00;00;00;00 – 00;00;29;11
And turn him into someone who once persecuted the church and now turn him into someone who is an apostle or part of the actual foundation of the church. So he states again that this great honor was conferred upon him by none other than Jesus Christ himself. And if you look at the passage that’s made clear because in verse three and in verse four, as I pointed out in the beginning, Jesus Christ is the subject for three.

00;00;29;18 – 00;00;56;28
His son, Jesus Christ. Verse four, The Son of God. So we know we’re talking about Jesus Christ. And so Paul says in verse number five By whom or by Jesus Christ? We have received two things Grace and apostles, Year Grace and apostles. Now, this is not the only time that Paul is going to have to defend his credentials.

00;00;57;00 – 00;01;21;05
In fact, if you look at his earlier writings in Galatians, he makes the statement in chapter one, verse number 12, for I neither received it. A man, neither was taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ, He’s talking again about his apostles who are neither receded of man nor was I taught it. But by revelation of Jesus Christ.

00;01;21;07 – 00;02;00;10
Now that tells us something about the office of Apostle that tells us that there are apparently people who covet that title and are not entitled to it. And as we talked about earlier, to back up in verse number one, there are no apostles today. The apostles were discontinued when the New Testament was completed and when the infancy stage of the church was matured out of once the church was started and grown, there was no need for apostles.

00;02;00;14 – 00;02;27;08
Now, why were apostles necessary in those early days? Well, much for the same reason that we treat our children in less mature ways when they are infants and babies and when they are toddlers and so on and so forth. Let me give you an example. I have a Bible before me. There are no pictures in my Bible. There are none.

00;02;27;11 – 00;02;59;18
Now, my son also has some Bibles and in some of his Bibles, there’s pictures. One is his Bible have pictures. And mine does not. There’s really one. Only one answer to that is because I’m grown and I don’t need pictures. If you came to my office and on my shelf, my shelves were coloring books. I’d encourage you to go find somewhere else to go to church.

00;02;59;20 – 00;03;24;19
Can I get a witness on that? Now the rain’s coming down. Can you hear me? Okay? Still. All right. I want to make sure. I would encourage you to understand tonight that pictures are for children when you are in grammar school. You might have had a book that was teaching you to read, and it gave you the simplest sentence imaginable.

00;03;24;22 – 00;03;56;23
See, Jane run. The verb is C and run verbs or C and run the subject of the sentence as Jane and to break that down. What did they do? They would put that little sentence in there, and then below it they would put a picture of a girl running. Here’s Jane in picture actually running. And it the words were better understood when they had a picture with them.

00;03;56;26 – 00;04;34;09
Well, when you grow and mature and you become a better reader, you don’t need as many pictures. And so that is exactly the function of the apostles. The church was an infant church. The church was a toddler church. And so the church needed things like miracles. Now, stay with me, because I don’t want to lose you here, although miracles are still available today.

00;04;34;12 – 00;05;05;20
We don’t need them like we used to. Miracles are the coloring book and the crayons of Christianity because we have matured. We don’t need such entertaining and captivating things. I’m not saying that God can’t do miracles. I’m not saying God won’t do miracles. But what I am saying is that we are mature enough and the church of today that we don’t need those kinds of miracles.

00;05;05;28 – 00;05;28;29
And the apostles were miracle workers. On one occasion, Paul raised a man from the dead. Remember, his name was Utica. If you can’t remember Utica, you remember his story, how he was in the window and how Paul was long in preaching and he fell out of the window and injured himself and died. You can’t remember the name Utica.

00;05;29;02 – 00;05;53;26
I’ll help you remember it. You took us to if you fell out of that window that Paul raised him from the. Did you hear that? There are other occasions where the Apostle Paul and Peter and James and John and other apostles did certain miracles to gain the attention of the church. It was like a coloring book for the church to get their attention.

00;05;53;28 – 00;06;23;04
So once the church matured and the full word was completed, those coloring book days fell by the side. I can’t remember the last time I colored in a coloring book. I can’t remember. It’s been a long, many, many moons ago, as far as as far back as I can recall. So that’s the nature of the church. We don’t need apostles.

00;06;23;07 – 00;06;50;10
We don’t need them. We have their words. We don’t need their pictures. We have their words. We don’t need their miracles. We have their words. So there are things that certain certain churches, I call them miracle mongers. There are certain things that people have addicted themselves to and have become dependent upon. And they believe that God is still calling apostles because they still crave miracles and they still desire signs and wonders.

00;06;50;17 – 00;07;14;07
But remember what Jesus said. It’s a wicked and adulterous generation that seek it after a sign Your condition is mine is actually better. And I’ll tell you what that condition is. You remember Thomas. You remember he missed getting to see the resurrected Jesus. And he regretted that. And they told Thomas. They said We saw Jesus. We saw Jesus.

00;07;14;08 – 00;07;39;09
He said, I won’t believe it. I won’t believe it until I can place the tip of my finger into the scars in his hand. And thrust my hand into the scar on his side. And so later Jesus showed up again. This time? Yes, it was there. Old Thomas and Jesus came to him and he said, Thomas, put your finger in my hand.

00;07;39;11 – 00;08;06;19
Thrust your hand into my side. And remember, Thomas wouldn’t do it. But he looked at him and he said, My Lord and my God. That’s an important part of the Scripture. But what happened next is vital to this discussion. I want you to hear it. Jesus. Excuse me, said to Thomas. He said, Blessed are thou because thou hast seen and believed.

00;08;06;22 – 00;08;35;20
But then he said, More blessed are they, which have what not seen, and yet believed. Now I have never, with my physical eyes, seen Jesus, but I believe what these writings say about Him. So I don’t need my pastor to be an apostle. I don’t need to see somebody raise from the dead. That’d be. That’d be nice. But that’s not necessary.

00;08;35;22 – 00;09;00;26
And there are other sign gifts and signs and wonders. Woo! That scared me. Did you all get shocked out there? Was that just the monitors? I think the lightning struck somewhere, and it got me on my monitor. Beat, little heart beat, Keep beaten, low heart. But y’all didn’t hear that. Okay. All right. What was I talking about?

00;09;00;28 – 00;09;24;09
So there are other signs and wonders that were done for the benefit of the infant church that we don’t need anymore. We’re grown, and we don’t need those things anymore. So when Paul comes enrollments chapter one defending his apostle ship, he is doing that for the benefit of the first century Church. We don’t have apostles today. We don’t need apostles today.

00;09;24;11 – 00;09;48;22
But back then there were imposters and there were counterfeits who were pretending to be apostles. And the Apostle Paul had to make sure that they knew he’s no counterfeit, he’s no intruder. He is the real deal. He was called to be an apostle. Verse number five. He received this grace and apostle ship and who did he receive it from?

00;09;48;24 – 00;10;34;10
Jesus Christ. That’s the first part of verse five, the ordination. Second part of verse five The order don’t mix it up. Grace and Apostle Philip do. Don’t get them reversed. He didn’t become an apostle and then get Grace later. No, no. He got saved first and then became an apostle. Now this creates an argument. There are men and I sadly, I have to say, women, too, who are standing behind pulpits and they’ve never been saved.

00;10;34;13 – 00;11;06;18
This is a problem. There is a man who I pastored close to for ten years and this man’s ministry struggled and suffered. And one day after all of this struggle and all of these sufferings and things that was going on, he got born again. He had been pastoring for ten years. He got born again. Now, I’m not sad that he got born again.

00;11;06;18 – 00;11;30;16
Please understand me. Church I’m not sad that he got born again, but he did not resign and ceased to be a pastor. He just stayed in the saddle and acted as if he’s qualified to be a pastor and he’s not. Let me tell you why. Because the Bible says a pastor cannot be a newcomer to the faith. And so my admonition to him was, look, you need to resign.

00;11;30;20 – 00;11;51;19
I’m not telling you God is not called you to preach. That may come later, but you need to resign and go sit under a seasoned pastor and grow. Why? Because if you get your calling before you get your salvation, you got the cart before the horse. Are you with me? Church. So Paul gets it right in verse number five.

00;11;51;19 – 00;12;19;26
He says, We have received what number one Grace and second apostle ship. Grace needs to come before apostle ship. Just like salvation comes before service. Jesus said, Come on to me before. He said, Go ye and the all the world commitment to the truth always comes before commitment to the task. You can’t serve Jesus until you know him as your Savior.

00;12;19;29 – 00;12;42;21
This is important. I need to draw a line here. Everything that you do as a sinner is a sin. Even if you preach a sermon, that’s still a sin. Everything you do as a sinner is a sin. A sinner is not a sinner. Because he sends a sinner sins. Because he’s a sinner. Let me get that right before the lightning strikes again.

00;12;42;21 – 00;13;09;09
Are you? Listen to me. A sinner is not a sinner because he sends a singer sins because he’s a sinner. A dogged doesn’t wag his tail. Because a dog is not a dog. Because he wags his tail. The dog wags its tail because he’s a dog. That’s just what he does. And when you try to serve God before you have received the grace of God, you are completely out of order.

00;13;09;12 – 00;13;28;17
And if the church is spiritual, they’ll know it. Can I get a witness? If a pastor served somewhere for 20 years and he’s never been born again, that’s a reproach on the name of that church. That church should have picked up on that. The church should have known that because there’s no kindred spirit there. So Paul gets the order, right?

00;13;28;21 – 00;13;49;20
He says, Grace and Apostle. Did you know that John Wesley, the famed preacher, when he was go into the mission field before he discovered that he himself was an unconverted center and needed to be born again, he had to pull away from the ministry and get himself straightened out before he could effectively serve in the ministry of Jesus Christ.

00;13;49;20 – 00;14;15;15
And one of the writings about him, John Phillips, is explaining, and he said, when John Wesley went to Georgia to preach the gospel to the American Indians, he was far from the kingdom of God. He wrote in his journal, This is a quote from Wesley I have learned that what I least of all expected that I who went to America to convert the Indians was never myself converted to God.

00;14;15;17 – 00;14;39;09
John Phillips continues and said God was pursuing him. On May 24, 1738, Wesley opened his Bible in a haphazard way and read Thou Art not far from the Kingdom of God. Mark Chapter 12, verse 34. That night he said, I went, I went very unwilling to a society of of Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle of the Romans.

00;14;39;12 – 00;15;01;18
That night he was say he was far from the Kingdom of God when he arrived in Georgia. He was not far from the Kingdom of God. When he opened his Bible that Wednesday morning, he was in the Kingdom of God by 845 that night. And you say, Preacher, is it possible for a man to be in the ministry and not saved?

00;15;01;20 – 00;15;38;07
Let’s let the greatest authority ever make comment on that at the last judgment. Jesus said, there will be people that are going to come to me and say, what Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in our name? And then will I say to them, What depart from me that work iniquity? Why I never knew you. There’s a lot of men who mistake what they think is a call to preach for what is actually the conviction of the Holy Spirit for them to be saved.

00;15;38;10 – 00;16;19;26
And they dive into the ministry without having actually been converted. So Paul gives to us a model. He says we have received verse number five, Grace and Apostle Ship, Grace first Apostle ship. After that. He gets saved, then he serves. Someone came to me about I don’t want to talk a whole lot about this, spent a whole lot of time on this, but someone came to me about a couple of the kids that we pick up on the bus who I know are not converted, and they asked, Can’t we let them be ushers?

00;16;19;26 – 00;16;45;02
Can’t we let them be? Here’s the answer. Church. I have to say no. Why? Because we don’t want to give anyone the idea that you can operate inside the Ministry of the Church without being a Christian. They need to know. You must be born again if you’re going to serve God in the church. I’m not talking about isolating those people.

00;16;45;08 – 00;17;12;08
I’m not talking about making those people feel unwelcome. That’s not what I’m saying. But what I am saying is, if you’re going to serve God, you must meet the first qualification. You have to be a born again believer. I know this is simple tonight, but it needs to be said. The order, grace. And then apostles. You. Let me just chop some of this out.

00;17;12;10 – 00;17;36;11
You see me turning the pages. Last thing. Last thing there is the ordination. There is the order. And the third thing I want to point out tonight in verse number five, the last thing is obedience. Do you know what that is?

00;17;36;13 – 00;18;08;26
There’s a difference between surrender and submission. Do you understand that? Maybe not. So let me help you. I was born in the South. This country in the 1860s had a civil war. It was the South against the North. Don’t come talking to me after service about it. I know who won. All right. I know the score is 1 to 0.

00;18;08;28 – 00;18;42;03
But how many times have you seen me raise my fist and say the South will rise again? Oh, did you know the South surrendered? But never submitted? Did you know that? Now, I’m being a little humorous here, but I want you. I don’t want you to miss the point with the humor. There is a difference between submit mission and surrender and obedience as it is described in verse number five.

00;18;42;03 – 00;19;18;00
He calls it obedience to the faith. Underscore that in your Bible, he obedience to the faith. Obedience and faith in this passage of Scripture are so akin to one another that you can’t tell the difference. They’re like identical twins. If you are obedient to the faith, that means you are displaying the qualities of the faith. If you don’t understand what I’m saying tonight, let me reverse engineer it so maybe it’ll be easier.

00;19;18;03 – 00;19;51;22
Somebody help me understand what disobedient faith is. You’re thinking like I was. You’re shaking your head and saying there’s not. There’s no such thing as disobedient faith to Christ. Exactly. If you put your faith in Jesus Christ, guess what you’re doing. You’re obeying him. If you’re disobeying him, classify that you are not exhibiting true faith in Jesus Christ.

00;19;51;24 – 00;20;22;04
Why Jesus said in John six Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and what do not the things which I say obedience to Christ and faith are so synonymous that they are interchangeable terms. If I were to ask somebody tonight, Are you a Christian? And they none of their head and said yes. And then I said, Tell me you’re a Christian without saying I’m a Christian, How could they say it?

00;20;22;07 – 00;20;52;29
Well, they would say, okay, I’ve put my faith in Jesus Christ. You know what we would assume then that means you’re Christian. But how else could they say it? They could say I’m obeying his word, and we would have to say what? I take that as evidence of Christianity. But there are people everywhere in Baptist churches that believe that they can live in direct and flagrant disobedience to the word and still call themselves Christians.

00;20;53;01 – 00;21;21;29
I’m not sure that that equates with what Paul is saying here. He says in verse number five, I receive grace in apostle ship. What’s this for? Or with the intent of what? Obedience to the faith. He said, I did not become a Christian so I could disobey Jesus. I became a Christian. Why? So I could obey Jesus Christ.

00;21;22;01 – 00;21;44;07
You see, when you were lost, you couldn’t obey him. You were of your father, the devil, and the last of your father. You will do. When you were. When you were lost, you could not behave as Christians aren’t. But when you get saved, then God gives you the freedom to be able to obey him. Obedience to the faith.

00;21;44;07 – 00;22;11;28
You could call it several other things. James got it right. He gets high marks for wording it perfectly. I don’t see how it could be said any better in James when he said Faith without works is what did being alone. I think Adrian Rogers commented on that and got it right. He said Faith alone can save, but the faith alone never saves.

00;22;12;00 – 00;22;39;16
Faith is a faith that is alone, never saves. Faith without works is dead. Faith without words is lifeless. Faith without works is fruitless. So we get saved so we can have someone else in charge of us besides ourselves. Now, let me tell you what I am not saying. Since I’ve said what I need to say. I am not advocating work salvation.

00;22;39;17 – 00;23;01;06
Don’t go out of here and misquote me. I’ll cut the brake lines on your car. I’m not talking about work salvation, but I’m talking about salvation that works. The problem is not work. Salvation in discussion here. The problem is, is we have an abundance of church members who believe that you can get saved and never go to church.

00;23;01;08 – 00;23;22;12
You can get saved and never get baptized. You can get saved and never give a cent. You can get saved and never obey one aspect of the gospel because you got that fire insurance policy. You get to go to heaven like all like everybody else. And I’m telling you, that is not what the Bible actually teaches. Paul said, I got saved.

00;23;22;14 – 00;23;46;19
I got called to be an apostle. And he said, all of this had a purpose. Jesus had a goal and a purpose in mind. Verse five It was for obedience to the faith. And then he adds this He tells us just a little bit about what his calling is going to involve. He says, among all nations, for his name.

00;23;46;22 – 00;24;08;05
I would just suggest to you tonight that if you’re a Christian, you’re not ashamed to wear his name. And if you’re a believer, you’re not ashamed of his name. Can I get a witness on that? One time I saw this pickup truck and it was a beautiful truck, man. It thing was brand new. It looked like it’s right off the showroom floor.

00;24;08;08 – 00;24;36;25
And somebody had taken that thing down to an aftermarket paint shop. And on the tailgate of that gorgeous truck, they had airbrushed on their still blessed. And I thought to myself, I said, why would they do that to that gorgeous truck? And the Holy Spirit says, shut your mouth. They’re proud to be a Christian. Don’t market. You hear what I’m saying?

00;24;36;27 – 00;25;00;02
You see, if you know Jesus as your savior and if you are a bold witness, it doesn’t matter what national context you find yourself in, you will stand up for his name. And I want to just if I can, share an experience that I had in our clothes. Oh, mercy. Look at the time. It’s rain and you can’t leave yet anyway.

00;25;00;08 – 00;25;30;15
Give me a few more minutes. This particular prison ministry had invited me to become one of their conference speakers in prisons. You know, just stop raining. You listen. And Lord said, No, it’s time to close. All right, I’ll make it quick, Lord. So this. I won’t tell you who they are, but this particular prison ministry had invited me to come and do some conferences inside prison walls where they were gathering prisoners together.

00;25;30;15 – 00;25;58;21
We were given the gospel. Some of them were getting saved. It was it was really an incredible experience. Well, they they had some problems with some mavericks who had been invited into this thing, just not behaving very well and saying things that they shouldn’t say. So this prison ministry sent out an email to us and they said, if you’re going to continue to go in with our ministry, you need to you need to be trained by us.

00;25;58;24 – 00;26;24;09
And I was glad to do it. I’ll do anything to have an opportunity to preach the gospel. And I love training. I think training can make everything better. So we went to this conference room and there were about 12 or 14 of us there. I can’t remember exactly. And we were all sitting there and this individual was going through this training process, and he got to a section in the portfolio that he was using and he said, Here’s what we expect you to do if a prisoner gets born again.

00;26;24;12 – 00;26;46;09
And so I’m just looking at this. I thought it was pretty basic material, you know, and I was kind of but just kind of half listening and taking in everything they were saying there. And when he got to that section, he made a comment. And every nerve in my spirit tensed up. He said, If they get born again, don’t celebrate it.

00;26;46;12 – 00;27;14;25
And I thought, What did he just say? He said, If they get born again, don’t announce it. Because in the prison system in the state of Florida, sometimes if a person gets born again, they get those other prisoners may test them to prove their Christianity. So they said it would probably be better for them to keep their Christianity a secret.

00;27;14;27 – 00;27;45;13
Otherwise they may be welcoming persecution. When I raised my hand and I asked them, Are you saying that someone who gets born again should be ashamed of it should hide it, should conceal it? And this guy was so bamboozled by that question. And he said, Well, Pastor, explain yourself. And I said, Well, the Bible says the Bible. The Bible.

00;27;45;13 – 00;28;20;23
You remember that the Bible says he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He said, wait a minute. Is that teaching baptismal regeneration? No, it’s not. But listen to what it said. He the believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Can I ask you a question? What is baptism? Baptism is your public testimony. When you get into that baptistery, that is your way of standing up before the witnesses of the world and the witnesses of the church and saying what?

00;28;20;25 – 00;28;53;21
I have been crucified with Christ, I have been buried and I have been raised again. And I am willing to make public profession of that. So they said in this seminar or in this training session, they said, don’t celebrate those men who may get saved. And I told them, I said, look, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to cooperate with this, because when a person gets saved, they become a witness to all nations.

00;28;53;23 – 00;29;19;06
They become a bold display of the grace of God that has been placed on their life. I would submit to you today and again, I’m not adding works to salvation. That’s not the point here. But I would submit to you today that if you got saved, you can’t hide it. If you truly got born again, you’re not. Do you remember the old?

00;29;19;10 – 00;29;48;02
We need to go back to Sunday school here for a second. Here. Hide it under a bushel. No, I’m going to let it shine. Let it shine till Jesus comes. I’m going to let it shine. You remember the song? It’s right, isn’t it? It’s right. Why? Because our boldness as believers comes from that grace experience. Now, I said I was going to close, and I have to remember the tabernacle in the wilderness.

00;29;48;04 – 00;30;11;18
Every piece of furniture in that tabernacle. We’ve talked about that here in our church. Biggest piece of furniture in that tabernacle. You know, that is just the brazen altar, the brazen altars, where the bloodshed and where the blood is applied. That’s a top of your salvation. Did you know that if they were careful, they could take every other piece of furniture in the tabernacle and fit it inside of that brazen altar?

00;30;11;20 – 00;30;39;15
And I want you to know this church, every Christian discipline that you engage in comes from your salvation. You can’t pray unless you’re saved from. Oh, let me say that again. I know lost people like to pray, but they’re not really praying. You know that, don’t you? They like to talk about prayer and they like to boast about prayer.

00;30;39;15 – 00;30;58;00
And they tell you they’re praying for you, but they’re not really praying. They don’t know the Lord. Right. Are you with me on that? You can’t. You can pray, but you can’t pray unless you’re safe. Say you can give, but it’s not going to go into heaven’s account unless you’re saved. So everything about you comes from your salvation experience.

00;30;58;00 – 00;31;23;23
You can’t be bashful about that. You’ve got to be bold about it. You’ve got to be vocal about it. He has put a new song in my mouth. What? Even praise to our God. So if you’re one of these chameleon Christians or camouflage Christians, you’re imagining yourself to be something that you’re actually not. There is a certain boldness that Saul, that the Apostle.

00;31;23;23 – 00;31;52;26
When Saul became the Apostle Paul, there’s a certain boldness that God gave to him. And that boldness is natural to all of us because all nations need to see Christians. Are you with me? Yes. I was at Publix yesterday. Publix. Your friendly neighborhood supermarket. What was our buy buying fried chicken on Halo, Tokyo? All heads bowed. Nice clothes.

00;31;52;27 – 00;32;25;05
Let’s go to Publix right now. Getting some of that good again right now. And while I was there, I saw virtually every T-shirt advertising, virtually everything you can imagine. Some of them decent, some of them indecent. And in that setting, we we see the world. Bold about what they are. People had rainbows. You know what they’re saying? They’re saying I am unapologetically this.

00;32;25;07 – 00;32;57;16
People had other profane things. And what are they saying? I’m unapologetically this. Well, listen, Fran, this is easy. This is easy. If you’re saved, the spirit of God inside of you will make you an unapologetic believer, no matter where you are, no matter what national context, what employment context. If you’re at the family reunion. Oh, yeah. Hello? Oh, Uncle Tom hates God and cusses God with every breath.

00;32;57;19 – 00;33;35;10
Oh, that’s why God made you his nephew. Because it’s your turn to put Uncle Tom’s voice in its place. You have to oppose that. You see, we can be Christians in any context. And that’s what Paul said. God had called him to be. That’s Romans chapter one, verse five. Father, we thank you for a really simple presentation in Romans one five of just exactly what bold Christianity looks like.

00;33;35;12 – 00;34;00;20
It started with Grace. It was followed by a calling for the Apostle Paul after that calling, he got his hands involved in the service of God. He found out he wasn’t liked everywhere he went and he wasn’t liked for everything that he said. So he had to develop a thick hide and he had to be bold. And today, Father, we pray for these same qualities in ourselves.

00;34;00;22 – 00;34;08;14
Help us, Father. We pray to adopt the mentality of Romans. Chapter one, Verse number five. In Jesus name, we pray.