Welcome back to
"Books of the Book."
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We here are studying
in the Book of Acts today
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and right before the break,
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we were talking
about Peter's sermon
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that brought that conviction.
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He-He, first of all,
took the prophecy of Joel
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and then the
prophecy of the Psalms
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and he applied that prophecy,
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that David had
given to the Messiah
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and this was new for the
Jews that were listening to him.
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This gripped their
hearts and the Bible says
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that they were cut to the
heart, and they said, you know,
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"Man and brother,
what shall we do?"
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They were, they,
they in that moment,
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they saw their
role in crucifying,
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in murdering their own Messiah.
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And you can only imagine
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the weight of
conviction on their hearts
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and what a desperate
and hopeless place to be in.
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Absolutely, and you know,
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being that they
were in that place,
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it put Peter in a
position of opportunity,
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really, because Peter as one
of the disciples certainly was-
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taking a lot of
accusations and things like that
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about the sect of
Jesus and His followers,
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and certainly, the pressure
of that led him to deny Jesus
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back before His
death, and you know,
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now Peter is in a
different type of situation
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and it's very clear
that Jesus is on the throne
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and these people who were guilty
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are now in a very
vulnerable position,
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and Peter could
have tried to get even
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as it were, and
cut them off. Oh, yeah.
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But instead of cutting them off,
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I want you to know that Peter
had a love for these souls.
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The Holy Spirit is never
poured out to bring conviction
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and guilt only to leave someone
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without salvation. That's right.
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Every time the Holy
Spirit was poured out
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like on the day of Pentecost,
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it was for the
salvation of souls.
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We're reminded that
God did not send His Son
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into the world to
condemn the world,
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but that the world
through Him might be saved.
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You know, that's an
important point, Jim.
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It's not just for the
purpose of chastisement
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and there is
sometimes that people
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in the church get the idea,
when they hear a pointed message
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and there needs to
be pointed messages,
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but they can get the idea
that, that pointed message-
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and the person
giving that pointed message
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is just really getting even with
those hard-hearted stubborn,
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saints.
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When the reality is,
the man who is inspired-
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who is motivated
by the Spirit of God
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is only giving a
message like that in order to,
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by the grace of God, see a
person brought to a position
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where they'll be open to
receiving a transformation
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through the Lord,
to receive repentance,
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and that's what we see here.
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That's exactly what we see here.
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Because now, in verse 37,
they say "Men and brethren,
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what shall we do?"
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They are opening themselves up,
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making themselves
vulnerable to the apostles
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and Peter rather than
taking advantage to get even,
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says some of the most beautiful
words in the scripture.
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He says, in verse 38,
then Peter said to them,
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"Repent and let every
one of you be baptized
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in the name of Jesus
Christ for the remission,"
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that is the forgiveness of sins.
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Your sins can be forgiven,
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and you shall receive
the gift of the Holy Spirit,
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you can be placed on equal
ground with where we are today.
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Verse 39, "For
the promise is to you,
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and to your children,
and to all who are far off,
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as many as the Lord our
God will call." Oh, wow.
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He just opens wide
the door of salvation
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and it's no wonder that you see
the response that you see here.
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That's right, and viewer,
if you ever have felt far off,
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if perhaps
today you are watching
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and you're feeling
far off from the Lord,
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just remember
the promises for you.
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The Lord Jesus is in
the business of saving souls
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and the Bible says, "He
can save to the uttermost all,
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who come to God
through Him." Amen.
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And so, it's a powerful
message here that Peter gives.
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Now before, Jim,
there was something else
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you're gonna jump
into, but before we do that,
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I want to highlight
something Peter says
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and this may be new
to some of our viewers,
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this thought that Peter brings
up something here in his sermon
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that was
understood by his hearers,
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but in Christianity today,
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it might get lost
sight of a little bit
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and that is where David was.
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You know, he
tells us as his evidence
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that the prophecy of David
was pointing forward to Christ
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and not speaking
of David himself.
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His evidence is, in verse 29,
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"Men and brethren,
let me speak to you freely
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or speak freely to
you of the patriarch David
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that he is both dead and buried,
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and his tomb is
with us to this day."
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Something that is-
is taught in scripture
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and has been clouded because
of certain Greek philosophies
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and ideologies that'd been woven
into Christian understanding
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throughout the thousand
years plus of the dark ages
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when people didn't
have the Bible to study,
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is the idea that man
has an immortal soul.
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And it's a very common teaching,
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but it's not a
biblical teaching.
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The Bible tells
us in 1 Timothy 6,
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that "God alone has immortality
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and that, that immortality
is conferred as a gift
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whosoever believeth in Him,
should have everlasting life."
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And Paul tells us
in 1 Corinthians 15
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that-that we put
on that immortality
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when Jesus comes again, and so,
man is not naturally immortal,
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the Bible says, in Romans 2,
that man seeks for immortality,
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and one of the important
things, aspects of that is that
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if we have an
inherent immortality,
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then the reality is
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that we really are not
in need of it. That's right.
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But if we don't have immortality
and we're seeking for it,
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there's only one
place we'll find it
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and that place
is in Jesus Christ,
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and that's what Peter is
wanting to get across here
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among other
things, and he says that,
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"David has not, his
tomb is with us to this day,
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he is dead and
buried," and somebody may say,
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"Well, his tomb maybe with
us and his body is with us,
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but his spirit has ascended."
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Peter is very clear in verse 34
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"For David did not
ascended into the heavens."
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And this just matches
the rest of the scripture,
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because Jesus was very clear
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that the only way to
ascend into the heavens for us
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to ascending the heavens
outside of a miraculous like,
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Elijah being
taken up and translated,
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is for Jesus to come back.
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He says, in John
14, "I will come again
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and receive you to myself, why?
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That where I am, there
you maybe also." Right.
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So the picture
is that if you want-
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if I want you to
be with me where I am.
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I am gonna have to
come back and get you."
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Same thing happens
in 1 Thessalonians 4:16,
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it says, "The Lord
Himself will dissent from heaven
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with the shout," and says,
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"The dead in Christ
will rise" and then it says,
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"That those who are alive
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and remain will be
called up together with them
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in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air,"
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and then it says,
"and thus or in this way,
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shall we always be with
the Lord." That's right.
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So the way that we
go to be with the Lord
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is at the second
coming of Christ,
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that's why the
second coming of Christ
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becomes that blessed reunion,
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that blessed hope for
humanity. That's right.
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Now, we're gonna
look at the early church
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in the make up of-
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of some of the
fellowship of the early church
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as it was burgeoning
here and coming into,
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you know, three thousand souls,
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you can only
imagine what that did.
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Yes. To the church.
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Well, we need to
move down to verse 40
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because here is
where it picks up on
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some of what happened
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as a result of the
wonderful preaching
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and outpouring of the
Holy Spirit on that day.
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It says in verse 40 of Acts 2,
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"And with many other words
he testified, and exhorted them,
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saying be saved from
this perverse generation.
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Then those who gladly-"
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and so there's many different
words he used, okay, we don't-
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It would be wonderful when
we find out all of that sermon.
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But at this point all we know is
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it had something to do
with "be saved." Right.
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If you're in a-you're in
a bad condition, be saved.
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And as a result,
in verse 41, it says,
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"Those who gladly
received his word were baptized
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and that day about
three thousand souls
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were added to them."
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That's what we need today.
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We need that kind of
power of the Holy Spirit
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and we are promised that that's
going to come. Absolutely.
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But I'm wondering, just
exactly how we would handle it.
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You notice here in verse 42,
it says that the apostles had
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something special
in that early church,
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I want to- I
want to look at that.
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Verse 42 says "And
they continued steadfastly."
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So, after this
group was baptized
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and were added to the
church, that wasn't it.
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They continued.
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Now, too often, I think today,
as we look into our churches,
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we have a
strong focus on baptism
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and we should because the
great commission says to go
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and baptize in
the name of the Father
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and Son and Holy Spirit. It
also says to make disciples.
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Teaching them- that's right.
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Teaching them to
observe and to make disciples
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and really you
haven't made a disciple
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until you have
groomed someone to minister
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like the master. That's right.
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To be like Jesus, and
too often, we work hard.
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We, often times we'll
study the Bible with someone
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who's interested, and we'll
study week after week after week
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and we spend so much time
and give them so much attention
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and then after the baptism,
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we go to study
with someone else,
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and they are left
wondering, what happened?
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We give them a sack lunch
and send them on their way
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and wish them
well. That's right.
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We hope you show up for church
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and prayer
meeting. That's right.
00:09:27.99\00:09:29.36
And the problem with that is,
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it's not matching the
Biblical model. That's right.
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Because right here, it says,
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"That these
continued steadfastly"
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and this mentions
a few specific areas,
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I think we would
do well to recognize,"
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they continued steadfastly
in the apostles' doctrine."
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In other words, they
continued studying the word,
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seeing the
evidence for their faith,
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building their
foundation in the word.
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"They also
continued in fellowship,
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and in the breaking of bread."
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So this fellowship had
to do with eating together
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and fellowshipping together
in spiritual-socializing-
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This wasn't
just fellowship meal,
00:10:05.46\00:10:08.00
you know, one of the things
I have run into as a pastor is,
00:10:08.03\00:10:10.39
a lot of members are-
aren't feeling comfortable
00:10:10.42\00:10:14.67
to have people
over into their space
00:10:14.70\00:10:16.59
and so when we go to a
fellowship meal at the church,
00:10:16.62\00:10:19.18
this isn't
fellowship meal fellowship
00:10:19.21\00:10:21.19
because it says, in verse 46,
00:10:21.22\00:10:24.62
"That they continue
daily in the temple,
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and breaking bread from
house to house." That's right.
00:10:27.38\00:10:29.27
This was in a home fellowship.
00:10:29.30\00:10:31.04
And furthermore, and I
think very significantly
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at the end of verse 42,
it says "And in prayers"
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so this wasn't just social time.
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It's possible that we
can have secular fellowship
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with church
friends. That's true.
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And this is not what
they had, they mingled prayer,
00:10:44.97\00:10:48.48
they were having
spiritual encounters
00:10:48.51\00:10:50.30
where they were sharpening
00:10:50.33\00:10:51.70
and growing one another
in the Lord. That's right.
00:10:51.73\00:10:54.03
And one thing
that grabs my attention
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also there in verse
46 is, it tells us that
00:10:55.57\00:10:59.41
"As they went
from house to house,
00:10:59.44\00:11:01.11
they ate their food
00:11:01.14\00:11:02.51
with gladness and
simplicity of heart."
00:11:02.54\00:11:04.93
Now it's interesting,
that word simplicity,
00:11:04.96\00:11:06.54
its different words in
different translations,
00:11:06.57\00:11:08.35
but the Greek word
means to be free from stones,
00:11:08.38\00:11:11.30
like a pathway that's
had the stones taken out.
00:11:11.33\00:11:13.83
In other words, it's
an unencumbered pathway.
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These were people
who-just got done telling us
00:11:17.41\00:11:21.34
that they sold off possessions,
00:11:21.37\00:11:23.08
many of them, and
we'll see that more.
00:11:23.11\00:11:24.48
To help people as they
had need. That's right.
00:11:24.51\00:11:26.21
But they
themselves were unencumbered
00:11:26.24\00:11:29.69
by the things of this life.
00:11:29.72\00:11:31.09
They weren't- they didn't
let their jobs get in the way
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or they didn't let
their pastimes get in the way.
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You know, it reminds me
of some friends of mine who,
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I had the privilege of baptizing
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and I remember
going over to their home
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and looking on the refrigerator
and they had a calendar there
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and I was just, you know,
waiting for them to come out
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from where they were and I
was glancing at their calendar,
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and I noticed something
beautiful about the calendar,
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every pastor would hope that
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this-that a calendar
would look like this.
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On the calendar, they had
the church Sabbath events,
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prayer meeting, outreach events,
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all the different
events of the church,
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all the different functions,
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their life was
invested in the church.
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Everything else,
they built around that.
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And too often, I don't know
if you have encountered this,
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but though that is the
picture of the Book of Acts,
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that's not what
often happens today.
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No, no, no, it's-
It's my son's soccer game
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and my daughter's, you know,
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roller skating
event and it's my,
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you know, the work
picnic and, "oh, I'm sorry,
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I don't have time to come out
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to the church
events." That's right.
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And often we say, that's
because we are doing that
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because we want
to stay balanced,
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but boy, when I look at the
balance of the early church,
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the balance was they were
unencumbered by those things,
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so they had simplicity.
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Simplicity of hearts,
simplicity in their life,
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the reason they
were willing to sell
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to give to those who had need
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was because they weren't married
to all of their possessions,
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they weren't married to
their hobbies and habits.
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They were
married to Christ. Amen.
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And they had given their
life fully to Him. That's right.
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They were
married to Christ, Jim,
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and Christ was married to them.
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Christ's desire-His greatest
desire is for His church.
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Jesus came to seek and
save that which is lost,
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that passion consumed the
heart of the early church.
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Jesus wants that compassion
to consume our hearts too.
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May God help us to follow
in the footsteps of our Master.
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See you next time.
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