>> Good morning. Good morning, church. Let's stand and begin our worship. ("This is Amazing Grace" playing. ) ♫ All that You've done for me ♫ ♫ All that You've done for me ♫ >> Steve: It is His amazing grace. Would you bow with me? Father, thank You for this beautiful morning. Father, thank You for Your incredible love, Your unending mercy, and Your amazing grace, Father. Touch our hearts this morning. Help us to listen; help us to be still and hear Your voice this morning and touch our hearts. We pray this in Jesus' Name. Amen. (glorious Day Living He Loved Me" playing.) >> Shane: Amen! Yes! Amen! You guys have a seat. We're gonna take communion now. We get to celebrate what Jesus has done for us and so if you have not gotten the cup and the bread, they're in lobby or table in the back of the room. You're welcome to get those. But let's turn our thoughts to Jesus on the cross. Tommy and Tate Waldron will lead us now. Thanks, guys. >> Tommy: Good morning, church. Tate will lead us in prayer. >> Tate: Please pray with me. Dear God, thank You for letting us come today and worship You, Father. Let us take this time to remember all the things You have done for us. As we prepare to take the Lord's Is upper, help us to remembering the sacrifice YourSton made for us. As we take the bread, we remember Jesus' broken body and as we take the cup, we remember Jesus' bloodshed for us. As we take this communion, we remember all the mistakes we have made, but we know because of Jesus' sacrifice mull our sins are forgiven. Thank You for loving us so much and sending Your Son to die for us so one day we can live in heaven with You. In Jesus' Name we pray, amen. Please partake in your communion. >> Tommy: This morning's Scripture reading comes from Hebrews 4:14-16. (reading) ("O Come to the Altar" playing.) >> Steve: Sing with me. >> Shane: Amen! Amen! Thank you, guys, for leading us in that -- what a song of worship and praise. How wonderful to be together today to fellowship, to praise the King of kings. I wonder what the Lord will speak to you today through the songs and message and Scripture. What will the Lord tell us? That's wonderful. Well, as we continue our worship, we're gonna pray over our offering. I just want to remind you that you can give, text to give. You can give online. There's offering boxes in the back of the room, too. Would you pray with me as we continue in this worship of giving? Our Father in heaven, we dedicate ourselves to You and these offerings to You, God. We ask that You use these offerings for Your purposes and Your glory. We're humble, God. We're thankful You would call us to partner with You, God, to participate in Your mission to save the world. So God, we thank You for this opportunity to give, and we pray this in the Name of King Jesus. Amen. >> Joel: Amen. Well, good morning, everyone. It is so good to be with you again this wonderful Sunday. We have an illustration and this one is really cool. Not that the other ones aren't, but this is probably one of my favorites that doesn't involve fire. (Laughter) Just so you know -- sorry, no fire today. Well, it is one of those impossible things that makes no sense, and you're just like, "I don't get it. How did that happen?" We just have a piece of newspaper here. And yes, there is no tape, all right? So there you go. All right, what's the spiritual principle that I want to impart? Well, basically we love kids here at First Colony, whether they're young or old. We love them all, and we want you to have a part in this service. This is your church. And today we're going to be talking about the book of Acts and the apostles, Paul and Barnabas. They're gonna go and spread God's Word, but as they do that, they're also going to encounterer opposition. There is a principle as a believer, as one who lives for what is right, you will encounterer opposition. What do you do when you feel like you got cut down? You lift back up to God and unfortunately, there will be more times where you're cut down, but you lift back up to God. Now, our verse today comes to us from Acts 14:22 that says the disciples were in a region and came back to the region and they strengthened the disciples and encouraged them to remain true in the faith. And then they said, "We must go through hardships to enter the kingdom of God." If you're doing it right, you are gonna experience hardships. So I wanted to have something where it got cut and hopefully gets restore. Sometimes if you know, we do our illustrations -- they don't always work as planned, but that's okay. We'll adjust if we need to. So I am cutting this sheet of paper, and then I am opening this sheet of paper because what happens when we get cut? We lift up to God. Now, your you're like, "Okay, Joel, I'm not impressed. There's some trick going on." Dude, it gets worse. We're cutting some more. Wait a minute. What about that? Is that possible? Do we lift up to God when we go through difficult times? No stinkin' way. Well, that's because God's kingdom -- we follow His principle and remain true to the faith and He will strengthen us in Him. We have some verbal individuals with us today and will step back for a moment. >> Thank you for calling me special, Joel. I appreciate that. >> Joel: You know, you're my bud. >> We're introducing our three interns this summer. We're super bless and want to introduce you guys to -- Grant more moore from Tennessee and Hannah from North Carolina. Noah is from San Antonio and is a children's ministry intern. Would you please welcome them to our body? (Applause) they are already in the thick of it. Noah is getting ready for VBS and we're leaving on a mission trip with the middle schoolers to Arm of Hope in Medina. I can't wait for student and kids to meet them. Give them one more round of apply. Thank you, guys! >> Shane: All right. Well, we are gonna now release the kids from grades one through five -- Ms. Danelle is in the back as we have house lights up a bit. You'll see her. Kids grades one through five, follow Ms. Danielle to the chapel. There's a kiosk if you have not checked your kids in. Go to Main Street Live! Kids worship time. To our bests, we're glad you're here, whether this is your first time to come or have been visiting us for a while. There is a QR code in front of you. You can fill that out and if you have a prayer request, if there's -- if you want to get in a group and learn more about our church, however we can connect with you. Everyone, you will notice there's the physical Connection cards as well and if you fill those out -- guests, I would love if you would take them across the lobby to give us at the "New Here? Start Here." Room. We won't take up much time. We would love to chat and give you a book as a gift. Everyone watching online, please hop on the chat and say hello and let us meet us there. If not, we would love to visit with you there. Let's stand and have a fellowship greeting together and enjoy this fellowship. "House of the Lord" playing.) ♫ Oh, we'll shout out Your praise ♫ ♫ Oh, oh, oh, we'll shout out Yor praise ♫ >> Kyle: Thank you so much, team. You know, we have applauded quite a bit this morning, but give our worship team another round of applause, please. (Applause) such a blessing to worship with you this morning. Good morning. My name is Kyle and let me welcome those of you in here and welcome those online. By the way, online folks, join the chat and say hi. That will be good for you and good for us. We are in a message series here on Sunday morning from the New Testament book the Acts of the apostles. The message series is call "Position, Mission, and Drama." Today we will be in acts 14 but will start somewhere else in the New Testament. So let's start in another New Testament book, the book of Colossians. I invite you to open to Colossians 1. Colossians is the letter written by Paul and Timothy to the believers in the city of Colossi. If you have not read it, I invite you to rated later today. It's one of my favorite New Testament book and has an unbelievable poetic introduction. The first chapter is just amazing to read. These two guys, Paul and Timothy, make an incredible writing team. When you read Colossians 1, the language just soars off of the page. There is SO much intentionality to every sentence and every word -- tough heard this -- you can read it again and again and again and always find something new and something brilliant. I want to draw your attention to one specific sentence, one specific verse in this introduction. It's Colossians 1:6. Let's read this together. "The gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God's grace." & Now, Paul and Timothy, this incredible writing duo, used two specific words, two adjectives, to describe the impact of the Gospel among the Colossians. There's no surprise here -- you can pick them out. The first is bearing fruit. That's a phrase in the English. In the Greek is one word. The second is growing. Why did they use two words? It's simple. Number one, because one word wasn't enough; and number two, because these two words are completely different words. I want you to remember what I said just a minute or so ago that the author of this letter used intentional words. The letter of the Colossianss wasn't a text message in the middle of the night; there's no thumb tapping, shortcut words, removing the vowels. There's no emojis here. This is specific. This is specific. These two guys thought about the words before they wrote them. Let's look. The first word, again, is a phrase in the English language but in the original language is one word. "Bearing fruit" is intentional. It was written in the original language of this letter in what is known as the middle voice. Now, that's just a fancy, grammatical way of saying that Paul and Timothy believed the Gospel itself bore fruit; that the Gospel performs this action. Let's use some scientific terms here. The Gospel, according to Paul and Timothy, has potential energy. It has stored energy. It's the energy of position by itself, all by itself. It has power. It doesn't need to be transfer or shared to reveal its power. It's not affected by outside forces -- in other words, it's not gonna change. It is THE solid statement that God has an interest in our hearts and the hearts of His creation. He has an interest in our salvation. In fact, Paul said this elsewhere. He said this in Romans 1 where he wrote that the Gospel -- remember this? -- is God's power to save. The Gospel has potential energy and bears fruit on its own. Here's the second adjective because Paul and Timothy didn't stop there. They further described the Gospel as growing. Now, left alone, this is a rather surprising statement because how does the Gospel grow? How does it grow? Again, we don't see their intent very well in our language in the English language because again, they wrote it in the Greek language with specificity and intentionality. So whereas the phrase or the word "Bearing fruit" was written in the middle voice, that the Gospel has power on its own, the word "Growing" is written in the passive voice. Now, that is just a fancy, grammatical way of saying that the Gospel doesn't grow on its own. It actually requires an outside force to grow. It requires people. Again, in scientific terms, people, capable people, reliable witnesses, convert the Gospel's potential energy into kinetic energy. It converts it into the energy of motion from the energy of position. Now, this is worth a pause right here because Paul and Timothy believed something quite scandalous, if not qualified; that the Gospel's growth, that its impact is not due to its message alone. It requires, the Gospel requires partnership with people. It requires a partnership with effective witnesses. In fact, if you have your Bibles still open, you will see this in Colossians 1:7. Paul and Timothy mention the name of this capable, reliable witness to the Colossians; but here's a plot twist here in Colossianss 1:6 -- the Gospel's kinetic energy is NOT just localized. Let's look again. It's global. Let's read this. "The Gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world." Throughout the whole world. The Gospel's kinetic energy is exponentially multiplied. In other words, the impact of the Gospel cannot be qualify with a one plus one equals two equation. The impact of the Gospel can only be with a one plus one equals three equation. Don't miss this. Paul is describing an absolute miracle here. These explosive results CANNOT be explained any other way. In other words, these two variables, the variable of the Gospel and the variable of the believer produces an outcome that is greater than the sum of its parts. The Gospel plus the believer is synergy. This is Paul's equation. What we will do in acts 14, if you have your Bibles you can turn there -- has been we will do is put this equation to the test. Let's read this together. We'll read Acts 14:1-7. "Now at Iconium Paul and barn butmentered together into the Jewish synagogue and poke in such a way -- remember, reliable, capable witnesses -- they spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed." Hold on to that statement. Verse 2. "But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers." So Paul and Barnabas remained for a long time. They had to, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, Granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. Verse 4. "But the people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews and some with the apostles. When an attempt was made by both Gentiles AND Jews with their rulers to miss treat Paul and Barnabas and to stone them -- to kill them -- verse 6. They were going to kill that. Don't miss that.. Wave they learn willed of it and fled to Lstra and Derbe of Lycaonia and surrounding country and there they continued to preach the Gospel." Remember the equations from Colossianss 1:6, that the Gospel plus a capable believer equals synergy. We will put this to the test in what is otherwise a really spartan text; but there's a lot happening. I don't want you to miss it. Let's talk about this. Paul and Barnabas in book of Acts are now in their first church-planting trip AND and Paul and Barnabas walk squarely into the anxieties of time and place and space. Iconium in Acts 14, the first two verses, is a garden city in the desert. It's one of the cities in the region of Galatia. We'll talk about that in a moment. It, Iconium, like the other cities in the region -- in fact like a lot of cities in Rome, were full of people forced to move there by the Roman Empire. That influx of people radically reshaped these communities and identities of entire people groups had been lost. People lived in these cities and in Iconium in a weird, cosmopolitan state of confusion. And all the more so in Iconium. Iconium was a Greek-flavored, cultured city. It was a fish out of water and it was gonna do whatever it had to do to keep the Roman Empire at arms' Lent. And we just saw this here, that in Iconium the politics of identity, they were ready to explode. Paul and Barnabas weren't neutral when they arrived here. In their hands with their words, they converted the potential energy of the Gospel into kinetic energy, into synergy. The message that Jesus of Nazareth died and was resurrected to bring people to God -- even more than that, you and I need this; that message alone is potent. It has potential energy. AND we see this in Iconium -- it also is very incendiary, especially in a place that's already teetering on the edge. So we find after putting this equation to the test, we find that the results of this equation, we find them here in this text that the equation that capable believers convert the Gospel from potential energy to kinetic energy actually gives us two -- two -- very solid and very predictable outcomes. Let's take a look at these. The first is belief. Profound, miraculous belief. Let's read this from Acts 14:1. Now at Iconium, Paul and Barnabas entered together into the Jewish synagogue and they spoke in such a way that a great number -- here's the phrase again -- of both Jews and Greeks believed. They believed; they believed! This is no small statement. The message, the message brought to this city by Paul and Barnabas was a message of unity -- not just any message. It was a message of unity because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. It was a message of unity in a place already divided. Now, you're probably looking in Acts 14 to see where that is; you're not going to find it there. It's not written there in Act and doesn't say that at all. We know this was their message from Paul's follow-up letter to Iconium. We have it in our New Testament, the Book of Galatians. This was Paul's follow-up letter to Iconium and cities of Pisidia Antioch and Lysidia and Derbe. We know when we read the letter of Galatians the content of Paul's message in Iconium. I want you to listen to what he wrote from Galatians 3:26. With for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Remember that phrase? Listen to this. Verse 28. There is neither Jew nor Greek -- there's that phrase again. There's neither slave nor free; there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. People in Iconium believed that message; they believed it. P, that Jews and non-Jewish people, that Jews and Greeks, two different people with two different cultures, two groups of people really culturally at odds with each other, could be united, that these two groups could be united, all experiencing baptism, all accepting that God appointed Jesus of Nazareth as their Savior. This is amazing. It's absolutely amazing, that these two groups of people in a city on the edge could come together in Jesus. Now, we see parodies of this message today. We see the encouragement of unity because of the flag or country or political party or policies or politics. You and I are bombarded with charismatic people and charismatic speeches. We live in a surround-sound environment of cries for unity, yet we seemingly live in a nation that has never been more divided than what it is. In other words, unity is NOT easy, nor is it forced. You can't force this. You and I are living this firsthand; that the Gospel in the hand of Paul and Barnabas can bring disparate peoples together in harmony is miraculous. It's miraculous. There is nothing else like this in the history of the world. So the first outcome of our equation of the energy of the Gospel and its witnesses is belief. That's the first outcome, and it's predictable. You and I know this. Colossianss 1:6 said as much but there's another predictable outcome. This one is fear. We'll start in verse 2 and read the rest from acts 14. "But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their mind against the brothers." "So Paul and Barnabas remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, Granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands." Look at verse 4. "But the people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews and some with the apostles. When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews with their rulers -- with the city government -- to miss treat Paul and Barnabas and to kill them, these two guys learn willed of it and fled, and there they continued to preach the Gospel." To the Jewish people there who were faithful to their culture and to their law -- and in fact the tore groups of people, the other cultures who were faithful to their culture, Paul and Barnabas and the Gospel were fear-provoking insurgents because Paul and Barnabas and the Gospel with the Gospel message threatened to reshape Jewish culture and all the other cultures and rob people of their identity. That's the point of the Gospel. In fact, the threat was so real that it actually spurred a more serious unity in Iconium. Jewish people rallied with Gentiles to crush this message, sworn cultural enemies created an alliance to maintain their status quo. And they used all the weapons they had at their disposal. They used manipulation and deception and violence -- and get this -- even the miracles of the Lord Jesus performed through the hands of Paul and Barnabas were not enough to stop this because the city, Iconium and the groups there, were afraid of losing their identities. Again, people lived in this weird cosmopolitan state of confusion. Whatever it was that made them -- them -- would not be surrendered easily. Listen, you know, that's not too much of a stretch to understand. Moral demand is its own threatening force. If we're honest, many of us are status quo citizens of Iconium. Many of us have created our own social environments, and we've adjusted moral demands to match what we think we're capable of. Like these citizens of Iconium, we have allowed sin to structure our personalities. We have allowed sin to give shape to our habits. We have allowed sin to determine our identities. Many of us have refused, even today, to break the bonds of self-loyalty. And you know what we do? We lash out because we are afraid of the difference that the Gospel makes in our life. we are afraid of surrendering whatever ground of identity we fought to maintain. So here today you know, the same choice that Paul and Barnabas gave to Iconium, giving it to us. It's here for us. Two choices: Believe or continue to live in fear. Believing in the Lord Jesus gives birth to a miraculous change in your life. This is the result of the power of the Gospel of its potential and its kinetic energy. But living in fear of this change will only continue to lead you down a path of despair with unthinkable consequences. Let's re-evaluate this equation again. This equation from Colossians 1:6, this equation that the Gospel in the hands of capable believers is synergy; and let's test it from a different angle. Let's ask this question: What is it about Paul and Barnabas that made the Gospel grow? In other words, why does the Gospel require capable, reliable people? It turns out that Paul actually has a thing for reliable people. I want you to listen to his instructions to Timothy from the last letter of his life. This is from 2 Timothy 2. Listen to what Paul wrote to Timothy. You, then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable -- look at this phrase -- entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. Reliable people, people you can trust. It's obvious that Paul trusted Timothy. Timothy was a reliable witness. Timothy traveled with Paul and Silas, planting churches in Greece and accompanied Paul to Corinth and Ephesus and to jours, and he saw Paul go to jail for the sake of the Gospel. In all, Paul was Timothy's traveling companion and student and disciple for ten years, for a decade. Timothy heard Paul's teaching, and he witnessed a transformed Paul. He noticed that Paul was a reliable witness. He knew it and Paul felt the miraculous change of belief in his own life and he wasn't willing to let the Gospel be placeds in the hand of the window shoppers and Amazon scrollers. I want you to listen to Paul's personal testimony near the end of his life, written also to Timothy from 1 Timothy 1. Look at this amazing verse and statement. Paul wrote, "It even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor -- looked at this phrase -- and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The Gospel. In Paul's hands, with his words, was not a hollow message. It was not in its potential energy; it was transferred and convert into a message that saw people in cities like Iconium believe; or lash out in fear because of its power. And the good news for you today is that you, you can become an integral and effective part of Paul's equation. You can become a reliable witness. You can transfer the potential energy of the Gospel into kinetic energy, and YOU can experience the miraculous synergy with the Lord Jesus at your back. THIS is YOUR Iconium moment. This is the moment where you become a variable of the equation and not just the outcome. Abandon the sin in your life. Experience the up grade that happens with the Gospel. Repent and believe and be baptized in the Name of Jesus and become a part of this equation. Let me invite our prayer leader to come up this morning and pray over us. I want to thank you so much for being with us today and as we pray together in just a moment, I pray we experience the power of the Gospel together. >> Grant: Thank you, Kyle. Let's pray together. God, thank You so much for Your Word; and thank You that we can hear Your Word today and can change us. God, help us to not leave here the same as we came; but God, let us let that seed of the Gospel plant deep in us. God, what might You do if we let that Gospel change us and continue to change us? What might happen to our community if we were to say, "Lord, I'm here; I'm available for service so that Your Gospel can work through me?" God, I pray that we would all be Gospelled today and effected and changed, impacted, and You would work through us to impact this community in our world, God. We're so thankful for that Good News message. We're so thankful, God, that we are saved and that You have put us on that mission to join You. Thank You, God, for Your Word. We pray this in Jesus' Name. Amen. Well, just got a few things before we close today, and I just want to let you know in case you didn't know, we have Bible classes for all age at 9:45 just before this one -- kids; teens; adults; and next week adults, we have a special class in the gym. All the adult classes will be in that gym class with vir July Fry and Justin Thompson of can have life Line Chaplaincy and will talk about caring well. We invite you to join us next Sunday be Nose online, we have a class coming up online at 12:30 with Kyle so we hope you will join us there for the online class. There's a lot of great stuff going on so I encourage you and urge you to look at our website to get all the details; but I do want to tell you VBS begins June 10. We'd love for you to get online and register your kids and register to volunteer if you can. Let's get the Gospel into the hearts of more kids next week, okay? And then Fam Blitz is June 15 at 6:30. It's a high octane, family friendly activity. I tend to show up because it's so much fun and can't stay away; it's so much fun. Everyone invited and is free, no registration. Just be here and you'll enjoy it. The Women in Apologetics Conference is June 9 through 11. Make sure you register for that. Ladies, I think you will be blessed if you're able to attend. A lot of great things and more you can check out on our website so I hope you will do that. Church, let's not leave here as we came; let's let the Gospel change us as we re-enact it this morning. So we have a mission and the Gospel and the will of the Lord go out. Let's sing one more song before we go into that mission. ("House of the Lord" playing.) >> Steve: Sing it with us. ♫ Oh, oh, oh, we'll shout out Your praise ♫ >> Steve: Y'all have a great week! Have a wonderful week! You're dismissed!