Welcome to Gateway Church's podcast. Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

Well, the Spirit of the Lord is here, Gateway Church. What an honor to be back with you. If you have a Bible, we're going to be in two places.

And while you're turning to the Book of Acts, which is our first place. And the second place is a place that you may not

ever really turn to. And you may, if you're new to the conversation of Jesus and church, not know why

the Bible has all this, like in the back of it, maps and pictures and atlases. And you're like,

what's going on here? Are we in geography class? But I'd like you to turn to the map in the back of your Bible

labeled the missionary journeys of Paul. So this is the two places we're going to be the

Book of Acts and the missionary journeys of Paul. And while you make your way there, the title

of this message is your past God's plan. Your past God's plan. I want to talk to you about the importance of Rome in the New

Testament. You can't really read the New Testament without bumping into Rome and the Roman Empire

everywhere. I mean, from the birth of Jesus, which was brought about in the messianic fulfillment of the prophecy

of Bethlehem because of Caesar Augustus, who, like the first character in your Christmas

antivity is wrong, because you think it's a donkey, you're the shepherds, the marriage, no, it's Caesar

Augustus. He isn't even included, yet he was the one who issued the

decree that caused them to have to travel to Bethlehem, which is where Jesus was born. Then you come to

the miracles of Jesus, and of course, one of the most pronounced ones was the centurion whose son was sick,

and he said, don't even come to me, just speak a word, and my servant will be healed. And what did

Jesus say? Jesus said, what the heck? Why did I think of that? That's so amazing. I won't even

travel to you. Let's just do it from here. Then he turned to his disciples and said, what's the

matter with you guys, right? Why didn't anybody tell me about a long distance miracle? That's a great idea. Do you realize how much time we will say, right? No, in true form, he was impressed

by the centurion's faith. And he said, I have not found such faith in all of Israel. But then he turned

to the man and said, let it be to you according to your word. You had the faith to ask for a AT&T,

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