Those Who Were Scattered Preached (Acts 8:4)

and record and I'll pin and we're good to go. So, hello and good morning everyone. Good morning. Morning. All right. Uh I'm going to use a So, we had our Wednesday night Bible study last night and we're in the book of Acts and today's scripture is going to be short and sweet. Um but I think it's I think I think it's really important. Um, but I but you need to know just a piece of the story of Acts chapter 8 in order for the the verse to make any sense. So, in the end of this is Acts chapter 8. I'll give you the verse. It's Acts 8:4. And it says, "Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went." That's it.

That's the verse. I'll repeat it. Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. So, what what what is Luke, who wrote the book of Acts, referring to? Well, at the end of chapter 7, Stephen uh is stoned for his faith uh in Christ. So, he's in he's stood in front of the Sanhedrin. He's given his testimony. He makes them all upset. They drag him out and they stone him. So, he's the first martyr for Christianity. And so, uh, at that time, uh, Peter and John had already been pulled in front of the Sanhedrin a couple times and ignored them and they got foggged and and but but but this this Christianity movement is still going, but it's been about four or five years and and the and the church hasn't moved outside of Jerusalem.

Well, when Christ gave the commission at the end of Matthew, he said, "Go and make disciples in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Well, at this point, it's four or five years later, ain't nobody moved. Everybody's been comfortable right where they're at. And so, what does God do? God says, "All right, well, if you're not going to make the plan to go out into Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, then I'm going to push the issue." And so he does. And so Stephen gets martyed. And when Steven gets martyed, Saul, who we now know as Paul, goes on his merry way.

And he goes all over the countryside hunting and persecuting Christians, dragging them out, men and women alike, and throwing them into prison. And so that's where we get to verse four, which says, "Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went." Luke uses the the word scattered. And in the Hebrew, I'm not sorry, in the Greek, and I don't have the word memorized, but in there's a Greek word that gets translated to scattered. The Greek word is a farming word meaning to scatter, to throw your seat around. Luke didn't write, "They're fleeing from the persecution, although he very well could have because in essence, that's what people are doing.

They're scattered. These people are leaving Jerusalem and they're going to Samaria, a town that was in direct opposition of Jerusalem and the Jews, and into the ends of the earth. And what are they doing? They're preaching. Well, Dwayne, I'm not qualified to preach. Nope. You're probably not qualified to stand up on a stage and preach. Maybe you're not, but you're qualified to share the message. You're qualified to share your testimony. Amen. And so that's what this word preached is here. The people that went out into Samaria, one of them was Philillip.

And Philillip was one of the seven guys that had been earmarked for his job in the in this new church, in this new ministry. His job was to feed, to distribute food. It wasn't to preach. It wasn't to teach. It wasn't to do Bible studies. It wasn't to evangelize. It was literally to be a waiter. It was literally to serve food to the widows and the orphans. But when they scattered, he started to share the testimony. He started to share the gospel message of Christ. And so what what this means, what this shows is that when we're left to our own selves, we have a tendency to stay where it's warm and cozy and comfortable.

And nothing grows there. Nothing grows in the comfort zone. Things grow when we're uncomfortable, when we get pushed. Moses was uncomfortable. And he led the Jews out of Egypt. So, so we we this there's this uncomfortability where things start to happen. If you you go to the gym and you walk in and you just sit at the at the at the protein bar and drink shakes every day, that's never going to put an ounce of muscle on you. You have to go and move some heavy weight. You have to go be uncomfortable for change to happen. And so God does this. God says, "All right, well, if you're not going to go listen to my command, then I'm going to push the issue." And he does.

And now all of a sudden, the gospel message gets spread. So there, so those who had been scattered preached. So if you think that you you can't share your testimony, you can. And and this is how we're going to grow. If you're that Christ follower who's been on the sideline, who's been going to church, you've been coming to the 9:15 devotional, you've been going to a group, but you've been sitting on the sideline. God wants you to know that's not where he wants you. He wants you out. He wants you to be sharing your testimony. You don't have to know Acts chapter 8 backward and forward.

You don't have to know the Greek term or the Hebrew term. You don't you don't even need to be able to recite the names of all 66 books that are in the Bible and how many of them are in the Old Testament and how many are in the New Testament. That's un you don't need to know any of that. You just have to be able to share your story. You have to be prepared to give an answer for the hope that you have in Christ. And so today, as we go through this week and we end today, this this Monday through Thursday session, that's what God wants us all to know.

Start getting uncomfortable. And when we start getting uncomfortable, that's where our growth is going to happen. All right. So, thoughts, comments, suggestions, and I guess I should move this over here so I'm staring at the camera. And everybody's got a story to tell. Everybody's got a story to tell. And and how and however however God however God um uh uh is involved in that story. And God's involved in every single story of your life. Everybody's got a story to tell. Get out there and share with somebody. Amen. teach it. I It's interesting something you said about being pushed.

I think a lot of us probably uh we need a push or need to be pushed to develop the gift that's inside of us that sometimes we have a gift or a talent that we didn't know we had and when we get pushed uh that gift can develop and blossom. Amen. So, so, so what's interesting last night is we had a woman uh ask a question which the the the conversation wasn't about it was it wasn't necessarily relative to tithing. What she said was if if we're supposed to do this then why does the church ask us for that? And Jared's response to that was it's training.

That's what it is. It's teaching. It's training. We the church only has the conversation a couple times a year and then every Sunday they give you an offer. They they they they the offering goes around and gives you the opportunity to be able to exercise the teaching that you just had and whatever that might be. Five bucks, 10 bucks, 2%, 10%, whatever, what whatever you want to give. That's entirely up to you. But it's teaching. And so the same thing happens in this uh it's a skill that you can learn. How can you learn it? You can learn it on your own.

You go, "All right, well, I got I got I gota I got to learn my story. I got to be able to have a threem minute commercial. Let me write it out. Let me let me let me practice this pitch or this script. Let me let me do it. Whatever it takes. Go to a class apparently. And I learned this last night that at our church we're going to have one at the end of uh uh our second service on August 30th which is going to be about evangelizing. It's going to be an extra class training learning that we get to learn how to be able to go out and share our testimony because not all of us are are eloquent speakers.

Some of us stumble and um um uh but we do that when we're talking about something that we don't know. If you start talking about something that you know intimately that you're passionate about, then it's it's magical how the words just flow, right? So if it's your story, you don't have to think about it. Just comes out. May maybe it doesn't come out exactly in the order that you know the best publisher in the world would have put out there, but you still get it out. And that's what God wants from us. He's challenging us to go move into an area of uncomfortability so that more people can hear what Jimmy Cordurado had to lift.

I think one of the greatest gifts that's given to us is when we do share our testimony or share anything from our heart and then you hear later on, man, that's really what I needed to hear today and I'm like, what did I say? Right? But you impacted somebody's life just by sharing your testimony. Yep. Yeah, they do. Yep. All right. Anybody else? Yeah. Amen. Amen. Amen. And and it's so true. That's when you grow, right? That's when you have to and and it's and I I could say more. You you hit it well. Thank you. Anybody else? And I want to I want to do I want to do a an administrative thing here real quick.

And I'm glad, Clyde, that you said that because it brings it up to me. Uh so we have our YouTube channel and we have the website. And I hear sometimes from people, man, I I I want to be there, but I just keep forgetting, you know, or I I forget. I'm going to add something on the website that you're going to be able to go in there and put in your name and your phone number, and then the system will auto text you at 9:10. If you don't want that, don't put your name and whatever in there and then it won't happen. But if you want that reminder, I'll have that option in there for you so that every day at 9:10 or Monday through Thursday, you get Oh, hey, the the devotional is on in five minutes.

Get get your heart right. Yeah. All right. So, I'm going to I'm going to end that up there. So, just keep checking back at the site and I'll let you know when it's there as well, too. All right. Anybody else? 10 seconds. Really quick, Dwayne, do these recordings go anywhere? I was wondering about yesterday's. Is it just audio or the video? No, it's video. It's up on the site. Is there a way? Find it on our YouTube channel or you can find it on our website. It's on both places. Okay. The YouTube channel's just What is it exactly? Turn volume up.

Did I I kill the volume? Not hearing anything. Turn volume up. You guys there? Yeah. Yeah. You're right. I don't know what I did. The the vid it's video, audio, and video. It's on our website 915devotional.com. And it's also on our YouTube channel, 915 devotional. So you can find it. Yep. If you guys go to the YouTube channel, uh like and share just makes it grow. More people will see it. All right, let's pray out. We got to pray out. Father, thank you so much for today. Thank you for for this week. Thank you for the for the scriptures that you've given us, the time that we we've had together, uh our ability to grow, and thank you, Father, for the challenge to to to allow us to know that real growth, real change is going to happen when we decide to move from where we're at to an area of unknown, to an area of uncomfortability, Father, that that we know that when we do that, and we know we look back in our lives, every time we've done that, when we look back, we're happy we did.

We see the growth. We see what happened. we see where we went to. And so Lord, I pray that that we would not just hear that challenge from you, but that we would take it to heart. We would challenge ourselves that we wouldn't be the person who just sits on the sideline, but that we would take an active step in sharing our testimony and what you've done in our lives. Father, we thank you for this week, for your love, for your support. Thank you for your grace and your mercy. Watch over us this weekend. Guide us. Give us direction. Get us to church.

We love you. We praise you always. In your son Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, I'll see you guys on Monday. Guys, have a good weekend. Have a good weekend, Dwayne. Yep.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability.