As Paul heads home to Antioch to end his second missionary journey, we are reminded to submit our daily lives, decisions, and plans to the Lord’s will.
Transcription (automatically-generated):
And as we pick up our study, Paul has been enjoying a fruitful season of ministry in the city of Corinth. He has been there for a year and a half, possibly longer, and seen a large church birthed through the mighty and sustained work of God in the city. Paul has been ministered to by Jesus directly, as well as through brothers and sisters like Aquila and Priscilla, who have become some of his dearest friends, Paul has been refreshed, rejuvenated, and allowed to recover, regaining his physical, emotional, and spiritual strength. And so, we read in verse 18.
After staying for some time in Corinth, Paul said farewell to the brothers and sisters and sailed away to Syria. That's where Antioch Paul's Homes church is accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. So, Paul begins his journey back home, accompanied by his dear friends that he's made in Corinth, Aquila and Priscilla, and they come with him to serve wherever needed. They pack up their business and their life to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. We don't know how old they were, but for whatever reason, there are no children in their lives at this time.
And so, they serve as a wonderful example of how to use one's flexibility in that stage of life. They don't check out and start building a life focused on their own leisure and pleasure. They make themselves available to the Lord as his servants in a greater way than they ever have before, as is afforded them by the stage of life they are in. There's nothing sadder to me than the general concept of retirement in our culture. Oh, I can't wait to turn 65 so I can just check out and do nothing for the rest of my life.
That's just a really nice way of saying wait to die for 20 to 30 years. But you need to know that there is no concept of retirement in the Christian faith, only having more time to serve the Lord and be available to our master Jesus. That's how the Christian views that. And that's why the Christian should be excited about retirement - because it means more time to be available to the Lord Jesus. That Aquila and Priscilla could leave tells us that other leaders had emerged in the Corinthian church, such as Gaius Stephanus and the former synagogue leaders Crispus.
And Sosthenes it's possible Paul also left behind Silas and Timothy to help lead the fledgling church. Then we go on, and it says he that's Paul shaved his head at Cenchreae because of a vow he had taken. Now, Cenchreae is so close to Corinth, I couldn't even mark it on the map for you. But whereas Corinth is a port city that goes out to the west coast of Greece and the Ionian Sea, Cenchreae is the port that goes out to the east coast of Greece and the Aegean Sea. So, Paul traveled the short distance overland between Corinth and Cenchreae because he wanted to travel east back to Syria.
Now, we don't know exactly what this vow was that Paul had taken, why he took it, or when he took it. There are several popular suggestions, such as the Nazareth vow, but it's uncertain for reasons that are much too boring for me to share right now. All we know for sure is that this vow included not cutting his hair until this specific time. The most likely explanation is that this was some sort of thank offering to the Lord for preserving Paul's life through his second missionary journey. And when a man who was Jewish had cut his hair for any kind of vow, he would put it in a bag journey to Jerusalem, and burn it there as a sacrifice to God at the temple.
It's weird, I know we can't pretend it's not right, but it was a thing in Hebrew culture. That's what they did, which makes me a very spiritual person because I could have a full hair of flowing, beautiful hair. I'm just so spiritual. So, I forsake that. And while it might seem odd to see Paul, the champion of grace and the champion of not being under the law, engaging in Old Covenant Hebrew customs, we should remember that while Paul was a Christian, he was a Jewish Christian.
And Jewish Christians were not required to give up their customs and traditions to become Christians. They were simply required to recognize that they had no bearing on their salvation, as salvation was by faith in Jesus and not by works. But if they really liked washing their hands in the Jewish customary way, that was okay. They just needed to recognize that that didn't make them spiritually clean or impress God in any way. So, for Paul, this was just a way in his Hebrew culture of expressing gratitude to God.
And that was fine. Verse 19 when they reached Ephesus, he that's Paul left them that's Priscilla and Aquila there. Paul needed trustworthy, men and women to anchor the church that he would plant in the important city of Ephesus. And so, after training them for months over conversations in Corinth, Paul was able to leave Aquila and Priscilla there in Ephesus, where they established a business and hosted the church in their home. But he himself that's Paul entered the synagogue and debated with the Jews, as was his custom whenever he entered a new city or town.
Verse 20 when they, the Jews in Ephesus, asked him to stay for a longer time. He declined, but he said farewell and added, I'll come back to you again, if God wills. Underline those three words, if God wills, then he set sail from Ephesus, as in Berea. Paul is received favorably by the Jews in Ephesus, and normally Paul would be thrilled to stay and minister further. But Paul has made this vow, and he's made it to the Lord, and so he takes it seriously.
He needs to get to Jerusalem to make his offering at the temple and fulfill his vow. So, Paul says, I'll come back to you again, if God wills. And it will turn out that God does indeed will Paul to return. He'll come back later and spend three years in Ephesus as God builds a great church there. Those who belong to the Lord belong to the Lord.
And I know you're like Jeff. That's the kind of deep teaching I come here for. That's right. Paul would later tell the Corinthians, you were bought at a price, the price of the life of Jesus. Practically, that means that God has full rights over our life, not just in the final sense, not just in terms of our final destination, but in the day-to-day sense, too.
Now we have a choice to submit our lives to God, or not moment to moment and day by day, but those who love the Lord desire to be in his will, moment by moment and day by day. That's what Paul was alluding to when he said, I'll come back to you again if God wills. He wasn't saying, I'd love to, but sometimes God messes up my awesome plans. He was saying, I want to be in the will of God, and if he allows me to return and see you again, I would love that. But wherever God's will wants me to be, that's where I want to be.
And most of the time we are so good at bringing our problems to God when our plans don't work out. And most of the time we are so bad at bringing our plans to God before we move ahead with them. I'm going to say that one more time because it's so important. Most of the time we are so good at bringing our problems to God when our plans don't work out. And most of the time we are so bad at bringing our plans to God before we move forward with them.
Some of the decisions we make without God are staggering when you step back and take a look at them. When I was working at a church in Florida, my pastor had a bunch of kids, like a lot of kids. I think he's got twelve right now. And he asked me one day, he said, how many kids are you guys hoping to have, Jeff? And I told him we were planning on three.
And then he said, have you asked the Lord how many he wants you to have? And I realized that like 99.99% of Christian couples, the thought had Peter even crossed my mind. We think about the number of brothers and sisters we had growing up. We think about how many kids we think we could handle or afford, or how many could fit into the kind of house that we could afford. But almost nobody thinks to ask God how many kids he wants us to have.
That's a huge life decision. And almost no Christians bring it to the Lord. For us. It turned out the number was more than three, and I'm so glad it was.
Young people, are you seeking the Lord's guidance as to what career path you should pursue? Are you seeking wise counsel from mature believers who have walked with Jesus faithfully for a long time? Or are you just making your own plans based on what seems good to you, what you want to do, what you feel like doing? Does God get to have an opinion in what you do with the rest of your life? What about buying an apartment or a house?
What about moving? What about moving to another city or another job or another career? Buying a new vehicle? How we spend our money? Do we bring these kinds of decisions to the Lord proactively?
Do we seek out wise counsel? Do we pray? Do we fast about decisions that have enormous ramifications for our life? Do we seek his will upfront? Or do we just do what seems best to us and then come back to God if our plans don't work out and be like, Where were you?
He's like, I was right here. You just didn't ask. I would have told you. That's a really dumb idea. Don't do that.
Our brother James would echo the wise perspective of Paul, saying, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring, what your life will be. For you are like a vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes." Those who belong to the Lord belong to the Lord. They know their lives are in the hands of their Savior, and they trust that his will is always good.
When you know the goodness of God, you will trust the will of God. You will want his will to be done in every area of your life, because you will finally understand that God's will for you is always better than your plans for yourself. God has perfect knowledge. God sees all things. He actually perceives eternity.
We cannot fathom anything without a beginning or an end. We can't. You can lie and say you do, but you can't. You have no reference point. Your mind can't conceive of that.
But out of love for us, god's plans for us are based on his perspective that includes both this life and eternity. And from that perspective, he does what is best from a perspective we do not have and cannot possess. So, Paul, humbly and wisely says, I'll come back to you again if God wills. I love you, but being in the Lord's will is what's most important to me. So, write this down those who love the Lord trust the Lord and so desire to be always in his will.
Those who love the Lord just want to be in the will of God. There was one man who could share his plans without the preface if God wills, our Lord said to his disciples, if I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, you may be also. He didn't need to say if God wills, because he is God, therefore if he wills it, it will be done. Verse 22 on landing at Caesarea. Now, Caesarea was a beautiful port city in Israel that was always busy because it was the closest port to Jerusalem.
He that's Paul went up to Jerusalem and greeted the Church, then went down to Antioch. If you're not familiar with this in the Bible, you always go up to Jerusalem, no matter what direction you're coming from, and you always go down whenever you leave Jerusalem. So even though Antioch is to the north of Jerusalem, he goes down from Jerusalem to Antioch, because Jerusalem is Zion, it's the city of God, it's the sacred and holy city, so you always go up to Jerusalem. In the Bible, Paul needed to fulfill his vow by making his weird hair offering at the temple. And while he was in Jerusalem, he would obviously greet the brothers of the Jerusalem Church, which included multiple uppercase-A apostles who had been part of the twelve disciples of Jesus.
And I can't help but notice how brief Paul's greeting seems to have been. We don't read about Paul being invited to preach or minister or them asking him to stay longer at the Jerusalem Church, our anything like that. It just says he went up to Jerusalem and greeted the Church, then went down to Antioch. And I think the reason is that there was a healthy tension between Paul and the brothers in Jerusalem. Let me explain.
God not only gives us differing personalities and gifts, but he also gives us different passions. He wires us to care about certain aspects of the kingdom, certain aspects of the Gospel message, certain aspects of ministry. More than others. Yes, everyone who loves Christ does and should care about the full counsel of Scripture. But God undeniably gives us inclinations toward certain aspects of it.
Some will gravitate toward ministries of mercy and compassion, others toward evangelism, others toward Bible study and teaching, others toward home groups and other smaller times of fellowship, others toward missions. I could go on and on, and the Lord does this because the Church needs people to advocate for and champion these different aspects of God's work on the earth. Today, no man and no group of men can consistently concern themselves with all the aspects of ministry and Christian life. It's just not possible. So, like gifts, the Lord distributes these passions across His Church and within his churches.
So, when you feel like an area of ministry is not being focused on the way you think it should be, recognize the possibility that the Lord has given you a passion for that aspect of ministry and ask Him, lord, are you calling me to serve you in this area of ministry in some way? Are you calling me to help in some way meet this need in your church? Don't get mad that other people aren't wired the same way that you are. How can you not see it? How can you not care about that?
How can you not think this is the most important thing in the world? Those other people are likely being faithful to the areas of ministry that God has wired them to be passionate about. It doesn't mean they don't care. It doesn't mean they don't think that the area you're wired to care about isn't important. It just means they can't care about every area of ministry all the time.
See what the Lord might have you do. See how the Lord might have you serve so that the church can more fully reflect the heart of God in ministry. One of the aspects of the gospel message that Paul famously advocates for throughout his writings that appear in the New Testament is sola Galatia salvation by grace alone. There are many parts of Paul's letters where he just revels in the extravagant grace of God and just celebrates how we contribute nothing to our salvation. Jesus has done it all.
Salvation is not by works, it's by faith in the grace of God, and it's all true. Praise God for his glorious grace. But if all you read in your Bibles are those parts of Paul's letters, you might end up with a very distorted perspective of the Gospel, as some people do. And some people get into what's sometimes called "hyper-grace" doctrines where they basically say, "Hey, I can live however I want and do whatever I want because there's grace." And whenever someone says, "That's, clearly sin and rebellion against the Lord. The Lord doesn't want you doing that. He says so in his Word. You need to stop." They're like, "Just sprinkle a little grace on that. It's fine. It's like magic fairy dust. Oh, just sprinkle some grace on it. I can do whatever I want because grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace." But the Lord is so wise because he foresaw this in our human nature, and so in His Word, he provided the correct counterpoints to balance our understanding of the Gospel. So that when someone begins running away with a wrong understanding of grace, along comes our brother James, who says, "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can such faith save him?... For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead." And along comes our brother John, who says, "This is how we know that we know him if we keep his commands." All true. All true. There's a healthy and necessary tension in the word between grace and faith and the works they naturally produce.
And when you read the whole counsel of God, all of the Scriptures, it becomes by design very difficult to distort the gospel truth because anytime you want to run away too far in one direction, there's a counterbalance by the design and grace of God.
I don't think we're reading too much into things to say that a similar tension existed in the relationship between Paul and the brothers in Jerusalem. They loved each other dearly. They would have died for one another. They were grateful to God for the ministry of the other. But there's a reason they never partnered together in missionary work.
The Lord gave them different passions and gave their ministries different emphasis for the good of the uppercase C church both then and now. And we saw an aspect of those tensions play out in the Jerusalem council back in Acts chapter 15. And listen, there are and there will be differences in this body in Gospel City, and we need those differences. We need people who are gifted and wired by God differently from one another because we have blind spots and none of us has all of the spiritual gifts. And there's a lot that the church wants to do.
The love of God is big, and so the work of the church is big too. We need people who are just overflowing with love and compassion and hugs, and we need people who can and will, out of love, slap us upside the head when we stray from the paths that lead to life. You don't need a hug sometimes. You need someone to be like, what the flip are you doing? It's necessary.
We need people that lean toward ministering toward the head and people that lean toward ministering to the heart. We need people who emphasize grace, and we need people who emphasize obedience. And we need all those people to be submitted to the full counsel of God's Word and to the Lord Jesus. In modern evangelical Christianity, most churches have a single lead pastor and not a plurality of elders. Most churches don't have biblical and meaningful church membership.
And as a result, most churches become defined by one specific perspective because there's no shared leadership, there's no active membership, there's no advocacy through the body saying, hey, remember this aspect, remember this perspective. As BJ will sometimes say to me as we're talking about the Scriptures and how I'm going to teach them and share them, the church needs advocates for different areas and emphasis of ministry so that the church can more fully reflect the Lord's heart and praise God. The Lord promises to do that in his church. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul would later write, "Now there are different gifts, but the same spirit. There are different ministries, but the same Lord. There are different activities, but the same God works all of them in each person, a manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good one, and the same Spirit is active in all these, distributing to each person as he wills." So, write this down on your outlines - God gave different authors part of the message of His Word, and God gives different people part of his heart for the Church. God gave different authors part of the message of His Word, and God gives different people part of his heart for the Church. Well, after greeting the Jerusalem Church, we read that Paul then went down to Antioch, and when he arrives at his home in Syrian Antioch, his second missionary journey comes to an end.
Let's put our map up on the screen and just recap Paul's journey home. He traveled overland from Corinth to Cenchreae, where he hopped on a boat to Ephesus, from where he sailed to Caesarea. Now, there were likely multiple stops on that journey because boats tended to sail along the coast or stop overnight at islands. He travels overland from Caesarea to Jerusalem, where he greets the Church there, then heads back to Caesarea to catch a boat up north to Antioch. Then we read in verse 23, after spending some time there, that's in Antioch, he set out traveling through one place after another in the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.
After catching up with and strengthening the Church in Antioch for a few months, it was likely around the spring of 54 Ad. When Paul headed out on his third missionary journey, which began with visits to the churches he had planted during his first missionary journey in the region of present-day central Turkey. But before our narrator, Dr. Luke, details Paul's next journey, he returns to Ephesus to tell us about what happened after Paul's departure. In verse 24, we read now a Jew named Apollos, a native Alexandrian.
So, this Apollos was a Jew from the great intellectual and cultural metropolis of Alexandria, the Egyptian city near the mouth of the Nile on the southern coast of the Mediterranean. It was the second-largest city in the Roman Empire and had large Hebrew and Greek communities. By some reckonings, as much as a third of the city's population was Jewish at this time, which is why the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament Scriptures, was produced in Alexandria in the second and third centuries BC. Like Rome, the Gospel had reached Alexandria through Jews who had journeyed to Jerusalem to take part in the annual feasts, been ministered to by the Church in Jerusalem, turned to Christ, and then brought the Gospel back home with them. This Apollos, we read, was an eloquent man who was competent in the use of the Scriptures, and he arrived in Ephesus.
He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. The original Greek tells us that Apollos had been formally taught in the Scriptures by experts and being fervent in spirit. Now, the original Greek tells us that this means Apollos was fervent in the Holy Spirit. He wasn't just a passionate guy; he was fervent under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Apollos was a brilliant orator.
He's a brilliant public speaker. He knew his way around the Old Testament Scriptures, and he was also passionate about the Lord. Fervent in spirit. What a combination. How can you tell if a man or woman is growing only in their intellectual knowledge of the Word, or whether they're being transformed by the Word?
It's simple. When we're being transformed by the Word, there will be an increasing passion for Jesus in our lives. It grieves me when I see someone coming to church and enjoying the services, appreciating the messages, but there's no growing passion for Jesus. It grieves me because it tells me they're just growing in intellectual knowledge of the Word. They're just enjoying learning more stuff about God.
It's not a bad thing, but it's not the goal. It's not the goal. The goal is to be transformed by the Word, resulting in a growing passion for Jesus that leads us to become more like Jesus. Apollos was a man being transformed by the Scriptures and therefore growing in his passion for the Lord fervent in spirit. May the same be said of us.
He was speaking and teaching accurately about Jesus, although he knew only John's baptism. Now, the John spoken of here is not John the Disciple, but rather John the Baptist, who was not one of the twelve disciples but was a prophet whose mission was to prepare Israel for the arrival of the Messiah who was Jews. John the Baptist proclaimed that the Messiah would soon arrive, the Savior sent by God to provide forgiveness for man's sins and reconcile him to God. Bringing man back into relationship with God. John would baptize people with a different baptism to the one we practice in the church.
John's Baptist existed before Jesus died and rose again, and it was a public declaration that a person recognized they were a sinner, needed forgiveness, wanted to repent, and desired to receive the forgiveness the Messiah would soon offer. And when Jesus came out to see John, john pointed him out as that Messiah, declaring him to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. So, it seems that Apollos only knew what John the Baptist had known and taught that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah who will provide forgiveness of sins. We must repent and place our faith in him. But Apollos knew nothing of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
He knew nothing about the Holy Spirit being given to all who placed their faith in Jesus, even though he was clearly filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in the power of the Holy Spirit. He didn't know that Christ had fulfilled the Law. He didn't know anything about the church, the new body that God had created that consisted of both Jews and Gentiles. Apollos was saved because his faith was in Jesus as Messiah Jesus as his savior.
He was filled with the Holy Spirit. Even though he didn't know about the Holy Spirit, he was faithfully, accurately, and powerfully, teaching the truth that he knew. But he had some really big gaps in his understanding. Apollos didn't have the full picture, and yet he shared what he did know, what he did understand, and he's commended in Scripture for it. You may not be fully acquainted with the significance of the Old Testament sacrificial system or understand why you would burn your hair in Jerusalem at the temple.
You may not be able to explain the Trinity. I can't either. But you know enough to share Jesus with somebody. So, share what you do know, and the Lord will commend you as he did Apollos, and as we shall see, he will give you greater revelation, knowledge, and understanding. Verse 26: He - that's Apollos - began to speak boldly in the synagogue after Priscilla and Aquila heard him.
Now, Aquila and Priscilla were at the synagogue where Apollos was speaking. What were they doing there? They were copying their mentor and friend Paul. They couldn't go and teach at the synagogue like Paul, but they could go to the synagogue and see what seekers of truth might be there that the Lord would have them cross paths with. And lo and behold, they hear Apollo speaking, and it's obvious that he's a sincere seeker of truth and a lover of God.
So, it says they took him aside and explained the way of God to him. More accurately, they didn't interrupt his message and be like, "Actually, Apollos, that's adorable, but there's way, way more to it." They don't interrupt him. They don't embarrass him. They don't tweet at him or just comment on his Instagram feed.
You might want to check your theology, Apollos. They don't do that. They just discreetly pull him aside, and they have a private conversation with him. Why? It's not that profound.
It's because everybody is less defensive in a private conversation than they are in a public conversation. The original Greek implies that they invited Apollos to their home and spoke with him there. Now, I admire Apollos because Apollos could have said, I don't need to listen to you guys. I'm an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. Just read Acts 18.
But praise God, Apollos was a humble and teachable man. He cared deeply about truth, and he loved the Lord, so he was not defensive or prideful when this working-class couple corrected his understanding and shared with him the full Gospel. Apollos received their teaching with eagerness and would go on to become a mighty evangelist in the early church. And I love the two pictures that the Lord gives us back-to-back here we see Apollos faithfully ministering with the truth that he has, and then we see Aquila and Priscilla faithfully ministering with the truth. That they have.
And I have to believe that such a mindset was a significant part of why the early church was so effective at sharing the Gospel. They prayed for boldness. They refused to be paralyzed by their fears and insecurities and feelings of inadequacy. And they didn't need to know everything before they began sharing what they did know. May we be more like them.
Do you realize that tomorrow, pretty much all of you will spend some time with people who know less about Jesus and the Gospel than you do? Like a lot less. Tomorrow, pretty much all of you will be the expert on Jesus and the Gospel at your place of work, your school, in your circle of friends, or in your family. When it comes to spiritual matters, pretty much all of you will tomorrow find yourself sitting next to someone dumber than you. All of you.
So let the Lord use you. Pray for boldness and ask the Lord for opportunities to share what you do know, because those who don't know the Lord yet desperately need to hear what you already know. Apollos was working faithfully with what he had been given, so God gave him more to work with and sent him Aquila and Priscilla to give him greater revelation, knowledge, and understanding. And the Lord had prepared them for the task by having them spend months in conversation with Paul, the greatest theologian who ever lived other than Jesus himself. As they worked in their leather shop together, the three of them would have spent countless hours discussing doctrine, the Gospel, and the Scriptures.
Aquila and Priscilla were close friends of Paul, but they had also been students of Paul, and so they had no problems explaining gospel theology at a high level to someone like the Eloquent. Apollos, verse 27, when he that's Apollos wanted to cross over to Aka. Let's put our next map up on the screen, and I'll show you here. Akea was the Roman province to the south of the province of Macedonia. Today it's the southern half of Greece.
So, Apollos would have likely sailed to Athens, then to Cenchreae, and then finished his journey on land with the brief trip to Corinth. We read the brothers and sisters wrote to the disciples to welcome him. So, remember, Aquila and Priscilla had been living in Corinth for several years before moving to Ephesus. They knew Crispus and the other believers in Corinth. They were present when Paul established the first church there.
So, they and the other members of the young church in Ephesus wrote a letter of endorsement and introduction for Apollos to take with him to the brethren in Corinth. They trusted Apollos. Based on Paul's greeting in Romans 16 three, we can deduce that Aquila and Priscilla stayed in Ephesus for several years, and then when the church had enough solid, leaders returned to Rome to strengthen the church there. Eight to ten years after that, Paul writes his final letter, which is two. Timothy and Aquila and Priscilla are back in Ephesus, serving with Timothy.
They devoted their lives to serving Jews and strengthening his church wherever they were needed. What a wonderful legacy to have in the Word. And now we follow Apollos for a couple more brief scenes, one here in the final two verses of chapter 18, and one at the beginning of chapter 19, which we'll get into next week. It says after he arrived - that's in Corinth - he was a great help to those who by grace had believed, for he vigorously refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating through the scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah. Apollos immediately got to work as an apologist and an evangelist, using his brilliant mind and oratory skills to publicly debate the leading Jewish leaders and scholars in the city.
The subject of his argument was the same used by men like Paul and Stephen. He was using the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah to prove that Jesus of Nazareth was unquestionably the fulfillment of those prophecies, and therefore the Messiah. The Greek word translated "refuted" is an intense, double compound word that means Apollos was crushing the arguments of his opponents, totally disproving them at every point. Apollos was a blessing to the believers in Achaea as he led men to Christ and emboldened the church by demonstrating powerfully that their faith was reasonable. It was based on truth, history, and prophecy.
And if you're not a follower of Jesus, I want to challenge you to investigate the prophecies regarding Jesus of Nazareth. These are prophecies made centuries before he came to the earth as a man, and the odds of one man fulfilling those more than 300 specific prophecies are zero. It's literally mathematically impossible. The only explanation is that God planned it, God prophesied it, and then God brought it about to pass. And if you'd like to learn about some of those prophecies, I put an outline sorry, I put a link on your outline to a message I taught about that subject several years ago.
So just go and give that a listen this week. I think you'll find some of it mind-blowing. Paul would later write to the Corinthian Church, "I planted Apollos watered, but God gave the growth." Paul established the church in Corinth. Apollos nurtured it, but God was the one who made it all happen.
Jesus is the head of the church, and Jesus is the one who gives her life. I'm loving to ask the worship team to come up and get ready to lead us in worship as we wrap up here, as we pray in just a moment, let's ask the Lord if there are any areas in our lives where we're making decisions that we should be submitting to him. Let's ask the Lord if there's any big life decisions that we're walking through right now, where he is saying, I wish you would stop and ask me what I think I wish you would ask a mature believer what they think because I want to share something with you - God's plans for you are better than your plans for yourself. He has the full picture.
And if there are any things, let's ask the Lord to help us seek Him in His Word and in prayer and to reveal to us who we should talk to, who he would have us share that with. And if you have any strong feelings about ministry or a specific area of ministry, let me encourage you to ask the Lord if there's anything he might be calling you to do. I'm not talking about having a full plan right here and right now, but just some clarity from the Lord as to how he would have you function most effectively as part of his body. If you love Jesus, you need to know that he created you to be part of his church. He put gifts and passions within you for the benefit of the church.
If you're not using them, if you're not participating in service and in church membership, let me be super blunt. Jesus wants you to. He wants you to. So do it. Do it if you're not doing it.
And with that, let's pray. Would you bow your head and close your eyes, Lord? Jesus. Thank you so much for your word. And thank you that you are a loving and good heavenly father.
So, thank You, Lord, that we don't ever need to be afraid of what Your plans for us might be because we know Your character. And I pray for anyone here who doesn't know Your character. Jesus, would you reveal yourself to them? Reveal just how loving, just how good, just how kind, and just how gracious you are. Overwhelm them with your goodness we pray, Jesus. Because we understand that where we perceive Your goodness, trust is not a problem. So, Jesus, overwhelm us once again with Your goodness and forgive us for where You have done that, but we have still refused to trust You. Forgive us, Jesus. You are a trustworthy, good God who is only ever and always faithful because you cannot be anything less. It's just who you are.
And so, Jesus, we want to offer up to you all of our plans, all of our hopes, all of our dreams, even the ones we've already made, lord, if you want us to revise them, we want to do it because we want to be in Your will. Jews.
That means more to us than anything, Lord, that we would be found in Your will because we want to be as close to You as we can. And we know that the closest place we can be to you is to be in Your will. So, Jesus, speak to us even now by Your spirit, and in this coming time of worship, lead us into Your will. If we're out of step with Your will, show us where Jesus and I pray for anyone who's afraid to pray that prayer, Lord. Give them the faith to do it, Jesus.
And then, Lord, I pray if you're stirring anything in anyone in an area of ministry, if there's a calling you want to impart on, a life, Jesus, would you speak to them right now in Jesus' name? Just reveal something to them - a clarity, a next step. Lord Jesus and Father, I pray for the gifts represented in this room that are not being utilized right now. I pray that you would stir hearts and, yes, convict, so that the church can be blessed and built up for the glory of Jesus by the gifts that you have put in. Our brothers and sisters, help us to submit our lives, our plans, our gifts, and our passions to you, Jesus, so that Your name would be glorified so that you would be pleased and honored among Your people in the church that belongs to you, of whom you are the Head.
And so, we pray that all glory would go to you, that Your name would be lifted high, that Your name would be exalted, and may it be so even in this time of worship. We love You so much, and we are so thankful for Your goodness in our lives because we deserve none of it. But you're just good, and we love you for it. We bless you, Jesus. In your name we pray.
Amen. Amen.