Walk by The Spirit (Walk Thru the Bible Week 48)

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Welcome to Walk Through the Bible, Susan Michael's 12-month journey through the most exciting

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book on the planet.

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It will transform your life one page at a time.

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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes that will ignite your faith and bring your Bible

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to life.

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Now, let's join our host, Susan Michael.

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Well, hey there.

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You know, today we're going to be talking more about the early church.

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And a lot of times we kind of idolize the early church as just kind of the highlight

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of Christianity.

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And, you know, we have a beautiful description of the church there in Acts 2 and 3 and 4.

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But there was also a lot of division and there were some contentious issues.

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So we're going to be talking about this week.

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You know, the early church was initially made up of Jews who believed in Jesus as the Jewish

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Messiah.

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And, boy, were they surprised when the Holy Spirit began to fall on Gentiles.

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And this introduced so many problems into the already difficult life of the early church.

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But I am so grateful for the way that the Jewish leaders handled the situation and for

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the wonderful apostolic leadership of Paul, particularly.

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But they were all true pioneers and visionaries and they allowed the Holy Spirit to lead them

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into a whole new season in God's redemptive plan.

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So that's what we're going to hear about this week.

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I want to welcome you.

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This is Walk Through the Bible, week number 48.

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We are reading this week in our daily Bibles the dates of November 26 through December

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2, or that would be the pages of 1513 to 1545.

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Last week we talked about three really exciting portions of Scripture in the story of the

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resurrection of Jesus, of his final words of the Great Commission to the disciples,

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and then the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the early church.

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The early church is growing so fast and persecution begins almost immediately.

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So this week we're going to pick up the story and we're going to read about Peter, who

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is in the city named Joppa.

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Today it's called Joppa, but then it was Joppa.

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And he raises Dorcas from the dead and nearby in Caesarea, which is just a hop, skip and

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a jump from Joppa, was a Roman citurian named Cornelius.

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And it says that he was of the Italian regiment, but he was a devout, God fearing man who gave

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alms and was very respected by the Jews.

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So I want to explain this first.

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In the synagogues, not just throughout Israel, but all throughout the Roman Empire, remember

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the Jews had been in exile now for some of them 700 years, others 500 years.

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Some had returned and built the national life there in the land, but there were Jews scattered

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throughout the Roman Empire.

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And last week we read how that there were Jews in Jerusalem for Pentecost and they had

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come from every nation under heaven.

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So they're spread throughout, there are synagogues all throughout the Roman Empire.

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And it was very common that in those synagogues you would find Gentiles who had either converted

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to Judaism, which means they had been fully circumcised and had been converted and accepted

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into the community as Jews.

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Or there were other Gentiles who hadn't taken the full step of official conversion, but

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they were a part of the synagogue.

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They were called God fearing.

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And that means that really they had adopted Judaism.

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They were in the synagogue.

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They prayed, they gave alms to the Jews as the Jewish people did.

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And it says here of Cornelius that he was respected by the Jews.

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And that's why he was one of those God fearing Gentiles.

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A part of the Jewish community.

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This was very common.

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So the angel says to Cornelius, your prayers have been heard and your gifts have been seen.

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And they've been as a memorial before God.

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And he tells him to send for Peter.

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And Peter has a vision.

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He's praying in Joppa and he has a vision of this large sheet.

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And it's filled with animals and birds.

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And God tells him to rise up and eat.

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He says, God forbid, I've never eaten an unclean animal.

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And so God tells him not to call unclean what is clean, what God has made clean.

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And he does this three times.

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And then lo and behold, here comes the servants that Cornelius has sent.

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Takes Peter back to Cornelius's home.

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Peter goes in the home and he says, you know I as a Jew should not be stepping foot in

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your home as a Gentile.

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But I am here because God has told me to come and to not consider to be unclean what God

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has made clean.

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Now I'm going to be very clear here.

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This vision was not about food and dietary laws.

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God used food and dietary laws to make a point to Peter.

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I'm sending you to the Gentiles and don't consider them unclean if I have made them

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clean.

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And so as Peter preaches to Cornelius and his family, the Holy Spirit is poured out

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upon them.

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So obviously the Lord had heard their prayers.

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He considered them clean.

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He was pouring out the Holy Spirit.

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Peter needed to accept them as well.

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That's the message of that vision.

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Now at the same time we read about the church in Antioch.

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And in Antioch it is growing and there are many Gentiles coming into the faith.

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And so Barnabas goes to Tarsus where Paul had fled actually they told him, Paul get

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out of Jerusalem.

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You're too contentious.

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You get too much attention.

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There's too much opposition to you.

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So he had gone to Tarsus and Barnabas went and found Paul and he said, come.

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The mission field is now outside of Jerusalem.

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Come to Antioch and Paul did.

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Now in Acts 13 we have Paul's first recorded sermon which is in a synagogue.

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So the pattern here is that when the apostles would enter a town the first thing they would

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do is go to the synagogue.

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And you'll notice a lot of the times you'll notice this when you're reading through the

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book of Acts that in the synagogue it will say that there were Jews and there were God

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fearing Gentiles.

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And sometimes there were Hebraic Jews which were strict Jews and there were Greek Jews

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or Hellenistic Jews.

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They were the more assimilated Jews.

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They were the less dogmatic ones.

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But they were a part of the Jewish community.

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And then you had these Gentiles some had actually converted to Judaism were fully observant

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of the law.

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And then there were other Gentiles that were just a part of Judaism but had not formally

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converted.

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And they had all these different factions in the synagogues.

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So Paul would go to the synagogue and they would all go, start in the synagogues.

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But here we read about in Acts 13 Paul goes to the synagogue and preaches his first sermon

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there and he says, fellow Israelites and you Gentiles who worship God.

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So there you have it.

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They're right there in the synagogues.

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It's very, very common.

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But eventually there would be opposition to the apostles and they would be kicked out

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of the synagogues.

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But you need to know that their message was just as contentious to the Gentiles as it

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was to the Jews.

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So while the Jews may have not agreed with the preaching of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah,

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there was the Gentiles may not have liked that they were coming in and disturbing the

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life of the city and the worship of the pagan gods in the city.

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And then all of them may have been very, very worried about the preaching of a king other

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than Caesar.

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So it wasn't just the Jews that opposed the message.

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It was all of them.

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And it was a very contentious message of Jesus as king and Messiah.

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And so the Paul and the apostles, but we read mainly about Paul and his missionary journeys.

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And here it says that the Jewish leaders incited the God fearing women and the leading men

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of the city.

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So these God fearing women were part of the synagogue.

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And the leading men, I guess, also of the synagogue, but obviously they're Gentiles.

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So there's all this mix.

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Sometimes it's really hard to understand who's what and the root of the opposition because

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of this mixture.

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And the same thing happened in the synagogue in Iconium.

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They're kicked out.

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There's troubles.

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And it follows Paul from city to city.

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And you really, your heart goes out to Paul.

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It's a very hard calling that he has.

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But do you know in every city a church would be born?

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In the midst of persecution, in the midst of rejection by many would be the acceptance

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by a few.

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And those few would be the nucleus of a church in that city.

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And then as Paul went more and more on his travels, he would come back to visit those

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cities.

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He would write letters back to those cities to stay in touch with those new little churches

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that were springing up and that were maturing and growing up.

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Now as I say, Paul is brought to Antioch.

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And there's many Gentiles coming to the Lord through all of their travels.

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They're seeing Gentiles coming to the Lord.

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So this is really a growing issue.

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What do we do with these Gentiles?

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Do we tell them that they need to be circumcised or not?

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So Paul and Barnabas go back to Jerusalem to meet with the leaders of the church.

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These are the leaders of the entire church at the time.

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They're in Jerusalem.

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They are all Jewish believers in Jesus.

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And they go back to tell them what's happening around the world.

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In their travels, I should say it.

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It happened first in Caesarea with Peter.

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Now Paul seeing it happen here and there.

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What do we do with them?

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And this is the famous Jerusalem church council that we read about in Acts 15.

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This is a pivotal moment, my friends.

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And it's a pivotal moment for those of you like me that are Gentile, that today we have

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come to know Jesus.

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And thanks to the decision made here in Acts 15, you and I did not have to become circumcised,

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convert to Judaism in order to receive the Holy Spirit and be a part of the church.

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The leaders of the church said, well, look, if God is accepting the Gentiles as they are,

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then we should accept them as they are.

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And law and Jewishness were not required for them to receive the Holy Spirit.

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So who are we to say that they need to become under the law or to become Jewish?

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And so they wrote a letter to the Gentiles.

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And Paul carries this letter back to the church at Antioch.

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And it goes throughout to any of the churches after that.

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But this letter tells them that they do not have to observe the law.

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But they asked them to abstain from food polluted by idols, to abstain from sexual immorality,

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and meat strangled animals, or eating strangled animals, and from blood.

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And then they give this reason, because the law of Moses has been preached in every city.

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So in other words, in every city, there are Jewish congregations and synagogues and Jewish

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people with great sensitivity towards the dietary laws, sensitivity towards paganism

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and eating any meat that's been sacrificed to an idol.

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And so in order to be sensitive to these Jewish people that may come into the church, abstain

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from these things.

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It's not about law, and it's not about that you can't be saved if you go eat the blood

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of an animal.

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It's saying to be sensitive to the Jewish sensitivities, please abstain from these things.

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So thank God that these leaders had this wisdom, and that they made this decision.

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And this just pushed open the gates for Gentiles to come into the church full force.

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And so as I said, Paul takes this letter back to the church in Antioch, and it just happens

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to be in Antioch is the first place that the followers of Jesus are called Christians.

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Up until this point, they've been called the way, and they've also been called the Nazarenes,

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the followers of the Nazarene, and there were Ebonites.

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But this is the first time in Antioch that they are called Christians, and they are the

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first ones to receive this letter from the Jerusalem Council.

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So now the apostle Paul has to contend with all these factions in the early church out

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in the Roman Empire.

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And people come through and all of a sudden they tell him, you need to be circumcised.

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And Paul has to write a letter and say, no, no, no, don't listen to them.

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They're preaching a gospel that's different from the one I preached.

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You do not have to be circumcised.

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You do not have to come under the law.

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And he lays out the reasons why.

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And so the first book that Paul may have written, a lot of people think it's the first book

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that he wrote, is the book of Galatians.

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And Galatians really deals with this issue quite a lot.

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The issue of the law, what is the purpose of the law, and how that the early believers

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in Jesus, these Gentile believers, did not need to come under the law.

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So let's look at this for a minute.

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In Galatians 3, I want to look particularly at verse 21 and verse 24.

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So he says here, is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God?

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So he has told them they do not have to observe the law.

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So he says here, is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God?

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Absolutely not.

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For if the law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have

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come by the law.

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24.

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So the law was our guardian.

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Some translations say tutor until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.

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So what is he saying here, that we are justified by faith, therefore we do not have to come

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under the law.

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And then he says here, so does that mean that the law is like an opposition to being justified

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by faith?

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And Paul says, no, it's not an opposition.

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It's just that we can't be justified through the law.

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The law was given as our guardian, as our teacher.

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The law was given to keep us in the way of God until Christ came and then that we would

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be justified by faith.

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So the law had a very important role to play to prepare us and to point us towards the

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coming of Christ.

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It's not in contradiction.

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It's just not needed for salvation and for justification.

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Now going on into 3 verse 7, it says, because you are His sons, God sent the spirit of His

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son into our hearts, the spirit who calls Abba Father.

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So you are no longer a slave or someone in bondage, but you're God's child and since

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you're His child, God has made you an heir.

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So the difference here is that we are not to be in bondage to the law because God has

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sent His spirit into our hearts.

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We are no longer a slave or a servant.

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We are a child and we become an heir.

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And that's the difference.

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It's all about the Holy Spirit.

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And in the last few weeks we talked about in the New Covenant that it wasn't going to

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be like the Old Covenant at Sinai with the law on tablets.

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The New Covenant was number one going to forgive them of their sins, but it was going to write

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the law on their hearts and that would be done by the Holy Spirit.

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That is what is so different that through the death of Jesus, which was for the justification,

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our justification, our right standing before God, our forgiveness that we are now considered

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as clean by God, and He will pour His Holy Spirit into us because we are sons.

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We are heirs.

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We are joint heirs with Christ.

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So looking now at Galatians 5 verses 13 through 26, you, my brothers and sisters, were called

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to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, rather serve one another

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humbly in love, for the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command to love your neighbor

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as yourself.

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So this is saying that you are not to be a bondage to the law, you are to be free, but

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that doesn't mean that you are free to go out in sin and to live however you want to.

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It means that you are to be filled with the Holy Spirit and walk in the Spirit, which

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means that you will walk in love and that in itself will be in obedience to the law.

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So you see, it's not about a rote obedience to the law, it's about being led of the Spirit

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to walk in love, which then is a fulfillment of the laws.

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Verse 16, so I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

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And then he tells them the difference.

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For the flesh desires, what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit, what is contrary

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to the flesh.

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They are in conflict with each other so that you do not do whatever you want, but if you

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are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

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Now the acts of the flesh are this, sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry,

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ragecraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions,

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envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

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I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom

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of God because they are not walking in the obedience of the freedom of the Spirit.

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Verse 27, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness,

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faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

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Against such, there is no law.

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Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

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Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit and let us not become

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conceited, provoking and envying each other.

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So He is saying, you have received the Spirit, now walk in the Spirit and keep walking in

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the Spirit.

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Don't give in to envy, don't give in to provoking each other and to all of these divisions.

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My friend, it is the Holy Spirit that makes the difference.

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And if you ever want to know, well, is this God's will or what and what is the Spirit

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leading me to do, ask yourself this, is it love?

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Is it peace?

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Is it joy?

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Is it kind?

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Is it good?

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These are the tests so that you will know what is of the Holy Spirit in your life and

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walk in that Spirit and fulfill the law that is wrapped up in love.

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Now Paul then goes on his second missionary journey and the agitators follow him around

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again and he goes to Thessalonica and then Corinth for a year and a half and Paul is really

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very discouraged.

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So much so that Jesus appears to him, now this is the second time I think that Jesus

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has appeared to Paul and he tells him to stay in Corinth and so Paul does, he stays there

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for a year and a half.

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And from there he writes some more letters and so we read this week we read first and

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second Thessalonians and he's having to deal with these baby churches.

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They're an infancy, their understanding is basic, but they have all of these voices and

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contentious divisions amongst them telling them to do this or to not do that.

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So Paul writes and he tells them that his colleague Timothy has given a very good report

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of the Thessalonians but he has to deal with two problems.

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One is sexual immorality and the other is that they're not working, there are some of

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some philosophy that they don't need to work.

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We're not sure why if they're thinking that they're just going to wait for the return

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of Jesus, they don't need to work or if there was something else going on in the society

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around them but they weren't working and he's telling them get up, start working and provide

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for yourself and for your family.

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And then in second Thessalonians somebody wrote a letter to Thessalonians and acted like it

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was from Paul and so he had to write a second letter to set the record straight and to correct

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some wrong information.

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And one of the things they thought was that Jesus had already returned so he had to tell

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him believe me, when Jesus returns you're going to know it because the whole world is

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going to know it and he goes into a description of what that return will be like.

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Then after a year and a half in Corinth Paul goes on the third missionary journey and

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on the road then he writes back to the church at Corinthians and writes first and second

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Corinthians which we begin reading this week and continue next week.

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Corinthians is a much longer book.

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It once again has to deal with sin inside the church and then it answers various questions

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about sex, about marriage, about some gray areas like meat sacrifice to idols and keep

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in mind once again you're dealing with the hardcore Jews, the assimilated Jews, the pagans

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that had converted to Judaism and now maybe were a part of the church, pagans that just

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coming into the church and they're bringing that pagan lifestyle with them of sexual immorality,

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of eating the meats.

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I think the butchers were actually a part of the whole temple system in these cities.

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It was hard not to eat meat that wasn't cut and cooked in a temple.

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And so how do you deal with all of this?

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And this is why Paul has to write these letters, deal with these issues and try to bring unity

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to the churches.

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And of course, how to operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

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So a lot of reading this week, there's so many things that we could talk about but I

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just want to bring it up, wrap it up for this week.

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In spite of all the persecution that Paul and the early church endured, the early church

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was born and in all these cities throughout the Roman Empire.

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And if you study the lives of the apostles and where they went, they went everywhere.

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They went all the way to India.

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They went to Egypt, Cyprus, to Iraq, you know, all of these areas to Rome, to Spain.

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These were the early believers and they took the gospel and baby churches were born all

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throughout the Roman Empire.

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And they did it in spite of severe persecution.

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Most of them were martyred because of their faith.

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I am so grateful for them.

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And then we see how divided the church was and how contentious some of these issues were

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in the early church.

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This should actually encourage us.

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We have some contentious issues dividing our church today and we should be encouraged

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that it's nothing new, divisions, but we must seek to bring unity for the sake of the gospel

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and for the sake of the mission that we've been given.

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I am so thankful to the Jewish Council, the Jerusalem Council that we read about in Acts

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15 for their wise decision how to allow the Gentiles to come into the church, how they

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managed all of this.

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You know, Jesus didn't tell them that this was going to happen.

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They were called totally by surprise when the Holy Spirit fell on Gentiles.

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He hadn't told them what was going to happen and what to do and result.

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They had to just be led of the Holy Spirit and hear from the Holy Spirit how to handle

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these situations one after the other.

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And I am so grateful for them.

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I'm grateful for Paul and the early apostles and what they did and the price they paid.

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So as you're reading through this week, you can keep these things in mind and be encouraged

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over the life of the early church and the work of God that prevailed in spite of all

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of this.

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And we can be encouraged.

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And I believe that the work of God is going to prevail in our days as well.

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But enjoy the reading of God's Word.

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And until we're back here together next week, God bless.

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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.

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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, cpnshows.com, YouTube, or

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wherever you like to listen and learn.

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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA All Rights Reserved.