We can do that by talking to our neighbor, our schoolmate, our coworker, our relative, and just telling them how much Jesus loves them, sharing with them how much they need Jesus, an opportunity to hand them a track or to to share with them the gospel. We can pray for them. We can pray for our missionaries that we support represented by these flags. We can can give some of what God has given us to help them, but it is a team effort. And it's an effort that we need to be burdened with.

It's an effort that we need to be a part of. I'm sure, brother Poe will tell you a little more about, the mission, ministry that God has called them to, in the coming couple of days. But, they're based in Sebring, Florida. They were in Peru for how long were you in Peru? Fourteen years.

Again, I don't know how we're that old, John. But anyway, fourteen years in Peru, and the Lord called them back here. And what they do now is a ministry that gets the word of God and Sunday school curriculum and helps for pastors and and all kinds of curriculum out to the Spanish speaking world so that they can have many of the same same helps, same curriculum, and, that we do here. And so I'm sure he'll tell you a little more about that at some point, in his ministry, but that is an that is an important ministry. What the Valentines do with get translating the word of God and getting into people's hands is an important ministry as well.

For faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God and we still do appreciate them and I appreciate brother John and I'm going ask him he can come on up at this time. Lay, tell us what the Lord's laid on his heart. Alrighty. Appreciate it. Thank you, pastor Rick.

Alright, it is a joy to be back with you folks. I told Pastor Rick that it's gonna mess me up because I'm usually here for Thanksgiving. And so I'm gonna start thinking it's the wrong month or something like that. So if I refer to Christmas or something, you'll know why I did that. And we're we're not running too late behind on Christmas shopping.

We're just early in the year, so don't let me forget that. Alright. So Debbie was making fun of me when I came up on the platform. I took my stopwatch on my phone and I told her I was going to start it and she said, you ought to set it for thirty minutes and have the alarm go off. I said, no, because then, you know, I can't do that but I'm going to start the timer at, you know, that means absolutely nothing but it's there.

So, I want to thank you folks for your faithful support. You're one of our, I guess, you're our newest supporting church if I'm thinking correctly. No, because Elizabeth's church is but almost newest supporting church and, we just wanna thank you for your faithful support and also wanna thank you. As a matter of fact, you've supported us now for over a year but you've already given us a decrease of our support. So thank you all for that.

Thank you for your faithfulness. Any church can have a lot of things that they can need funding for, and yet you sacrificially give to your missionaries. So we do greatly appreciate that. It's also exciting for me to look up here on the platform and see these flags and the majority of the countries that are represented by these flags, we help minister to through the ministries of EBI. So thankful to the Lord's work, we're able to distribute our materials in every Spanish speaking country.

We can't officially, we can't very successfully do that in Cuba. We can't very successfully do that right now in Venezuela. We try, we get some materials in there, but otherwise, we have a large distribution network and tens of thousands of our books are getting into Latin America every year. And so we just want to thank you for playing a small part of that. We do have a little table at the back if you kind of want to just see the type of books that we publish.

If you're Spanish speaker, you might find them interesting. If you're not Spanish speaker, you might think they're nice looking. So anyway, take a look at those. And then there's some prayer cards back there as well. And an EBI newsletter that was just sent out recently.

It'll kind of give you an idea of some things that we have coming in the days ahead. And I'll try to talk to you a little bit more about our ministry as the weekend progresses. But just thank you so much for your faithful support. And it's always a joy to be back here with you. Take your Bible if you would to Acts chapter three.

Acts chapter three. Now, I gotta admit to you all that I am not much of a superheroes fan. I don't know a whole lot about all these comic book heroes and so forth. I do remember as a little boy watching Superman movies, and one of them, I don't know which one it was, but I do vividly remember him. This kid was at Niagara Falls, and he was leaning back over the railing at Niagara Falls.

Why anyone would do that, don't know. But it made for a great exciting movie moment. And the kid starts to fall and whatever, here comes Superman and he flies down. I hope I had the right song. And he swoops down, and he catches the kid and takes him back safely.

So we think of superheroes like that. As a matter of fact, I suppose because of my childhood, my favorite superhero would have been Wonder Woman. And I always told Debbie, the only other woman that I would have ever married in this world would have been Wonder Woman. But I settled for second best and I got Debbie and now I'm in trouble so y'all pray for me. But you think about, you think, I got something more amazing.

I got amazing woman, Debbie. Y'all still pray for me. But, you know, what is superheroes do? So they did supernatural things. They did exciting things.

They did things and why? It was usually for the good of their country. They were patriotic or they were doing something to help good people. They weren't selfish. They were good people.

Then, of course, you had the other side. You had the villains and usually the villains and see, I don't even know enough about comic heroes to tell you the villains but the villains, what they were trying to do was to meet their own needs. They were selfish. They weren't thinking of others. So today, I want us to kind of think about superheroes and supernatural abilities, and so naturally, we might think of Superman or the Incredible Hulk, and, we might think of those people.

But I want us to think today about our service for the Lord. And are we gonna be using our service for the Lord in an exciting and a powerful way, in a way that can help God, in a way that can help the Lord's work, should say? Or is it gonna be self centered? What is the purpose of our life? Why are we here?

So today, I want us to consider that. Are we a superhero using or using the superpower nature of God for his glory? Or are we not taking advantage of that? So let's kind of think about the supernatural nature of the mission. So here I am a missionary.

It's easy for me to stand up here and talk about missions. But in reality, what I want us to think about this whole weekend is our mission. And I ultimately want us to think about the great commission of Jesus Christ. Now, a lot of times, I've sure you've heard people say it. I've probably said it here myself.

When Christ left, some of the last words that he gave his disciples, we would call that the great commission and he told him to go. We're going to look at that in just a few moments And, I like to say it was the great commission, not the great suggestion. It's not an option for us. If we are believers, if we are followers of Christ, each of us should have a part in this mission that Christ left behind. And I believe I'm gonna show you tonight that I believe there's a supernatural aspect to that.

And often we don't take advantage of that. Now, just to kind of give us an idea, let's kind of just think about the book of acts a little bit. And in the early opening pages of acts, we have this incredible story of the early church and I love the book of Acts. I think for several times I've preached here, I've preached on the book of Acts. I love it because it gives you this real life history of the early church.

It gives us an idea of how the early church was birthed and then it really exemplifies missions. It really gives us models of things that we can follow after. And so the book begins with the resurrected Christ. Christ is still on the Earth in the first pages of this book. And he's been living with.

He's been interacting with his disciples for about forty days. He's been teaching them. He's been interacting and trying to help them to understand and he's been instructing them about the kingdom of God And so early on in the book, he reminds them of something. He offers them something that he's going to promise them. And he they're starting to catch on that Jesus is gonna leave.

He's gonna ascend back up into heaven, but he has promised them something. Anybody know what it was? Who's coming? The Holy Spirit is going to come. And so he's promised this Holy Spirit, sometimes called the comforter.

Another comforter is gonna come, and he's gonna be here even though I'm gonna be gone. And, interestingly enough, the spirit is not just gonna be working among them. He's gonna be in them, and he's gonna be a part of what empowers them to do great work. Now, you don't have to look there because I asked you to turn to acts chapter three. But in Acts chapter one and verse eight, you know this verse very well, but you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and into the uttermost parts of the world or to the earth.

Now it's interesting to me. What is it promised there? After you shall receive power. So this is that supernatural power that I want us to consider when we think about our mission, when we think about the great commission. Now, I see a couple reasons we should be thankful for this verse.

First of all, we should be thankful because we're promised that power. You know what? When I stand in a pulpit, I really do my best to be prepared. When my daughter saw my notes for tonight, she kind of looked a little nervous like how long is my dad going to be up there? It looks pretty long.

So I do my best to get prepared. I want to understand the text. I want to study it. I want to read up and make sure that I've bathed in prayer and I've studied it. So I do my very best.

But you know what? If I depended on my own power every time I stood in the pulpit, I would fail. If I depended on my own power when I go to witness to people, when I go to minister to others, often I would fail. If I was trying to depend on how I could best meet someone's need and I came up with great ideas by myself, I would often or sometimes would fail. But what we're promised here is that we're gonna have the power of the Holy Spirit.

And then I'm also happy that Christ gave this command. He gave this this instruction to them to go as a worldwide mandate. You know what? I have now the knowledge of the gospel because somebody else went and gave that message. I believe it was Brother Interliner that maybe prayed that or somebody did.

They said something about thank you that we someone came and had a message. I just heard that a few minutes ago. Thankfully, we heard that message. And so because we heard it, you know, we can now share with those. It was something that brought salvation to us.

And so the purpose of Jesus sending the Holy Spirit, he was a comforter, but he was also there to empower his followers, to give them special strength. And, I think it's really amazing when we think about, that strength. Are we really taking advantage of it often? We do not. So tonight, I want us to see that the purpose of Jesus sending the Holy Spirit was to enable us, to empower us, to get the gospel out into the world.

You remember that after giving his disciples some final instructions, Jesus ascended back up into heaven. Can you imagine what his disciples were thinking? Uh-oh. It's all over now. Now what are we gonna do?

We're left on our own. And he told us this spirit or something, this comforter was coming. What's it gonna be? And then, of course, the Lord worked. Now the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost.

So what's really amazing to me about that is God's timing is always perfect. So you have all of these people, that have gathered in Jerusalem because they're having these Jewish festivals that taking place, these Jewish events. So, a sense, it would be almost like us having maybe like a world's fair today. People from all over had come there. So, it was a strategic time for the Holy Spirit to come.

So, there would have been people there from all different kinds of nations, speaking all different kinds of languages, and the Holy Spirit comes and begin to to work in a special way. And God uses the circumstances of that to kind of birth the early church. Does anybody remember? Peter preached. Do you remember how many people were saved that day?

3,000. 3,000. Now pastor Rick is a good preacher, but would he be happy if 3,000 were saved on a Sunday? Oh, yeah. We'd all be proud.

How often do we see 3,000 people? Even in a I mean, you know, you hear these guys like an evangelist and they go fill up a whole stadium. It's pretty rare to see 3,000 people come to Christ in one day. But because of the work of the Holy Spirit in Peter's preaching, 3,000 people came to a saving knowledge of what Christ was all about at that first day, and that birthed the church. And then those people began to leave, and we'll see why in a few minutes, and they went out into different places, and they took the gospel message with them.

And so we can be thankful that the Holy Spirit came. So I want us to leave here today reminded of the supernatural nature of our mission, the supernatural nature of the Great Commission, and how we should be motivated. And hopefully during this missions conference, better motivated, better equipped to serve the Lord. So now let's look at acts chapter three, and I want us to kinda consider what we see here, that's going on in the temple. Acts chapter three, and I'm gonna start reading in verse one.

Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple, who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple at temple asked an alms. And Peter fasting his eyes upon him with John said, look on us. And he gave heed unto them, expecting them to receive something of them, expected to receive from them. Then Peter said, silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, I give thee.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. I'm in verse eight. And he leaping up, stood and walked and entered with him into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God.

And they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at at that which had happened unto him. So here we have this great story and probably some of you might even remember sis singing about this as a little kid. There's a song that kind of goes right along with this this story. They he was leaping and praising and praising God.

And so Peter and John, they're going up to the temple, they're going there to worship, and this would have been a regular time that people would have gone. And on the way they encounter this lame man, we could say a handicapped person, somebody that from birth had a disability, and he was sitting there begging. And he had been there a long time. People knew who he was, and they could clearly see that what his issues were. And so in the name of Jesus and through the power of God's spirit, Peter speaks to the man, and he tells him what rise up and walk.

And the man was healed instantly. And so then the healed man, he goes into the temple and out of excitement. So if he had been lame, if he had been disabled from birth, you gotta imagine, he goes and all of a sudden, he is able to walk. He's excited. He goes into the temple and he's kind of making a ruckus.

He's dancing around. He's jumping. He's dancing around. He's praising. He's shouting and thanking God for what has happened.

So the man's in the temple, and you've to think, man, the people are watching. This is a reverent place, maybe it's kind of quiet in there, it's a time of prayer, and this man comes in, and he's just jumping up and down and running around. And so what happens? This draws this tremendous crowd. And so I can just imagine, let's just picture for a moment that there's a couple in here praying before church, and everybody else is back there.

We're finishing up eating. And all of a sudden, somebody here starts, woo hoo. They start jumping and hollering and making a big ruckus. What would happen? We would all probably come around the corner and look at what is going on in there.

So, this big crowd starts to come and they gather around. And Peter and John are there. And Peter takes this opportunity to preach another very, very powerful message. And this is the second message that we have here in the book of Acts. So the first thing I want us to see tonight is that there was a miracle of healing.

There was a miracle of healing. And we noticed a few things in the text. We know that the lame man had been disabled, lame for forty years. If we were to flip over, to the next chapter in verse 22, four twenty two, it indicates he was he had been lame for forty years. He'd been lame from birth.

He's not faking it. This isn't one of those traveling shows that goes around and they're healing people just to kind of draw a crowd or to make money. We can see that it affected his feet. It affected his ankles, and, we believe that Luke probably wrote the book of Acts. And so here you have Luke who was a medical doctor, and he uses some Greek words there to describe exactly the type of condition that his body was in.

We also know that he laid at the same location every day, and it's called the Beautiful Gate, and I've read about that gate and heard how it was described. And it sounds like it's a beautiful, beautiful piece of architecture, a very spectacular place, and yet here's this beggar, this poor man that's been laying there for forty years. Now I know that there's times in a big city like Clearwater or Tampa, there's places where homeless people may gather, and they might sit, and they probably sit out here on the street corner sometimes, and people you just start to recognize, oh, there's the guy that always sits on that corner. Well, he's been here for forty years, or at least once he was old enough to, sit out there. He's been there a long time.

Everybody knew who he was, and so he's always there. It would kind of remind me if we went to a street corner, we see this around, and somebody's holding up a sign that says, we'll work for food, or any amount will help. I was really frustrated. One time I saw a sign in Orlando. We were coming off five four, and a guy had a sign up that says, I want money for beer.

And it said, at least I'm honest. And then I watched car after car in front of us hand him money. Oh, it's so frustrating to me. But you know what I'm talking about? There's people begging.

In a sense, that's what's going on here. And so he was well known for being lame. But look at verse four and Peter fastening his eyes, in other words, just looking at him, making eye contact with him, and John, he says, look on us. So they make that eye contact. And you know what I think the beggar was probably expecting?

He's like, look at me. He probably expected to look up and hold out his hand to get a a few coins, to be given alms or to be given some money or a little tip, so to speak. And look at verse five, and he gave heed unto them. In other words, he paid attention to them expecting to receive something of them. So he's waiting for some cash.

He's waiting for some coins. And then verse six, Peter said, silver and gold have I none. So for a minute, this beggars gotta be like, great. What are you gonna do? Give me your leftover food from McDonald's?

I know how this goes. And silver and gold have I none but such as I give thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And so Peter does something much more valuable than a little tip, much more valuable than silver, gold, money. He heals this man through the power of of the holy spirit, and and in the name of who Jesus Christ rise up and walk. Verse seven, and he took a hand by the right hand, he lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength, And he leaping up stood and walked and entered with them unto the temple, walking and leaping and praising God.

I like how it goes on, and you can see that the people were amazed. Why were they amazed? Because they'd seen him for years. They knew how helpless his situation was. So let me point out a couple things here.

First of all, you can't give away what you don't possess. You can't give away what you don't possess. So for a moment, let's think about that. What did Peter say? Peter didn't have silver or gold, so he couldn't give him any.

But what did he have? He had the power of God in the name of Jesus Christ. And so he gave him something of much more value. He gave him Jesus, we can say. You know, some people aren't very good at sharing their faith.

And I understand some people have. I'm gonna I hope I don't embarrass her. But my poor daughter Olivia, she is an introvert that lives in a house full of extroverts. So Debbie and I are extroverted. Our daughter Elizabeth is over the top extroverted.

And poor Olivia, she's the quiet. She's the intelligent one in the house that listens and takes in everything. We just run our mouths. And, and so I can just imagine for some people, like Olivia, maybe it's really hard to speak up to somebody. It's hard to share our faith.

But you know what? I'm convinced that it's not just being timid that stops us from sharing our faith with other people. I'm afraid a lot of people that sit in the pews of churches, they can't share, they can't give away Christ, they can't tell others the gospel because they don't have it themselves. And that's why I wanna start tonight. If you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, if you don't truly have fellowship with him, if you don't have peace in your heart, if you don't know for certain that heaven is your home, you're not gonna be able to give it away to other people.

You're not gonna be able to influence other people for the gospel because you don't have it yourself. And so I see that there, in this this story that he can't give away what you don't possess. A lot of people can't do it because they don't know Christ personally. If you're here tonight and you don't know for sure that heaven is your home, if you've never truly heard a clear explanation of the gospel that made sense to you, talk to pastor Rick, talk to his wife, talk to Debbie, talk to me. We would love to take a few moments and make sure that you understand that you know that heaven is your home.

If not, you won't be able to have this power that we're talking about. And so we can see there, you can't give away what you don't possess. The next thing I see is that only real change comes from the power of Jesus. Real lasting eternal change only happens through the power of Christ. Have you ever noticed that sometimes people try to change on their own?

I've seen people that really, really work hard on a diet, and they'll lose weight for a little while, and they do really, really good, and they're saying, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do it on my own. I'm doing it on my own strength. And what happens? A lot of times we fail.

It's really, really hard. I've seen people that go through a 12 step program, and there's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but they go to Alcoholics Anonymous, or they go to an organization to help them with an addiction, and they sometimes are taught, hey, you gotta, this is all you. You gotta do it yourself. You know what? When we try to do things on our own, usually it's not gonna last very long.

Only real, eternal, transformative change comes through Jesus. We're gonna fail if we try to do that on our own. But I love what we read in verse 16. And his name through faith and his name hath made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.

Peter points out the source of this miraculous healing is faith in Jesus. Now I got a little bit of a trick question for you. Be careful how you answer. Let's think about this. Whose faith was it that healed this man?

Who had faith? Who? Ah, did Peter and John have faith? I was hoping somebody would say that the the the lame man had faith. Right?

Did the lame man have faith? I'm gonna say he didn't. Because what did he expect? When he looked up, he wasn't wanting to be healed. He wanted some money.

And so I'm gonna suggest that Peter and John are the ones that had the faith because they had faith enough to say rise up in the name of Jesus. Be healed. So they're the ones Peter who spoke up is really the person that had faith. That's why I said it's a trick question. But they had the faith.

And then we can see probably really quickly that man grew in his faith when he tried. I suppose he had to have some faith to just not say, yeah, right. You know, I can't. He did try to get up. And so he had the faith, or Peter had the faith.

Have you ever known someone that you'd basically given up on? Maybe they've been on the prayer list at church a really long time, and, you think to yourself, wow, there's just no hope. You know, we've been praying for that guy for a really long time. We've been praying for this situation for a very, very long time. Maybe there's somebody that's deeply involved in drugs.

Maybe it's somebody that has a a lifestyle that's really difficult. Maybe they're partying all the time. Well, I know like for example, my dad was probably that kind of person. He was known for always being a jokester at parties. He drank heavily.

He smoked all the time. He was using illegal drugs, and he had some friends that had faith that the Lord could change him, and he was invited to church. And my dad, I can't take the time to share his story, but he hit rock bottom. He literally thought he was dying, and, he called my mom in fear from a truck stop saying, I'm dying. And, she calmed him down.

He made it home, and then he soon began to attend church where he was invited. And the Lord used that. We hear faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God. He was under the preaching and teaching, and he came to a saving knowledge of Christ. They did a little newspaper article about my dad in a Christian, newspaper that was distributed in truck stops.

And I remember from being a little boy, the article said, the crazy guy meets Jesus. And so when we think about that, Rick knows my dad. He's probably still crazy to an extent. But the idea was he went from that terrible lifestyle to something amazing. And you know what?

My dad did something very few people did. He stopped drinking cold turkey. The day he got saved, he'd never drank alcohol again. My dad used to smoke three packs of cigarettes a day. I don't even know how you do that.

But three packs of cigarettes a day, and he'd be a millionaire nowadays if he could do that, but three packs a day, and he stopped smoking cold turkey. He threw his cigarettes in the trash, and my mom dug them out because she's like, there's no way he's gonna stop. And he he stopped all of that stuff. You know what? Real transformative lasting change is not because my dad decided to do it.

It came through the power of the gospel through the Holy Spirit that had come into his life. Can't give away what you don't have. Real change comes from Christ. And then then the next thing I see is that real change results in praise. Can you just imagine that man's excitement?

Now I've seen Debbie, and Debbie, all know some of her story and some of the health problems that she's gone through. And, Debbie had a liver transplant, and we were excited, terrified at the same time when we got the phone call that she was avail- that there was a liver available, we made the trip over to Tampa General when she had her surgery. I'm not really sure that Debbie came out of surgery leaping and shouting and jumping. No. She was she was pretty sore after that.

But but we can kinda understand the excitement here. And we did. We praised the Lord that he brought her through that. Verse eight says, this man, he's leaping up. He stood, walked, he entered then into the temple walking and leaping and praising God.

I just imagine this man that's laid there his whole life. Probably as a little boy, he saw children playing. He couldn't play. He saw people walking by quickly to see something down the street. He never got to see what was taking place.

He missed out on all of that. And then when he was told to stand up in the name of Jesus and he walked, he had to have been excited. And what did it do? The result was he praised God. He was praising God in the name of the Lord.

You know, when we realize this power that comes from the Holy Spirit, if we're living spirit filled lives, that same praise should come from us. We shouldn't wanna share it with other people. I think that he wanted to do that because he wanted people to know that he had been changed. I know when Debbie had her liver transplant, as soon as we got the news, I was sending out emails and putting it on social media, and we were calling family and friends and say, hey, we're headed to Tampa. We wanted people to know the day had come.

We were excited about that, while we were scared at the same time. We should want to share, and it should bring us to have praise to our Lord. So we see here, you can't give away something that you don't have because we have to have faith and trust in Jesus. Real change only comes from Jesus. And when we see change, it's gonna result in praise to God.

You know, ultimately, what we wanna see from this missions conference, we could have a whole list of goals. We could say we wanna see a missionary send out of the church. We wanna see the mission budget grow. We wanna be able to support missionaries. We could have a whole list.

We wanna see somebody saved. But ultimately, our main goal is we want to praise God. We should want to praise him for all the wonderful things he has done. And our purpose in being here, our purpose for being left behind is to do his work and to bring him praise. And so I think it's a supernatural power that we need and that we're looking for.

But I also want us to see that there's a message of hope. There's a message of hope. So now let's look on down to verse 12. And while I'm reading this, I want you to see if you can see any reasons why we would have hope and why we can have hope as we try to fulfill the great commission. Look at verse 12.

It says, and when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, ye men of Israel, why marvel at ye at this? Or why look you so earnestly on us as though by our own power or holiness, we we made we had made this man to walk. The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers hath glorified his son, Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied him in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to to let him go. Verse 14, but you denied the holy one and the just and desired a murderer to be granted unto you and killed the prince of life whom God hath raised from the dead, where have we are witnesses? Verse 16, and his name, through faith and his name hath made this man strong whom you see and know, yea, the faith which is by him hath given him the perfect soundness in the presence of you all.

And now, brethren, I want that though ignorant, ye did it, as did also your rulers. But those things which God before hath showed by the mouth of all his prophets that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. Verse 20. And he shall send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all his prophets since the world began.

Now, did you catch there at the beginning why Peter's message was a message of hope? Well, I think it's a message of hope because God's promise is fulfilled despite opposition. You know, there's gonna be opposition. Our churches face opposition now. Christians face opposition.

We're pretty blessed here in America that we have freedoms. We don't have the persecution that other places have. But verse 18, it says, but those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets that Christ should suffer, he had so fulfilled. The people who opposed Jesus, the people that betrayed him, the people that slandered his name, they mocked him, they crucified him, they were all ignorant of God's purpose. They didn't understand.

We live in a sin cursed world, a sin fallen world, and they had no clue what they were doing. They were guilty of the death of Jesus. But you know what? It didn't catch God by surprise. All of that was prophesied.

It was all foretold by the prophets. And so what that means here is God's promises are gonna be fulfilled despite the opposition that we face. Christ himself faced opposition. He faced difficulties. And so that means we're gonna have those same blessings.

You know, it's easy to get discouraged. Sometimes we we we face somebody that we face a situation that's challenging. We face opposition. We get disc discouraged. Sometimes we might feel ridiculed.

Sometimes the message we delivered is rejected, but we are promised that God's word is not gonna return void. And so it will do what God wants it to accomplish. God's promise is gonna be fulfilled despite the opposition. But I also want you to see that God's pardon is applied to everybody that repents. Look at verse 19.

Repent ye therefore and be converted. And I love this part. It says that your sins may be blotted out. I don't miss that word blotted. It means to wipe away, to expunge.

You know, like you'll hear a judge say, we're going to expunge that from the record. It's completely gone. There's no evidence of it. It removes all traces of its existence. You know, we have that promise from God that there's pardon when we repent.

And I've said it here in this pulpit. I know repentance is when we change directions. We're headed down the interstate in one way, and that's the way of the world. We're going the way that we want. We're seeking after our own pleasures, and all of a sudden we realize this is not working.

I need to change directions. We get off that next sex, we do a u-turn, and we head back the way we came in a different direction. We go back towards God. That's the idea of repentance, a change in direction. When we repent, it says what?

We're gonna be converted and our sins are gonna be blotted out. They're gonna be expunged. When I was studying this, something came to my mind. When I was in fifth grade, I think it was, I had to do a paper on this, state paper, and I did my paper on Louisiana. And I spent all this time and this sounds kind of funny nowadays, but it was the first paper in school that I had to do that I had to write it in ink.

Oh, and as a kid, I had sloppy handwriting in those days. And it had to be neat, and it had to be written in ink. And so boy, I was nervous. I started writing that thing, and I was being careful, and I was having my mom check. And then I got kind of confident, and I finished my whole paper.

I took it in there and said, mom, will you check it for me? And remember, this was written about the state of Louisiana, and it had the word Louisiana all through it. Mom says, John, sweetie, I hate to tell you this, but you spelled Louisiana wrong every single time. So I can tell you to this day, l o u I s I a n a. I will never forget how to spell Louisiana.

So if nothing else, I learned l o u I s I a n a. I had left out the second I. And I gotta tell you, I was pretty frustrated, but my mom said, and I literally, as a little fifth grader, I broke down, no, no, I can't rewrite it. And I still I still think I have a callus on my finger from that fifth grade incident. I just can't bear to do it again.

And my mom said, John, don't worry. I didn't tell you this, but those pens that I bought, they're erasable. And she said, I'm gonna try to help you. And we kind of erased, and we added the I every time. Got to be honest with you, it saved me from rewriting the paper.

But when I looked at it, you could still see it was there. And the teacher commented, John, do you know how to spell Louisiana now? Yes, ma'am, L O U I S I E N A, still to this day, all these years later. So here's the thing. When I see that word there, repent, be converted, and your sins may be blotted out, it wasn't like Louisiana.

It wasn't like the erasable ink pen. It was gone. Our sins are gone. It's as if God sees us as if we never sinned. We are pure.

We are perfect. Not because of anything we've done, but because of Christ. He sees us through the shed blood. He sees us through the act of what Christ did and through his resurrection. He blotted out our sins, and so we have that promise of pardon.

But I love verse 20, and and we'll finish up soon with this. God's presence is enjoyed. Verse 20, it says, times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. I love that term there, the time of refreshing. And I've noticed it's already starting to get hot here in Florida, and you know you've been outside working in the yard, and man, you are so parched.

I think I've said this before, but I've never sweated so much till I moved to Florida and you do yard work. And I was like, why are my eyes burning so much? Why is my skin? You know, I never knew that salt came out of your skin on your legs until I lived in Florida, and I rubbed my legs like, what is this? And why is this grit all over me?

It's sweat because I'm burning up. And so, man, when it's one of those days and you're hot and somebody brings you a nice, refreshing glass of ice water. Isn't it good? That's what I see when I see that word refreshing there. But you know what?

I can take that little sip of water on a hot Florida summer day, and you know how long I'm gonna be refreshed? About one tenth of a second. And then I need more, and I'll need more, and I usually try to take a shower, and you get refreshed for a few minutes, and you dry off, and then you're sweaty and hot again. But you know what? The refreshment that we're seeing here in scripture is not temporary like that.

We're gonna be in the presence of our Lord. We're promised that. Verse 21, whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. What a comfort, what a joy, what a blessed hope to look forward to that day when Christ will restore all things. You know, it's really sad, when when God created the earth, his plan was for all the earth to be like the Garden of Eden.

That's why he told Adam and Eve to be fruitful multiply, and they would have spread out, and they would have gone, and the whole world would have been this wonderful place without sin. But, of course, man fell into sin, and that ruined everything. That's why we live in a sin cursed world to this day. Sin ruined it. That's why we have anger.

That's why we have injustice. That's why we have pain. That's why we have suffering. That's why we have all of life's circumstances that are difficult. But isn't the way that God wanted it?

And we're promised here that all of that is gonna be restored for those that have received the Lord's pardon. So Peter gives this wonderful message of hope. So I hope as we leave here tonight, we kinda consider and we have a better understanding of supernatural power. It's not in our abilities. It's in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Are we gonna trust in him to do the work? How do we do that? We just make ourselves an available tool in the hands of our Lord. We need to be out there witnessing to people. We need to step out in faith and share our faith, share an invitation to church, talk to people around us about their spiritual needs.

There are a lot of hurting people all around us. Are we willing to step out or we or are we timid and fearful? We're promised that great supernatural ability through the Holy Spirit. What happened? We saw a lame man that was able to walk.

Lives can be changed. Maybe the Lord wants you to be more faithful to take a step of faith in your faith promise giving, which you give to missions. Maybe the Lord wants you to take a step of faith in how you work and involve yourself in the church. Let's don't forget that power that's promised, and let's remember that it's a message of hope. You remember I started off talking about superheroes, and there's two kinds.

There are those that do great things unselfishly for their country, the heroes. I think they're spiritual heroes. They want to do things for God. And then I think there's the other side of the equation, those that do it selfishly. Let's make sure that we share this supernatural message of hope with the world.

Let's pray. Father, we wanna thank you for your word. We wanna thank you for this message we've been able to look at tonight. Father, I love the book of Acts because we see these stories, these wonderful stories and of the early church and what's amazing about this one is we see a little act of faith, someone just speaking out, but they had enough faith to believe that you could heal this man. And then, of course, when that happened, people saw and people came and people listened, and Peter was able to preach again, and lives were changed.

Father, no doubt each of us here in this room have opportunities that we can use to serve you, but sometimes we don't have a faith enough to do it. Grow us in our faith, Lord. Help us to know that it's not in our abilities, but it's in the power of the Holy Spirit that lives are changed. Father, help us to be willing, to remember and to have that hope in what you promise us for the future. And, father, we ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.