The Keys To The Kingdom(From Our 10-27-24 Worship)
Watch the Video Version Here: https://youtu.be/HcyOJAdfH5Y
Transcript: The destructive power of one of these is almost unimaginable. They could take off from any point on earth and travel to any other point on earth. And that fact is displayed in the name that has been given to them intercontinental ballistic missile. It can go between continents and any one of those has enough power with it, not only to destroy a city or a region, but the fallout from it would probably be enough to send the entire world into chaos.
And you think about how much power that has and and we and Russia and several other countries have thousands of them, thousands of them. But now all of that All of that power, all of that destruction, it's controlled by something. It's controlled by a set of keys. Now, America's keys look kind of pretty normal, but Russia's keys, they, they look a little more unique.
This is a model of one. I blowed it up four times as big so you could actually see it. Um, It was kind of, it's kind of weird, you know? Um, but it doesn't take just one key to launch a missile. You gotta have to, you gotta have to launch officers separated on each end of a room to insert those keys and turn them at the same time to launch one of those missiles.
Now,
There's all kind of examples where missiles almost got launched. It happened to America, it happened to Russia, but one specifically that kind of struck home with me was September the 26th of 1983. I was roughly two and a half months old, probably home sucking my thumb that day, didn't know, didn't have a clue what was going on.
But there was a man named Stanislav Pavlov, I believe, if my Russian's correct. Who was on duty that day at the Oklahoma early warning station. His job basically as a Russian military commander was to watch the screen and watch for missile launches. And on that day in September 26, 1983, his screen lit up like a Christmas tree.
He detected a launch and another launch and another launch and another launch and one more finally. Five in total. Now, Russian military protocol today said that if he detected anything, he was supposed to immediately push the button, send the alarm, and start the process to turn every one of these keys to launch a counterstrike.
But Mr. Pavlov sat there, looking at that screen, the world hanging in the balance, and he made a judgment call. He asked himself a question. Why would the United States only launched five missiles? They've got hundreds. I've got thousands. Why launch five? And he decided against military protocol. This could have got in court martial to worse, but he decided not to ring the alarm.
And as it turns out, he was right. The new warning system they had put in Actually, what happened was it detected the sun coming up on the other side of the world and sent five false alarms that almost destroyed the whole entire world. You think about the power bound up in those keys. I mean, what an awesome responsibility.
What an awesome weight to carry. But you know, as much as much power as those keys have behind them, those are not the most powerful keys. in the world. In your Bible, we read about a set of keys that are even more powerful than this. And this morning we want to study those keys because they're keys that whether we realize or not, we all have access to and their keys that, uh, can help us not only live a godly life for us and for our families, but for all those around us.
So we're gonna start out this morning. We'll ask a question. What are the keys? What are we talking about? When we go to Matthew 16 here, Jesus and his disciples have been traveling. And as we start out here in verse 13, Jesus gonna ask them a question. Now, when Jesus came in the district of sensory of Philippi, he asked his disciples.
Who? Who do people say that the son of man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, and others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah, one of the prophets. And he said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, you are the son of the living God. What a great confession that was.
And Jesus answered him, blessed are you Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Amen. And I tell you, you are a Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
And whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. You see, Jesus here revealing to them his great and wonderful plans to, to have a church, a kingdom here on this earth. Told Peter Peter of all people loudmouth Peter told him I'm going to give you the keys to the kingdom of God You think about that?
What those keys look like They look like big goofy Keys like this or maybe they're shiny metal bits That we carry around in our pockets Uh, I got so many keys, I had to get this little thing to put them on so that they don't stab me in my leg once I go down the road. You know, what do the keys to the kingdom of God look like?
Well, they're not bits of metal with chunks cut out of them. They're something else. They're something else, and I want you to see this and understand what the keys to the kingdom really are. To understand this, Jesus told Peter, I'm going to give you the keys to the kingdom, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose, okay?
We need to look at Peter using those keys in action. And the first place we see him using those keys is found in Acts chapter 2. We're going to be again in verse 1. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues as the fire appeared to them, and rested on each one of them.
That had to be a sight, right? And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven, And at this sound, the multitude came together and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak.
Get this in there in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How do they know all these languages? They're just dumb fishermen. How do they? How do they know those things? And how is it that we cheer in our own native language? Corinthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judah, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pampylia, Egypt and parts of Libya, according belonging to Cyrene and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Christians and Arabians who hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.
And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean? You see here on this day, Peter is going to stand up. and he's going to preach the first gospel sermon. He's going to preach to them what the mighty works of God. And I'm here to tell you today, those are the keys of the kingdom.
It's not shiny bits of metal with notches cut out of them. No, it's it's information that you need to change your heart, to change your life, to be able to enter into eternity and spend eternity with your heavenly father. For the rest of eternity. This is the keys to the kingdom. We keep reading here. We could this morning and we could look at that first gospel sermon, a sermon that he didn't get finished with because they cut him off.
Many brother, what should we do? We crucified the Lord. What shall we do about it? He tells them what? Repent, be baptized. You'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. He didn't tell them to confess. They just confessed. He didn't tell them to believe. They already believed. He give them the keys to the kingdom.
And not just here, we could go on this morning as well and read in Acts chapter, Acts chapter 10 and 11 where Peter gets called to Cornelius house. Cornelius, a Gentile, a centurion, a man over a thousand soldiers, or a hundred soldiers, excuse me, a Roman military commander gets brought into the kingdom.
You see, Peter took this word of God and he preached it to them and he unlocked the keys to the kingdom, he give it to them. How awesome is that? That he give them the keys to the kingdom. You think about that key. Paul would say it this way in Corinthians. First Corinthians 15. Now it reminds you brothers of the gospel.
I preach to you what you received in which you stand and by which you are being saved. If you hold fast the word I preach to you unless you believe in vain for I deliver to you as the first importance. What I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. And that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures You see the gospel is the keys to the kingdom The gospel is the message that has the ability to save us verse two It's the it's based upon its its foundation.
Its bedrock is the death and burial and resurrection of christ That's the thing that unlocks it that gives it its power That allows it to have the ability to erase my sin and erase your sin It's it's the key. It's the key to the whole thing. You think about this? We know what the key is. But now what does the key really gained gain you?
What do you get from having a key? If you go tomorrow and you buy a house, okay, you go to the bank and you sign some paperwork and you go to closing office. Okay, who really owns that house? Well, the bank probably. But paperwork wise what you own it. Who are they going to give the keys to when you buy that house?
They're gonna give them to you. You think about that. What does a key gain you? It gains you several things. So look at Matthew chapter 28, verse 18 through 20. This is the great commission, we call it. And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. You see, keys give us a lot of things. Like when he was talking about our bank example. The bank may technically own that house until you pay the loan off, but when they give you the keys, what, you have the authority to live there. That key shows that you're the owner.
And, you know, that authority is an important thing. All authority, it says, was given to Jesus. And when he tells them to go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of, that phrase there, In the name of is an ancient legal term. It means to do something by the authority or power of another. Jesus says all authority has been given to me.
And you know what I'm doing? I'm giving you some of my authority. You go and you make disciples. You do it by my authority. When they ask you, why do you have authority to do this? You say, Jesus, give it to me. Jesus has given me the key, right? Keys not only give you authority, but they also give you responsibility.
You know, a lot of you know my vehicle troubles I've had lately, and I had several people just hand me keys to vehicles that I didn't own. And when they hand me the keys, I, I had several keys offered to me, I didn't, I couldn't take them all, the ones that got offered to me. But when they hand me the keys to this vehicle, even though I don't own it, what?
I have a responsibility to take care of it. Don't I can't just take somebody else's vehicle and go crash it or run it in a light pole or just treat it any which way. Would somebody give me the keys to their vehicle? I had a guy give me the keys to a brand new truck and we're like, we told the kids, listen, don't you put your feet in the seat?
Don't you mean nothing in the back? Okay, like if you want to see your next birthday, you're gonna treat this thing nice because I felt a responsibility because I had that key in my pocket. I tried to leave those vehicles better than I found them. One of them I brought back and I told the guy, I said, I filled your gas tank up.
Will you not do that? Well, I know I didn't have to, but you give me the keys to your brand new truck. So I figured I put some gas in it. You know, keys give us responsibility. They also give us access. You think about Romans chapter five. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. You see this key right here. It gives us access to grace. It gives us access to God. It it shows us the way that we can have our sins forgiven and that we can restore the relationship with God that was stained by sin.
Isaiah 59. Our sins and our iniquities have separated us from God. We did that. We messed it up, but God has given us the key. But now here's the thing. When you get a key, you say, Yes, I got something. I got access to it. I'm gonna take care of it. It's it's mine in a sense. But what do you do with that key?
Do you just serve yourself? Or do you think maybe sometimes God gives us keys so that not only we can use them for our own blessings, but we can use them for the blessings of others. What do you think? You see, what's this key really for? Second Corinthians four, beginning of verse six, where God, who said, let the light shine out of darkness, has shown into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. God has given us this key. He has put this most valuable piece of information on the earth. He has put it into earth and vessels. He put it into human beings. But why did he do it? Well, he did it to save us.
Yes. But why else did he do it to show the surpassing power belongs to God? Who are we showing that power to? Do we just show it to ourselves? Are we supposed to help show it to other people as well? You're the light of the world. A city sit on the hill could not be hidden. If salt loses its saltiness, what good therefore is it?
You understand this key is not only for me to have and to hoard and hide away and and to not share with anybody else. This key. It is not only for my soul, but it's for all the souls around me. Look what Paul told Timothy two Timothy chapter two verse one. You then my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and trust of faithful men who will be able to teach others.
Also, Paul says, take, take the set of keys. Use them, but you need to share 'em as well. He didn't tell him to take the things that you have seen of me and hide him away. Don't ever talk about him. He said, Take them and share them. Why? Because I need the keys of how to fix my sin problem. But you know what?
Everyone around me who has lost needs the same set of keys. I don't meet a single person in a day's time. If I go out to town and go to this grocery store, go the gas station. I don't probably spend five minutes out in public what I don't meet someone who needs to be saved. There are lost people all around us and some of them, not all of them, but some of them are looking for keys.
Some of them have no idea what they're looking for, but when they see something different, it piques their interest in that they want to go after it. You see, this set of keys isn't just for me as a preacher or Elders or deacons or, you know, the special people, the special Christians. It's for everybody.
Acts chapter 8, after, after Stephen preached that message that got him killed, the great persecution arose and they scattered Christians all over the world. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. And you know what? I don't know necessarily that everyone stood up and said, okay, today's sermon day.
Uh, let me, let me start with point A and point B and point C. They were on the run for their lives. You know how they preach the word? They might have done it by the example that they set. They might have done it with the relationships they developed. There are many ways to preach the word. Our lives and the relationships that we have, we can use those to preach the word.
Not everybody has to stand up, be a preacher or a teacher. That's why we work together. That's why we have a body with different parts. You don't ask a hand to do what a foot can do. You allow the foot to do what it does so that the hand can get to where it needs to get so they can do what it does. The body works together.
You see, these keys were given to all and they're for all and everybody can share them in some way, form or another. So as we wrap up her thoughts this morning, we've covered a lot of ground. We've looked at a lot of scripture, but I simply just want to ask you one question and then the lesson will be yours.
Who you gonna share the keys with next? Who you gonna share the keys with next? Somebody shared him with you. Who you gonna share him with next? I don't know what you need is this morning. I don't know. Maybe you need to grab those keys and unlock, unlock your salvation for the first time. Maybe maybe you've been struggling.
I don't know what your need is, but I know we have a God that loves us and we're surrounded by people that love you and love God. And if we can help you in any way, would you come while we have this invitation? So Mhm.
Transcript: The destructive power of one of these is almost unimaginable. They could take off from any point on earth and travel to any other point on earth. And that fact is displayed in the name that has been given to them intercontinental ballistic missile. It can go between continents and any one of those has enough power with it, not only to destroy a city or a region, but the fallout from it would probably be enough to send the entire world into chaos.
And you think about how much power that has and and we and Russia and several other countries have thousands of them, thousands of them. But now all of that All of that power, all of that destruction, it's controlled by something. It's controlled by a set of keys. Now, America's keys look kind of pretty normal, but Russia's keys, they, they look a little more unique.
This is a model of one. I blowed it up four times as big so you could actually see it. Um, It was kind of, it's kind of weird, you know? Um, but it doesn't take just one key to launch a missile. You gotta have to, you gotta have to launch officers separated on each end of a room to insert those keys and turn them at the same time to launch one of those missiles.
Now,
There's all kind of examples where missiles almost got launched. It happened to America, it happened to Russia, but one specifically that kind of struck home with me was September the 26th of 1983. I was roughly two and a half months old, probably home sucking my thumb that day, didn't know, didn't have a clue what was going on.
But there was a man named Stanislav Pavlov, I believe, if my Russian's correct. Who was on duty that day at the Oklahoma early warning station. His job basically as a Russian military commander was to watch the screen and watch for missile launches. And on that day in September 26, 1983, his screen lit up like a Christmas tree.
He detected a launch and another launch and another launch and another launch and one more finally. Five in total. Now, Russian military protocol today said that if he detected anything, he was supposed to immediately push the button, send the alarm, and start the process to turn every one of these keys to launch a counterstrike.
But Mr. Pavlov sat there, looking at that screen, the world hanging in the balance, and he made a judgment call. He asked himself a question. Why would the United States only launched five missiles? They've got hundreds. I've got thousands. Why launch five? And he decided against military protocol. This could have got in court martial to worse, but he decided not to ring the alarm.
And as it turns out, he was right. The new warning system they had put in Actually, what happened was it detected the sun coming up on the other side of the world and sent five false alarms that almost destroyed the whole entire world. You think about the power bound up in those keys. I mean, what an awesome responsibility.
What an awesome weight to carry. But you know, as much as much power as those keys have behind them, those are not the most powerful keys. in the world. In your Bible, we read about a set of keys that are even more powerful than this. And this morning we want to study those keys because they're keys that whether we realize or not, we all have access to and their keys that, uh, can help us not only live a godly life for us and for our families, but for all those around us.
So we're gonna start out this morning. We'll ask a question. What are the keys? What are we talking about? When we go to Matthew 16 here, Jesus and his disciples have been traveling. And as we start out here in verse 13, Jesus gonna ask them a question. Now, when Jesus came in the district of sensory of Philippi, he asked his disciples.
Who? Who do people say that the son of man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, and others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah, one of the prophets. And he said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, you are the son of the living God. What a great confession that was.
And Jesus answered him, blessed are you Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Amen. And I tell you, you are a Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
And whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. You see, Jesus here revealing to them his great and wonderful plans to, to have a church, a kingdom here on this earth. Told Peter Peter of all people loudmouth Peter told him I'm going to give you the keys to the kingdom of God You think about that?
What those keys look like They look like big goofy Keys like this or maybe they're shiny metal bits That we carry around in our pockets Uh, I got so many keys, I had to get this little thing to put them on so that they don't stab me in my leg once I go down the road. You know, what do the keys to the kingdom of God look like?
Well, they're not bits of metal with chunks cut out of them. They're something else. They're something else, and I want you to see this and understand what the keys to the kingdom really are. To understand this, Jesus told Peter, I'm going to give you the keys to the kingdom, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose, okay?
We need to look at Peter using those keys in action. And the first place we see him using those keys is found in Acts chapter 2. We're going to be again in verse 1. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues as the fire appeared to them, and rested on each one of them.
That had to be a sight, right? And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven, And at this sound, the multitude came together and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak.
Get this in there in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How do they know all these languages? They're just dumb fishermen. How do they? How do they know those things? And how is it that we cheer in our own native language? Corinthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judah, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pampylia, Egypt and parts of Libya, according belonging to Cyrene and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Christians and Arabians who hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.
And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean? You see here on this day, Peter is going to stand up. and he's going to preach the first gospel sermon. He's going to preach to them what the mighty works of God. And I'm here to tell you today, those are the keys of the kingdom.
It's not shiny bits of metal with notches cut out of them. No, it's it's information that you need to change your heart, to change your life, to be able to enter into eternity and spend eternity with your heavenly father. For the rest of eternity. This is the keys to the kingdom. We keep reading here. We could this morning and we could look at that first gospel sermon, a sermon that he didn't get finished with because they cut him off.
Many brother, what should we do? We crucified the Lord. What shall we do about it? He tells them what? Repent, be baptized. You'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. He didn't tell them to confess. They just confessed. He didn't tell them to believe. They already believed. He give them the keys to the kingdom.
And not just here, we could go on this morning as well and read in Acts chapter, Acts chapter 10 and 11 where Peter gets called to Cornelius house. Cornelius, a Gentile, a centurion, a man over a thousand soldiers, or a hundred soldiers, excuse me, a Roman military commander gets brought into the kingdom.
You see, Peter took this word of God and he preached it to them and he unlocked the keys to the kingdom, he give it to them. How awesome is that? That he give them the keys to the kingdom. You think about that key. Paul would say it this way in Corinthians. First Corinthians 15. Now it reminds you brothers of the gospel.
I preach to you what you received in which you stand and by which you are being saved. If you hold fast the word I preach to you unless you believe in vain for I deliver to you as the first importance. What I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. And that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures You see the gospel is the keys to the kingdom The gospel is the message that has the ability to save us verse two It's the it's based upon its its foundation.
Its bedrock is the death and burial and resurrection of christ That's the thing that unlocks it that gives it its power That allows it to have the ability to erase my sin and erase your sin It's it's the key. It's the key to the whole thing. You think about this? We know what the key is. But now what does the key really gained gain you?
What do you get from having a key? If you go tomorrow and you buy a house, okay, you go to the bank and you sign some paperwork and you go to closing office. Okay, who really owns that house? Well, the bank probably. But paperwork wise what you own it. Who are they going to give the keys to when you buy that house?
They're gonna give them to you. You think about that. What does a key gain you? It gains you several things. So look at Matthew chapter 28, verse 18 through 20. This is the great commission, we call it. And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. You see, keys give us a lot of things. Like when he was talking about our bank example. The bank may technically own that house until you pay the loan off, but when they give you the keys, what, you have the authority to live there. That key shows that you're the owner.
And, you know, that authority is an important thing. All authority, it says, was given to Jesus. And when he tells them to go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of, that phrase there, In the name of is an ancient legal term. It means to do something by the authority or power of another. Jesus says all authority has been given to me.
And you know what I'm doing? I'm giving you some of my authority. You go and you make disciples. You do it by my authority. When they ask you, why do you have authority to do this? You say, Jesus, give it to me. Jesus has given me the key, right? Keys not only give you authority, but they also give you responsibility.
You know, a lot of you know my vehicle troubles I've had lately, and I had several people just hand me keys to vehicles that I didn't own. And when they hand me the keys, I, I had several keys offered to me, I didn't, I couldn't take them all, the ones that got offered to me. But when they hand me the keys to this vehicle, even though I don't own it, what?
I have a responsibility to take care of it. Don't I can't just take somebody else's vehicle and go crash it or run it in a light pole or just treat it any which way. Would somebody give me the keys to their vehicle? I had a guy give me the keys to a brand new truck and we're like, we told the kids, listen, don't you put your feet in the seat?
Don't you mean nothing in the back? Okay, like if you want to see your next birthday, you're gonna treat this thing nice because I felt a responsibility because I had that key in my pocket. I tried to leave those vehicles better than I found them. One of them I brought back and I told the guy, I said, I filled your gas tank up.
Will you not do that? Well, I know I didn't have to, but you give me the keys to your brand new truck. So I figured I put some gas in it. You know, keys give us responsibility. They also give us access. You think about Romans chapter five. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. You see this key right here. It gives us access to grace. It gives us access to God. It it shows us the way that we can have our sins forgiven and that we can restore the relationship with God that was stained by sin.
Isaiah 59. Our sins and our iniquities have separated us from God. We did that. We messed it up, but God has given us the key. But now here's the thing. When you get a key, you say, Yes, I got something. I got access to it. I'm gonna take care of it. It's it's mine in a sense. But what do you do with that key?
Do you just serve yourself? Or do you think maybe sometimes God gives us keys so that not only we can use them for our own blessings, but we can use them for the blessings of others. What do you think? You see, what's this key really for? Second Corinthians four, beginning of verse six, where God, who said, let the light shine out of darkness, has shown into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. God has given us this key. He has put this most valuable piece of information on the earth. He has put it into earth and vessels. He put it into human beings. But why did he do it? Well, he did it to save us.
Yes. But why else did he do it to show the surpassing power belongs to God? Who are we showing that power to? Do we just show it to ourselves? Are we supposed to help show it to other people as well? You're the light of the world. A city sit on the hill could not be hidden. If salt loses its saltiness, what good therefore is it?
You understand this key is not only for me to have and to hoard and hide away and and to not share with anybody else. This key. It is not only for my soul, but it's for all the souls around me. Look what Paul told Timothy two Timothy chapter two verse one. You then my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and trust of faithful men who will be able to teach others.
Also, Paul says, take, take the set of keys. Use them, but you need to share 'em as well. He didn't tell him to take the things that you have seen of me and hide him away. Don't ever talk about him. He said, Take them and share them. Why? Because I need the keys of how to fix my sin problem. But you know what?
Everyone around me who has lost needs the same set of keys. I don't meet a single person in a day's time. If I go out to town and go to this grocery store, go the gas station. I don't probably spend five minutes out in public what I don't meet someone who needs to be saved. There are lost people all around us and some of them, not all of them, but some of them are looking for keys.
Some of them have no idea what they're looking for, but when they see something different, it piques their interest in that they want to go after it. You see, this set of keys isn't just for me as a preacher or Elders or deacons or, you know, the special people, the special Christians. It's for everybody.
Acts chapter 8, after, after Stephen preached that message that got him killed, the great persecution arose and they scattered Christians all over the world. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. And you know what? I don't know necessarily that everyone stood up and said, okay, today's sermon day.
Uh, let me, let me start with point A and point B and point C. They were on the run for their lives. You know how they preach the word? They might have done it by the example that they set. They might have done it with the relationships they developed. There are many ways to preach the word. Our lives and the relationships that we have, we can use those to preach the word.
Not everybody has to stand up, be a preacher or a teacher. That's why we work together. That's why we have a body with different parts. You don't ask a hand to do what a foot can do. You allow the foot to do what it does so that the hand can get to where it needs to get so they can do what it does. The body works together.
You see, these keys were given to all and they're for all and everybody can share them in some way, form or another. So as we wrap up her thoughts this morning, we've covered a lot of ground. We've looked at a lot of scripture, but I simply just want to ask you one question and then the lesson will be yours.
Who you gonna share the keys with next? Who you gonna share the keys with next? Somebody shared him with you. Who you gonna share him with next? I don't know what you need is this morning. I don't know. Maybe you need to grab those keys and unlock, unlock your salvation for the first time. Maybe maybe you've been struggling.
I don't know what your need is, but I know we have a God that loves us and we're surrounded by people that love you and love God. And if we can help you in any way, would you come while we have this invitation? So Mhm.
