKER_01]: You have the door that's open. 45:21.703 --> 45:22.063 [SPEAKER_01]: You can go. 45:23.304 --> 45:23.644 [SPEAKER_01]: It's there. 45:25.045 --> 45:29.728 [SPEAKER_01]: But if you're willing to stay there a little bit longer and sit in it, see what God could do. 45:33.891 --> 45:37.393 [SPEAKER_01]: The Jailer is about to take his own life and Paul intervenes and says, we're all still here. 45:38.692 --> 45:40.893 [SPEAKER_01]: They chose the jailer's salvation over their own freedom. 45:42.314 --> 45:44.055 [SPEAKER_01]: Guys, people don't just need to hear your words. 45:44.095 --> 45:46.096 [SPEAKER_01]: They need to know your with them and for them. 45:49.158 --> 45:50.219 [SPEAKER_01]: Here's our big idea, guys. 45:50.459 --> 46:02.025 [SPEAKER_01]: When we think about this whole episode of Paul and Salah's journey, we have to flip our idea of how we receive accusations and how we receive the condemnation the world gives us. 46:02.065 --> 46:03.806 [SPEAKER_01]: We got to embrace the accusation. 46:04.987 --> 46:05.648 [SPEAKER_01]: You got to embrace it. 46:05.668 --> 46:06.368 [SPEAKER_01]: You got to sit in it. 46:07.389 --> 46:07.909 [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to happen. 46:09.573 --> 46:12.254 [SPEAKER_01]: This is the captain and you're playing sand. 46:12.474 --> 46:15.034 [SPEAKER_01]: We're about to drive through some turbulence and you got to deal with it. 46:15.614 --> 46:16.915 [SPEAKER_01]: Put the seat belt on. 46:17.775 --> 46:19.975 [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be rocky for the next fifteen, twenty minutes. 46:20.475 --> 46:22.476 [SPEAKER_01]: No, we're not going to try to fly around it. 46:22.936 --> 46:26.077 [SPEAKER_01]: No, it's just going to be bumpy. 46:26.957 --> 46:28.997 [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be uncomfortable if you're trying to get some sleep, sorry. 46:29.017 --> 46:33.798 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to get some sleep for the next few minutes or hours. 46:34.678 --> 46:36.779 [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be bumpy and you're willing to embrace it. 46:39.765 --> 46:47.031 [SPEAKER_01]: Two of the accusations that we saw on the story were, these men are servants of the most high God, and that these men are disturbing our city. 46:48.492 --> 46:57.259 [SPEAKER_01]: The world may poke at you in, like, use the word Christian as a, as not as a compliment, as an accusation, as a, as a derogatory word. 46:58.820 --> 47:01.843 [SPEAKER_01]: They may use their word Christian in a loaded way. 47:04.705 --> 47:07.167 [SPEAKER_01]: And people may just say, like, it would just be better if you weren't here. 47:09.705 --> 47:21.633 [SPEAKER_01]: And honestly, not in a way that we're jerks, not in a way that it gives us the license to judge the world or to put anybody in the hell that we have no authority to do. 47:23.815 --> 47:25.456 [SPEAKER_01]: But I think we've got to embrace the accusation. 47:25.476 --> 47:28.478 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm a servant of God. 47:30.339 --> 47:31.920 [SPEAKER_01]: This is my job. 47:34.942 --> 47:38.204 [SPEAKER_01]: I will serve him and tell him no longer here that I'm going to serve him on the other side of heaven. 47:39.911 --> 47:41.032 [SPEAKER_01]: The accusation is correct. 47:43.335 --> 47:45.118 [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I'm here to disturb the city. 47:46.159 --> 47:47.461 [SPEAKER_01]: God's called us the Baltimore County. 47:49.260 --> 47:54.482 [SPEAKER_01]: I hope when I'm dead and gone, they could say that I did something significant here for the sake of the kingdom. 47:54.602 --> 47:55.583 [SPEAKER_01]: I hope it's disturbed. 47:56.163 --> 48:01.185 [SPEAKER_01]: Not in the way that brings, you know, disgrace to the name of Jesus Christ. 48:01.745 --> 48:04.706 [SPEAKER_01]: But in a way that disturbs it from what the world would be if we weren't here. 48:04.726 --> 48:10.269 [SPEAKER_01]: Immediately on, we've been talking to city officials and folks trying to help us find the building more on that soon. 48:10.849 --> 48:18.112 [SPEAKER_01]: But one of the things that we've said to folks is that one of the goals of our church is that we like no longer existed. 48:19.027 --> 48:20.548 [SPEAKER_01]: The community here would miss us. 48:22.029 --> 48:22.829 [SPEAKER_01]: That's disturbance. 48:25.451 --> 48:34.996 [SPEAKER_01]: I had to correct my soccer team the other day because, you know, we were passing out jerseys and Joe Corrini's jersey came out and they were treating it like an idol, Joe sitting over here by the way. 48:35.696 --> 48:38.898 [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, hey guys, we're not gonna make an idol out of Joe Corrini. 48:39.298 --> 48:39.598 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay. 48:40.279 --> 48:41.279 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he scored a bunch of goals. 48:41.579 --> 48:41.980 [SPEAKER_01]: He's great. 48:43.060 --> 48:43.801 [SPEAKER_01]: But he ain't here. 48:45.702 --> 48:46.302 [SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna miss him. 48:46.502 --> 48:46.902 [SPEAKER_01]: Don't care. 48:50.246 --> 48:51.706 [SPEAKER_01]: We just can't make an eye in my line. 48:51.746 --> 48:52.386 [SPEAKER_01]: I've been that happened. 48:52.586 --> 48:57.107 [SPEAKER_01]: I just, like, I want that to be our church. 48:58.348 --> 49:05.549 [SPEAKER_01]: That if we were no longer here, the impact that we make from the people around us and where we live matters, long term. 49:05.969 --> 49:13.311 [SPEAKER_01]: So that if we no longer resisted the people, like, man, like, what are we having to church that, that, like, that did stuff? 49:14.051 --> 49:15.951 [SPEAKER_01]: That's how all these churches are inviting us to their stuff. 49:15.971 --> 49:17.112 [SPEAKER_01]: We actually gotta go and do something. 49:18.492 --> 49:19.312 [SPEAKER_01]: That needs to be who we are. 49:21.523 --> 49:25.466 [SPEAKER_01]: Let me close with this before we transition over into taking off the bread in the cup. 49:27.467 --> 49:30.829 [SPEAKER_01]: People need to know you're with them and know that you're for them. 49:32.611 --> 49:35.032 [SPEAKER_01]: People need to know that you're with them and that you're for them. 49:35.052 --> 49:36.113 [SPEAKER_01]: In verse twenty eight it says that. 49:36.393 --> 49:42.417 [SPEAKER_01]: But Paul cried out with the loud voice, do not harm yourself for we are all here. 49:44.789 --> 49:49.032 [SPEAKER_01]: In the jailer called for lights and rushed in and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. 49:49.612 --> 49:52.694 [SPEAKER_01]: Then he brought them out and he said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? 49:53.975 --> 49:55.516 [SPEAKER_01]: This does not happen if they're not there. 49:58.197 --> 50:01.259 [SPEAKER_01]: People in your life are going through something. 50:04.479 --> 50:08.521 [SPEAKER_01]: If you have a choice to be with them and be for them, you gotta be there. 50:09.182 --> 50:10.903 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, it's always gonna be inconvenient. 50:11.783 --> 50:13.464 [SPEAKER_01]: It's always gonna feel like extra. 50:13.784 --> 50:20.208 [SPEAKER_01]: I promise you, you're never gonna have the opportunity to share Jesus with somebody that's gonna fit perfectly in your life. 50:20.228 --> 50:21.248 [SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna have to go out of your way. 50:22.249 --> 50:27.792 [SPEAKER_01]: I say this as a youth pastor who had to drop people off after events where nobody is on my way home. 50:27.852 --> 50:30.253 [SPEAKER_01]: I gotta drive thirty minutes just to get this kid home. 50:30.874 --> 50:31.534 [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I'm saying? 50:31.754 --> 50:32.755 [SPEAKER_01]: It's always out of the way. 50:34.718 --> 50:35.499 [SPEAKER_01]: things out of the way. 50:36.740 --> 50:41.844 [SPEAKER_01]: But if you choose to sit there, it's going to change somebody's life. 50:43.185 --> 50:44.306 [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to change your family's life. 50:45.827 --> 50:46.227 [SPEAKER_01]: Did you read? 50:46.368 --> 50:47.529 [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to change their family's life. 50:47.689 --> 50:48.529 [SPEAKER_01]: Did you hear what happened? 50:48.709 --> 50:52.112 [SPEAKER_01]: They said that there was a man, a jailer. 50:53.193 --> 50:59.018 [SPEAKER_01]: Because he came to know Jesus, his household came to New Jesus and would be baptized. 51:00.568 --> 51:18.876 [SPEAKER_01]: He had a undeniable experience with the godly universe, with the earth quake, and this apostle and silenced, they had this undeniable experience that they couldn't shake, they couldn't ignore. 51:18.896 --> 51:24.659 [SPEAKER_01]: That led him to ask, what are I got to do to be saved? 51:27.899 --> 51:30.201 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I can't deny that this happened. 51:30.521 --> 51:31.221 [SPEAKER_01]: It was midnight. 51:33.162 --> 51:35.444 [SPEAKER_01]: Remember, it was midnight for the jailer, too. 51:35.464 --> 51:38.726 [SPEAKER_01]: He had not done his job. 51:39.206 --> 51:41.027 [SPEAKER_01]: Everything had went wrong in earthquake. 51:41.087 --> 51:46.870 [SPEAKER_01]: It caused him to appoint where he thought he considered taking his own life because of what happened. 51:47.691 --> 51:51.693 [SPEAKER_01]: And at his midnight, luckily there was a follower of Jesus there. 51:54.727 --> 51:55.908 [SPEAKER_01]: You may be going through midnight. 51:56.648 --> 51:57.789 [SPEAKER_01]: You may be going through a hard time. 51:59.170 --> 51:59.871 [SPEAKER_01]: My elders know this. 52:00.351 --> 52:03.933 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't like the only thing that's good about October is that this is the month my wife was born in. 52:04.314 --> 52:06.355 [SPEAKER_01]: I can't like I struggle in October. 52:07.055 --> 52:17.903 [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's almost September and I'm looking at October like a cloud of like darkness coming because it's just when I know the enemy attacks me the most is when I feel the most stress is the hardest part of my year every year. 52:20.685 --> 52:22.106 [SPEAKER_01]: Lost my dad in October. 52:24.842 --> 52:26.443 [SPEAKER_01]: It's just a hard time for me. 52:28.565 --> 52:45.536 [SPEAKER_01]: But I know that in the midst of October, God's got assignments and he, if I would just be willing to sit and it just a little bit longer, not only will he be there with me, if I'm willing to pray and praise my way through it, I have the opportunity to help somebody else find freedom. 52:48.118 --> 52:49.119 [SPEAKER_01]: But I gotta be willing to sit there. 52:51.520 --> 52:52.381 [SPEAKER_01]: Here's my challenge for us. 52:54.404 --> 53:00.389 [SPEAKER_01]: Who around you needs you to stay in your prison a little bit longer so they can find freedom? 53:02.811 --> 53:04.573 [SPEAKER_01]: Are you trying to rush out of the season that you're in? 53:06.835 --> 53:08.336 [SPEAKER_01]: Trying to get to the other side of it quickly? 53:10.518 --> 53:12.940 [SPEAKER_01]: Trying to find the release so that it doesn't hurt anymore? 53:16.081 --> 53:17.502 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not telling you not to do anything. 53:18.142 --> 53:19.103 [SPEAKER_01]: Work through your problems. 53:19.703 --> 53:20.984 [SPEAKER_01]: Hope for God's provision. 53:21.744 --> 53:22.145 [SPEAKER_01]: Do that. 53:22.645 --> 53:23.365 [SPEAKER_01]: They did leave jail. 53:23.385 --> 53:25.246 [SPEAKER_01]: There's a next chapter you're going to see it. 53:25.286 --> 53:25.687 [SPEAKER_01]: I promise. 53:27.588 --> 53:32.311 [SPEAKER_01]: But if you don't rush, you can see how much God can use you in the place where you're at. 53:34.332 --> 53:34.532 [SPEAKER_01]: Amen? 53:36.466 --> 53:42.331 [SPEAKER_00]: You just listen to a message from Dan Carroway, the pastor of Church at the Well and Telsen, Maryland. 53:42.691 --> 53:51.698 [SPEAKER_00]: To learn more about our church and to support what we're doing in the greater Baltimore area, visit our website, thewellbaltimore.com. 53:52.238 --> 53:55.941 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for tuning in to the sermon podcast from Church at the Well. 53:56.522 --> 53:57.783 [SPEAKER_00]: May God bless you.