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my class. We are in the book
of Acts and we're looking at Acts 15
and verse 3 so turn to Acts 15 and verse 3 Acts chapter 15 verse 3 alright are we all there? Acts
15 verse 3 All right, let's pray. Father,
we again are appreciative of being able to come to church
this morning, the freedom to do so, the health to do so. Thank
You, Lord, for Your Word. Thank You for the blood of Jesus
Christ that cleanses all of our sins. Thank You for the Spirit
of God that indwells us but dwells with us. Thank You so much for
Your Word. Pray this morning, Lord, You'd
speak to us, minister to us. All you've got to work with up
here is this piece of dirt. Without you can do nothing, Lord. We
know that. And pray, Father, that you would
take this piece of dirt and fill it with your spirit and your
power, your passion, your words, your wisdom. Give it grace according
to the measure of the gift of Christ. Pray, Father, that you'd
put a watch by its mouth and a guard by its lips. But, Lord,
we pray you'd speak to us. Spirit of God, stand behind this
pulpit, sit next to us, but please minister to us this morning.
We'll thank you in Christ's name. Amen. Acts chapter 15, I have
dust all over my suit coat. Did you notice the wonderful
ceiling Johnny did in my office? Yes, it's gorgeous. He is open
for bids. If you'd like it done, he'll
give you a fair price. Anyway, Acts chapter 15, and
we left off at verse 3 last week, I believe. We got into verse
three. So being brought back. Now remember,
here's the situation. This is, I mentioned before,
this is probably one of the most important chapters in the New
Testament because this is the chapter where they are challenged
as far as salvation is concerned. You have the message being preached,
especially to the Gentiles, let's believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. There are no works involved.
Salvation is by grace through faith, faith plus nothing, which
is exactly true. And yet there were a group of
people that came around, they were of Jewish, of the Jewish
culture, Jewish religion, that had gotten converted, but were
having such a hard time comprehending salvation by grace, like many
Americans do. Many Americans, you know, you've
got to do something to get to heaven. And the fact of the matter
is there's nothing you can do to get to heaven other than believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. and they were coming in and they
were saying well we've got to do something let's add circumcision
to that and let's add keeping the law to it while we're while
we're at it so they brought about two of the biggest heresies that
we have dealt with ever since dealing with it today number
one is you have to do something to get saved that's a heresy
and then you have to do something to keep saved that is also a
heresy and so in Acts chapter 15 they are going to deal with
this situation and Get closure on it, if you will.
They're gonna come to a decision and say, this is it, we're done
with this, this is the way it happens. Now here's the problem.
These Judaizers, that's the term it's used, a Judaizer, if someone's
trying to get you back into Judaism, They're gonna continue. They're
gonna continue advocating what they believe. Paul is gonna deal
with this issue again in the book of Galatians. And I think
even Revelation on the churches talks about a similar situation. So, but again, this is a very
important chapter because here's where they bring the final decision. Are you saved by grace through
faith plus nothing? Or do we add something to it?
So they're gonna make the official decision. And remember, this
came up at the church at Antioch And they thought it'd be a good
idea to go to Jerusalem. And they sent Paul and Barnabas
down to Jerusalem. And we discussed some of the
reasons why that might be. There are some that question
the apostleship of Paul because he didn't spend three and a half
years with Jesus. He was saved after and he saw
Christ and Christ revealed himself to him after his resurrection. So there's some debate, there's
some question. And so the people are thinking, let's just, let's
go to the source of it. Because of the church of Jerusalem, there
are still the apostles, there are elders there. Many of them
had walked with Christ also. Undoubtedly. And let's send Paul
and Barnabas to Jerusalem and let's have this meeting in Jerusalem
and let's make the decision there that will make it more official,
if you will. So Paul and Barnabas are on their
way to Jerusalem. And we ran across some interesting
things that they made on their trip is that we looked at numerous
verses that talked about their journey down there, talked about
being brought on their way by the local churches. And I'm mentioned
last week that that We have people that pass through
here. They're on their journey. They're
on their way. We have missionaries that pass through here. We have
evangelists that pass through here, on their way to one location
or another. And what we want to do is we
want to be a help, just like the churches were in the New Testament.
We want to be a help to the missionaries and to the evangelists that are
passing through. We've been a great help to Brother
Ward. Giving him an open door that when he's in this area,
he's free to park here and stay as long as he wants I've given
that talk to Larry craft a couple weeks ago or three weeks ago
and and Said look if you need a place to park, you know, you've
got an open door here. We've got one two three There
are three or four places where an RV can hook up and get water
and they can dump here. And when you're on the road,
if you've never lived a life, you really don't understand it.
I've lived the life and I know this. Three of the most important
things you need when you're on the road is electricity, and
water, and a place to empty your tanks. And we have all that here. So I give open invitation. We
may not have the perfectly most level spot to park on, but we
have all the facilities that you need. And we want to be,
the term I use is an oasis to anybody passing through. And
in our journeying across the country for 17 years, we had
places that I referred to as oases. One was right over here
in Peoria, Maranatha Baptist Church. We would take our bus
in there. And the only difficulty was,
the way their parking lot was set up, that I had to take the
bus and I had to angle it in between two sets of curbs here. I had to angle that thing in
so the front end was not in the way of traffic going through.
And so that was just a little bit of a driving test. But we always did it. We always
got it. And they had a beautiful place to hook up. They had water,
and they didn't have a dedicated sewer outlet, they just had a
sewer. So we just popped that thing open and dumped in there.
And it was a great place to stay. And from there, we could minister
to other places. They didn't mind if we parked
there and took our car and headed out to San Diego or who knows
where for the weekend to minister and stuff like that. So it was
an oasis. Rockford, Illinois was an oasis.
Just a great place to be. Corpus Christi, Texas. just a
good spot to be. The only issue we had in Corpus
Christi was we had to park far away from the building because
their parking lot got packed every morning, every Sunday morning,
and so we kind of had to park. But we had a place. We had a
place to stay, and it was a great place to stay. And these churches
all take care of you. They do everything they can for
you. They help you as much as they
can. Not that we went in there begging. We didn't go in there
begging. My position always was we want to be as least of a burden
as possible on the churches. And one of the reasons we got
an RV to start out with Well, it was a bus. One of the reasons
we got a bus motor coach to start out with was I happened to see
one time, we were traveling, doing vacation Bible school before
we had that. We were using a van and a trailer
and the church would have to put us up. And I saw the bill
one time that a church paid for the hotel rooms that we used. They accidentally gave me the
receipt to give to the pastor and I looked at it and I said,
oh my goodness, this is what, because we had to have two rooms.
You know, unless you want to do it illegally, you could only
have five in a room and we had seven or eight or what have you.
And so we had to have two rooms and we were there for a week.
That was quite a bit of money. And a number of churches did
that and so realized, you know, we could really help churches
out by having a motor coach. And all we would need was their
electricity and water. And that's not going to come
even close to what they were spending in a hotel room. And hopefully
that extra would then go into the love offering. Wouldn't that
be great? But that's one of the main reasons we started out doing
that. There were times driving down the road, I'm thinking,
this is the dumbest way to live you can ever think of. And there
were times driving down the road thinking this is the greatest
life you could ever live. We would park over at Glendale,
Brother Ware's, we'd park there probably for three weeks, and
he had a great place to spot, to park between his garage and
between the fence, there were bushes there, you didn't even
see that we were back in there. and had water and electric, and I
usually changed my oil there because I could pull the bus
headway to the end of his parking lot, had a gravel parking lot,
kind of like what we have, and I would change my oil there.
If I spilled anything, it was just going in the gravel and, you
know, things like that that I could do. So there are places along
the highway that can be oasises, especially for missionaries and
evangelists. And we want to do that. We want to be that. And
we're not going to be a place for anybody that has an old RV
that needs to park. We're not an RV park. We're not
a parking lot. If you are a missionary or an evangelist and you're traveling
from church to church and you need a place to stay, you are
more than welcome to stay here with us. I don't know if I told
you, but a couple weeks ago we got an email from somebody that
said, well, you know, we just got kicked out of an RV lot and
I'm 36 months pregnant, which is, you know, I'm there. We would
like to use your parking lot to have a baby. No, we're not
going to use our parking lot to have a baby. I'm sorry. Find
an RV park to do that. what we're here for, but we are
here to be a blessing to missionaries and evangelists and so on and
so forth. So Paul encountered many of these
people. Many of these churches along
the way and it was a blessing to them. We want to be a blessing
also to missionaries and evangelists as they pass through. Sometimes
they have prophets chambers, motel rooms that you can say
some churches actually have a part of their building set up like
a little mini apartment and people can stay there. And again, the
idea is to be a blessing and a help to those that are traveling
along. all right so picking up again
on fifteen chapter fifteen verse three i believe it's for streets
as they pass through phoenician samaria And they're declaring
the conversion of the Gentiles. And so this is not a let's get
there as fast as we can kind of trip. It's an enjoyable kind
of trip. They're fellowshipping with the other churches that
are taking care of them. And as they are encountering
with other Christians, they're telling them, hey, the Gentiles
are getting saved. The Gentiles are getting in on
this. Notice he says Phoenicia and Samaria. So Samaria is basically
half and half. And yet they're rejoicing in
the fact that Gentiles are getting saved. In
Acts chapter 11, if you want to go back there, Phoenices mentioned
Acts chapter 11. In verse 19, and this is the early
days of the church. And it talks about now they which
were scattered abroad upon the persecution that rose about Stephen,
that would be Acts chapter eight talks about that also. But here
they are, they're scattered abroad. And some of them, you know, when
Paul started doing what he was doing to Christians, some stayed
in Jerusalem, the apostles stayed in Jerusalem. And I assume they
figured they were protected by the Lord, is about the only thing
I can think of. And some of the other early converts
stayed in Jerusalem. Some of them said, we gotta get
out of here. And which is what the Lord wanted them to do to
begin with anyway. They were supposed to be in Jerusalem,
not for the rest of their lives. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the
uttermost parts of the earth. They were supposed to be going
out. They were congregating in Jerusalem. And so the Lord had
to create a little spark to get them moving. And Paul or Saul
seemed to be that spark. So many of them are scattered
abroad. And Acts 8 tells us that those were scattered abroad whenever
we're preaching the word. And so here's again a reference
to those same people in Acts 11 verse 19. Cyprus and Antioch preaching
the word to none but unto the Jews only so up to that point
they had just been preaching to the Jews they thought this
is just something for the Jews now here comes Paul and Barnabas
heading back say hey guess what guys the Gentiles are getting
saved this is incredible Gentiles are getting saved in Antioch
and and all over the place in fact Gentiles are getting saved
in your own city and so they're rejoicing in that fact so they
continue to declare the good news that the Gentiles were being
converted and it says they caused great joy and all the brethren
it was exciting for the Jewish believers to know that the Gentiles
were getting in on this too and I don't know I don't I I don't
know why, other than because of salvation, because of a change
of heart that takes place when you're converted, why the Jews
would be excited about the Gentiles, because the Jews considered the
Gentiles low lives, scum sucking pigs, whatever you want to call
them. Goyim is the Hebrew word, they just didn't have a real
affinity to Gentiles, but now that they're Christians, and
they have a fellowship with Jesus Christ, and they have a fellowship
with anybody that trusts Christ, so they're rejoicing that the
Gentiles are in on this, and so they're slowly getting away
from their Judaism, and the Gentiles are getting in on a relationship
with Jesus Christ out of paganism and idolatry and things like
that, forming this thing called the body. And it brings joy. And I don't know if you realize
this or not, but salvation is one of the joyous things that
can happen. Go to Luke chapter 15. A lot
of people rejoice when somebody gets saved. Luke chapter 15,
one of them is God. God rejoices when people get
saved. Luke chapter 15. Luke 15, look at verse 7. And Luke chapter 15 is the lost
chapter, the lost coin. Yeah, the lost sheep, the lost coin. No, sheep's
the last one. What's the first one? No, no,
that's right. Lost sheep, lost coin, lost son.
Okay, it's a lost chapter. Luke 15, seven, in that context
of regating whatever was lost, he said, I say unto you that
likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth
more than 99 just persons which need no repentance. So when somebody
gets saved, saved there is rejoicing going on in heaven and God is
right in the middle of that thing. God is so thrilled when somebody
trusts Christ as their Savior. And no matter who it is, no matter
who it is, He rejoices that he has, it's the same joy, I guess,
when a parent has another child. The joy of, because this is another
child being brought into God's family in a spiritual sense.
And so there's great joy in heaven when a sinner gets saved. Go
to 1 Thessalonians chapter two. I'll tell you else who gets excited,
and that's the preacher. The preachers are the ones that
get excited. The missionaries are the ones that get excited,
or the evangelists, whoever's proclaiming the word, or the
soul winner. It's excited and rejoicing when somebody trusts
Christ as their Savior. 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul is talking
to the church at Thessaloniki. He's led a lot of them to Christ
on one of his mission trips. And going back and writing to
them, 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 19, he says, for what is our
hope? or joy, or crown of rejoicing. Are not even ye in the presence
of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory
and our joy. In other words, Paul says when the rapture takes
place, one of the greatest joys we'll have is be able to see
all these folks have been converted in the presence of Jesus Christ,
knowing that you were the one that kind of led them to Christ.
Now we know there's a process, there's a planting of the seed,
there's a watering of the seed and what have you. But you had
a part in that. And so there's that rejoicing
that the soul winner has, the evangelist, the missionary, whatever.
There's that joy. And so for some, there'll be
great joy in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ when he
returns for his church. There'll be great joy because
you'll know that you had a hand and a lot of people coming to
Christ. And there'll be joy that What would be the term? Unexpressed?
No, that's not the term. Unknown joy. Because how many
times have we passed a track out and you have no idea what
just happened? We passed a lot of tracks out Friday night at
the fair and who knows? Who knows what they did? Who
knows what's going on? But when you get up there, we'll
find out. We'll find out. And I guarantee you, there'll
be people in heaven that'll come up to you and they're gonna be
so excited to see you and so excited to shake your hand. And
you're gonna look at them like, who in the world are you? And they're
gonna remind you, you were the guy that handed me a guy. I was
going to the fair the other night in Phoenix, Arizona. And you
gave me a guy, you were standing with those other people and you
gave me a gospel track. And I stuck it in my pocket.
I went and had a good time at the fair, ate a lot, rode the
rides, all that stuff, got home. When I changed my clothes, I
took that thing out of my pocket. And I was curious what it had
to say. And I only read comic books anyway, so this was perfect.
And I opened it up and I began to read it. And something began
to happen in my heart. And by the time I got to that
end of the track, I was on my knees trusting Christ as my Savior. And you don't know that, and
I don't know that. But I guarantee you, when you get to heaven,
you're gonna find stuff like that out. If you're active in evangelism,
at some point, you're reaching people that you don't even know
about. And I've told you the story in the past about Frank
Jenner, the guy that was in Australia, who spent the last, I don't know
how many years of his life, 10, 15, 20 years of his life passing
tracks. His thing was, I'm going to pass
10 tracks a day. And he did it on one of the most
populous streets in Australia. It was George Street. And he
would pass a track out and simply say, you know where you're going
to go when you die? Have you thought about where you're going
to go when you die? And it would offend some people and what have
you. But every day, just 10 tracks a day. A little old gray-haired
man standing there passing tracks out. And nobody knew. Nobody
knew what was going on until some preacher from England started
making his rounds in Australia. He was part of some preacher's
thing in England. Started making his rounds in
Australia. and heard about this guy and heard about somebody
getting saved from his ministry and so he talked about that when
he went from church to church and every church he went to two
or three would come up to him and say you know what I got saved
because of that guy and you're talking about he would be ministering
at preacher's conferences and two or three missionaries would
come up and say that little old man gave me a track and asked
me that question and I got saved and now I'm ministering here
and I'm a missionary over here. And thousands and thousands and
thousands of people, even to this day, still to this day,
coming to know Christ. Because Frank Jenner stood on
George Street and passed out 10 tracks a day and said, you
ever think about where you're going to go when you die? That preacher
found Frank Jenner. There's another preacher that
knew where he lived. They found him. They went over to visit him. And by
then he was too old to do anything, and he had the shakes and all
that stuff, which is coming to all of us, folks. But they sat
down and talked to him. He had no idea. He had no idea
what was being accomplished by his 10 tracks a day. No idea.
He sat there in tears when he heard the testimonies of all
that was going on. And you and I have no idea. We
have no idea what God is doing with what we're passing out,
what we're preaching. All we know is this, the Word
of God never goes out void. It accomplishes what God wants
accomplished, and He'll do something with it. All we need to do is
be faithful and do it. But part of getting to heaven
is gonna have people coming up to you. I'd like to quote that
song that Ray Bolts wrote called Thank You, which is about, I
don't like to quote him because he's an LBGTQ. But there's a song, Thank You,
and it's just about a guy getting to heaven. And as you're walking
around on the street of gold, people are coming up saying thank
you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And it's like, what are you talking
about? And one part of the song says, you know, you were my Sunday
school teacher, and I sat there in class, and one day you prayed
that prayer, and I followed along with you, and I trusted Christ
as my Savior, and here I am in heaven because of you, because
of your ministry. The only regret we'll have in
heaven is why didn't I do more? Why didn't I pass out more? Why
didn't I speak more? Anyway, great joy in heaven for
the preacher. Also for the church, in verse
3 of the text that we're looking at in Acts, he says, declaring
the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused great joy unto
all the brethren. And go to Acts chapter 8. Great joy in the city in Acts
chapter 8, which I believe is Sumerian. Great joy in the city. What a day. What a day. You go back in the late 1800s,
Walter was just a child at that time, but you go back to the
late 1800s and you had revivals happening across the world, England,
the United States, and such revivals, and this is why I kind of laugh
when I hear about revivals going on today, compared to what a
real revival was back in the 1800s, Because in those days,
the bars closed down, the houses of ill repute closed down, and
people were gathered together in church. And testimonies are
that at night you could walk down the street and you'd hear
somebody singing a hymn in this family and somebody teaching
a Bible study, and the whole city got that way. So, if that's
the kind of revival that's going on somewhere today, that's the
real deal. But think about it. A whole city.
A whole city. Look at Acts chapter 8 and verse
8. It says, and there was great joy in that city. In that city. This wasn't limited just to the
church. This was something that was affecting the whole city.
And man, you can have great joy in a city if people come to know
Christ as their Savior. And go to Acts chapter 8. You're
there. Look at verse 39. Obviously to the individual.
to the individual. I think the greatest joy I ever
experienced is the day I trusted Christ as my Savior because I
was in the position of or the mindset of contemplating how
I could commit suicide. I was that bad. I was that depressed. I was that discouraged. And being
a coward, it's kind of hard to figure out how am I going to
kill myself? Because I want to do it the most painless way you
can find, right? And it was at that time, the words of the man
that had been witnessing to me at the bowling alley and all
that stuff hit me at one time. And I realized my only hope was
to trust Christ as my Savior. That was the only way out, and
I trusted Christ as my Savior. And I went from here to there. Great joy, great joy. Acts chapter
eight, verse 39. This is the Ethiopian eunuch.
And when he came out of the water, remember, I'm sorry, Philip had
gotten into the chariot with him, and they were discussing
Isaiah 53, and so Philip's preaching the gospel to him, and he's getting
it, and they, as they're getting near some water, he said, hey,
what does hinder me from being baptized? I'm in on this, man,
let me get baptized, and Philip said, well, you need to believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, believe with all your heart.
He said, I do, and so down in the water they went, and he baptized
them, and it says in verse 39, and when he was come up out of
the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that
the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing. We're not talking about Philip.
We're talking about the Ethiopian eunuch. Went on his way rejoicing. And what do you think he did
when he got home? And so there's a history of a
very strong church throughout the ages. It wanes, but there's
a history of a strong church in Ethiopia, and it kind of goes
back to this guy right here. He is rejoicing, and when He's
rejoicing, He's telling people what He's so happy about. His
sins are forgiven. He's got a home in heaven. He's
got a relationship with the God of the universe. What more could
you want? All right, Acts chapter 15. So they're on their way,
and they're having a great time as they go down the road. They didn't have to stop at Flying
J or Petra or anything like that. On their way. Acts chapter 15,
look at verse 4. when they were coming to Jerusalem
they were received of the church and of the Apostles and elders
and they declared all things that God had done with them so
now they've made it to the church at Jerusalem now we've got it's
interesting there's a expansion we can see of the church go to
go back to Acts chapter 2 this thing is expanding it starts
in Jerusalem obviously It started when Peter and John went to the
temple to pray, and the guy got healed, and walking, leaping,
praising the Lord in the temple, and they began to have a service
there right under Solomon's porch, which we've talked about that
before, a colonnaded porch area where they could assemble, and
great crowds assembled there. Acts chapter two, verse 42, and
they continued steadfast in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship,
and breaking of bread and prayers, and fear came upon every soul,
and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all
that believed were together, and had all things common, and
sold their possessions and goods, and departed them unto all men,
as every man had need, and they continuing daily with one accord
in the temple. See, they're still in the temple. They don't have
a church building yet. They don't have a place designated to worship.
They're in the temple. Breaking bread from house to house, and
so there's stuff going on from house to house. did eat their
meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having
favor with all the people. The Lord added to the church
daily, such as should be saved. So here you have the church at
Jerusalem starting in the temple. They're also having ministries
from house to house, because you only get so many people in
houses, so you got a house going on here, a house going there,
a house there, which is why I believe Peter said that his ministry
was, you know, House-to-house because they would go here to
this house and they would preach it would go to this house and
preach That's what's going on. So you get to Acts chapter 5
Acts chapter 5 and verse 11 says and great fear came upon all
the church and upon as many as heard these things which was
what an and I and Sapphira lost their lives for lying about the
money that they were donating and so the church is Growing
things are happening. You go to Acts chapter 8 and
verse 1 Acts chapter 8 and verse 1 It says, and Saul was consenting
unto his death, that was Stephen, and at that time there was a
great persecution against the church which is at Jerusalem.
So now this church at Jerusalem is being persecuted, and they
were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria
except the apostles, and so the church is fleeing out of Jerusalem
now except the apostles, and again, there were some others
there. Go to chapter 11. Chapter 11, verse 22. Acts chapter 11, verse 22. It
says, then tidings of these things came into the ears of the church,
which is at Jerusalem, and they sent forth Barnabas, that he
should go as far as Antioch. So word gets back that the Gentiles,
Cornelius, had gotten saved, and so they are sending Barnabas
now, and they're going as far as Antioch. So suddenly Antioch
is showing up on the scene as a location where things are happening. And we're gonna see that the
church at Jerusalem, it'll stay there. But God says, I'm making
my headquarters now at Antioch. And if you go to Acts chapter
12, Acts chapter 13, go to Acts chapter
13. And if you look at verse one,
says now there were in the church which was at Antioch certain
prophets and teachers Barnabas Simeon it was called Niger Lucius
of Cyrene Manan which had been brought up with Herod the tea
truck and Saul so the big names are going to Antioch and the
heavy hitters I guess you could say are going to Antioch And
so God will make Antioch the headquarters. The church still
exists in Jerusalem, but God is working now out of Antioch.
And then from there, Acts chapter 14, Paul and Barnabas are sent
out on a missionary journey. Acts chapter 14, verse 23, it
says, and when they had ordained them elders in every church.
So when Paul goes out, they're starting churches. Paul and Barnabas
are on the mission field, starting churches. They're ordaining preachers
to preach in the church. It said, and had prayed with
fasting, they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed.
And so Jerusalem, Antioch, from Antioch, churches are starting
all over. And here we are today with churches
still starting all over the place. I think about my son-in-law in
Africa and the church that's going on there and the work that's
being done there, churches in our community. God is into churches. God is in the churches. God loves
the local church. And I've told you before, the
greatest asset you have as a Christian is your local church. because
he adds to that church the pieces, he adds the parts, the machine,
and in time, it becomes a great, powerful tool that he can use
and a very enjoyable place to be a part of. If the people are
walking in the spirit and if the word of God is being preached
and people are listening and submitting to it and all, a wonderful,
wonderful way to live as part of the church. It is a culture down South more
than it is out here or up North. Because at one time the South
was the Bible Belt. And I mean you talk about North
Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee. It was the Bible Belt. It's not
the Bible Belt anymore. If the South is the Bible Belt,
our pants are falling down. I just, very simplicity of it.
But because it was the Bible Belt, the church is a for the
believers, the church is a number one important thing in their
lives. They schedule around the church. They schedule around
church activities. That, to them, how important
the church is. And that's a result of God doing
great things at one time, and God working through the churches,
and people getting saved in the churches, and the joy that's
in the churches, and the singing that's in the churches, and all
that. They made that number one. They made that number one. And
that's my goal for you, is that at some point in your life, unless
you're not there right now, at some point in your life, you
will realize that the church should be the most important
thing in your life. For many of you, it's your job.
For many of you, it's your business. Maturity as a believer get you
to the place where you realize you know what the church is the
most important event in my life It's the most important thing
in my life and your friendships are in here and your ministry
is to the body. I mean, you minister outside,
but there's a ministry, and you realize that the church, your
local church, your local church, is the most important thing in
your life. And when you get to that point,
you've gotten where God wants you to be. And, you know, it
should be, it should be somewhat difficult. If God calls you to
a mission field, there should be, it should be somewhat, difficult's
not the right word, There should be a heart thing going on if
God calls you to the mission field and you have to leave your
local church. There ought to be something that strains the
heart thing, I have to leave my local church. That's the relationship
you ought to have with your local church. And that's what our goal
is here, that's what our desire, my desire is for all of you here
to have a strong local church. And I'm not here to try to make
a name for myself because I want to go to some other church that's
bigger and stay there for a few years and make another name for
myself. And that's not why I'm here. I'm here because God says,
here's where you are. And you know what? I don't care
what the other churches are doing. Some of these preachers are so concerned.
What's going on in that church? What's going on in that church?
And how many are they running? Are they growing? I'm not growing.
What are we going to do? I don't care really what's going
on in the other churches. You are my concern. You're my
concern. And my ministry is to you. So that's where my heart is in
all of that. Anyway, Acts chapter 15. Now let's look at verse 5. Here's
where it starts to get hot and heavy. Acts chapter 15 verse
five, Paul and Barnabas have arrived at Jerusalem, they've
told what's going on, they've had a conference. Verse five,
there arose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed,
saying that it was needful to circumcise them and to command
them to keep the law of Moses. And so here's the contention.
Paul and Barnabas show up, they begin to speak, they talk about
what's going on, and immediately these guys pop up and they're
from wherever they are and say, wait a minute, we don't believe
that. And notice it's certain of the sect of the Pharisees. A sect are those following a
particular leader or authority or attached to a certain opinion,
a company or a set of common belief or allegiance distinct
from others, and religion, the believers of a particular creed
or of holders of a particular practice. That's what these guys
are. This is the Judaism coming through. Especially in modern
times a party descending from an established church a denomination
and philosophy the disciples of a particular master a school
in society in the state and order rank class or party so For this
definition here, again, it's the idea that the believers in
a particular creed are holders of a particular practice. People
coming out of Judaism that are having such a hard time comprehending
this idea of saved by the grace of God through faith alone and
are struggling with that. Which would tell me, and there's
such a debate, you know, how did people get saved in the Old
Testament? How did people get saved under the law? It's a major
debate and to me I'm looking at this thing here and thinking
the Jews certainly did not believe in salvation by grace through
faith or they wouldn't be causing the problem they're causing.
Obviously they believed that you had to be circumcised which
they did on the eighth day and they had to keep the law. So
that tells me right there that that's what they were believing.
So how were the Jews saved in the Old Testament? Not by grace
through faith. Not by salvation, by grace through faith. And we've
gone through this thing before. The fundamentalists are so good
at coming up with these little cliches. Well, in the Old Testament,
they look forward to the cross. New Testament, we look back on
the cross. And that's the biggest bunch of nonsense you'll ever
hear. They absolutely were not looking toward the cross. And
we've gone through that before. I'm not going to rehash it. But
it's simply it seems to show here that these people believed
you had to do something that circumcised and keep the law. And if you're going to get to
heaven, that's what you've got to do. You've got to walk the walk and talk
the talk. And, you know, Johnny Cash, you know, I told the line
and all that stuff. Of course, he wasn't talking
about salvation. But anyway, this is all going to be clarified
as Paul, Peter, Barnabas, James all chip in to give their opinion
and come to a conclusion which we will discuss next week. All right? Any questions or any
comments? All right, let's have a word
of prayer, and then we'll get back together in about 10 minutes. Father, we thank
you for your word this morning. We thank you, Lord, for the joy
of salvation. Thank you for the local church.
Thank you, Father, for churches that can help those on their
journey. Lord, I pray that you'd help
us to be a church like that that can be very pleasing to you.
Lord, we pray you'd bless our service this morning. Thank you
again for being such a wonderful savior in Christ's name. Amen.
You are dismissed. We'll get back in about 10 minutes.
Acts
Series Book of Acts
Follow the ministry of the Holy Spirit as the Word goes throughout the world.
| Sermon ID | 1027241924304463 |
| Duration | 39:59 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Acts 1:1-4 |
| Language | English |
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