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0:52The grace of God is, period. Therefore, the message of grace will continue. Period. You know, every once in a while, a great phenom comes on the world scene. They are like magnificent stars burning brightly and lighting up the sky. And for a while, people can rejoice in their light. This was how Jesus described John the Baptist. In John 5, 35, he said, he was the lamp that was burning and was shining, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.

1:41But there are others who do not rejoice in such light. They want to get away from the light. For them, the truth that they speak is too intense. They find it unbearable. And so they seek to destroy the luminary, thinking that somehow they will destroy the message. This is what happened to John the Baptist. And many like him throughout history. We saw such a man cut down in his strength this last week. Some rejoiced in his light, but some did not like his message. So they sought to silence him, and one was successful. I'm speaking, of course, of Charlie Kirk as being such a luminary on the world scene. Painful.

2:46I can assure you today that they did not, nor could they, silence his message. And I want to explain to you. Why that is so true. You see, there was something behind the man, something greater than the man that made the man. Someone asked Charlie Kirk in an interview what he wanted to be known by, and his answer was courage for my faith. Faith. You see, Charlie was a man of faith, and his faith connected him to something much greater than himself. Something so brilliant that it eclipsed everything else in his life.

3:47His love for riches, his love for the applause or accolades of man, his love for his own personal safety were completely overshadowed by the object of his faith. You see, he could have eased up and enjoyed some riches, praise of man, had a little more comfortable life, safe and secure. But something drove him, something bigger than himself. What was the object of his faith? The God of grace. The God revealed in Scripture. He is full of grace.

4:41And it is God's grace, this goodwill of the reality that God has goodwill to people. This grace is the one thing that the world needs to know about. Charlie was a man who was touched by grace, and then God used him to touch others. You see, the God of grace is. Therefore, the message of grace will continue. God's good will is something that is forever. It is a characteristic of God. And as long as there is life, there is going to be dialogue, conversation, testimony about how good God is. That message cannot ever be silenced because God is, therefore, his grace is a reality, and therefore the message of grace will continue to be proclaimed.

5:52You see, God's grace preceded us, and God's grace will transcend us. Similar things can be said about the Apostle Paul. He was a man who was touched by God's grace, whom God used to touch others with grace. It was his faith in God who drove who he was and what he did. What did Paul look like? Well, the scripture doesn't tell us. When we first started into the book of Galatians, I read to you this one description of what he looked like from a second-century work of a young woman named Thecla. She describes Paul as, and I quote, a man of middling size, and his hair was scanty, and his legs were a little crooked, and his knees were a little projecting, and he had large eyes, and his eyebrows met. His nose was somewhat long, and he was full of grace and mercy. At one time, he seemed like a man, and at another time he seemed like an angel.

7:19What was Paul's personality like? When we first meet him in the scriptures, he's a young man in need of grace, isn't he? And God touches him with his grace, and Paul comes alive. Picture this man, mid-30s, enthusiastic, full of life, and with a message burning in his heart that he cannot help but speak about. Picture that young man, and you have the persona of Paul. And his enthusiasm for the God of truth and the God of grace never diminished. It grew.

8:07Faith in the true God eclipsed everything in his life. And that is why I refer to him as the apostle of grace. Going back to our text this morning in Acts chapter 20, verse 24, listen to what he says. Listen to how Paul summed up his life. We had an, as I was coming in, another one of our ministry luminaries here, Marilyn, told me, this is her life verse. This is her life verse. I think it's safe to say this is Paul's life verse. Sums up nicely.

8:53I hope this will be a life verse of you and me here. Acts 20, verse 24, but I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God. Notice something that Paul was not about, something that Paul was not about at all. And that is, I don't want my life to be all about me at all. I do not consider my life of any account, of any subject matter, really dear or precious.

9:42Notice there was something that Paul was all about. Notice what he says: that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus. To finish his course, that race course that God had set out for him, that track, that paradigm, that place where God had set out for Paul individually to go. I want to finish the course that God has set out for me and the ministry, the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus. The ministry, the service, the giving aid. The course that God had mapped out for Paul was also a ministry. A service, a service to God and a service to man.

10:38But then notice from this verse how he described, or how Paul defined his own ministry to testify to the good news of the grace of God. That's how he summed up his whole ministry. This was his service to God and to man to testify of God's grace. To testify. What does that mean? To witness, to urge forcefully, to earnestly speak about. So Paul saw the whole purpose of his life as that of a spokesperson for God. And specifically, his grace.

11:31And this purpose, this testifying ministry to the grace of God that had touched him became overwhelmingly everything that defined who Paul was. He had been touched by grace, and he couldn't help but talk about that grace. And so he took God's grace into the highways and into the byways and to the meeting places and the marketplaces and the campuses of society. What an important concept. Calling to speak, to testify to the grace of God. Listen, that's the one thing this world needs to know. That's the one thing that you and I need to be reminded of over and over, is God's good will to us.

12:19What a high calling. And it cost him his life. He experienced God's grace, and then he became a herald of such grace. He was spent for God's grace, and he was silenced because of God's grace. He couldn't be silent. He was touched by grace, and then God wanted to use him to touch others with grace. And this is what has happened to many of us. And this is why the ministry of grace will continue to go forward. It's not that we should speak, it's that we cannot help but speak of the grace of God who has touched our soul.