7-20-25 Study of Acts Chapter 9:32-43 Marks of Effective Personal Ministry Part 2

➡ The text discusses a Bible study session focusing on the Book of Acts, specifically Peter’s ministry after Pentecost. It highlights Peter’s transformation from failure to success after being filled with the Holy Spirit, his focus on the Jewish life, and his effective personal ministry. The text also emphasizes the importance of personal involvement in ministry, not just preaching to crowds, and the lessons we can learn from Peter’s life and actions, such as handling persecution and sinning Christians. Lastly, it mentions the upcoming study of the first church and Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles.
➡ The text discusses the principles that made Peter’s ministry effective, which can be applied to our lives. These principles include being involved, exalting Christ, being available, prayerful, fruitful, and free from prejudice. The text emphasizes the importance of being active and moving in God’s direction, as God often chooses those already involved in ministries for his tasks. It also highlights the importance of glorifying Christ in all actions, and not seeking personal accolades but working for God’s glory.
➡ The text discusses Peter’s humility and dedication to exalting Jesus Christ, not himself. It criticizes the worship of idols and human figures, using the example of people kissing a statue’s toe in St. Peter’s Cathedral. The author encourages self-assessment and prioritizing availability for God’s work over personal pursuits. The text emphasizes the importance of recognizing one’s own good works without needing external validation.
➡ The text discusses the importance of being available for God’s work and taking care of our bodies to be able to do so. It tells the story of a disciple named Tabitha, also known as Dorcas, who was known for her good works and charity. When she fell ill and died, her body was not immediately buried as per Jewish tradition, but kept in an upper chamber because the disciples knew Peter, who was nearby, had the power to raise the dead. The text emphasizes the importance of being active, involved, and doing good works as a Christian.
➡ Peter was asked by a group from Joppa to preach to the Roman guard, which he agreed to do despite his busy schedule. A woman named Darcus, who was greatly loved for her kindness and generosity, had died, causing much grief among the widows she had helped. Peter, known for his commitment and readiness to serve, was called upon. He arrived, sent the mourning widows out of the room, and began his ministry, highlighting the importance of being available and responsive when God calls.
➡ Peter, a man of faith, performed a miracle by bringing a woman back to life through prayer. This event showed that true power comes from God, not from ourselves. The miracle led many people to believe in God, demonstrating that God’s intention was to spread faith. This story teaches us that recognizing our own weakness and relying on God’s strength can lead to great things.
➡ The text emphasizes the importance of being faithful in your ministry, even if you’re not directly leading people to Christ, as your actions can indirectly lead to the salvation of souls. It also highlights the need to overcome prejudices to be effective in your ministry, using the example of Peter, who had to overcome his Jewish prejudices to accept Samaritans and Gentiles. The text encourages Christians to accept people as they are, without prejudice, as this is a mark of a mature believer and crucial for effective personal ministry.
➡ The text discusses the importance of personal growth in Christian faith, emphasizing self-assessment, prioritizing, and being open to all people. It also highlights the role of the church as a place for believers to grow and for non-believers to hear God’s word. The text also shares a story about a pastor who welcomed a group of hippies into his church, causing controversy but standing firm against prejudice. Lastly, it ends with a prayer for guidance, health, and peace amidst worldly issues.

Here we go, guys. Yes. Yay. Yay, yay. We’re in. We’re recording. Everything’s ready to go. All right, guys, sorry about the delay. Technology’s grand. Can’t do much about it, but. So let me get all this set back up. All right, watch the. Watch the in. Make sure if ever somebody wants in, you guys tell me because I have to separate my screen and on this laptop, it. I can’t see. Billy Ray is coming back in. All right, here’s Paparoy, and here’s Lee, and I think we’re. We’re getting close to be back in there. All right, here we go.

We’re recording. This is the guys. Sorry for the delay and sorry for the technology issues. I didn’t know that Zoom was going to do whatever they did, and I had to reinstall it. So anyway, we’re. We’re here. So today’s our Sunday morning Bible study. We’re in the Book of Acts. We’re actually going to finish chapter nine today and get into chapter ten starting next week. So this is the second part to last week’s Bible study on the marks of an effective personal ministry. And we’re. We began in verse 32 and worked ourselves. Make sure you put the salt and pepper on the front because that’s what I use to.

To verse to 43. And. And we have seen here a narrative basically, of two miracles that Peter did. And we’re looking at specifically Peter’s ministry to get what we need out of this, out of these verses. And if you looked at Peter’s, he had two miracles in this. In this passage, one was the restoration of a man’s eight years sick with paralysis. We went over that last time. And the other one, he actually raised a. A guy by the name of Dorcas, D O R, C, A s from. From. From the dead. And both of these are accomplished by Peter in the energy of Christ.

Now, it’s interesting that these two incidents from the life of Peter introduce us to his personal ministry. Now, we think of Peter up until this point as involved only in rather public basis. He was. He was the first to preach from the. From Pentecost. He. He preached in front of the Sanhedrin. He went to Samaria with John, preaching in various cities. So here we have basically a view of Peter from a personal side and many, many times before. Before Pentecost, Peter, after the Spirit of God empowered him, was a great success. But prior to Pentecost, he was a failure.

So he has a great success as God’s measures success in terms of fruit. Now he had a dynamic character that was released in every sense of the word by the energy of the Holy Spirit. Once he was really committed and filled by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Now that was the same condition for all of the apostles. And what we find in the book of Acts is that chapters one through 12 basically deals with Peter and chapters three through 28 gives us the life of Paul. Peter focused on the Jews, Paul focused on the Gentiles.

And we’re going to get into the first church starting next week. So, so what we’ve been looking at with Peter, as we look at his ministry post Pentecost, we learn a lot of really positive things about what should be our own ministries and how to make them effective. Oftentimes in giving out principles for ministry, we tend to go to Paul and tend to look at Paul as the one who gives us as. Okay, here we go. We tend to look at Paul because he’s the one that gives us the illustrations of the Christian life in Christian ministry.

Why? Because were living in the church age. That was, that was not the, the, the dispensation during the, the. During the time of Peter. Peter was focused on the Jewish life. So that gives us some little background. So in, in learning the principles about ministry, we, we not only need the, the theo. Theological points, but we need the actional points. Okay, so if you recall, what we said was, is all of the epistles that Paul wrote, the first part of that was, was doctrine and theology. And the second half of every epistle is the application or the actions.

So we best learn the principles by looking at somebody else’s life. That’s why we have the Bible, because it’s supposed to give us the examples as to how we should live our life. So when somebody says to us this is a principle, and they continue and says, I’ve never tried it, but I think it’ll work, we might consider that point and evaluate. Maybe evaluate it or not, or discard it as to how it applies to our life. But if they said this is a principle, I have tried it, and it works, then the majority of us will pursue those principles as to how they should affect our lives.

And that is what Peter shows us in this passage. So if we look at this and we, we go back and look on the teachings of Peter in Acts chapters two, you would listen to Peter’s sermon because as you listen to Peter’s preaching, you find in all of his sermons the characteristics of an effective preaching. Okay, it was Passionate. He was concerned. It was powerful, it was dynamic. And it begins with a dynamic, gripping. It gets your attention. It gives you instruction, you know, so forth and so on. Then he moves fast into a theme, and then the theme is always pointing at Christ and it’s always supported by Scripture.

Then he comes to a response and it’s always very direct and it’s always very positive. And so you learn how to teach. If you listen to Peter, and then you go to chapter four, and you know something, you learn there as well. You learn how to handle persecution, right? Because that’s what Christ said. We will be persecuted because Peter exhibits principles for handle persecution. So Peter shows us that when we get persecuted that we should be submissive to it, right? We should want persecution because we’re over the target. You should be filled with the Spirit and, and that’s the filling of the Spirit is what gets you through the persecution.

You should boldly use it as an opportunity to teach Christ. You should be obedient to God at all costs. You should bind yourself closer together with other believers for strength that you’re going, you’re going to need at. And lastly, you should pray that God would give you greater boldness. That’s how to handle persecution. And Peter never said that. He just gives us that by illustration of his own life. Then when you get into chapter five, you know what Peter teaches us there? He teaches us how to handle sinning Christians, all right, because he runs into Ananias and Sapphire Sapphira, okay, At, at the church.

And he handles them, right? He confronts them with their sin, which is what we’re supposed to do. Boldly confronting them and saying, what is it? In the face of the whole church community. He did it in front of the whole church. And we learned from Peter how to be bold in the face of sinning Christians. That’s a principle we need to know. And so we see Peter in many ways as an example fashion, teaching us principles. And I believe really that the Bible study in teaching is simply principalizing the Scriptures. That’s at least what I try to do.

I just try to give you the truth of the Scriptures and give you the interpretation of the Scriptures so that you can actually understand the principles of them, to apply them to your life. So it’s not enough just to tell you what it says. It’s got to be principalized so that you can live it. You got to understand it. So that’s what we try to do all the time. Now, as we come to chapter nine, Peter has got some more principles to teach us. And. And they’re not stated again in chapter nine. They’re just apparent in what he does.

So he’s a good teacher by example. All right. Now that should be important for us because that identifies the fruits of the outcome of our life. So that is what people should look to us to see, that we are actually Christians because of what we do. And here he teaches us the marks of an effective personal ministry. Now, he wasn’t always preaching to crowds. He got involved with people. He got involved on a one on one basis. And that was exciting. And this is a thing that all of us, even particularly myself, need to be consistently aware of, that it’s not enough to just be involved only with crowds.

This happens on a one on one basis. There must be personal involvement, personal ministry. And Peter had that. And here we see two, just simple vignettes from the life of Peter that indicates some of the things that made him effective in personal ministry. Now, last week I told you there were six things that were were given to me from the text that are the marks of an effective personal ministry. Now I’m going to give them to you again to set the basis of moving forward today. One is, he was involved. You can’t sit on the couch and have any type of an effective ministry.

Number two, he was Christ exalting, meaning that everything he did exalted Christ. Everything that he said exalted Christ. Okay? And number three, he was available. Number four, he was prayerful. Number five, he was fruitful. Number six, he was free from prejudice. Now, these are things that I think really made Peter’s life really effective. His ministry was effective. And here we see In Acts chapter 9, these are transferable principles. These are things which can be learned by us and translated into our lives. And hang on. Thank you. I do not see anybody trying to get in. So there’s nobody in the waiting room.

Okay, so. So what we have here are things to be learned translated into our lives, providing the principles for application as we study, continuing our study in Ephesians. And basically God wants us to work on one, on one with others, because that’s how this thing works. And here are the principles. So number one, we’re reviewing the first two because we went through those last time, but we’re going to review them again to set the foundation for the last four. He was involved. And he went into some detail about the ministry of Peter now, how that Peter was going somewhere at all times.

In other words, Peter was always active. And what we said last time is, you need to get going. You might not know that you’re headed in the right direction, but God is going to move you into the right direction. As long as you’re moving, okay, you got to be moving in what he’s doing and listen to what he’s telling you, and he will give you the proper direction. But if you’re sitting on the couch, you’re not involved. He’s not going to call on you. All right? Now, in fact, one occasion when Jesus told him after his resurrection to go up into the mountains in Galilee and wait for him, Peter stayed up there about as long as he could stand it and finally said, I can’t take this any longer.

I’m getting out of here. I’m going fishing. Okay? That’s what he did. And he took off and went back to fishing because he couldn’t stand steel. All right, what does scripture say? Be. Be still and know that I’m God. Okay? So Christ is saying, when he tells you to do something, and if that means to wait, if that means just to wait on him, we need to be obedient in doing that. So. But Peter being an active person, he couldn’t sit still. And so when the Spirit of God got a hold of him, he was Holy Spirit activated in perfect conjunction with his temperament.

That’s the other thing that we need to understand. God is not asking us to change the makeup of who we are. He is going to whittle us, mold us. That’s what scripture says. He’s going to mold us into his liking with our temperament that he gave us. And so he was everywhere, doing everything. And I love the way that verse 32 opens up about this. As it came to pass, and Peter passed through out all quarters. In other words, he’s going everywhere. There is a classic definition of Peter’s pattern of life. He went everywhere. But you know something? If.

If it’s the people that are going, it is the people that are active. It is the people that are involved that God directs easiest to his ministries. So if you. If you wonder why you’re not being called to any type of ministry, it might just be the fact that you’re not active. You’re not moving in a direction that God can use you. So you’ve watched as big diesel trucks with double trailers have pulled up to a stop sign. And if I drove them, if you notice carefully, if it’s at all possible, they’ll never stop. They’ll roll right through the stop sign, slow, very, very slow, because they know it’s much easier to handle that thing, as long as it’s moving, okay? And that is, that is exactly how they teach you how to drive a big.

All right. And if you, if you don’t, if you don’t watch out and there’s a policeman sitting on the side of the road, they’re gonna nab you and stop you for your stop sign. But to put that sucker in, in under a heavy load in first gear and to try to come get back going, it’ll take you about 15 to 20 minutes to get at speed. And that’s just a pain in the butt. So they teach you not to do that. They teach you to slow down very slow and continue to move because under a heavy load, it takes a lot of, a lot of time to get off from a, from a dead star.

So God knows the same thing. I. I say this to say that God knows the same thing. God always chooses those who are already active in the mainstream of ministries for his choice, his task. Okay, and, and we, if we compare that with Genesis 24:27, remember where the servant went out to find a wife for Isaac. This was the story. And he didn’t even know where he was, what he was looking for for some nice girl for Isaac. See, he’s got out. He just got out there and the Lord led him right to the place. And he commented on it by saying this in Genesis 24:27, I being in the way what the Lord led me because he was active, because he was moving, because he was available, and God put him where he wanted him to be.

Matter of fact, he let him right to the well where the girl was. I mean, it was just like, okay, girl fell into his lap. Great. For Isaac, she agreed. They went back and closed the deal and she left. That was, that was the way it happened. So God uses his choicest, most active servants for his choicest task. Now, it’s amazing how that some of us never seem to get on in on anything really, and others are doing everything. You get in the mainstream and God will lead you to where he wants you to be. That’s the first point.

He went into that in great length with us, and we talked about it a great length last time. So. So he passed all through the quarters, moving, going, and he came down to the saints who dwell at Lydia. Down from Jerusalem, down from the mountain, toward the sea coast, about 45 or 50 miles, a little town called Lydia on the pathway to Joppa. And he found a certain man in verse 33 named Anais who had kept his bed, what, eight years he was paralyzed, kept mean. He was in his bed for eight years. He could not get out of his bed, and he was sick from the palsy.

Now here’s a. Here’s a guy who’d been for eight years in bed with some kind of paralysis. We don’t know exactly what it was, but we understand that he was paralyzed and he resided in his bed for eight years. Now here was Peter’s involvement because he was involved. God led him to this place. And when he got there, because he was available, God him to raise this man. As a result, in verse 35, it says, all that dwelt at Lydia and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord. Okay, so private setting. Peter went into the house and told him to rise and make his bed.

And by faith a nice rose. And into that process of that faith that he was showing, he was healed. He made his bed and the. And God used that private setting to turn all of the people from Lydia and Sharon to him. So you might not get the accolades that you might think you need over a process that God uses you. But understand this, that whatever God asks you to do, it’s going to be for his glory. And whatever the outcome he seeks from that, he’s going to get. You should not try to put yourself in the process of getting the accolades okay? At all.

Now, here’s a tremendous ministry just waiting right there in Lydia for Peter. But it needed a man who was on the move for God to be brought into the picture to accomplish what God wanted. So involvement was first. The second thing about Peter that he’s. That we saw last week that made him effective in his personal ministry was he was Christ exalting. Everything he did was for the glory of Christ. And he exalted Christ in the process of whatever ministry he was called to do. He was preoccupied in. In the exaltation of Christ. When he arrived at lydia in verse 33, he met, or at least he found this man Anais.

And Peter said to him in verse 34, Anais, Jesus Christ maketh thee well. Now notice there He. He has that in his effect, a disclaimer on himself. He said, I offer you nothing. Peter says, I’m not here to do anything. It is Christ that is healing you. He did the same thing at the gate, remember? He, he and John walking through the gate at the temple, healed the blind man. So Peter said in that passage, silver and gold, I have none, such as I have. I give thee the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

And so he really makes a Disclaimer repeatedly on his own ability and his own power, he says, Jesus Christ makes you well. Peter had only one desire and this was to exalt Jesus Christ. He had no exire to his own exaltation. Self assessment. If we’re looking for the accolades, we’re, we’re looking at all the wrong places. So later on in chapter 10, we’re going to find Cornelius fell on him. All right? Now Cornelius was a Gentile and this was Peter’s first Gentile that he ministered to and Carnegie. If, if you recall the story, Cornelius fell on Peter’s feet.

When Peter came in and he was going to kiss his feet and Peter says, you know, reach down and grabbed him and stood him up and says, what are you doing down here? Get up, Cornelius. What are you doing? I myself am a man. And Peter absolutely rejected any worship of him because he was not the one to be worshiped. Many of us like the accolades, the pat on the backs, the, the thing, you know, in, in management school, it always says, you know, make sure that you, you treat your people so that they understand the good job they’re doing.

Well, I never liked that, to be honest with you. If I, if I didn’t see the good work that I was doing, I knew I wasn’t doing good work. I didn’t need somebody to tell me. And, and it’s just, it, it produces a different mindset. Okay, for those of you who feel like that you need to have that pet on the back all the time. You, it’s, it is a insecurity mindset that you have. If you don’t see the good works that you’re doing in, in your own life, then, then you basically are, are sort of putting yourself in, into an idle capacity.

Now one interesting thing about this that we saw on, on the trip to. When I went to Rome. This is my trip. One interesting thing when, when I went to rome, went to St Peter Cathedral in Rome in the Vatican City. I’ll never forget going to that masterpiece, that painting of Michelangelo which absolutely just beggars description. It takes your breath away when you see the painting on the ceiling. And when we walked in there, one thing that caught my eye and I walked up to it was a black statue of Peter about twice the life size, sitting on a little kind of chair like a throne and on about four and a half or five foot pedestal.

I noticed as I looked at the statue that his right foot was protruding, that the toe was removed. There was no toe really, and it was just a shiny kind of stub on the statue. Then I proceeded to watch and I watched as she came up and kissed that toe. A line of people just coming up kissing the toe of Peter. And I had two reactions to this. Number one, my, the first reaction was that what was the same reaction as I had when I went to St. Mary’s Church in that same general area. And I watch people climbing upstairs on their knees.

And I, I, I, I thought why are they doing. Because they were promised if they would get on their knees and walk up the stairs, the church had promised them one year off of, of their purgatory for every stair they went up. Think about it now. My first reaction was to be sorrowful for them. Sorrow over the tragic fact that they can’t accept the word that Jesus said on the cross. When he says it’s finished, is finished. That was the condition of completion of this prototype body to give us the, the vehicle to go home. And they think this is the church.

They think they must earn some salvation and that these people are trapped into worshiping these rituals which are really nothing but idols, engraving images, which goes against what scripture says. So that was my first reaction, my second reaction as I thought about Peter. Okay, because I was looking at, I was looking at the statue of Peter and I, I began to, to look, to think about scripture. I thought this must sicken the heart of Peter. Why? Because his reaction to Cornelius when he says get up. What are you doing down there? I’m, I’m just a man.

Don’t worship me. So here you had this statue at the church where about, matter of fact, the, the, the statue wasn’t Simon Peter, okay? The apostle. It was Simon Makus, the magician. That was the other thing because I said, okay, so the church is rigging the minds of the people in, in teaching them that this statue was actually a statue of Simon Peter, which it wasn’t. And they needed to worship it by kissing his toe. And instead of understanding that they weren’t kissing the Simon Peter’s apostles toe, they were actually kissing the magician. So I, I felt, I felt really bad for the people because they had been lied to.

Okay. Have you ever thought about why leaders from around the world would go to the Catholic Church and kiss the hand of the, the ring of the Pope? Why do they do that? They’re worshiping a man. They’re not worshiping the one true God. So Peter doesn’t want any of that. He, he didn’t want it. He never wanted, and all he wanted was just to exalt Christ. So When Peter, when he was going to be crucified, he demanded that he be crucified upside down because he didn’t even want to be crucified like Jesus Christ was. So he says to, to the man, jesus makes you well.

Rise and make your bed. And verse 35. And all that dwelled in the city of Lydia and Sharon saw him. He rose up immediately. The guy did, and he was well. And they turned. The people of these two towns turned to the Lord. Do you not? Okay, self assessment. Do you know what happens if you lift up Jesus Christ? People do what? If you lift him up and exalt him, they turn to him. If you lift up a man like Peter, people turn to Peter. So the process in our life needs to be exalting Christ in everything that we do and not ourselves.

That’s the mark of a personal ministry. Don’t even exalt yourself. Don’t ever credit yourself with dreams that God has given you. Don’t ever lift yourself up in conversation, in your wisdom, in your ability to teach, your ability to handle problems. Okay? Always, always, always exalt Christ. You need to be preoccupied with that. All right, let’s go to self assessment. We’re to give the up the old and put on the new. We are, we are. We went through the exchanges. We’re going to continue to go through some of those even on Thursday night again. Okay. You need to be preoccupied with putting on the new, not the old.

Putting on the new means that basically you’re going to exalt Christ because why he’s giving you the salvation. All right, so third thing. And now we come to what we’re going to learn about today. That was just review. He was available. And this is a great thing, being available. You know, the only ability that we have to offer God is availability. I don’t have any energy in any energy. I don’t have any power on my own. About your physical body, your biological body is. Is made up of 100 pure energy. Where does that energy come from? It’s not yours.

You own nothing. It comes. Yeah. All I can say is this is God. God, I’m available. You. We have to make ourselves available to him. And then anything he does through us is great. Now if I’m not available, then I am not. I’m not the one thing which is the only thing I can be. Think about it. So many of us say, yeah, let’s Simon. So many of us say, well, I sure like to be able to do that. You do that. Why can’t I Do that. You know, I love to play golf. You know what? I was.

I used to play all the time. I was about a 15 handicapper between 13 and 15. And now I just like to play handicap out the window. I don’t play as often as I used to because it took away of. Of my availability of doing other things because I was on the golf course four times a week. So when you look at your life and you say that my focus needs to be upon availability, you need. You will have to address what you’re currently doing to allow you to be available. And you’re going to have to give some things up.

You might say, well, I would really like to do that, but my schedule doesn’t permit me for doing that. Who’s in control of your schedule? You are. Did you hear what I said? You are. God’s not. You are. So therefore you are not allowing yourself to be available on God’s time for God’s work. You’re just not available. You can’t be anything else but available. The only ability God wants out of us is availability. Yeah, Billy, Just something that goes along with that is that this is the reason it’s so important to take care of. Of this temple of God, this temple of clay.

Because when we’re sickly fatigued, tired, whatever, then we can’t move, we can’t be available. So it’s important that we take care of our bodies so that we can move, be available and be there when God wants to use us. Absolutely. Yep. Now, isn’t it amazing how our priorities get so fouled up that we’re everything but available to God? You do all kinds of stuff. Those of you who have children, you probably live your life completely for your children and not available for anything else. All right? Is that good? No. No. Now, in verse 36, it says now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Darkus.

Right. I said that he raised a man from the dead named Darkus. Okay, so that’s the interpretation of the Greek name Tabitha. This woman was full of good works and alms, deeds, which she did now. Now Peter’s down here in this little place called Lydia. It’s about 10 miles at the most. Southwest. Southeast, sorry, going in a little bit from Joppa. And he’s there. And now up in Joppa, there’s this lady named Dorcas. Now this is to introduce to us a miracle. This miracle hinges on the power of God, but on the availability of Peter. God worked these miracles through his apostles and Peter Was the apostle in proximity to Joppa.

And so God was going to work this through him. These men had power. We know that because we looked at that in 2nd Corinthians 12:12. They had the signs of an apostle. They could do wonders and mighty deeds. And so he had to be available to God. And so here came a need from Joppa. Now this was a seaport city and today it’s called Jaffa J A F F A and it’s really a coastal suburb of Tel Aviv. And from, and from Tel Aviv, it’s just, just there, around the rocky shore, southeast of that area. And that’s exactly where this situation was going on.

This one, this woman that he raised was a wonderful woman. We get that from Scripture. It says she was full of great works. Now the word full is a, is a study in itself. We could get in off on that in a rabbit hole. But because it, it has such richness of meaning, we are to be full of the Holy Spirit, full of all the fullness of God. For example, in Ephesians chapter 3, verse 19, so the concept of fullness means totally devoted to, totally controlled by. So this woman was totally devoted to good works. She lived to give to others.

And it further states alms, deeds, excuse me, which were acts of charity, gifts of charity. Specifically, she made clothes for the people. The word in Greek is, I practiced this, guys, and I’m fixing to just chop it up. Elam Massuna E L I A M O S U N A I Now from which we get Elon Missionary. Okay, which means non profit organizations. All right. You think the 501C3 started when Lyndon B. Johnson put it in place to control the churches? No, it was already in place in the Roman Empire. So she was one who did things for the poor and did things for the needy.

She was in effect a woman who was the personification of what a feminine form of a disciple would be in the New Testament. And she was a marvelous woman. And she really gets that in the purest sense. She is everything a disciple is to be because she was fully fulfilling what she was called to be. Now if we, if we remember in Ephesians 2 and 10, for you are his workmanship created in Christ unto good works which God had before ordained. What, that you walk into them. In other words, when you are saved, you are to walk in good works, give away the old, put on the new.

All right, so you’re saved for good works. You’re saved to do the work of the Holy Spirit. You’re saved to provide Fruit in glorification to Christ. So now I love. I love what Paul says in Philippians 1:9, where he says to the Philippians this I pray that you love may. May abound yet more and more in knowledge and in wisdom, in judgment, that you may approve things that are excellent, that you may be sincere without offense till the day of Christ being filled. There’s that fullness again with the truth of righteousness. Totally controlled and dominated by good things, righteousness.

So Colossians 1:10 says the same thing. You might walk worthy of the Lord into all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work. See, that’s what we’re really called to do. Some of us think, I don’t even know what my calling is. What am I supposed to be doing? All we’re supposed to be doing is to be active, involved, and doing good works. That’s your calling. Whatever else God puts on you to do is above the basic principles of why you are saved. See, that’s what we’re called to do. So she personifies what a Christian is designed to be.

Self assessment, involved, active, good works. Her life was a spiritual example to everybody. And this is the introduction that we have to this woman. If we knew nothing else about her, we knew enough to know what a wonderful person she was. In fact, she fits perfectly the pattern of a virtuous woman. Remember Proverbs 31, ladies, you ought to really know Proverbs 31, because that is the definition of a woman. You ought to read it. You need to memorize it. It tells you about a virtuous woman. One thing about a virtuous woman in verse 20 of that chapter says, she stretcheth out her hand to the poor.

She reaches forth her hands to the needy. So, all right, we’ve introduced ourselves to darkness. Now what. What happens? Let’s go to verse 37. And it came to pass in those days that she was sick and died. Now that’s kind of sad for the church. She does. Now, the custom of the Jews at death was immediately to bury the body. That was the custom of the Jews, since they did not do any embalming. Okay, You. You start decaying pretty quick if you don’t. If you don’t do embalming, all right? They would merely do what they call the washing.

Okay? The Mishnah prescribe a certain type of washing. And then they. They bear. They put burial clothes on them and they buried them immediately. But in this particular case, they didn’t bury her, which was very unusual because that was. That was against Jewish tradition. Because bodies were a very unsacred thing in Israel to a Jew. Oh, by the way, if a Jew touched a dead person, they had to go wash themselves, okay? To them, death was a very unsacred, unclean thing. So they didn’t let dead bodies hang around. So in verse 37, it says, whom, when they had washed or given preparation, they laid in an upper chamber.

They just put her up on a second floor in a house. They didn’t bury her. That’s what scripture tells us. Do you think God had a plane reason why they didn’t bury her? Because God was fixing a razor. Now you say, why is that? Well, you go to verse 38, and it tells you and far as much as Lydia was near to Joppa, and the disciples had heard that Peter was there, they know Peter’s nearby, and they also know Peter has the power to raise the dead if the design of God is to do that. And so rather than burying her with great faith, they take her body and they stick it upstairs in an upper chamber.

And then it says in. At the end of verse 38, they sent unto him two men desiring him, he would not delay to come. And the Greek is really stronger than that. They in treat entreated him, okay? Meaning that they. They requested that he not delay to come immediately. And so Peter did come. And. And you go into verse 39, it says this. Then Peter arose and. And did what? Which is. Is amazing. He’s. He’s a busy guy. He’s going all around, and he’s got all kinds of things going on. And really, when you think about it, our lives are pretty busy.

But those people were really busy. They were a heartbeat of the very life of the church. And they had him, I’m sure, teaching from morning till night. They were hungry for the word. They had him out witnessing. They were bringing in all their neighbors that weren’t saved and saying, come, I want you to talk to Peter. And they were dragging Peter from house to house to house. And they had meetings set up. Oh, you want to talk about a busy schedule? Peter didn’t control his schedule, that the people controlled his schedule. And so he was a very active guy.

And. And so the group from Joppa came to Peter and said, look, Caesar wants you to come and preach to the Roman guard. And so, man, I’m leaving. I’ll do that. Oh, listen, there’s a group of big dignitaries and the Jewish in Jerusalem. They want you to come and present Christ to them. Listen, there’s a big opportunity up here. I mean, these guys were just all around him. So when they. When the people from Joppa came to Peter, they had to get his attention. So they pleaded with him in such a way that he left his schedule and went to job.

Now, if. When we look at Darkus from her benefit, I don’t know, because scripture doesn’t tell us, I don’t know where she was for that period of time where she laid dead. There’s speculation about whether she was really in heaven. But you can imagine, you know, coming. God coming to her and saying, look, darkest, I know you’ve been here a couple of hours dead, but you’re gonna have to go back. Okay? You’re gonna have to go back. It’s not your time. You’re going to go back to this earth. So he says, look, I know you’ve been up here in heaven a couple of hours, but you’re gonna have to go back.

But it wasn’t for her benefit, and it certainly wasn’t necessary for the widows because there was some lessons in learning how to pick up the slack when somebody else passes on and fill the gap. Plus, God already has started darkest circles. He could have just as soon started it then. And somebody else machines and taken up the cause that she was doing. So really, it’s. This is sort of like a really strange thing. But Peter doesn’t say, well, look, I mean, she’s dead. Praise the Lord. She’s with the Lord. You widows just pick up the slack and get together and, you know, take whatever you need and just dispose of it between all the rest of the widow widows and I’ll pray for you.

No, that sounds very familiar, though. All right, that’s typically what we find today. But you see, Peter didn’t do that. He just got up and went. He was commissioned to go. He dropped everything. It’s. And that’s a wonderful thing about being so involved with people that they know you’re committed to and so uninvolved that God knows he can move you whenever he’s ready to. You got that? When God calls, you just. You should just go. You don’t need to say, oh, well, wait a second, I need to finish this today, and I got that to do tomorrow and I need to pack.

No, if God calls, you go. You got to begin to believe so that you’re involved. So I believe when God says that’s the time to go. I think of Paul in Ephesus. He was so involved at the Church of Ephesus. He was teaching there 12 hours a day for three years. And can you just imagine that he was crying a lot of the time. He says, I teach not to warn you. Night and day with tears. Finally, when he got all done with teaching for all of those three years, he just finally took a big sign and says, ouch.

I’m not. I’ve not failed to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. Now you take over. I mean, I’ll bet he was tired, he was ready to go. But God says, you’re done. He wasn’t so involved in Ephesus even after three years, didn’t have to worry about a thing. He just picked up and went because God told him to go. Now, you know what happens when Christians get into trouble is when they get sucked into the world. Do not be conformed to this world. Do not like the things of this world. Do not associate with the evilness of this world.

Remember Lot, instead of staying loose like Abraham, he got locked in. He pitched his tent towards Sodom and whoa. The bad news. We get to be involved with the people to whom God have has us and ready to go when he calls us. Have you, have you heard his voice calling you and leading you into a ministry of some sort that you couldn’t do because you’re locked into something. You got to get rid of the things self assessment. People say, oh, I, I’d like to come to do that, but I can’t do it, Dan. I got a work thing going on.

I got this ball game to go to. Whatever, okay, you got to change it if God calls him. You got to understand your priorities. All right? Verse 38 simply says this. They desired him. Verse 39 simply says, and he went. Now you say, well, he was probably urged by the Holy Spirit. Sure he was, but he was also sensitive to the needs of the people. He was available. There’s such a blessedness in just being available. Okay, that’s key. You want to get all the blessings from heaven from Ephesians 1:3, where you got to be available. If you’re not available, you’re not gonna get blessed.

So Peter was available. That’s the fantastic thing. Now, I said earlier that you have one thing to offer God, which is availability. And if you don’t give him that, you are going to get, you’re not going to have anything else to offer. So don’t cut out that part. He responded so readily. He went. And when he got there, it’s interesting. What ha. What happened when he was, when he was come, they brought him into the upper chamber and all the widows. This Is kind of humorous. I think all of the widows stood by weeping and showing the coats and garments which Darkest made while she was with them.

You know what they’re mourning about? They’re mourning about their wardrobe. They’re not mourning about her loss. They’re mourning about their wardrobe. They’re thinking, what am I going to get next winter? Who’s going to make it? I’m gonna have. Am I going to have anything to wear? They said, look what Darkest made me. They were okay. And they loved her because she made them all goodies. They loved her. Sure they did. She made the coats. The Greek word means inner garments, Garments, outer garments. So she was making them all of these things, giving her life, spending her life on them.

And they loved her for it. They loved her for. And they loved her for her gifts to them. And they were mourning because who was gonna care for them after she was gone? Well, they were mourning and groaning and crying. We get that from scripture. And you know, a lot of ladies doing that kind of a messy deal. And so lots of tears and lots of sniffling and all that stuff. And Pete in there and here’s this big old burly guy in the room with all of these widows. And you just gotta imagine Peter’s character, okay? Number one, he’s very outspoken.

He doesn’t, he doesn’t pull any punches. And so when Peter got in there, first thing he did in verse 40 was send them all out. He said, all right, all you ladies out of here. Just get out of here and let me be alone. So he did that. And just as a footnote, the ministry of women in a church is so marvelous. There is such a high calling for women in the church. God has really given to the church some marvelous women who have been used of God in mighty ways and are being used of God now.

We see it in this group. God has given women a marvelous ministry. They minister to people, they visit shut ins and sick people, work with women who have needs, spiritual problems. The council, some are now finding ministries in prisons in this group. I mean, women have, have flourished in this group over the last year. And so women have a marvelous ministry in the church. And even the widows especially wonderful. If you read in First Timothy chapter five about the wonderful potential of ministry for widows, how that in the early church, Paul says, you ought to have a list of widows that are able to minister in the church.

You ought to give them spiritual responsibility. Why? Because they have so many years of knowledge of Jesus Christ. Because of the years of maturity, because of their commitment to Christ, they can be used. And so he goes on to say, that ought to be the kind of widows you have intertained strangers, they’ve got open homes. The kind who’ve washed the saint’s feet, they’re humble. The kind who are characterized by good works, personal holiness. And he goes on and on, gives all kinds of things. Tremendous passage in Timothy chapter five. So here’s Peter, and he’s in this room and he kicks out the widows so he can do his work.

And so he says to her, let me back up. He begins to minister to her and. And he. And he sees from the women that were in the room that Darcus was basically the head of the widows. So he puts them all forth and he just to pull this through out of here. He was available. And Peter picked up everything and went. He actually stayed in Joppa for a while. It never bothered him that he went and it says, my daughter, rise. Peter says, ibiza coming. And she opened her eyes and when she saw Peter, she set up.

Now that’s a miracle. She had been dead probably somewhere between 36 and 48 hours. Should have been dead. And when Peter said arise, everything in her body was reversed. Like running the film backwards. All of the rot and the decay that had begun to set it was reversed. And she came out of there as fresh, clean and whole as new. God performed a miracle. And the miracle came about because Peter was available and because he was prayerful. He acknowledged where the source of power was. Look at verse 40. He put them all out and he kneeled down and did what? Prayed.

He kneeled on his knees and prayed. This is important to us so that we realize this little thought again that we need to focus on that our power is from God and not ourselves. You know, it would have been easy for a guy like Peter. 3 by this time think he really had some kind of power. I mean, he had really pulled off some unbelievable things. He had been going around healing people to the point where he was getting to be sort of a commonplace activity. Back in chapter five, yes, verse 16, there came a multitude out of the cities around about unto Jerusalem, bringing some sick folks with them who were vexed with unclean spirits.

And they were healed, every one of them. You know, that people even got to the point where they were trying to drag their people out into the shadow of Peter because he had such a healing power. It would have been very easy at this point in Peter’s life with so many successes, to just go in and say, tabitha, arise. And count on his own strength to do that. But what would have happened? Nothing. You know, that’s a temptation for us, our self esteem Christians. Have a little bit of success and then you think you did it.

Have you ever led somebody to Jesus Christ and found yourself saying, hey, I led somebody to Jesus Christ. Did you do that? No. No. Sometimes I. Yes, ma’? Am. Can you let Rhonda back in? Sorry. Thank you. You know, I even sometimes have to really get myself out of the way. And I’ve said this before, before we get into a discussion or whatever, I just have to set my side. I have to set my. Myself aside because I do not want to even think that I’m doing this at all. All right. This has got to be from the Holy Spirit.

And some of us feed on personal exaltation. Paul says, I will not speak of those things which, which the Lord Jesus Christ has not wrought in me, because anything good in me he did. And I’m not about to talk about the bad stuff. That’s all I’ve got that I’ve done is bad stuff. And so Peter says, in effect, I acknowledge your power, God, you do it. And that’s what’s so fascinating about this Christian life. As long as we’re resting in our own strength, we’re impotent. We have no power. As long as we rest in his, we have all the power of the universe.

Ephesians, chapter three, verse seven. It says, I, Paul says, of which I was made a minister according to the gift of grace of God given unto me. Watch this. By what? By the effectual of his power. And oh, here’s the. The eight engines running in Ephesians 3, 20. Now unto him who’s able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. It’s his power, it’s just Our availability. Verse 41. And he gave her his hand. He reached over and just took Dorcas by the hand. He lifted her up and when he had called the saints back in, he said, now you can come in now.

And he presented her a lot to them. Well, can you imagine the joy that those women now fit that felt? Because now they knew where they were going to get their clothes. They still didn’t get it. Now she must have considered this all a joy from the standpoint of the joy of her friends. But they considered it a joy because they loved one, their loved one was in their again and they knew where they were going to get their goodies. But God had a whole different thing in mind. He didn’t do it for darkest benefit. He didn’t do it for the benefit of those widows.

He did it for re. For another reason. We get that in verse 42. And it was known throughout all Joppa and, and what many believed in the Lord. Do you know why he did it? Just the same reason that all the miracles had been done in the first place, as confirming signs to prove to the world that the gospel of Jesus Christ was true. He did it as a sign. See, what God had on his mind was evangelism. That is the process of multiplication. Hero Peter dropped everything and went up to take care of a bunch of weeping widows and revival broke out in the city.

Don’t ever think that you can determine how effective any ministry is going to be if you believe God for it. You believe God for the smallest littlest thing. God may have multiplication in his mind. That’ll stagger your imagination, your unbelief. The power that is in the gospel doesn’t lie in the eloquence of the preacher or teacher, because if it did, then we would be the converters of souls, says Spurgeon. It doesn’t lie in the wisdom men. Spurgeon says we might preach till our tongues rot, till we exhaust our lungs and die, and never a soul will be saved unless there is the power of God moving in.

Peter was prayerful and thus powerful. And you know, Paul had the same attitude in Second Corinthians, chapter 12. He said, My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness. Paul says, more gladly then I will glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. I take pleasure infirmity, reproach, necessity, persecution, distress for Christ’s sake. For when I’m weak, then I am strong. Unless you’re weak, you can’t really be strong. Think about that. Unless you are weak, you cannot be strong. What does weak mean? Means unless you are allowing Christ to have control over you, that’s the only way you’re going to gain strength.

And so God just sends stuff in our lives to keep us, smashing us down and making us weep. You know, when everything is going really well, everything’s happily go lucky. You feel man, I could do anything right? And then when you think you’re strong, you’re really weak. And so then when God sends all kinds of things into distress, your heart and persecution comes and distress and trouble and trial and you really know and you really kind of find out you, you’re really nothing. Then you’re in the place where you can be strong. That’s the reason why I say we need to be pra.

Praising persecution. Because if you think you’re strong, you’re weak. If you know you’re weak, you’re on the verge of strength. So Paul says, I am strong when I recognize my weakness. That’s what this prayer is all about. You realize you have nothing and you turn to God and his power is released on your behalf. All right. Verse 42 gives us the fifth point in marking a Peter’s personal ministry. He was fruitful. Now, quickly. And it was known throughout all Joppa and many believed in the Lord. Lord. It’s an interesting thing that the fruit here wasn’t really directly Peter’s, but indirectly.

He did the miracle through the power of God. The fruit came as an indirect result. But fruit still came and it still comes. All believers are saved to be fruitful. John 15:8 says this. I want you to have not just fruit and not just more fruit, but I want but much, much fruit. Now you know, you may not see it all in your own lifetime. Always think of William Perry in India who died 35 years of or who had 35 years of ministry there and saw a handful of people saved in 35 years. Spent those 35 years translating the Bible into all kinds of dialects of India.

And every missionary who’s been there since has used the work that he did to present the Gospel. He’s in heaven. He’s still bearing fruit. You see, some plant some water and somewhat God gives the increase. Christians are to be fruitful. We’re to plant the seed. They will be fruitful if they follow the patterns of the word of God. Now remember what Paul said to the Romans. I want to come to you hoping that I might have some fruit among you, as I have among the Gentiles and their fruit means people redeem. Say First Corinthians 8, 16, 15 says the same thing exactly.

Fruit is converts. So the effective servant of Jesus Christ will bear fruit. People will get saved from your ministry. You say, well, I’ve never led anybody to Christ. I don’t speak to great groups. You may never really get into the place where you are. You see multiples coming to Christ. But what you are doing, if you’re doing it faithfully in the energy of God, it will be multiplied indirectly to the salvation of souls. Now, you need to understand that there should be no excuse for not witnessing. But that’s true anyway. Every Christian’s life is to multiply ultimately to the saving of souls.

So Peter’s ministry was Fruitful, but not because it was directly attached to the fruit, but because somewhere along the line what he began to do, God continued. Believe me, if we love Jesus Christ, everything we touch is a ministry unto God and can issue fruit. Trust God for the fruit, be faithful. At the point of your ministry. Sometimes just working with one individual may bear far more fruit than speaking to a mass of people about Christ. People always talk about the great evangelists in this world and I always think about the person who led, led him to Jesus Christ.

That’s fruit for them. Okay, last verse. I think a very important point here. Peter had an effective personal ministry. You know, watch this one. Because he was free from prejudice. Interesting word, prejudice. Verse 43. And it came to pass that he tarried many days in Joppa with one Simon. A tanner. You say? What does that have to do with free from prejudice? One of the most despicable trades in the mind of a Jewish was that of a tanner. No self respecting Jew would have anything to do with a tanner. He was despised by Jewish people. And in fact the Mishnah said if a woman had a husband who took on the trade of a tanner, she had the right to divorce him because he went into something so defiled.

A tanner was not respected. Not only that, it was ceremonially unclean. Now the beautiful thing here about this Peter, who’s a Jew, we all know that, and he’s been a Jew his whole life and he’s been trained and raised in all of the prejudice and all of the traditions in all of the Old Testament attitudes. And his prejudices are dying hard. These are rough days for Peter, okay? Remember, he’s, he’s a hardcore guy. He’s, he’s a, he’s more than an alpha male, okay? He’s a burly alpha male. The first thing he’s got to do is throw his arms around a bunch of Samaritans.

And that was a tough nut for him in the first place because the Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. And he’s begun to do that and his heart has opened up and he accepted the Samaritans into the body of the church. And, and in the next chapter, and he’s going to have to accept the Gentiles, he’s going to have to throw his arms around Corneas and call him brother. And it’s, this is a tough time in his life. He’s having to give up all of the Jewish traditions. Not only that, in chapter 10, it’s so terrific.

We’ll get, we’ll get in that, you know, beginning next week. He had a vision and in that vision he sees the big sheep with all these animals. And the Lord said to him, rise Peter and eat. And Peter goes, what? I can’t do that. I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. God says that’s that economic economy is over. Peter Rice, Peter killed. And eat. So dietary prohibitions. The Lord’s beginning to knock down those walls too. In Jewish lives, Kosher today, where did that come from? That’s Jewish tradition in the Old Testament and that’s already been broken down.

So you see the whole thing that Peter’s built up, all of his life is coming down. It wasn’t any problem for the Lord to heal an 8 year old, 8 year paralegic. Wasn’t any problem for the Lord to raise from the dead a couple of old bedazzled dead Dorcas. But man alive to reverse an old man who’d been raised in all these traditions, prejudice and ceremonial ritualistic rules. That’s a job. Think about your life, all of your traditions that you have built up. Remember that your sin highway that still exists in your life that you have to deal with every day.

That’s what Peter’s this to deal with right here. And in fact he even had a relapse at Antioch. Some Jews came into town, remember this? And he forsook the gentiles and started going back to the Jewish customs. And what Paul do, Paul called him out in front of everybody. I really believe the effective ministries that you and I are going to have are going to have to be based on a no prejudice heart. You know, I think what cripples Christianity around the world and it comes under all different guises is just prejudice. What’s another, what are some other terms that you can fit the word prejudice with? Racism? Big one.

Just an inability to accept people for what they are. And it’s so true in so many Christian circles that if you don’t fit the mold, they’re not interested in here. Now I can tell you from my own experience, I can tell you from being raised in a very southern environment. Hang on a minute. So I can tell you from my own experience being raised in a southern environment with some of my best friend being black in a very white southern town. You have to get over your prejudices that you were raised with in order for you to be effective ministers in the cause of Christianity.

One thing you got to be able to do is to take people the way they are. Now I’ll give you A good example of a guy with prejudice, that was Jonah. Remember the story of Jonah? Jonah went to Nineveh and God used him anyway. And then when, when all the Gentiles received what the truth from God and believed in God, Jonah went out and said, kill me God. I can’t tolerate Gentile belief. Got under a thing and he was just wanted to die. That’s still going on today. You know, there’s some people who just won’t minister to certain people because they don’t like their culture.

The Lord’s gonna have to knock down some walls in a lot of lives. You know, Paul had them all knocked down in his life. If, if I’m with the Jews, I can reach them as Jews. If I’m with those who are without the law, I reach them without the law. I become all things to all men that are that by all means I might save some. Some of us are so hung up, we’re such, we’re tied up in nuts. It’s so bad, you might say, oh, I could remember. I, I, I remember the Christ movement in California where basically it started with people that were preaching on the beach and they actually were baptized in the ocean until they got a church.

And when they got into the church they took their, all of their hippie clothes and their long hair and went to into the church. And the people of the church that they went into were prejudice. And the pastor was told to remove them and he didn’t do that. So the prejudice people left. I don’t really care what the prejudice is. We can talk about all kinds of things. Any prejudice that finds its way into the heart of a Christian is something that God doesn’t even have. Because the Bible says God is no respecter of persons. Remember, he’s only after your soul, your heart.

Now the only justification for your prejudice would be that we have a higher moral standard than God does. That causes prejudice, by the way. So you’ve placed yourself above God. There’s no place for this. And as you look at your self assessment, you need to look at all of your prejudice activities, mindsets, traditions, cultural actions. I think today we’ve got such a cross cultural of Christianity and world things. And sometimes along the way we’re going to learn to accept men for what they are. But if you’re in the world, you’re going to click. And the world thinks that Christianity is a click.

So Peter lived with a tanner. It came to pass, he tanned many days. Phrase used earlier in the chapter to speak of Paul’s three years at Arabia. He stuck around a couple of years and the whole time he lived in Simon’s house. He never turned him into a carpenter. He let him be what he was. He didn’t make him change. Now it was a thief that have made him change because that’s a moral issue. So you need to let your prejudice die. That is a mark of a mature believer, by the way. Now we may. We need to learn to love people and to accept them for what they are.

Jesus did that. Now he didn’t like their sin, but he sure loved them. Prejudice needs to die. And if you’re going to have effective personal ministry, break down the walls and ask God to help you. If you’re gonna. If you’ve got some prejudice, God will send you. God will send you to that person. Yep. That person you’re prejudiced against. That’s just good straight person. Billy R. That is exactly where we’re going to end this. God is going to put into your life that which you need to deal with. You’re going to find that if you are effective in your Christian walk that he is going to put in front of you individuals that is going to make you confront all of the personality issues that you need to deal with.

That’s how you. Yeah, I’m sorry. No, because he wants to clean you up. He wants to clean me up so he can use me. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So what do we, what do we learn in this and all of this. The marks of effective personal ministry is what being involved in everything you do, self assessment and everything you do. You need to exalt Christ. You need to be available, which means that you need to clear your calendar. In placing the right priorities in your life, you need to be prayerful. That is the way the most effective communication to Jesus Christ.

And you need to be free from all of your prejudices. That’s what we need to walk away in understanding how the applications in, in what we’re dealing with in Ephesians are affected by what Peter has presented as he deals with the growing of the church. Any comments, questions, points? Well, I have a question, Jim. So you’re not supposed to bring into the church a person who isn’t a believer. But then we’re supposed. I don’t know how to phrase this. So we’re not supposed to be prejudice. Prejudice against anyone. So how do you deal with that? I mean bringing the bringing.

I’m not sure. I’m not. I’m not sure what your question is. I’m going to try to answer it this way. Yeah. I. I probably didn’t put it right, so that’s. That’s no problem. But I’m going to try to do it. You’re to bring people to the church to hear the word of God is ministering to them. What you’re not to do is you’re not to bring them into the church as it relates to the authority process of what the church is. Okay. Okay. And that, that produces no prejudice because that’s what scripture tells us to do.

We’re not to bring people into the church, the. The hierarchical process of the church, because the church is there for believers to. To build, edify, and to minister to the brethren. But unbelievers can go to the church to hear the word of God. If they’re coming to the church for any other reason, then you need to dispel them. Oh, okay. Okay. So. So the preacher that. The, the preacher that didn’t make the hippies leave the church, your example, because they were there to hear the word of God, not to. They. They weren’t unbelievers. Yeah, yeah. The.

The preacher took the lead minister of the hippie group underneath his mentorship. Okay. And brought them into his church as fellow believers. Okay. And. All right. I’m doing. In doing so, rifled the church. And because of the prejudiced people there, when they try to effectuate the removal of the pastor, the pastor just says, I’ll go start another church. Okay. Okay. So. Yeah. Yes. Because of the prejudice of people. I. I just gave you that as an example. Okay. That’s a true story, by the way. Okay. And you can actually see it. See the story on Netflix, by the way.

Yeah. Okay. I mean, I. Okay, I understand that. So I just had that question. So thank you. Just curious, was that the Azusa street movie? Yes. And do you know who the. Who the leading minister or the. The hippie person that. That was these people that was taken under the wing of the pastor. Who that is, I can’t remember. It wasn’t Mario Murillo, was it? I can’t remember. Was it David Wilkerson? No, it wasn’t David Wilkerson. Oh, okay. He. He was in New York. David Wilkerson. Right. I think it was crossing a switchblade. Yes. Yes. You quit barking.

Did you say who it was? Jeff, don’t bark. Don’t bark. Come here. No, I didn’t. Oh, okay. Okay. I didn’t know I missed it. You know, David Wilkerson prophesied 9, 11, 25 years before it ever happened. Yeah, just tidbit, whatever happened. Right. I’m sorry. Yeah, it prop 20 something years before it actually happened. Oh, okay. Yeah. You’re freezing a bit, Jim. Is. Is bad here. Sorry. Okay, guys. Anything else? Anything else? All right, let’s pray. Father, thank you for. To your word again today. Thank you for. For being with us. Thank you for, you know, having us be patient as we work through the technical issues to get started.

And Father, thank you for working through me and getting this teaching done in its entirety and cutting out that which seemed important at the time in. In writing this, but it was not important enough to. To use in today’s teaching. But we got all the points across that you needed us to have. And Father, we thank you that basically given us life. You’ve given us the liberty, happy in you. We ask that basically you continue to bless those that are sick, give them healthy hand, continue those in recovery, fill their bodies. Father, we want to thank D for us giving us this eternal life so that we can go home.

Father, we ask that you continue to soothe our heart of the world’s issues going on. And may we continue to know that you’re in total control. Be with us as we go home tomorrow. We thank you for your grace and giving us the opportunity to. To have a little bit of fun before everything starts breaking loose and consumes all of our time. We ask that you just bless. Bless the joy of our hearts and fellowship one to another. And we ask those things in your son’s name.
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