Act chapter 18 Nov 18, 2020

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] rejoice amen [Applause] [Music] [Music] shall come to [Music] is [Music] [Applause] how great the chasm that lay between us how high the mountain i could not climb in desperation i turned to heaven and spoke your name into the night then through the darkness your lovingkindness tore through the shadows of my soul the work is finished the end is written jesus christ my living hope [Music] [Applause] who could imagine so great a mercy what heart could fathom such boundless place god of the ages stepped down from glory to wear my sin and bear my shame the cross has spoken i am forgiven the king of kings calls me his own beautiful savior i'm yours forever jesus christ my living hope hallelujah praise the one who set me free hallelujah death has lost its grip on me you have broken every chain there's salvation in your name jesus christ my life [Music] hallelujah praise the one who set me free hallelujah death has lost it's grip on me you have broken every chain there's salvation in your name jesus christ [Music] then came the morning sealed the promise your buried body began to breathe out of the silence the roaring lion declared the grave has no claim on me then came the morning it sealed the promise your buried body began to breathe out of the silence the roaring lion declared the grave has no hold on me [Applause] jesus yours is the victory [Applause] is the one who set me free you have broken every chain there's salvation in your name jesus christ [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] they have broken every chain there's salvation in your name jesus christ [Music] [Applause] jesus christ [Applause] [Music] home amen amen praise the one who set you free amen amen no one else could amen amen he is our living hope amen amen heavenly father just bless our time together here this evening be with pastor john as he feeds us by your spirit the bread of life this evening and again lord we just thank you for who you are for what you have done for what you are doing what you're going to do we thank you we praise you in jesus name we pray amen amen and so get a cup of coffee whatever you need to do and pastor john if you write up what's up all right you guys can let me know how the volume is since we don't have a sound person this evening if it needs to uh it needs to come up at all you can text me if you're watching online we can turn in our bibles to acts chapter 18. oh it's cold today wasn't it crazy it's going to get warmer right who just said that was that a prayer somebody just said it's going to get warmer what's it supposed to be like tomorrow i got to work outside anybody know nicer like how much nicer nice hot tamale all right we got uh kelly kulak watching at home she says uh the volume is good on the mic so praise the lord for that we'll go with that our sound person who's home uh and uh brian thank you brian appreciate that uh let's see we are in chapter 18. last week you guys let's see where did we go we ended up at verse 16 or 17 right there correct 17. so we're picking it up uh remember now the theme here last week's message your blood be upon your own heads the apostle paul declared to those he as was his custom and remember now he's he's finishing his second missionary journey here he's almost done on his second of uh well they say four it's like three missionary journeys and one was to his you know his eventual uh imprisonment in rome going before caesar that was the fourth but so he's he's here he's ending now he's going to be ending his third or his second missionary journey uh he always everywhere he went he went first to the synagogue he found out where the jews were and you know witnessed to them until they wouldn't have it anymore as was the case and in this case he literally says your blood be upon your own heads and now he switches from evangelism to discipleship is an interesting thing that you always see that pattern happen there is um let's see oh thank you kelly she's giving me the forecast on the text message uh are you going to come here and bang nails at me tomorrow too kelly come on out let's bring it bring a hammer uh so yeah so uh you know here he's in corinth now and and um it's this is one of the most ungodly places there was back then you know rome and corinth were very similar in that sense people just did whatever made them feel good remember i quoted where he gets that idea your blood be upon your own heads i quoted that from ezekiel chapter 3 last week i'm going to read that to set the tone now because we as i mentioned there's a modern hebrew word nazriyam which is used in the old testament as a it's translated the word the word is translated into the english word watchmen and today that same word is used by jewish people to refer to christianity naziriyam and so i believe we're a literal fulfillment of prophecies about watchmen fulfilling their obligation to watch but what is it the role of a watchman and that's really the subject matter in the book of ezekiel and the responsibility of the people of god to be watchmen and here in chapter three of ezekiel verse 16 i know i'm kind of going backwards before i go forwards but that's okay context is a good thing it says now it came to pass at the end of seven days that the word of the lord came to me saying son of man i have made you a guess what it's gonna say watchmen very good you guys are paying attention that's good one of you are anyway for the house of israel therefore hear a word from my mouth and give them warning from me so the context here is ezekiel i've made you a watchman you you're a prophet did you know that a prophet is more of a proclaimer of truth than someone who tells things about the future really prophecy is primarily about uh a proclamation uh rather than um you know for uh fortune telling if you will there is that element to it at times and people some prophets did have that word from the lord that spoke about the future but primarily it's about telling people the truth and here's the problem for prophets the people you're usually called to tell the truth to don't like what you have to say that's one of the problems of a prophet it's why jeremiah didn't want to be a prophet here ezekiel said i is told by god i have made you a watchman that's what a prophet and by the way to some extent every one of us need to prophesy all that simply means i'm not saying some hyper spiritual language i'm just saying we need to tell people the truth that's what it means proclamation we need to be prophesying so son of man i've made you a watchman for the house of israel therefore hear the word from my mouth and give them a warning from me that's typically what truth telling is all about warning people about the truth about judgment and about sin and all those things and so verse 18 and ezekiel 3 when i say to the wicked you shall surely die but you ezekiel don't bother to tell them i told you to say that is my paraphrase he nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity but his blood i will require at your hand and so we talked a lot about this when we went through the book of ezekiel how when god tells us to proclaim the truth we're to proclaim the truth and god holds us somehow accountable when we don't listen to god and do what we're supposed to do now it doesn't mean he's condemning your soul to hell that would break all kinds of rules of biblical theology to say that because you don't get saved by works and so you can't earn your salvation by these things but certainly there is a reality of of a difficult relationship that comes out of that so here paul says to the synagogue the jews and the synagogue listen listen i have warned you because god has told me this is a general thing god has told paul to do he knows he's going out from city to city or town to town or wherever god calls him to go and and the he knows his job go there and tell them the truth about jesus that's what he's preaching jesus christ and him crucified that's the message by the way he adds dead buried resurrected because apart from the resurrection christianity is a meaningless meaningless system of thinking and so the resurrection is critical to our what our belief and so paul is doing that he's doing what his what he's been called to do and now at the synagogue where he was preaching there was a man named crispus who was the head of the synagogue but he became a christian got kicked out of the synagogue and this other guy sosthenes took over as head of the synagogue now sosthenes brings paul to court before the gentiles in the corinth city of corinth and they listen to both sides of the account the corinthian officials do and they say listen this is not a matter for roman courts this is a matter for you religious people to solve this is these are issues of religion not the state and so they pretty much take the corinthians takes sastenies and they kind of beat the crud out of them but what's interesting is later on we see paul mention somebody named sosanese say hello to sosthen he's our brother i think sosthenes got saved i think it's the same man from corinth very fascinating so we're going to begin in verse 18 here and we'll we'll see how far we get tonight it depends on how fast you guys are capable of listening tonight and uh that'll i can't determine that ahead of time so we'll see so paul's that we're gonna read some verses and and uh we'll get back into it so paul still remained a good while now that sosthenes has taken over the uprising against the apostle paul and his preaching has put been put down god protected him remember god in the beginning this chapter said don't worry about what they say i got your back god said that to paul and here god had his back so what does paul do he stays so paul still remained a good while and then took leave of the brethren and sailed to syria so we don't know how long a good wild is we just know it was a not a short period of time but he also uh priscilla and aquila were with him took them with him and there in centria he cut off his hair because he had taken a vow i take that to mean uh previously he now completed the days of his vow probably a nazirite vow we'll talk about that and so when you have a nazarite vow and i'll discuss all these things soon you don't you're not allowed to allow any razor to touch your head and other things also so he went through this period of time where he set himself apart an azerite vow so now he's cutting his hair and and continuing in uh verse 19 he came then to ephesus left them there uh you know priscilla and aquila but he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the jews again that's what he was his way he always went there first when they asked him to stay longer time with him he did not consent but instead took leave verse 21 saying i must by all means keep the coming feast in jerusalem but i will return again to you and notice this quote god willing and he sailed then from ephesus no doubt kept the feast according to his promise and when he had landed at caesarea and gone up and greeted the church and then went down to antioch so we skipped here the meeting in jerusalem meeting with the church in jerusalem it it's just not covered in this account and when he had landed in caesarea verse 22 he has already been in jerusalem so verse 23 after he spent some time there departed and went over to the region of galatia and phrygia in order to strengthen all the disciples let's stop there we'll offer a word of prayer and then go back through these verses see how far we get lord thank you um thank you that the apostle paul gave us a pattern for missions a pattern for church a pattern for life thank you for speaking so much truth and doctrine through our our brother paul and the other disciples lord and and the word of god thank you for the word of god which is able lord to be an anchor for our souls and uh which is able to to keep us uh from from giving up hope lord because there's so much truth that we can count on lord let us be experts on the word of god and let the word of god truly define us lord and that that we would be less likely to be wavered to waver when times uh are are difficult so just strengthen us we pray for your glory sake we're here to worship you and lord we're hoping that as we go out into the world that you would use us for your glory sake and for the gospel sake we pray these things in jesus name amen so again verse 18 he remained a good while which was uh intentional because i think he believed well god said he would protect me from this attack of of the of sosthenes and the and the synagogue and god did do that and so i'm going to disciple these people here until i i absolutely have to go uh took leave of the brethren sailed for syria syria by the way is where antioch was antioch there's there's many cities named antioch back then specifically the one to the north and a little bit east of galilee just not far from there would be this particular syria and it's my conviction that this was paul's sending church this was the church where he was officially they laid hands on him and sent him out and so he's going to go visit his church which is what he would typically do this marks you come closing in on the end of this missionary journey the second one so we learned that priscilla and aquila were with him and there had his hair cut off in centria because he had taken a vow i take that again to mean he had in the past taken about completed it and in other words here's what's important about this is that some of the things in the old covenant that the apostle paul even though he understood well he's no longer under the law there were things that were still beneficial in the law and i think there's a lot of churches today and i often mention this that just simply dismiss things like this because they say well that's the old testament or that's the law i'm not under the law i'm under grace now the apostle paul certainly didn't seem to think it was a bad idea to do it the reason is i think it's why you're doing it that matters you see if you're doing it as a matter of earning with believing that you're earning or deserving something from god then you're canceling out the blessing and you will receive nothing for it and you cannot earn or deserve anything from god by what you do and therefore paul does not have that mentality he took this vow to benefit himself spiritually it's the same thing by the way and very similar in nature to fasting this particular vow is a is a vow of a nazarite now let's look at a warning about taking vows in james 5. uh we must remember we came from judaism it's judeo-christianity it's not christianity judaism judaism came first christianity was born out of all the promises of god god fulfilled those promises and those promises became followers of christ it's a jewish faith it's a it's based on the promises of the that came through jewish prophets so here in james chapter 5 verse 9 james the context for the book of james is a warning to people about the christian life and the difficulty of the christian life and how to not only survive christianity but how to thrive in christianity that's what this book james is about it's all about how to be a how to be a successful christian in a dif in a world that doesn't like what you believe and so he says do not grumble against one another brethren lest you be condemned behold the judge is standing at the door my brethren take the prophets who spoke in the name of the lord as an example of suffering and patience and so here again the subject matter is what suffering not because you're just suffering because life's hard not suffering because you're really weird and people don't like you suffering because of your faith now certain suffering comes as a result of our faith in many different forms and fashions adherence to biblical principles there's a suffering in our flesh first peter chapter four that happens we resist sin we suffer in the flesh it's a death to self and so automatically suffering happens now what happens when we deny our flesh and we suffer for it and we're following christ and doing it is that other people around us become convicted by what god is doing in our lives all we're doing is worshiping we're sacrificing to be to worship the lord with our lives that's all we're doing but people become convicted because we're just trying to walk with the lord and in fact first peter 4 chap chapter 4 verse 4 covers that they think it's strange that you no longer run with them in the same flood of dissipation and they they persecute you okay so there's suffering that comes from walking with the lord now you're not walking with the lord you're not doing what you're not doing or doing what you're doing in an effort to be seen by people you're not setting yourself up as an example folks you're just wanting to live a life pleasing to god that's all i live romans 12 a living sacrifice that's it that's all you're trying to do and everything in your mind said is lord i just want to be i want to be more like you because i just love you so much it's all motivated as worship by love and that rubs people the right way they don't like you for it can anyone relate to what i'm saying perhaps amen thank you he goes on to say james does indeed we count them blessed who endure the concept of endurance here is we're not going to give up worshiping god because it got a little difficult doing so you have heard of the perseverance of job we were just talking about job earlier with i was talking with chuck about job and and seeing the end intended by the lord that the lord is very compassionate and merciful but above all my brethren do not swear now this is interesting in the context of our study tonight in acts 18 do not swear either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath but let instead let your yes be yes and your know by no your no no lest you fall into judgment now we know there's different kinds of judgment this is an eternal condemnation this is punishment for failing that's what this is god chastises those whom he loves hebrews very clear and so uh what what james is saying here is don't put yourself don't intentionally put yourself in a situation where you make a vow or a promise that you can't live up to and then you're going to suffer because you don't live up to it that is not what paul is doing in acts chapter 18. what paul is doing in acts chapter 18 is he's taking a vow that lead like we would go into a time of fasting he's denying himself he's setting himself apart he's uh he's attempting to avoid certain things so let's look at that in numbers chapter six turn to number six with me and we'll look at what this is all about and consider some of the things that paul did remember where he is and what he's doing he's going into some of the most godless places there are at the time in the world to preach the gospel to people who are hostile to it these are people who are into all kinds of temple worship that included prostitution and all kinds of crazy things and so paul's going into a hostile camp right he's going into the enemy camp you know and uh so for him my conviction this is conjecture folks there's no verse that says this this is my feeling i feel like this nazarite vow was to keep him set apart in an ungodly place because he perhaps as a hedge against temptation that's my conviction i could be dead wrong on that so that's not what the bible says just my guess knowing what i've read of paul but look at numbers chapter 6 1-8 the lord spoke to moses and this is what he said speak to the children of israel say to them when either a man or a woman consecrates so that word consecrates the same as holy it's the same as the word saint by the way it means separates or separate it just means to set something apart for godly or holy purposes when a man or woman consecrates an offering to take the vow of a nazarite to separate himself to the lord he shall separate now this the first requirement of the nazareth vow separate himself from wine and similar drink drink neither vinegar made from wine or vinegar made from similar drink neither shall he drink any grape juice look at how look at how strict it actually goes out to get look at eat fresh grapes or raisins in the days of a separation he shall it gets even further eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine seed or skin so you're like wait a minute that's like legalism well hold on a second who's doing this now why are they doing it are they doing it to set themselves apart are they doing it to earn or deserve something from god that's the distinction folks now why such a strict approach where it's like oop that's the seed of a grape i'm not going near you know how small the seed of a grape is it's tiny of course today we gmo everything so we want everything seedless right pitless seedless uh in fact the days are common when someone's gonna peel it for us and feed it to us and you know we're gonna think that's just normal anymore but and so he was told to avoid if you're taking the valve nazar why why is this because anything that's associated with what's represented there you see the end of the line is where it began with drink the wine and anything similar to it anything that would that would be associated with self-medicating or uh you know or or drinking alcohol uh getting drunk anything anything and you follow it all the way down the line and you don't go near anything that's even remotely associated with it because it might make you even think about the thing that you're not doing and so it's literally about purity of thought here and sanctifying your thoughts and everything and setting yourself apart and and now this again this is not something paul is doing to get people's attention he is not doing this to say hey look at me he's not he doesn't even care if anybody sees him doing this this is what he is doing for himself in his walk with the lord that's it but it goes on from there it says in verse 5 all the days of the vow of his separation no razor shall come upon his head until the days are fulfilled which he separated himself to the lord in other words he would not qualify to be an usher at jersey shore calvary chapel he would because he's not allowed to have a razor on his head and all our ushers are bald so basically i mean he couldn't do it here but or assistant pastors by the way for that matter yeah now notice this it says no razor's allowed until he's fulfilled the time of separation be so so he shall be holy so when you put a razor on your head you're not being holy apparently so set apart means no razor on your head uh and again this is now it's an outward sign though of something he's doing inwardly so he he would there is a certain amount of outward signs so that people would respect exactly what he's doing for a time so they would let their hair grow out because of it and there'd be these locks of hair and then he shall let these locks of hair of his head grow in verse six now all the days that he separates himself to the lord he shall not go near this is now the third thing a dead body you're thinking to yourself i don't want to go near dead bodies anyway but this is any dead body you can't you know take the chicken the dead chicken and and pull the feathers and you know cook the chicken you can't he shall not make himself unclean going near a dead body is making yourself unclean even if it's for his father or mother for his brother or sister when they die because he has separated himself to god on uh on his head he's got that uh in his life and so verse eight finally in in numbers all the days of a separation he shall be holy separate sanctified uh consecrated to the lord so uh they would know and understand that in the law touching anything dead uh would make you ceremonially ritually unclean you couldn't approach the lord having touched that until you went through some ritual cleansing and so you had to do everything you could to avoid anything associated with uncleanness whether it was of the grape you know of a vanity cutting your hair making yourself look a certain way just let your hair grow out uh you might remember some uh nazarites from john the baptist for example the nazarite you know samson really well known uh nazareth judges 13 5 behold you shall conceive and bear a son no razor shall come upon his head for the child shall be a nazarite to god from the womb he was born in nazarite and he shall begin to deliver israel out of the hand of the philistines and so you know there were people who had lifelong commitments as a nazarite valley were set apart for the work of god samson certainly uh you know had that that uh that that role uh his only problem was is he allowed his attraction for a philistine woman uh to be his undoing and we know what happened because of that so you philistine women out there please just you know keep your distance i want nothing to do with you um john the baptist anointed also while he was in the womb his uh he left in his mother's womb martha's room you remember mary was there visiting um and so it would be nothing from the vine nothing from uh nothing no razor on the head and no touching of anything dead no you couldn't attend your parents or your brothers or your sister's funeral during this time now if you were a jewish person they would understand that you're in a valve and azerite so it was an accepted thing and now back to our chapter paul just got done doing this again i gave you my conviction as to why i think he did it and i think it's a wise idea and i think any time that we perhaps are going to go through a period of time in our life where we feel particularly vulnerable to temptation or sin a great idea is fast or or set some parameters or rules in your life that you intend to follow as a hedge against temptation amen so verse 19 acts 18. and he he came to ephesus and left them there uh but he himself entered the synagogue in reason so he left behind priscilla aquila and uh sorry and he went into the synagogue and reasoned with the jews now back in chapter 16 paul wanted to go to ephesus but you remember what happened he is forbidden by the holy spirit to go well here this is the right time and he's finally being permitted by god to go when they asked him to stay longer time he was unable to give in to that because he had already committed in his mind to be in jerusalem for the feast for the sabbath and but said he would one day return again now i like this and i mentioned this and when we were reading it god willing and i i love that because even in james you know james writes who are we to say i'm going to go here or go there to this city or that city rather we should be saying if it isn't the lord's will i will do such and such a thing and i i wish we as believers would realize that um it's okay to have plans uh but we should make them in jello not in stone you know because god can change them any time and often does you know uh so god god is as a as a god that sometimes will put direction in our lives just to get us moving but then very quickly changes the direction because he never intended us to go there just wanted us to start moving and knew that that destination would somehow be what got us moving and so whatever it is in your life that you haven't perhaps been moving forward on that god's trying to say i want you to move forward in this uh sometimes the lord will will get you do whatever he's got to do to get you moving in a direction and then he'll quickly show you now that you're mobile because we're listen this is i i say this a lot i believe this passionately this is uh a dynamic thing christianity not a static thing it's not something you decide once in your life and then you know you you check that off as a category or a you check a box on a application what's your faith oh it's i decided a long time ago i'm christian you know boom that's done i was born a christian that's what i am check that's not no this is something that you live every day it is a active breathing living thing and god wants us to include him in everything he really does he wants us to um expose our thoughts to him uh the things that you know we're worried about are concerned about the things we're struggling with the decisions that we can't make uh and and he's not going to sit there and tell us the answer to every single problem or or uh he's not going to come down and coddle us he's but he wants us to share those frustrations and thoughts and leave them with him then he wants us to go make decisions having spent time with him in faith and learn how to live by faith you know it's not about waiting for answers all the time sometimes we do wait for answers but other times it's about listen i've already put enough information in you for you to make an informed decision now go and learn by making mistakes and that's what god that's really how god runs our lives in the vast majority of time i love those moments don't get me wrong when there's just no question and god makes it very clear the direction he's got us going in and and that happens there have been remarkable things i've seen you know and sometimes it's a matter of weakness and god and we need strength and god needs to show us something that'll bring us encouragement i got to tell you those times are those times happen a lot i mean they happen a lot for me um i'll share with you a story when we were doing hurricane sandy relief work and uh my days were six days a week 12 hour days easily sometimes more i would show up over at the at the uh the trailer uh what used to be rock and joe's cafe parking lot we had a big trailer there 40 foot trailer half of it was office half of it was tools and then that was our camp we had set up a camp there disaster relief camp and you know we had a a a big marker board inside it was called the war board and everything that were that had to get done the next day by the time i left that that night was on that board you know and i had everything on there and um and sometimes and literally every single day there'd be an imbalance looking ahead to the next day i would have 10 jobs to do and you know a third of the people needed to do it committed to come and some miraculous thing would happen where another camp couldn't provide work and so all the people from that camp were sent to my camp and i had everybody i needed or i would have 60 or 80 people coming and one job lined up for the next day what am i going to do with all these people and the lord would have somebody show up in the morning with where this one morning i come pulling in 5 30 in the morning somewhere around 5 30 in the morning this was typical and um as i'm pulling in and right where our camp was was where you weren't allowed to go any further the army corps engineers had shut it off put a barricade there so uh i pull in and there's a a silver gmc pickup truck right by the entrance to the parking lot our trailer was all the way in the back so there's somebody sitting in this parking lot 5 30 in the morning the engine's idling they're just sitting there and i come driving up to the trailer i unlocked the trailer turn the lights on fire up the heat because it was cold at that point and the day before i the first thing i see on the board was um you know furnace uh oil furnace for uh for the the guy that owns um the guy that owns the building who's letting us use the property and what had happened was the night before i was i'm i was getting ready to leave and this guy dave frazee comes up to me he owns the property he had had a bunch of work done to repair his furnace and it was an oil burning furnace and he said and and he knew that that next day it was the temperatures were going to drop and and all that work that was done unless someone can get this furnace up and running uh all that work that would be for nothing his pipes were gonna burst and this was gonna be a major problem and he's like john i'm gonna lose all this and it the purse pipes are gonna burst and it's gonna ruin the ceilings downstairs and and my floors and everything's gonna be shot and i said dave this is what i did i was wiped out at the end of the day i said dave i don't know why i'm telling you this i honestly don't know why i'm saying this to you right now because i don't have any heat contractors available to me i just don't i haven't had one in a few days there hasn't been one here to serve but i'm just telling you i'll take care of it i don't know why i'm saying that and i went home and i was like i can't sleep i told dave i'm gonna do this i have no idea how i'm gonna do this and i prayed and i prayed and i prayed heat's on lights on uh i go walking out toward the i look out the window there's the guy in the truck and i and i go over to he comes out and meets me and i say sir is there anything i can do for you he goes maybe i don't know he goes i live in harrisburg pennsylvania and i was watching the news last night and i saw that belmar new jersey was in dire need of help and i said to my wife i'm tired of this i got to do something and i i need honey i need to go help these people and she said take some money take what you need and go ahead so he got in his truck that night and drove out to the jersey shore he ended up on 195 138 right into belmar and he's wandering the streets of belmar at like three o'clock four o'clock in the morning looking for people that needed help if there were people out working already trust me couldn't find anybody so he started driving south from town to town and he got to the end and he saw our big sign out there jersey shore calvary chapel disaster relief camp right so he said i just thought i would come and you know see if there was anybody i could help i said well what do you do for a living he said i'm a heat and air conditioning contractor i said do you do oil burners he says that's my specialty i said yep somehow i just not surprised you know and that's just one of many miracles and sometimes god just does that for us you know and sometimes we just need that to be encouraged and the apostle paul said god willing i'll be back and so he didn't he doesn't take god for granted nothing for granted but by the same token he believes he believes that god can and will if it's his will so what does he do he continues there in verse 21 he sailed from ephesus and when he had landed there in caesarea he'd gone up and greeted the church later went down antioch again that's the city uh you know where he had been sent from and a lot of time passes here that the words that you see there gone up and greeted the church just before that was his trip to jerusalem and the fulfillment of his promise to uh to visit them now that this why that's significant not just about being there for the sabbath and pentecost the church in jerusalem which by the way was james's church as we were reading about james was a heavily persecuted church and incredibly impoverished and so paul one of the things paul did as he traveled around is he took up offerings from the churches he visited and every time he went to jerusalem he brought an offering he brought a love offering a love gift for the saints in jerusalem he spoke about it to the church in philippi he spoke about it to and so this was one of the things he just had to do and and that's why james i think was so right on about writing on that subject or or or specializing in that subject in his book and so i love the book of james it's one of my favorites in the new testament so after jerusalem we traveled back to antioch and no doubt gave a full report of all the things that were going on on the mission field this is why we have missionaries come and visit occasionally and give us a report of what's going on and so right now real quick update uh pastor pletoro in albania um his parents have kovid they're they're his father's not doing as well as his mom his father needs some prayer so pray for her she uh or he um excuse me he needs prayer she's doing much better now uh he's having trouble with his diabetes and uh and covet the combination of those two things platora seems to have bounced back i think he had it and doesn't have it anymore he's doing good uh he took a week off and that's rare for him so praise the lord for that but pray for him there they're gonna need some help we're gonna be doing a love offering sending it out to them soon and also um i'm trying to plan a trip out there next year it's so hard to plan anything you guys it really is but i'm strongly convicted that uh at least i need to go back and meet with those people they're wonderful so looking forward to that and then also spoke to pastor rob in the philippines today he has been having an ongoing issue with some neighbors to his house in uh in dumaguete so the island of negros and they're not they can't travel island island so they can't go to their other place over uh where the where the church plan is where uh simply is um otherwise they would go there but they can't so they're stuck there and these people have been harassing them and just yesterday it got physical they started throwing things at robin pelting him with things and uh but they've been in and out of court and all kinds of things to try to stop it these people have a judge who's a family member and somehow managed to get that judge to get the case between the two of them uh well he just successfully praised the lord was able to get that judge thrown off the case and now it's going into another judge's hands so there's hope but if you have a problem with somebody you have to pay money to deal with it so we'll be sending them some money i think it's going to cost them 500 just to deal with that so um just keep praying for the missionaries they have it tough right now i think so uh and and let's just let's see if we can get a little more in here um so this by the way after verse 22 is the end of the now that he's back in antioch reporting just as we just did some of the behavior of the missionaries some of the some of the things that have gone on the mission field uh he's going to spend verse 23 some time there that's the end of his second missionary journey and now the next verses we see are where we begin the third and so antioch is some 300 miles or so north of jerusalem and it's less than 20 miles from the mediterranean coast so this place that was a long trip from jerusalem up to antioch a little bit about antioch those who were scattered this is acts 11 19. those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over stephen traveled as far as phoenicia cyprus and antioch so when stephen was uh you know stoned to death remember that and he said lord hold this not against them they know not what they're doing the church was scattered out of jerusalem and what the church went underground in jerusalem but stayed and some of them ended up in antioch and so this is where the foundation of this church came from were people from jerusalem that were scattered some of them were meant for cyprus cyrene come to annie spoke to the hellness preaching the lord jesus and the hand of the lord was with them and a great number of them believe and turn the lord so sometimes adversity causes the gospel to spread right rather than stop it and that's an interesting thing we see in the book acts quite a bit versus uh verse 25 and chapter 11 barnabas departed from tarsus to seek paul or at the time he was called saul and when he had found him he brought him to antioch this is how paul first came to antioch so it was for a whole year that they assembled with the church and taught a great many people and the disciples were first called christians in antioch maybe you didn't know that before but the word christians was coined in this church in antioch syria and that's in acts chapter 11 verse 25 when paul first came there and discipled them now he spent some time again we don't know exactly how long but it was a good amount of time and it was for the purpose of discipleship and any place paul went or any letter he wrote he was particularly concerned about discipling people now discipleship has a a very important facet to it and that is building a foundation for their faith now foundations if you can imagine a foundation we we build foundations out of out of cinder blocks right we start with footings in the ground below the frost level so they can't heave when the ground freezes and then we put cinder blocks and and so now uh what a foundation for your faith is it's examining all the the blocks that you stand on that is the beliefs that you have about god and about christ and about yourself from god's point of view it's taking a look at all your beliefs comparing them to what the bible actually says and being willing to have those bricks replaced with better bricks basically is what it comes down to and so the more solid your foundation for your faith the more solid your walk with the lord is when times get really really hard and um and i know i've seen it people get people's lives get really hard and uh in fact paul talks about that in let me just share with you a little bit about the book of romans it's one of my favorite books again i love james i love romans probably i would have to say is the most complete of all new testament books in the sense that contained within it is the most amount of various doctrine to challenge you and to really cause you to be well discipled but he speaks to the church in rome a church by the way he did not plant it's one of the few churches that he wrote to that he didn't plan he's writing to a gentile church where he knows some people there but he didn't start this church and so he feels a responsibility to write to them and in romans 1 1-7 it says paul a bond servant of jesus christ called to be an apostle separated to the gospel of god which he god promised before speaking of the old testament through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son jesus christ our lord that's a mouthful right there of what where what the church is about concerning what the holy scriptures the prophets and the holy scriptures concerning his son jesus christ our lord calling jesus christ our lord you don't call anyone that unless he's god who was born of the seed of david according to the flesh and declared to be the son of god now he's calling jesus the son of god with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead listen to all the doctrine in his opening statement to the church in rome it's overwhelming and if you read the book of romans you'll find he's literally trying to con with these words with these words he's confronting everyone that hears these words he's not trusting that the the leaders of that church are doing enough of this work themselves he's going to make sure he does it from afar and this is actually a tool in his back pocket he sends this to them and says you guys it's coming from me paul they'll respect that and you read it to them that way you pastors there in rome can hold these people accountable to these things he goes on to say through him jesus we've received grace and apostle ship that's not the same as being an apostle that's a be apostle or a little little apostle for obedience to the faith among the nation for his name that's the purpose so that we would all be represent represent represent representing him excuse me among whom also you are the called of jesus christ to all who are in rome beloved of god called to be saints separate grace to you and peace remember now a little further down in verse 11 in romans 1 he writes specifically his motivation for writing the letter and if you've never noticed it before this is to me a highlight of the book of romans he opens the book with this sentiment and he ends the book in chapter 16 with the same sentiment he says in romans 1 11 i long to see you that i may impart to you some spiritual gift so that and here's the reason you may be established that word when i taught romans the first time jumped out at me in a huge way and i immediately thought in my head where have i seen that word most and usually it's in on outside of a business or or a sign when you're coming into a town and they don't usually do that unless there's some notable distance or time that's passed and that town or that business has survived all this time and it's something worth talking or bragging about in other words it doesn't matter what's going on in the world that business or that town is still doing still there is still doing well the ability to withstand everything that the world throws at that business or that town is what the word establish means it's talking about your foundation it's talking about the bricks you know the footing it's talking about the strength that you your ability to withstand i think of uh hardware stores in in light of this word established and you know in light of the waves of now you can buy tools and stuff online you can buy you know screws you go to the home depots of the world are looking to put every little hardware store out of business and the ones that still exist below my mind because they're they've their business model is built it's built on customers it's such a solid business model customer service they know their customers by name it's personal they take care of people they make sure you have whatever you need we'll go out we'll go the extra mile that's what establishes us personable going the extra mile as if it matters this is my life therefore this church will last he says that you may be established that is that we may be mutually encouraged together both you and me and in verse 13 he says now i don't want you to be unaware but i always wanted to come so that we might bear some fruit and and he says even in verse 14 i'm a i feel like i'm in debt to both greeks barbarians wise and unwise so much so that is in me i'm ready to preach the gospel to you her in rome also preaching the gospel is discipling them in chapter 16 he's closing out the letter and in verses 17 through 20 says i urge you brethren note those who cause division and offenses he wants to keep the church pure that's why his letters are so confrontational note those who cause offenses contrary to what the doctrine which you've learned doctrine is important biblical doctrine is important and paul says it's worth dividing over no no no we all need to be unified hold on a second paul doesn't agree with that paul says there are some doctrines that are worth dividing over the critical ones the ones that if you teach them wrongly people will not know god in truth and so i'm sorry when churches are out there saying certain things are not sin and telling people that god's okay with it how can those people be saved if they can't confess and and so it's critical we're not to be associated with bad or wrong doctrine period it's worth dividing over now it doesn't mean we're out there on a soapbox pointing our fingers at people and criticizing them personally no we have to as i often have criticized doctrine now i'm not saying a person is saved or not that's not what i'm doing when i do when i say a person's name and say this person is preaching or teaching false doctrine i'm not saying they're saved they're not saved i'm not none of that i'm saying they on this date in this message they said this that's wrong that's my responsibility and what makes it so hard today is these folks are on your television sets they're on your internet they're they're on the radio they're coming into your cars and into your homes and as a shepherd we have that responsibility to make sure you know the truth the best defense against bad doctrine is to teach good doctrine but sometimes you have to point out some bad doctrine again he says there in the end of the book he says divide from those who cause of divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you've learned avoid them verse 18 he says those are such who do not do who do not serve our lord jesus christ but instead serve their own belly and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple for your obedience has become known to all therefore i am glad on your behalf but i want you to be wise in what is good simple concerning evil and this is great practical advice and the god of peace will crush satan under your feet shortly i hope that's really shortly now the grace of our lord jesus christ be with you now finally in verse 25 he says now to him capital h it's god who is able to and here's that word again establish you according to my gospel paul says god is able to take my teaching and use it to make you immovable and able to withstand all that the world's going to throw against you to keep you in the truth he also adds the preaching of jesus christ according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now it's been made manifest my little um that's an introduction to next week's chapter 24 verse 24 through 28 the end of the chapter and probably in the chapter 19 we'll close it there because i've been going now for 50 minutes so i apologize you guys just weren't able to listen fast enough tonight that's your fault not mine uh bummer for you so sorry um but any any uh prayer requests comments questions um of any kind anything anybody want to share yes well i meant i meant biblical questions but we can certainly uh yeah that's true um you know check check with us after um i don't know i know we can definitely order those um you know those for you so we do have i know there's a box downstairs of shame is good t-shirts i love those uh but please by all means

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Length: 61min 10sec (3670 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 18 2020