 Yeah, man, all right, Acts chapter 20. So we're starting a brand new chapter. We spent a few weeks in Acts chapter 19. So interesting story. You kind of start to see why I didn't pass out a map for Acts for the third missionary journey because Paul and his crew are just kind of all over the place on this third missionary journey as they're going from Greece to Macedonia and back to Greece. It's quite a trip that they're on. And just in one verse, they'll go from across the sea kind of thing. So we'll take a look at that. If you do have your map from the second missionary journey, I will point out where one of these cities is that we're going to talk about this evening. But look down at verse number one, and let's get into the chapter tonight. We're only going to get into a few verses here. We'll look at this first story really that happens. Verse number one, the Bible says, and after the uproar was seized. So of course, this is the uproar of the copper smiths or the silver smiths and the shrine of Diana and all that mess that we talked about in Acts chapter 19 last week. And that was calmed down. So Paul called on to him the disciples and embraced them and departed to go into Macedonia. So of course, he's in Asia right now. He was in Ephesus, which is in the lower part of Asia, which is modern day Turkey. Macedonia is across the sea, northern Greece, I guess is what you would look at is what Macedonia is today. So they go across the sea again into Macedonia. Verse two, and when they had gone over those parts and given them much exhortation, he came into Greece. So he went over to Macedonia, then he went down into Greece. Athens is kind of on the southeast tip of Greece. And they're abode three months. And when the Jews laid weight for him, so the Jews are still chasing him all over the place here as he was about to sail into Syria, he purposed to return through Macedonia. So he went back up north and they're accompanied him into Asia. So he went up through to Macedonia and he's gonna come back across the sea again to Asia, okay, modern day Turkey. And then it just lists a group of his companions here. Into Asia, Sopater of Berea, and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus, Gaius of Derb, and Tumotheus of Asia, Ticacus and Trophimus. So we've got some people from, you know, Thessalonica is just below Macedonia over there on the Greece side. So he's picking up all this group of people that are kind of going around with him. It's turning into kind of a large group and they're going, they're not, look at verse five, it says these going before, tarried for us at Troas. So they went across, Troas is over on the Asia side. It's a coastal city of Asia on the north, not, yeah, it's about the northwestern coast of what we would call Asia in the Bible or what we would look at as Turkey today. But you see, they're kind of, they're not even all staying together. They're kind of just all traveling around and then they met up again at Troas which is the story that we're going to look at tonight. And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread and came unto them at Troas where they were waiting in five days. Now they're all together again. It says, where we abode seven days? Look at verse seven. And upon the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow and continued his speech until midnight. And there were many lights in the upper chamber when they were gathered together. So they ate their eating supper. You know, you figure that's six o'clock or so. And then, you know, Paul preaches literally until, you know, midnight. So he's preaching for several hours. There were many lights in the upper chamber and when they were gathered, you know, where they were gathered together. And there sat a window a certain, in the window a certain young man named Uticus being fallen into a deep sleep. And as Paul was long preaching, yeah, six hours or so, he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft as he was taken up dead. He fell from the third story. He was sitting in a window up there and, you know, he died. The Bible says he fell down and he died. Kind of a sad story. Verse number 10, well, Paul went down and fell on him and embracing him said, "'Trouble not yourselves for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again and had broken bread and eaten and taken a long while even till the break of day, so he departed.'" So that's talking about again, Paul in verse number 11. So he goes and he raises Uticus from the dead and then he goes up and he continues, you know, breaking bread and, you know, fellowshiping and preaching to the people until the morning. Until, you know, all night long, you know, until the break of day, the Bible says, look at verse 12. It says, "'And they brought the young man alive and were not a little comforted.'" That means, you know, we're not a little comforted, meaning they were extremely filled with joy because of the fact that this young man had been raised from the dead. So here we see Paul, you know, he does an extraordinary miracle here. You know, not a lot of people besides Paul raised people from the dead in the Bible. Look at a couple of them turn to 1 Kings chapter 17. There is only, you know, three of them really that we can look at in the Bible. Elijah is one of them in 1 Kings chapter 17. But the point I want to make is we'll look at a couple of these other, besides Jesus of course, of course Jesus raised people, he raised Lazarus from the dead, he raised other people from the dead and then many people were resurrected when Jesus died on the cross. Many people, you know, don't know that either. But look at 1 Kings 17 and let's see if we can kind of come up with, you know, the significance of, you know, this extraordinary miracle of actually raising somebody from the dead. Look at 1 Kings chapter 17, look at verse 17. This is talking about the widow that took in Elijah. Look at verse 17, it says after, it came to pass after these things that the son of the woman, of course, Elijah had done a miracle for her. They were suffering from the famine that Elijah had put on the land to, you know, basically curse King Ahab. And it came to pass after these things. The son of the woman, the mistress of the house fell sick and his sickness was so sore that there was no breath left in him. And she said unto Elijah, what have I to do with the, oh man of God, oh thou art, I can't read today, oh thou man of God, art thou come to call my sin to remembrance and to slay my son. And he said to her, give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom and carried him up into the loft where he abode and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried unto the Lord and said, oh Lord God, has thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, saying her son. And he stretched himself on the child three times and cried unto the Lord and said, oh Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah and the soul of the child came into him again and he revived. And Elijah took the child and brought him down out of the chamber to the house and delivered him unto his mother. And Elijah said, see thy son, live it. And now look at verse 24. We kind of see the purpose of this miracle here. And the woman said to Elijah, now by this I know that thou art a man of God. And the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth. So we see that that miracle had a purpose to it. It was to give this woman a demonstration that Elijah truly was the man of God as if the miracle that he did with the food and the oil wasn't enough. God gave this extraordinary miracle to show that this is the man of God and this is God's word in his mouth. In 2 Kings chapter four, we see a similar story where the Shunamite woman's son dies. You don't have to turn there, I'll just explain it to you. But basically the Shunamite woman, she also receives a miracle from Elisha, you know the successor to Elijah and her son is wounded in a field accident. He's wounded in the head and he dies. And the purpose we see there is, Gahazi, Elisha's servant goes to the child and tries to revive the child and bring the child back to life but he can't do it until Elisha comes there and Elisha actually is able to raise the child from the dead. So basically showing the importance of the faith of the man of God which I'm gonna show you how important that is towards the end of the sermon. And then of course Peter in Acts chapter nine, he raised my favorite disciple in the Bible, Dorcas, he raised her from the dead. I really like to have fun with that name. But he raised Tabitha, also known as Dorcas in the Bible, he raised her from the dead as well. And if you look at Acts chapter nine, verse 42, I can just read it for you. The Bible says that it was known throughout all Joppa and many believed in the Lord after that happened. So you see that that had a purpose too. It's not like God is just doing all these miracles. So miracles have a purpose, first of all. That's why Acts chapter two, the day of Pentecost, when they all went out and they spoke in all these different languages, it had a purpose to spread the gospel. The raising Tabitha from the dead, it had a purpose that many people believed the gospel from that great miracle. Now turn to 2nd Corinthians chapter 12. 2nd Corinthians chapter 12 and look at verse number 12. So yes, this had a purpose for Paul as well. Look at 1st 2nd Corinthians chapter 12 and verse number 12. So Paul is preaching for hours and hours and hours and somebody falls asleep, falls out of the window and dies and Paul raises them from the dead. In 2nd Corinthians chapter 12 and verse number 12, Paul says, truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you and all patients in signs and wonders and mighty deeds. So this is showing, one of the signs, this is a sign that Paul is an apostle, that he was able to raise this young man from the dead after he fell to his death. So it's basically the main purpose is to show that they were from God, these people, whether it be the prophets or Paul, to basically give legitimacy in the case of Peter and Paul to give legitimacy to their message, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ, right? So what do we take away from the story is the question, right? I'm sure somebody has preached a sermon. I've never heard a sermon like this, but I'm sure someone has preached a sermon on this story just talking about just not falling asleep in church. I could just get up here and just preach a whole sermon and just yell and scream and just like, you should never fall asleep in church or God is gonna strike you down, right? But I don't really think that that is the point. It's funny though, because when I first started preaching about three years ago, there was somebody that consistently, this person is not in the church anymore and it doesn't really matter, but there was somebody that consistently on Sunday nights would fall asleep consistently in church. And the only thing I took away from that was like, man, I need to get better at this preaching stuff. It was really kind of hurt my feelings. I'm like, man, I spent so much time writing this sermon and it's apparently not very exciting at all, right? So that's why I jump up and down every now and then. But look, I'm gonna give you two points tonight. Two points on this story other than the fact that you shouldn't fall asleep in church, all right, Luke? All right, good. Okay, so the first point I wanna make is that'll teach you to sit up front because I look over here and I see you right away and I'm just like, all right, I'm gonna start using Luke as the example all the time now. It used to be brother Matt would sit up here and I'd use him as the example all the time. But the first thing I wanna say, I'll give you two points tonight on this story, aside from falling asleep in church. The first thing I wanna say is all these people were gathered together and listening to Paul for hours and hours and hours and hours. They had all these people that were just all together and just, look, if you're listening to somebody for six, eight, 12 hours, you are pretty dedicated to the message that that person is saying to that person themselves. You're pretty interesting in what's going on. And you had this large group of people that came together in this unified church to listen to Paul preach. And here's the thing, through all hours of the night, I mean, sounds familiar, right? But here's the thing, people, so you had this large group of unified people is the first thing. People, and this is what's interesting, people today, people always are searching for people that have things in common with them. And the Bible says about the people in Acts and all these different churches, it said they had all things in common. Many times, the Bible says that about believers. Even psychologists today will study this phenomenon about how people have this need to find people to identify with. People just have that desire. And many people, many people in their lives, they can't find their people. It's a common thing. I brought this up before. If you look at polls and just studies of Americans, something like 36% of Americans are lonely a lot, meaning they don't have people. They don't have their people, they don't have any people. 61, this is amazing, but 61% of people under the age of 40 are lonely much of their life is what they will say. So look, this is why people are looking for groups to identify with. And many people just never find it. This is why you see people group up in silly little groups like, hey, we all bought the same brand of motorcycle, so let's form a group together. Hey, we all bought the same brand of motorcycle, we could all dress up in the same costume and we could all ride our motorcycles around and be a group together. Because people are looking to conform with a group of people. They're looking for their people. But these are very shallow things. It doesn't matter what groups you pick, 4-H to whatever, it's very sports, sports leagues, fantasy, football, whatever. People are looking for groups of people to identify with. But unfortunately, many people find very shallow things to do that on, which is all these secular groups and clubs that you'll see today. But you had all these people in this story gathered together under the banner of the gospel here. You had all these people gathered together under the banner of the Bible here. Because what was Paul talking about? I can preach the gospel in about 25 minutes, thoroughly. Paul was clearly talking about the greater word of God here and that's what these people were unified underneath. These people here, and this is the point I wanna make, this is the first point I wanna make, these people in this story, they had a very deep bond. People that are unified on the Bible are gonna just by the very nature of the Bible, they're going to have a very deep bond. You say, why? Because every truth is in the Bible, that's why. So when you have people that are unified on the Bible, that's why you're not gonna see big debates after church. We sit around in a circle and have big debates on abortion here, it's just never gonna happen. Because we're unified on the Bible. You're never gonna see debates on homosexuality here. Because we're unified on what the Bible says. You're never gonna see debates here on what a man is and what a woman is and all this stupid, crazy stuff going on. You're not gonna see that here because our roots are deep here. We are unified on every truth of the Bible. That's what unifies us. It's like it's the ultimate unity when you think about it. Which is what? It's one of the extreme powers of the church. Is that deep unity? All right? Look, I mean, we know what up is, we know what down is. We're living in opposite world today. We don't have that problem. It can be very difficult being by yourself when everyone says the wall is red and when you clearly look at it and say that it's white. If you're by yourself, that would be very frustrating. But that's the power of the unity of the church. I'm gonna go deeper into that next week. But that's the first thing I wanna point out is this is a unified group of people and they're unified on the deep stuff. They're unified on the Bible. So when people call evil good and good evil, we're unified against all that. We don't have that problem here. Turn to John chapter nine. Here's the second thing I wanna look at on this story. This is my opinion that this is the main purpose of this story. This is my opinion that I'm gonna give you now. Look at John chapter nine. So obviously you see a unified group of people here that's willing to listen to Paul till all hours of the night, all hours of the morning. But I wanna give you what I believe is the main purpose of this story tonight. Look at John chapter nine. Look at verse number one. John chapter nine, look at verse number one. The Bible says this. It says Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him saying, master, who did sin? This man or his parents? That he was born blind. They walked by a blind man and all the disciples say what did his parents do wrong that he was born blind? All right? Look at verse number three. Jesus had some straight. He says Jesus answered, neither had this man sinned nor his parents. But that the works of God should be made manifest in him. Look, that's amazing right there. Jesus went and he healed this young man and he made this blind man see. And what Jesus told the disciples there was the reason that he was born blind was so I could heal him. The reason that he was born blind was for this moment right here that the works of God could be made manifest or known through me, through him, through his healing. Look, this is sleepy head right here. This is sleepy head that fell out the window. Why did he fall out of the window? So the works of God could be made manifest to everyone in that church. You say, how do you know that? Well, Matthew 18 verse 20 says, for where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. So here's what I know. Here's what I know. Where you had these people gathered together in the name of Jesus Christ, listening to Paul preach the Bible for hours and hours and hours, here's what I know. God was there. God was amongst them. How do I know? Because he tells us that he will be amongst people in those situations. And guess what? God wanted to join in. So he wrought a great miracle. He did a great miracle. Why? To add to their joy. That's what the Bible tells us. It says they weren't a little comforted. It's a different way of saying it, but it meant they were very joyful about what had happened, is what it meant. So what's the application here? I mean, have you figured it out yet? The application is this. God will wrought miracles amongst us. That is the application of this story. Look, this is exciting. This story. This is exciting news that where two or three are gathered together in my name, God will wrought miracles amongst us. So the first thing is that we should appreciate things that are done for us by God in the midst of us. Because look, he's in the midst of us. The Bible tells us that he is. We should appreciate, I say this all the time and I'm gonna continue to say it and tell him dead. We should appreciate answered prayers. When we go through the prayer list and we pray as a church, you should put things on the prayer list, by the way. Why not use this powerful tool that we have? God says in James chapter four in verse number two through three, he says you have not because he asked not. He's like, you don't have stuff because you don't ask for it. Dummy? He didn't say dummy, I added that part. But the point is, he's like, you don't ask for things. And then he says after that, he's like, and if you don't get the things that you ask for, it's because you ask for the wrong things. But basically we need to use that tool and then we should appreciate those answered prayers. But what we do, but what we do is we pray for things. Look, I do it too. We pray for things and then we get those prayers answered and then we just like, we just go whew. And we forget that we had an answered prayer there. So look, keep track of your prayers and just keep track of the prayers that are being answered and make sure that you're thankful for those things. But look, don't be afraid to ask things because God is in the midst of us and he will rot great miracles amongst us just like he did for these people at Troas. So that's the first point. The second point is this. The second point is this. The stronger our faith is, and I'll prove this to you from the Bible, the stronger our faith is, the greater works God will do. You say what? Turn to James chapter two. This is the lesson from Elisha and Gehazi. Gehazi went and he couldn't, he, you know, we know he was a worldly man. We know that he had all his head wasn't in the ministry. We know that he was, you know, about the mammon and about the things of this world. Look, and he couldn't raise that boy from the dead, but Elisha could. You say why? Was it there's God decided? No, it's because of the faith that was there. It was because of the lack of faith that Gehazi had. Turn to James chapter two. I'm gonna explain to you James chapter two, which is maybe one of the most misunderstood and misused passages in the Bible. I'm gonna explain that in detail for you in just the next few minutes. But James chapter two is talking about the measure of faith. It is talking about the measure of your faith. You say, what are you talking about? You know, am I not saved, you know, by faith? You know, yeah, I mean, for by grace are you saved through faith? Yes, you're saved through faith, but not everybody's faith is equal. I guarantee you that somebody has greater faith than you and somebody has less faith than you. There's a spectrum of faith. If you're saved tonight, that means you have enough faith to be saved. That means that you have enough trust that you just trusted on Jesus. That doesn't mean that, you know, all throughout your life you're just gonna have, you know, faith in everything that God is able to do. You know, everybody has doubts. Everybody has, you know, times in their life when they doubt things, where their faith goes down and up. James chapter two is talking about the measure of our faith and the difference that it makes. Not all faith is equal. Turn to James chapter two if you're not there. Look at verse number 14. So I'm gonna explain to you James chapter two and show you what it is saying and what it's not saying. Look at verse 14. It says, what does it profit my brethren? Though a man say he has faith and have not works, can faith save him? James chapter two, of course, is used by the works-based salvation people to prove that, you know, you have to have works with your faith to be saved. That is not what it's saying at all. What did the first four words say of James chapter two, verse 14? It says, what does it profit? It says, it's not profitable. It's not profitable to have no works with your faith. Look at verse 15. Now he gives us an example just so we understand. It says, if a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and what do you say unto them? Depart in peace, be you warmed and filled, not withstanding. You give them not those things which are needful to the body. What does it profit? He gives us an example of what he means by what does it profit? He's saying, what does it profit your brother? What does it profit your brother? If you say, hey, I hope you're warm. You got a brother who's cold and he's hungry. And you go up to him and say, hey, I hope you get warm and I hope you get food. See you next Sunday. The Bible says that's, what you said there is not profiting, man, because you didn't do anything for them. It says, what does it profit? Look at verse 17. Even so, meaning comparison. It's using a comparison here. Even so, faith, if it hath not works, is dead being alone. Meaning what? It's saying, even so, it's saying just like this, your faith is not valuable to other people. Is what it's saying. Yea, a man may say thou hast faith and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy works and I will show thee my faith by my works. You see that? He's showing how we should be. He's saying, thou hast faith and I have works. He's like, show me thy faith without thy works. He's like, but this, you know, James is saying, I'll show you my faith through my works. Because guess what? You know how I show you my faith through my works. Unless you suddenly became God and can see my heart, the only way that we show our faith to each other is through our works. It says, thou believest that there is one God, thou doest well as the devils also believe and tremble. So look, up to this point, verse 14, verse 19, very simple, very easy doctrine there. It's just talking about the works that go with your faith. They are what profit other people. That's why I will talk to people after soul winning and after getting somebody saved. Like look, you're not saved through your works. But now, God wants you to live the Christian life. God wants you to get into church. God wants you to learn the Bible. God wants you to obey him, do all these things. Why? So you'll be profitable to your children. So you'll be profitable to your wife. You'll be profitable to your friends and your family all around you. Because who wants to be just this person who has just no value to anyone else? And you can see that as a father, I could be saved and I could just go and just live a life that had nothing to do with the Bible. And it doesn't make me any less saved, but my kids aren't gonna get saved. My family's not gonna hear the gospel through me. And if I live this hypocritical life and I try to open up the Bible to my family, they're gonna laugh at my face. That's how it will work. He's talking about being profitable. And if you wanna be profitable in your Christian life, you must have the works. He's not talking about going to heaven, you're saved. That's it. Look, you have to remember our first Bible reading rule. If you read a verse in the Bible and it contradicts other simple verses in the Bible, you're interpreting it wrong. Because look, if this is talking about, they'll say, your faith is dead being alone. See, you lost your salvation. That's not what it says. It's talking about your faith not profiting anybody. So that's the easy part. We're just talking about the profit. Profit to your brothers and sisters and people that are unsaved especially. Now let's get into verse 20 because now this gets a little complicated. And this is really what people use to try to twist the Bible and show that God or that salvation is through works or partly through works, which is not true at all. Look at verse 20. But we'll now know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead. How many times have you had somebody quote that to you? Faith without works is dead. Faith without works is dead. Okay, I get it. We're talking about two kinds of faith here. That's the first one. Faith without works is dead. So we're talking about dead faith. That's the first kind of faith we're talking about. Look at verse 21. It says, was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? First of all, that's a question, right? That's a question. It says, see us that how faith wrought with his works and by works was faith made perfect. So that's the second kind of faith. We have two kinds of faith that we're talking about in this passage. The first one is dead faith. And the second one, if the faith rots with all the works is perfect faith. So you have dead faith and you have perfect faith. These are the two types of faith. James chapter two is talking about a spectrum of faith here. It is talking about the measure of faith. Do you wanna be closer to the dead faith part? Or do you wanna be closer to the perfect faith part? Turn to Romans chapter four. But it did say like, hey, Abraham our father justified by works, wasn't he? And then in verse 23 it says, in the scripture was fulfilled with Seth, Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness and he was called the friends of God. You see then how by works a man is justified and not by faith only. That sounds like works go with faith to be justified. Look, I read the Bible many times and I'm just like, man, why did God have to put verse 24 in there? That sounds confusing, but I'm gonna explain it to you. In verse 24 it says, you see that by works a man is justified and not by faith only. Talking about when Abraham was willing to go up and sacrifice Isaac. God told him to do it and he went and he did it. Now go to Romans chapter four. You have to see this in Romans chapter four in order to make sense out of this. Because look Ephesians chapter two says, for by grace are you saved through faith and not of yourselves is the gift of God not of works. So if Abraham was justified by works, we got a problem with the Bible. So what is the deal? And look, you know how if the Bible was 1% wrong, we got a major problem. You know we had a power plant that was wired wrong, there's thousands of connections in this power plant. And everybody started arguing about what percentage of the wires were wired wrong. And they said, oh it's not that bad, it's only 4% of the wires. And I was like, which 4%? And they said, we don't know. I said, it doesn't matter, we gotta check them all. So quit arguing about how many, what percent is miswired. If the Bible is 1% wrong, and I don't know which 1% it is, I can't trust any of it. It's not 1% wrong though. Go to Romans chapter four. So it says, in verse 23, it says, or in verse 24 of James two, it says, you see then how that by works a man is justified and not by faith only. What does that mean? Look at Romans four and verse number one. Talking about Abraham. Romans four and verse number one. Now we're kind of getting into some 300 level doctrine here folks. But pay attention to this. It says, what shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found, as pertaining to the flesh, meaning in this body. Look at verse two. It says, for if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. You see that? You see what that said? You know what that's saying? Is it saying is, what did Abraham find in the flesh? What did it mean by what he did with his body? You know what that means? It's talking about his works. It says, what did Abraham's works by him? And then it says, if he were justified by those works, it said he could glory. And that's what Ephesians chapter two, that matches perfectly Ephesians chapter two, where it says, it's not of works, why, lest any man should boast. If I was getting myself to heaven, I could brag about that. I could stand in front of Jesus, and if I had to do certain works to get to heaven, I could stand in front of Jesus on that day and say, I should get to heaven because I did these things that you said I should do. And then that would be boasting about doing those things right. But what says the scripture, verse three, Romans four? It says, Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now go back to James chapter two and look back at verse number 23. So it says, Abraham, if he were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. You know what that means? He is not justified by works before God. No one will be justified by works before God. So what does it mean by he was justified by works? The answer is in verse number 23 of James chapter two. And the scripture was fulfilled with said, Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. He was saved because of the same reason you were saved because he trusted God. Because he trusted the Lord and the Lord's promise of a Messiah. But then look at this last part of the verse. It says, and he was called the friend of God. By who? By God? No, he was called the friend of God by men. How did men know that Abraham had faith? Because he took his son up to the mountain and was gonna sacrifice his only son. Because God told him to. He went and he was willing to do whatever God told him to and that's why people said, that's a friend of God right there. Because that's how men saw his faith. So he was justified before God by his faith, by his belief. He was justified before men by his works. You know how you are justified to me? You know how I see your faith through your works. So when I look at somebody that's just working for the Lord and just constantly just working for the Lord, I'm like, that person's got a lot of faith right there. It's like, that's all I see. You know in 1 Samuel chapter 16, you know they were bringing Jesse's sons. They were bringing Jesse's sons before Samuel and Samuel saw the first son, he saw Eliab and he's like, that's the king right there. He looked like a king, he was tall, he was strong. He's like that, no, but God said, no, no, no, the Lord looketh on the heart. You see, we don't looketh on the heart. I can only see your heart by what you do, by what comes out of your mouth, by your action, by your works. And guess what, same works the other way around. The only way you can see my faith is through what I do. If I stood up here and I preached three times a week and then, well, next week I only came once, and the next week I came twice, and the next week I came once, and you never knew if I was gonna come to church or not, and I never really went soul winning, but I stood up here and I was like, you should go soul winning. You should go preach the gospel to people. You look at me and you'd be like, it's a problem that the pastor doesn't have very good faith. You know, he's towards the dead faith end of the spectrum. That is what James chapter two is talking about. It's like the men knew their faith. Look at verse 25 of James chapter two. He gives us another example so we can't misunderstand this. He says likewise, he's like, here's another example. So look, this is a little bit of deep doctrine here, but he gives enough examples to where it's very clear. He says likewise also was not Rahab, the harlot justified by works when she had received the messengers and had sent them out another way. Who was she justified by works to when she hid the spies? Who was she justified by works to when she sent them out another way and she told the army that they went that way? She was justified by her works to those men to the nation of Israel. And that's what saved her family. You say, that's how they knew that they could trust her. That's how that they knew that she believed God through the works that she did for them. Look, and it saved her family because of it, because of her works. That's what they saw. Look at James two, 26. For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. Right, so look, there's two concepts here. It is comparing dead faith with perfect faith. Okay, now here's the thing. Can you have completely perfect faith? No, what people do is they try to like take both ends of these spectrums like, yeah, dead faith. Well, there is no such thing as dead faith because like that would mean you had zero works. That's not the point of the passage. The point of the passage is your faith should have works and move towards that perfect faith. Nobody has perfect faith. Nobody, otherwise you would be a perfect person. You would have perfect works. You would never make mistakes. You would be without sin. The only person that had perfect faith was Jesus. All right, but just think of it as a spectrum. Dead faith, perfect faith. And everybody falls somewhere in the middle there. Or in between those, the salvation thing doesn't even make any sense to apply it to salvation because no one will have completely dead faith. That would mean zero works. Maybe I'm too mathematical. Just like no one will have completely perfect faith. And look, here's the thing. This is always the problem with works. This is always the problem with works-based salvation. You're like, how many works do I need to have? Okay, it's by works. Okay, it's faith plus works if I completely misread James chapter two. How many, when do you wanna know how many works you had to do? Because the Bible says in 1 John 5, 13 that ye may know. The Bible says that ye may know that you're saved. That ye may know that you have eternal life. You could never know. It would be impossible to know if this interpretation of James chapter two was true. And it would contradict everything else in the Bible, the simple gospel. All right, so the point is this. James chapter two has two takeaways. The first one is this. Our faith is worthless to others if it doesn't have works. That's the first one, that's the easy one. And the second one is men see our faith, we are justified to other men through our works. This is why we ask questions to people at the door because we're trying to see what they believe. We're trying to use a methodology to get what's in people's hearts. And this is why we wanna be thorough gospel preachers. We wanna preach the whole gospel to people because even after we pray with someone and they accept the Lord Jesus Christ, we don't really know for sure only the Lord knows that they're saved. We just wanna make sure that we're clear, we're doing our part because we'll never be able to see the heart. Only God sees the heart. Now, how does that apply to this story? Turn to Matthew chapter 17. So we should have works that rot with our faith and there's a spectrum to our works. There's a spectrum, I'm sorry, to our faith. There's a spectrum to our faith. Look at Matthew chapter 17. Look at Matthew chapter 17. This church in Acts chapter 20, you could see their great faith. You could see their great faith and their interest and their devotion to Paul and their devotion to the word of God. But look at Matthew chapter 17 in verse number 20. You say, what does the spectrum of faith have to do with anything? Look at verse 20 of Matthew chapter 17. The Bible says this, and Jesus said unto them, because of your unbelief, for verily I say unto you, you have faith is that, if you have faith as a grain of a mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to your yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you. He's not talking about their unbelief in him, their saving faith. He's talking about their unbelief in his ability to heal, his ability to cast out demons. That's why every single time, Jesus healed somebody, what did he say most of the time? He said, your faith has made the whole. It's because they had faith in the ability of him to do it. Faith, and in that case, it was faith that he was God and he was the Messiah and it was all together, but he's like, your faith has made you whole. So look, there's a spectrum of faith. And God is saying here in Matthew 17, 20, he's like, if you have great faith, he's like, I'll do anything for you. That's what he's saying. He's like, if you have great faith, he's like, I will literally move mountains for you. He's like, God is saying, we shouldn't leave this type of stuff on the table. This is what I'm trying to get you to understand tonight. Look, he's saying, God will work with great faith. Look, with faith, especially two or three people gathered together with great faith towards that perfect end of the spectrum, God is saying, I will do great works there. Look, this is an exciting message. This is good news. And look, the greater our faith, the greater the works that God will do. That's what he's saying. That's what he's telling us and that's what we see demonstrated in Acts chapter 20. The greater your faith, the greater God will move in your family. The greater your faith, the greater God will move in your life. And let me tell you something, God is alive today. God will move things for you. You say, well, he's never done that. Well, you need to get your faith on track. You need to get your faith on track. God will move mountains out of the way for you. I was somebody that didn't really, before I was saved, especially, I was like, yeah, God doesn't really do stuff on this earth. I believed in God and I believed in the Bible. And I was like, God doesn't really come and intervene. No, God does. He will move things out of the way for you. You become somebody that's faith-filled, that's profitable, that's moving along in your Christian life and God will get stuff out of the way for you. That's what you gotta know. That's what God, that's the demonstration that we're seeing in Acts chapter 20. Don't leave that one on the table. That's valuable right there. God will move mountains for you. And if he doesn't, it's because of your unbelief. Not your unbelief in Jesus as your savior. It's just your lack of faith. Look, you know it's true. We all have doubts. Everybody has doubts. I'm not gonna stand up here and say, I'm the pastor of this church. I never have a doubt. My faith is perfect. That's ridiculous. We all have doubts. We all have weak spots in our faith. We gotta shore those things up. And guess what? Being part of a church, a faith-filled church, will shore those things up. And that's what you saw here in Acts chapter 20. It's a great promise for us here. Not only do we get to be unified with believers, which in itself is a joyful experience. I don't know what I would do if it wasn't for Wednesday church. I mean you go out there in the circus for a few days and you just wanna get back together with sane people that love the Lord. It's a joyful experience in itself. Look, I hope church is joyful for you. It should be. But guess what? It's even better because God will also join in. That's what we're seeing here with this young man that fell out the window. You say, boy, you really read into that. But that's what happened. That's what happened. God is active today. That's what you need to understand. You know, don't just realize that with your prayers. Yes, do realize that with your prayers. But God will actively move in your life. The Holy Spirit, remember you have the Holy Spirit interceding for you. So when you pray to win the lottery, the Holy Spirit is saying, God, he didn't mean that. What he wants is to find a good church and what he wants is to get his family. Spiritually on track and what he wants is these things and what he wants is to serve you. And God will move things out of the way to help you and to be with you and to just bless you with miracles. I mean, it's such a great thing. It's such a great thing. And we see it's promises for all of us. It's good news here on Wednesday night. God will move in our lives. And the stronger we get as a church body and the more work we do for the Lord, the more God will move here as well. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.