7-6-25 Study of Acts Chapter 9:32-35 Marks of an Effective Personal Ministry Part 1a

➡ After a break, the speaker resumes their Sunday morning Bible study, focusing on the book of Acts, chapter nine. They discuss the transformation of Saul of Taurus into the Apostle Paul and the contrasting character of Peter. Peter, known for his impulsive nature, also had a significant ministry, despite his flaws. The speaker also ties in the book of Ephesians, emphasizing the importance of understanding one’s nature to manage their spiritual journey.
➡ Peter, in his teachings, emphasized the importance of not just communicating the truth, but ensuring that it is understood and can be reproduced by others. He expressed a deep personal concern for the people he ministered to and a sense of urgency, knowing his time was limited. Peter wanted his teachings to be remembered even after his death, and he encouraged others to maximize their time in doing the work of Jesus Christ. His teachings were characterized by personal experience, emphasizing the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
➡ The text discusses the importance of personal growth in Christ, emphasizing the need for personal experience, concern, urgency, and knowledge. It highlights the significance of testing one’s experiences against scripture to ensure validity. The text also explains the strategy of spreading the gospel, starting with believing Jews in Jerusalem, then expanding to the rest of the world. It concludes by stating that if these elements are present and active in one’s life, they can be assured of having an effective personal ministry.
➡ Christ instructed his apostles to wait in Jerusalem until they received the Holy Spirit. After receiving the Holy Spirit, they began to spread God’s teachings, leading to the growth of the church. Despite facing persecution and challenges, they continued to preach, even moving to regions they initially disliked. This story emphasizes the importance of listening to God’s guidance and persevering in spreading His word, even in the face of adversity.
➡ Paul pursued Jewish Christians who fled Jerusalem, leading him to Damascus. This marked the end of Jerusalem as the main base for evangelism. The Jews rejected Christ, leading to the spread of Christianity to other regions like Judea and Samaria, and eventually to the Gentiles. This expansion was led by Peter, who was given the keys to the kingdom of heaven, symbolizing his role in spreading the church.
➡ Peter played a crucial role in expanding the church by including different groups like Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles. He was given the keys to the kingdom of heaven by Christ and was instrumental in laying the foundation for the church. Despite his initial biases, Peter’s heart softened and he began to accept and include all groups. His active involvement in spreading the gospel and his effective personal ministry were key to the growth of the church.
➡ This text emphasizes the importance of active involvement in God’s work to bear fruit and receive blessings. It suggests that God uses those who are already engaged in his mission, rather than those who are idle. The more one gets involved, the more fruitful their life becomes, leading to more blessings and opportunities. The text encourages us to step into the mainstream of God’s work, use our spiritual gifts, and trust that God will equip us for every task he gives us.
➡ This text emphasizes the importance of faith and action in Christian life. It encourages believers to listen to God’s guidance, not just through scripture, but in all aspects of life. It also discusses the difference between persecution faced by Christians in the Western world versus other parts of the world, suggesting that Western Christians often feel inconvenienced rather than persecuted. The text concludes by stressing the need for unity and action within the church to truly experience God’s blessings.

Okay, welcome back. We’ve had a week vacation and we, we want to thank you guys for understanding that we needed a break and appreciate the, the. What’s that? The patience to allow us to take that break and come back and, and with you guys. We did miss you guys and talked about you guys quite a bit while we were away and was able to get quite a bit of studying done early in the mornings and really looking forward to what’s coming towards us. So we’re in, this is our Sunday morning Bible study. We’re in the book of Acts, chapter nine specifically.

And for the last several weeks, we have looked at the conversion, the transformation process of Saul of Taurus, which was named the Apostle Paul. And we’re going to continue our study in the, the book of Acts. But chapter nine split. So when you look at this, what chapter nine is really giving you is two parts of the puzzle. One part is Paul and his complete transformation process and starting of the church. And then in the middle of Acts, chapter nine, it switches to Peter as a contrast. So you’re going to get both sides of this. So we’re going to look at Peter today for a couple of parts this week and next week.

And we’re going to now say that a different view of the process because Peter had a miraculous ministry as well. But the, the, the problem with Peter is he always stuck his foot in his mouth and he was not smooth at all. He basically blurted out whatever he was and he didn’t think before he reacted. And basically he’s known for that type of attitude, that type of conduct. Okay, so let me stop here. We’re tying this now into the book of Ephesians where we’re into chapter five. We’ve already gone to chapter four into chapter five, looking at the conduct of our lives, which is the application of what we learn in Ephesians 1, 2 and 3.

And now we’re looking at examples in Acts. So we start, it starts again in this in verse 32 and goes to 43. I don’t think we’ll make it to 43 today. I think we’ll end up doing that next week. But we’re going to get through at least three or four verses in this and look at the details behind this to give you some perspective. So Peter, like the past chapters of Acts, he was preaching a to a great crowd of thousands. We see him kind of isolated with individuals. That was another thing that Peter did. Quite frequently, if you recall, he isolated himself with some Jews, where Paul actually called him out because of his actions.

So Peter was this waffling self. He. It was that from the time that Christ says, you’re going to deny me, you know, three times before the cross. So this is the nature of Peter. Why is that important? Because whatever nature you have is your nature. And so you need to sort of, sort of understand what that is, because that is what you need to, to control so that you can actually manage your walk. Okay, so we find that in this. Hang on, I’m letting people in. I apologize. I’m losing my notes. And so some of the, some of the tremendous principles ooze out of this text.

It had, it had been planned to be this way, remember? But we only got, we’re only going to see this probably through verse 35 today. And we’ll have to round it out next week and put it all together. So the apostle Peter with all of his pre Pentecostal weaknesses, okay, so the, the religion of Pentecost and old ancient scripture is no different than Pentecost today. Okay, so what you have in Pentecost today is a sense of ability to heal without going through the healing process of the. So if you’re sick, somebody comes up and lays hands and you go flopping on the ground with all kinds of stuff.

Well, that was what Peter was into in his life. So with all of his pre Pentecostal weaknesses and all of the failures, that kind of help us to brand him as the apostle with the foot shaped mouth. Finally after Pentecost, okay, a change, okay, got, got his foot out of it and really began to speak for God. So that day of Pentecost transformed Peter from his old self being all of this stuff into his new self where he was bold and preaching from the Old Testament to the Jews. Now remember, Peter’s focus was to the Jews.

Paul’s focus was to the Gentiles. But Peter did speak, speak to Gentiles and actually had Gentiles come to know the Lord in his ministry. But Peter’s whole focus was to the Jews. That’s important when you look at the definitions of the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God. The kingdom of heaven is on this earth. Well, the Jews already had the law. So Peter focused on the kingdom of heaven, getting the Jews to come out of the law into the gospel. And it was the, it was the kingdom of God. It was given to Paul and which basically taught them the church about Christ and the mysteries of heaven.

The Jews didn’t get that. So his life becomes from the dominant theme in the first 12 chapters of Acts. From chapter 13 to 28, Paul dominates the picture. But here Peter dominates at the same time. And everything that we saw in terms of failure at the beginning of the Gospel sort of passes away with the emerging of and the energizing of the Holy Spirit in chapter two. And so we see a really a dynamic, powerful apostle who not only is the leader of the church, but the leader of other apostles as well. And so he is dynamic, to put it mildly, in the way he conducted himself after Pentecost.

He is effective, to put it simply, here in the book of Acts. So you now are going to see the side of Peter that we looked at from the side of Paul in the last several weeks. So you might say that Peter learned both sides of Christianity. There was a life prior to the death of cross, which was the law, the Old Testament. And now with the, with the receipt of the Holy Spirit, he’s got the faith based Christianity. So you might say that he’s got both sides. He’s probably the only one that did get both sides.

So he basically understands how not to do it in the Gospels, right? He understands the Jewish point of view and now he understands what faith based Christianity is. So he knows how not to do it and how to do it. Now as you look at Peter’s life, it’s, it’s a lot like Paul’s life. There are so many principles of ministry that we, we’re going to find here in this, this passage. There are maybe two passages that kind of stick out in the, in my mind where Peter kind of unloads first of all directly and then secondly, as we look at, at this one indirectly focused mainly on the principles for effective ministry.

Why is that important to know? Because Paul’s focus was solely on the Gospel. He did not know the other side of how they lived in accordance to the law. Now Paul was a devout Jew and he did understand the law. But remember his focus was on killing the Christians. His focus was not on transitioning from a Jew to a Christian part of the church because he got hit over the head with a 2×4 on the Damascus road. So he didn’t go through that transition as this, the Jewish nation was going through, that Peter actually represented. So the first one, first principle that jumps in my mind, and I’m, I’m going to use this as a beginning point from second Peter, chapter one, verses 1221, Peter kind of shares four basic principles to effective ministry.

So we go from Acts identifying Peter’s role associated with Paul in the establishment of the church, and then we go into Second Peter and to actually see what he. What he did. Because that’s what he. That’s where he wrote about his ministry. Now we’re going to use these as just a starting point. And then I’m going to go. I’m going to come back to the book of Acts and try to put it all together for you. But there’s some practical marks of an effective ministry in Second Peter chapter one. So we, we begin with four personnel, personal qualifications.

Now, why is this important? Because this goes back to the application of conduct, okay? Before you can have an effective personal ministry as identified In Acts chapter 9, there must be certain things that you possess personally. You have to change. Remember, you exchange from one thing to another. Your conduct changes. All of that stuff has to go. So, so something’s got to be going on. That’s the point here. And as we look here, we see some kind of the heart of Peter where he embed in a very direct way. And he gives us four things that really qualified him to have an effective personal ministry.

Number one, he had a personal concern. Okay? Verse 12, Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them and are established in the present truth. Yay. I think it fitting, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance. What he was doing here was saying, hey, I know who you were. I know what you have done. And I am going to use a persuasive method of personal concern about you to get you to remember what you really are, who you really are, what you’re really supposed to be doing.

Now here is express the concern of Peter for those to whom he ministers. He cares about them. He is not satisfied just to teach. He is satisfied that they learn. And there’s a big difference. You have not done the job when you have communicated the truth. Only you have done the job when somebody else has learned it so that they can reproduce it. That’s what’s important to me. I give you the truth, and we’ve talked about this on a number of occasions because we’re not together physically. We’re. We’re doing this through an electronic means. It’s very difficult to see that in your lives, okay? And we talk about it, and sometimes we, we get frustrated because we can’t see.

If we were together, that would be a smooth thing to deal with. And so anyway, that’s, that’s my concern. And Peter says, I want you to know this, not it’s not that now. It’s not that you haven’t heard it before. In other words, he’s saying, I’ve taught you before. You’ve, you’ve shown me that you understand it, but you’re now off the path. And Peter says it’s that I don’t want you to forget it. So he, he’s going to remind you and remind you and remind you, which is what the way we learn, okay? Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.

That’s how we learn. He has a tremendous personal concern for the people. Before anybody ever had an effective ministry, they had to care about people and they had to care. Not that they presented it well, but that they got it off. They started to understand and they came off looking good. But that somebody learned what it was that they were saying. And Peter had that personal concern. He always wanted the people to understand his teaching. Now that is some. That’s a good thing for Peter because why he still had the nature of foot and mouth, okay? And he was very brass and he, you know, he didn’t take the time in a lot of ways.

So this is now a change in Peter’s nature, okay. Which should be the same type of thing that we go through. There’s an empathetic position when you come to know Christ towards people. You might not agree with them, you might not accept what they do, but you have a personal concern for their spiritual well being. The second thing that he expresses here is a personal urgency. As we were just talking about the tragedy in Texas, we don’t know what our time is. And there should be a personal urgency to understand the word of God and getting to know him and accepting the, the redemptive process of salvation.

And that’s what it says in verse 14. Knowing that shortly I must put off this, my tabernacle. What Peter’s saying is knowing shortly I’m gonna, I’m gonna be out of here, guys. I got X amount of time. I don’t know when that is, but I’m going to be out of this. What? My tabernacle. What’s the tabernacle? This body, right? This is the temple of God. This is the tabernacle of God. So which is, which is a long way to say I’m going to die. I’m going to leave this body, even as the Lord Jesus Christ had shown me.

So you got to remember in John, chapter John, chapter 21, the Lord had said to Peter, peter, you’re going to die for me. Didn’t tell him when he just says, you’re going to die for me. And in fact, he even told him that he was going to get crucified. He told him how he was going to die. And so Peter lived his whole life knowing he was going to go to get crucified. And you say, well, that wouldn’t make a very happy life. Well, it did for Peter and it should for us. Because one, the minute we go home, we’re set free, completely set free.

So the joyous nature that we should have is to, is to provide that same sense of personal urgency that we see in our lives to the people that we have concern for. Because he realized that he was going to be faithful in the end. You see, he had had an opportunity when he was confronted with Jesus Christ. And three times he did what he denied him. So this is going to be his proving point that his commitment wasn’t really valid. It was only verbal at that point in time. And so finally Jesus said to him, next time, Peter, you’re going to go all the way and die for me.

You’re not going to fail me again. And that was what good the good news was for Peter. I changed my nature. I’m not, you know, this timid, awkward foot in the mouth, you know, denying individual. I’m now going to stand up boldly and I’m going to get to die for the person who gave me my salvation. Because this meant that he knew that he would make it next time. It gave him confidence. Okay, now let’s, let’s go to our conduct. Peter gives us the ability to understand that we have the same construct that he had in our lives.

Our conduct needs to be reassured. That’s the reason why assurance of salvation is so important. Our conduct should provide us the reassurance that we know that whenever our time’s up, all of the time spent up to that time was glorification of God himself. Now, if the Lord told most of us that, that we would die of apox Apocalypse before or crucifixion before we ever got to the cross. But Peter wanted to know, he wanted to be sure that he would be faithful. And so the Lord told him, yes, Peter, you’re going to be faithful. And so he says, I know I didn’t have long.

I’m going to die. That’s what he was telling the people that he was ministering to. He knew he was going for a cross. In verse 15, it says, Moreover, I will endeavor that you may be able after my decrease death to have these things always in remembrance. He wanted to make sure that he gave them the truth so that they could remember it in their minds. After Peter had been crucified, he says, I want to drum them into your brain while I’m still here so that when I’m dead, you can’t forget them. Well, that’s the way we’re trying to do it.

We’re go over and over and over things in various ways to give you the ability to get out of it what you need to get out of it so that you can remember it when I’m not here. Now, he says, that’s my urgency. Well, I have that sense of urgency is you hear it from me. I’m. I’m. I’m trying to do as much as I can in this lifetime as I can as my sense of urgency, partly to make up for what I didn’t do, and partly because I’m just so excited to be doing it now.

So he knew he only had a limited time, and he wanted to maximize that time conduct. You need to maximize your time in doing the ministry work of Jesus Christ and not things of this world. It’s amazing and just a quick story here. It’s amazing that nowadays the conversation in the majority of cases, no matter what people we meet, where we meet them, turns to Jesus Christ. And it might not be the word out of my mouth, but it’s going to be what comes out of their mouth that starts that conversation. There’s always today. There’s always a door of opportunity to provide the truth, whether or not, you know, Misty and I, a couple of nights before dinner, we went to a local tavern, we had a drink, and then we went over to where our reservations were before, before the bartender brought us our drink, a conversation occurred, you know, and it was amazing how it all works out.

But if your conduct in your life changes to the nature of personal urgency, people are going to be drawn to you. So Peter wanted to cram as much as he could into the limited time that he had. Now, you might say that the third thing that was used was that which characterized Peter in effective personal ministry would characterize anybody which was personal experience. You cannot have a relationship with Jesus Christ unless it is personal. It won’t be. You’re not going to have it unless it’s personal. And once it becomes personal and you walk through the knowledge of how to grow into him.

Key phrase, grow into him, meaning you’re growing, sanctifying yourself in the body of Christ. What it says, the scripture says, be sanctified in Christ. So what does that mean? You grow into him. So once you Once you have that process, then what you’re going to find is the, the, the personal experience comes out. It, you can’t stay in. It just comes out. And some of you guys had conversations with me this week and that, that was all we were talking about. It’s just guys, this, you know, I was sitting on the porch the other night. I don’t know what time it was, it’s 11 o’.

Clock. And you know, I, I sent a, a brief text out and as I was, as I was sitting there worshiping God sent out a text at 11 o’ clock at night to a various group of people. And that’s just the way it is, you know, all you want to do is reflect your personal experience that you’re having in Christ. So Peter went on to say in verse 16, for we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But were what eyewitnesses, personal experiences? While we haven’t seen Jesus Christ like the apostles did, we have more than what they have.

We’ve got the, we’ve got the entire Bible now written. We have, we can read, we can experience that. We have applications. They didn’t have applications. They had to walk through this as, as, okay, what do I do next? How do I do this? In a, in situations, they had to basically go to the Holy Spirit and say, really, what do I do? And we have examples of that in Scripture that tells us what to do so that we can actually be what, Assured. Because why? It says test. Okay, Test the Scripture, test the Spirit, test what’s going on in your life and then discern what you need to do.

Now, I’m not giving you secondhand information here. This is my experience. This is how I experience Christ. I’m telling you what I know. I’m telling you my what I know that has been revealed to me through Scripture in my sanctification process in studying and worshiping Jesus Christ. Now, experience by itself isn’t the final qualification. So Peter further goes into. And incidentally, he was talking about the transfiguration. As he states in verse 17 and 18, in the Holy Mount, he saw Christ. So he knew what he was talking about. The transfiguration is the process of getting your glorified body.

And seeing Jesus transformed had a personal impact on Peter. Paul didn’t get to see that, Peter did. Peter went from old to new in the whole process and he spoke very good about it once he got through Pentecost. So he goes A step further here and says you’re, you not only need personal experience in effective personal ministry, but personal knowledge. That’s what he’s saying right here. You need to be personally engulfed in the word of God. That’s where your knowledge is going to come from. That’s the truth book. Experience, unless it’s coordinated with scripture, might not be valid.

Why? Because you haven’t tested it. So he moves in there with verse 21. For the prophecy came not at any time by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. That should be clear. But let’s break it down a moment. Prophecy didn’t come by the men of this world. Prophecy only came by the holy men of God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. So first you know that they were saved. Second thing you know is the Holy Spirit control their life. Third thing you knew is they were spokesperson of God himself.

And fourth thing that they gave you is prophecy that has not failed in all of history. So he calls this in verse 19, a more sure word than what experience. So Peter says, to begin with, as I look at my own life, there are four things that are needful, personal concern, personal urgency, personal experience, and personal knowledge. And what he says is if you have these four things going on in your life, you have an effective personal ministry. Let’s go back to your self assessment. If you have these four things identified on your personal assessment list and you are seeing in your life movement in those areas, then you can be assured by Scripture that you have an effective personal ministry, whatever it might be.

Well, just the opposite exists because we have the law of duality. If you don’t have movement in those four areas, then you have an ineffective personal ministry. And you need to work on that in whatever sanctification process that you need to be studying in. Now let’s go back to Acts, chapter nine. I must see how effective it was in Peter’s life. And let’s see if we can pull out some of the keys that made his ministry effective. Now, just to give you a brief kind of insight into some background here, we need to lay a foundation.

Keep in mind that when Jesus left this earth at the end of Matthew, at the end of the book of Mark, it’s recorded. He said, go. What? His, his, his commission was this. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Oh my gosh. Did you get that? Go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He didn’t say, okay, pick up on the word Here in Matthew it says that he said, make disciples out of them, teach them, and baptize them. So our Lord had the gold, the vision to reach the world with the gospel.

That was his plan. Let’s go back to Noah. Why did Noah get 120 years to go teach to the Nephilim? And you know, if they had converted to what Noah was saying, they would have been what, say, so when Christ gave the commission to the apostles to go what, all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, he was talking about the line of Cain as well as the Jews and the Gentiles, the Nephilim DNA bloodline. Okay? So now the Lord made a strategy out to accomplish that. And the strategy ran something like this. First of all, he would work in Israel.

Of course, Peter was focused on the Jews who would work in Israel. And he would gain believing Jews. And when he had a group of believing Jews, they would be launched, blasted off, if you will. The launching pad to reach what? The world. Now you got to remember that the Jews and Gentiles didn’t work well together in this time, all right? Matter of fact, they still don’t work well today. But Peter’s charge to the Jews was to go to the Jewish nation and teach the gospel. That was the component of the world that they sought for.

Now God has to start somewhere. You just. He just doesn’t take a magic wand and just say, okay, I’m changing this. Because one God said, I. I’m going to work through man to do my bidding. God never in his plan had designed that Israel just sit there and be the dead in the street for all of his blessing. There were always to be a channel to the world. That was the focus. That’s the reason why he picked them as a nation. That’s the reason why he sheltered them under Pharaoh and let them grow from 70 to millions to be the light to the world.

Now, there were always to be a channel to the world. Matter of fact, they still are today, if they would ever get things right. And so he was planning then, even in the New Testament, to first begin in Jerusalem. That’s what scripture says, start in Judea, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the other parts of parts of the world. That’s exactly what they did. And begin the believing Jews. And then they would go out to help reach the world. Now the plan is indicated in what Acts 1, verse 8, the strategy for the church. You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

You shall be what my witnesses. And this is to bring this is being said to about 120 Jews. Remember in the upper room there was 12, there was 12 apostles, 120 Jews. Then there were 3,000. Then that blah, blah, blah. They’re exploding. That was what. That’s how Axe lays it out. You’re going to be the beginning of this explosion. You’re going to be the key. And you’re going to start in Jerusalem and then you’ll go to Judea, Samaria, and then finally to the other most parts of the earth according to the commission. Now that family is the complete outline of the books of Acts.

It gives you the start. It tells you what they’re going to do. It gives you the strategy put in place by Christ. It gives you how they’re being split up. Paul comes on the scene to start the church, which was the word the end. Gold was for the Jews anyway, was the church. And he brings the Gentiles in and then he explodes it throughout the entire book of Acts. That’s what Acts is. So he starts with a group of believing Jews. Step number one is to hit Jerusalem. So Peter says to them, now you guys get yourself there in Jerusalem together and you wait until I sit.

This is, I’m sorry, this is Christ saying he’s telling the apostles, you guys get to Jerusalem, wait on me until I send the Holy Spirit to endure you. And power from on high. Acts chapter two. And they were all gathered up there in the upper room and the Spirit of God came in power, baptized them into the body, filled them with the Holy Spirit. That’s what happens to us automatically upon salvation. And they shot out of that place and began to speak to everybody the wonderful works of God. And every man heard it in his own language.

This is the, the tongues or the language shifts in throughout all of the apostles and the people of the. In the, the 120 Jews that were in the room that were carrying out this work as well. And then Peter stood up and preached a sermon and 3,000 people were saved. And the church began in Jerusalem that day they were baptized and added to the fellowship. Now remember, we have dispensations. Peter was still under the dispensation of the law where Gentiles is under the dispensation of the church. The law said they had to be baptized. So Peter was working through that process of, of saving lives under the dispensation rules of the law.

And then through Acts, the transition book, as Paul comes on the scene and Paul takes over the church, the dispensation has changed to faith based process with Spiritual baptism of the Holy Spirit immediately upon salvation. Now then it went there, went from there. And they continued to preach in Jerusalem. Peter was thrown into prison. He preached in to the Sanhedrin. Peter did. He went back to the temple where the angel let him out of prison. Remember that whole occasion? All of the disciples were in there. And the Sanhedrin called him out for the next morning. And they weren’t there.

They were back in the temples. He was preaching over and over and over to the people. And the church grew. In chapter four, we. We are identified that there were about 5,000 men in the church, to say nothing of the women and children. So therefore there’s. The added members of chapter four were about 25,000. And so the church explodes in Jerusalem. And finally the characterization of the church in Jerusalem is made by the hating world. As the Jews drag the disciples in and they, they say this. You have filled all Jerusalem with your teaching. Okay, they said that Christ didn’t say that.

They said that the. The world says, hey, we’re tired of this. You have filled our area up with this, this, this teaching of this person, Jesus Christ. And so that mark set by the Sanhedrin to the apostles said, it was time for Samaria. If you filled us, it’s time to go. So they knew from what the world had said, it was time to move to the next place. Think about that. In your personal ministry means everything in your life, because that is your personal ministry. Everything you do in your life, regardless of whether you’re a teacher or whatever, everything you do is a personal ministry to the world.

And if you, if you are, have saturated that piece of world around you and the world saying, hey, it’s time to move. Are you listening? We’re doing this weekly discussion on hearing, right? Hearing the word of God. Well, the word of God comes in all aspects. If the world is telling you that you’re done here, are you listening? Is it time to move? It’s an interesting thing that God often does a little bit of building under the saints to get them to do, to go where he wants them to go. He uses everything. Are you listening to the Lord no matter where he speaks? Are you testing what you’re hearing through scripture to discern what you’re being told? And so the Lord knew that the church might tend to kind of languish a little bit in Jerusalem, especially since the Jews, just by culture pattern, despise the Samaritans.

And to get them to go out into Samaria might be a little bit tough. Oh, why? Because the apostles were Jews. Their physical nature was to dislike the Samaritans. I mean, they have no. I mean, they have no different physically than you and I have dealing with this world. Okay, we understand the spiritual aspects of life. We talked about that earlier. But it’s a. It’s a difficult thing in the physical realm to get us to, number one, understand, and number two, to move. So even though they were believers, we’re talking about the apostles. And even though they love the Lord Jesus Christ.

Old patterns, thy heart. Remember, you don’t give, get up, give away your freeway of sin trucks up and down through your life just because you’ve been saved. That’s your pattern. That was your nature. That’s your old nature. And some of you say, why can’t I just forget about it? Well, no, that’s not going to happen. Even when we become a Christian, we find these old patterns die very hard. And so the Lord had a little bit of an impetus about what he was going to do. And the impetus was a man by the name of Saul.

And it says that Saul was consenting. Chapter 8, verse 1. What to going after the Jews. He was going to drive them out of Jerusalem. See, that’s. That was the basis. God says, okay, these apostles and these Jewish people who are saved, I got to get them out of Jerusalem into the other world. And now I’m going to put them in an area of world that they don’t like. So how am I going to do that? Foreign. Let’s go back to God’s creation plan. As we’re looking at. Substack. A lot of. A lot of the conditions leading up to the actual decision of creation and how to do it, we’re learning right now.

This is the same thing. He says, okay, I know that this is going to be hard. I gotta drive something into this where I can actually get them to move. And I need to find the man to go do that. And that’s Saul. And it says, Saul was consenting. In other words, he was. He was consenting because he showed that because of the death of Stephen, the example, the. The switch to the church. And it says, then at that time, there were a great persecution against the church. Verse 3 says, Paul, Saul at that time, because Paul and Saul led the persecution.

So the Lord just let the church get persecuted. I want you. I want you to hear that the Lord let the church be persecuted. It didn’t say that they were just persecuted by language or put in prison. If you go back and study the persecution of the early church There was death involved in that. What we just talked about earlier. The plan is the plan. Yeah, physically it’s going to be hard, but spiritually, it’s the plan. We don’t get comfort in this in the physical world. We only get comfort in the spiritual world. So when we understand that God’s plan is God’s plan, and spiritually we’re.

Our first focus is on the spiritualness of our life, then we can take. Take some relief from the physical pain knowing that God is in full control. So the Lord just let the church get persecuted. The result was this. They scatter abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. So the Lord just said, I’m going to help you guys get going a little bit and just started persecuting them. They all bailed physically, they bailed one because it’s painful, and went just exactly where the Lord wanted them to go. Now, in verse four of chapter eight, it says this.

They were scattered abroad and they went everywhere preaching the Word. Now that’s good. The church then moved to the second step in the commission, started Jerusalem. He said, you need to go Jerusalem. When you saturate Jerusalem, go to Judea and go to Samaria. And he says, oh, by the way, I’m going to help you. I’m going to help you get there. God’s plan is to glorify him. Think about it. Even in the death of the individuals at this ancient time, it was to glorify him. Why? Because that caused them to scatter. To do what? Teach and preach the gospel.

Sometimes we don’t understand what’s really going on here. But when we take a step back and we. And we look at it from a spiritual point of view, just think about this, okay? I’m not saying this. This is it. But how much. How much has the mainstream media covered this? Where people are saying, pray, pray, pray, pray. Glorification of God. So they moved outside of the city of Jerusalem. They blasted off the launching pad, and they went to Judea and Samaria by persecution. The first time by energizing of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem, Pentecost and that.

Then that begun to move throughout Samaria and Jude, Judea. And they had marvelous results, as the case may be. It started with Paul’s persecution. Now watch. Now watch. This started with Paul’s persecution in Jerusalem to what? The Jewish Christians, they fled. We’re gonna fly. We’re gonna go. And Paul says, I’m coming after you. Oh, another plan of God. Why? Because he has to get Paul on that road to Damascus. To beat him in the head with a two by four. It’s kind of tragic for Jerusalem because it spilled. It spelled the, really the final call to Jerusalem.

They didn’t go back to Jerusalem other than to what, report to the elders. James was the head of the, the, the tabernacle in Jerusalem, but they didn’t have the evangelistic bases as, as they did when all of the apostles were in Jerusalem. So as Jerusalem Jews had con confirmed their unbelief, had arrived at a place of static and permanent disbelief and rejected Christ. And so God just moves out when the world says, I’ve had enough and you saturated me, it’s time for you to leave. That’s what Christ saw, okay? That’s what the Sanhedrin said. It’s time for you guys to leave.

You’ve, you’ve done all, all you can do here. Oh, think about that. If the world says, I’m tired of listening to you, you’ve planted your seed, you were over the target, you planned your seed. Don’t beat your head in the ground because you can’t change them. Move on. And so God just moves them out. He says, okay, I’m moving out. Why? Because they had rejected him as the Messiah. Think about the process. They had rejected him as the Messiah. God had set the Jews aside at the stoning of Stephen. And he used the man who stoned Stephen, agreed with it, watched over it, approved it.

He used that man to start his church. And so while it’s victorious and joy joyous for Judea and Samaria, there’s a note of tragedy as the persecution flames in Jerusalem against Christ and his people. We’re going to get back to that in a bit. Now we saw in chapter eight how the work in Samaria was dominated by a man by the name of Philip. Right. Remember that study we did, name of Philip? He was assisted also by Peter and John because why Peter and John had to go see Philip’s ministry because they needed to lay hands on the people to receive the Holy Spirit.

That was this dispensation shift, okay? They, Peter and John had to go do that. Now Philip was not an apostle. Think about it. So Peter and John being the apostles, were anointed to go do this. And therefore they had to go to Philip in Samaria to finish what Philip had started. So he was assisted by Peter and John, who later came up to Samaria and did some preaching. And so there was a great work going on in Samaria. Christians scattered all over everywhere and they were bring, being brought into the church and they received the Holy Spirit at the hands of Peter and John and were united with Jerusalem church.

In fact it was an obvious vision. And so the church grew and now it’s time to go another step and the third step in the expansion of the church is the ministry to the Gentiles. Okay so let’s go back to the commission. Start in Jerusalem Jews nation of Israel. Go to Judea which is part of the nation of Israel and go to the Sumerians which are half bricks. Let’s get the Jews out of the way. Let’s figure out where we’re at in this church map. Jews in Jerusalem that understood who Christ was as a Messiah scattered to Judea and Samaria to teach their brethren Jews half breeds Jews of the Messiah, the Christ.

And remember I said that the apostles not only preach the faith based ministry but they, they took out what you’re going to get back into Barai. They remove the pagan gods from the system allowing God’s governmental system to be put in place. That was the. I said we’re going to come back to this. That was the fight that was in Jerusalem at that time. Okay, they had done the work of the church but they could not get the, the the paganists out of Jerusalem yet. That comes at a later date. And so they moved into Judea and they, they taught the scriptures, they converted the Jews and they begin to change the government.

This begins the expulsion of the pagan gods out of the system. Then they did it in Samaria, now they have to do it with the Gentiles. So you got to have somebody to focus on that. So here comes Paul and this is not going to be an easy one to a lot to to even another large step to the Jews to take to extend themselves to the Gentiles but whom they had been taught traditionally through all of their history to the spies. Remember, remember Jonah okay that that’s the history of the Jews to the Gentiles that still exists today.

By the way the Samaritans were half breed so they were a little bit of kin to the Jews the Gentiles. Oh going that’s going a long way. We’re part of Cain and, and they, they understood that that line was what Ishmael was not Isaac. We were the, we were the wrong bloodline. But Christ allowed us into the church and we, we already know that he had a plan for that because he. This all happened before he created one iota of matter in this world. This has already been done in heaven. Our whole reading of this scripture is everything that went on in heaven before he ever did one single creation of matter to facilitate the physical world.

And so, you know, God had a special man to do the job with the Gentiles. He was introduced to us in chapter 7 in verse 58, by the name of Saul. But before God could use him, like everybody before he uses, he had to switch him around. When you study Saul and you look at the transformation process into Paul, you have to understand that when Saul comes into the picture, God was already transforming him. He had to get his attention, he had to move his attention to do the things that God wanted to do. I said to you, Stephen’s death was planned as the spiking point to create the church.

I, Stephen knew he was going to die when he was transformed to an angel as they were stoning him. So when you look at this world, God moves everything to its proper chessboard place to be played. And this was the man, Paul, that was going to be the guy who would labor and really do the work among the Gentiles. But you know, he had to have some time of preparation. And so he, if you remember the story, spent three years in Nabatae, Arabia and in Damascus. Who taught him? Jesus Christ himself taught him. Then finally, after three years, he came down to Jerusalem and only lasted 15 days before he created such a havoc that they had to ship him to Tarsus just to claim the, to calm the scene down.

Okay, I said, we’re going to get back to this. The, the transition of the pagan God system is what Paul had had on when he went into Jerusalem. He was, he was kind of this guy. So they finally shipped him out. And so by this time, we’ve been only introduced to Paul, who’s going to be the apostle to the Gentiles, and he’s back to Tarsus where he was born. So the seed then refocuses back on Peter. That’s why Peter’s play was so, so coordinated with what Paul was doing. So Peter, who dominates from now through chapter 12, he becomes God’s man in the expansion of the church.

It’s not Paul who opened the door to the Gentiles. It’s Peter. Paul later came in and spread the word. Peter was the door opener. And, you know, that takes us back. And let me read the you very important verse in Matthew 6, 16, 18 to the statement of our Lord in which he commissioned Peter for this. Now in verse 18, Jesus said, I’m going to build my church. Remember that statement? The gates of hell will not prevail against it. Oh, that didn’t say that Lucifer is going to be destroyed or they’re going to be put in Hell.

It says the gates of hell will not prevail against it. It didn’t say that you weren’t going to be persecuted. It said that they would not win against it. That’s what that means. He protected the church. That at the as the church was built and as the church age came into being and the end of church comes near to the Rapture, that the gates of hell will not win against the church. That’s what he’s telling us. Then he said in verse 19, and I will give unto thee, Peter, the keys of the kingdom of heaven, earth, the spiritual realm on earth.

Now this phrase is synonymous with the church. The kingdom of heaven was the church. We’re all connected. We’re all one body. We’re all in Christ. The church is the kingdom of heaven. Where Christ is, so shall heaven be. So Peter, you’re the guy who’s going to unlock the doors as the church expands. Now, Peter was there in Jerusalem at Pentecost. He was the guy who preached after Pentecost. And Peter was there in Samaria. And remember, the Samaritans believed that, but they didn’t receive the Holy Spirit to be included in the body until what Peter arrived and laid hands on them.

That was the dispensation for the Jews. So Peter opened the door of inclusion to the Samaritans in chapter 10. As we get to chapter 10 next week or so, we’re going to see Peter opens the door to Cornelius, a Gentile. He lays hands on Cornelius, he receives the Holy Spirit, and Peter has unlocked the last door in the expansion of the church. So Peter’s role in this was the key to opening the doors of the church through the Jews, because he knew what how they lived, how they through the transformation in the Book of Acts from one dispensation to another and beginning the Gentiles to be inclusive, all of the church.

So when Paul walks in, the foundation has already been laid. So Paul comes backs in later and he slides back in in chapter 13 of Acts that and begins the ministry, following up and building that church that Peter really officially initiated. Go back to what Christ said in Matthew 16:18, I’m going to build my church. I’m going to give unto you, Peter, the keys to the kingdom of heaven. To build that church, you’re going to do it with the Jews, you’re going to do it with a half breeds. So they are connected as one body. And you’re Going to start the Gentiles so that the church as I have defined by Scripture, is one in Christ.

Now let’s look at Peter. Beginning in verse 32 of Acts, chapter 9. God is beginning to prepare him for the move to the Gentiles. Peter’s done pretty well so far with the Jews. One, he’s the one. He knew the past. He lived all of that stuff with him. So he was, he was, he was like in the, in the hood type. All of the prejudice that he had had all of his life, he was pretty accommodating to the Samaritans and the Judeans. That, that is what I said. If you, you understood who the nature of Peter, he didn’t like.

He didn’t like the Samaritans and he didn’t like the Gentiles. The Lord had kind of gotten him over that hump though of dealing with those terrible, despicable Samaritans. That’s what the Jews thought. So he begins to include them both officially and unofficially within his heart. Okay, this is God working, All right. Peter knew that he was being controlled by the Holy Spirit and God was working in him, sanctifying him to understand that he had to change his what his personal concerns for the Samaritan. So God is preparing him for chapter 10 when he’s going to come face to face with Cornelius the Gentile and he’s going to see the Gentiles included into the church, which was a big shock to Peter.

And he went running back and he said, you’ll never believe the this guys, but the Gentiles have the same thing we’ve got. But his heart is beginning to soften. The only way Peter would understand. Think about this, now he’s an apostle. The only way Peter would understand that Corneas the Gentile received the Holy Spirit is if Carneus the Gentile received the same type of experience that Peter did at Pentecost. That’s what happened. So Peter didn’t believe he’s an apostle. Why couldn’t he believe before? No, he’s a Jew. So he had to be shown a sign just like all other Jews.

Oh, let’s go back to self assessment. We think we can just look at our lives one way and that’s it. No, you have to look at your life from the inside lens of your nature because in your nature are going to be the biases that prevent you from understanding what just happened. And so you need to remove those biases or understand what those biases are when you begin to see things and you’re now tasked at what, testing and discernment. So Peter’s heart begins to soften. That means that what Peter began to do was have the same type of concern for the Samaritans as he did for his Jewish brother.

Now, as you pick up the action in verse nine, verse. I mean, in chapter nine, verse 32, Paul has gone back to Tarsus, Jerusalem is sent into Tarsus, and Peter is speaking. He was busy and he was moving around everywhere. He’s taking a trip now from Jerusalem down to Joppa. Now everything is down from Jerusalem, as we said often, okay, Jerusalem on a hill, or you got to go down, and then you can go up to go somewhere else. But you got to go down from Jerusalem to get to anywhere, because it’s on. It’s on a high mountain.

So. So he went down directly in a straight line west to the coastline. Japa is a seaport called Jaffa today. Now it’s a suburb of Tel, but it’s just west of Jerusalem about somewhere around 50 miles. And so Peter is on his way. He’s going to Japa. He was going somewhere. He never stood still for five minutes in his life. That was another problem. He didn’t stand still to even listen to God. That was. That’s his biggest problem. He thought he got a word and he took off. Not in some cases, to the direction that he should be going.

So there were Christians all over, everywhere, not only pockets in Jerusalem, but outside of Jerusalem. And he was moving around, teaching, preaching, warning people, confirming saints, building them up. He was a very busy man. And on this particular trek, he’s on his way to Joppa. So in verse 32 now, as we look at this occasion and what happens, because this scene goes clear through verse 43 of Acts 9, we’re going to see some of the principles that that brought him. I’m going to try to illustrate those principles that brought him such an effective personal ministry in this area.

Why? Because it is the conduct of Peter that we need to understand. And it’s my hope that you’re going to be able to pull these things out of this text and apply them to your life. Now, you guys, I’ve always talked about personal ministries. I believe that every one of us has a personal ministry, whether it not be teaching or leading in your community or whatever. We’re all teachers. That’s what Scripture says in whatever our calling is about. So I want us to be able to pull out of this, the principles of really effective personal ministry.

Now, I pulled out six things And I’m not going to get through half of them today, probably. Here they are. Peter was an effective purse personally because he was involved. You don’t have to get them all down. We’ll get them as we go. He was involved Christ exalting, available, powerful, fruitful and free from predive prejudice. These are basic to the effective personal ministry. First of all, he was involved in verse 32. And I took a long time to get to this verse. It came to pass as Peter passed throughout all quarters. Peter was just going all the time, active, maximizing every opportunity involved.

It came to pass as Peter passed through on course. He came down on also to the saints who dwelt in Lydia. The church is in a state of. Of rest. Now. Verse 31 says all the churches had rest and they were edified, built up spiritually, and they began to multiply. In other words, they were doing what God wanted them to do and they were, they were multiplying their people and they were in rest with Christ. In other words, there was no chaos in the church. And this was for several reasons. This was of course due particularly to the work of the Spirit of God, but was also due to the fact that Saul got out of town and didn’t create such a mess and so many problems.

Paul was the bull in the china closet. And it was also due to the fact that the Jews were now bugged by Calgary Calia, sorry, the Roman emperor wanting to set up idols in Jerusalem and they were fighting the Romans so they didn’t have time to fight the church. I want you to think about that point. The reason the Jerusalem government did not change at the time that the apostles were really in Jerusalem to spread the gospel to the Jews was because they needed a distraction. The distraction was is the idols were going to be put into Jerusalem and the fight to cover the church needed to be with the Roman Empire and not the church.

And so Peter was at liberty to move. Okay, this was all about the commission of spreading the gospel. All right? The pagan gods would be coming out of the system at the right moment in every territory. But the Romans needed to be dealt with at a different time because of the focal point of Jerusalem being the first church. And they needed that church to remain uninhibited until the church globally got put together. Point. Okay, so the church has a little period of rest here. And so Peter was at liberty to move and he was really on the move.

The rest of the apostles were out in Samaria and Judea moving around too. In fact, when Saul finally came to Jerusalem according to Galatians 1. He said, not that the only apostle he found there was James and Peter. The rest of them were long gone. The other 10 were moving around preaching. So they’re preaching and Peter is one of them and he’s moving around as well. Now that, that should speak to us in a very dynamic way of, of a very important principle. The people who are already involved in what God is doing are usually the ones who are given.

The more fruitful ministers. You sit on the, sit on the couch, you have no fruit. You get involved, however involved you are, you’re going to gain fruit. The more you get involved, the more fruit you’re going to get. More fruit you’re going to get, the more blessings you’re going to get. The more blessings you get, the, the more beneficial your life becomes, the more beneficial life becomes. It all is a circle over and over and over again. But it doesn’t start unless you get involved. God keeps his riches ministries for his busiest saints. Have you ever noticed that? Why is this guy got, you know, all this stuff going on? You know, he’s tapped in here, he’s got this, he’s being blessed here, he’s being blessed there.

Why? Well, at the root of that is called involved commitment for Christ. Have you ever noticed, think about yourself here, how that some Christians seem to get involved in everything that God is doing. You know, Juan, it’s a lot easier to hurdle and steer and operate somebody that’s going somewhere. I can’t motivate somebody off of a couch. I can only motivate, assist and help with people that are moving, that are doing something. When God’s job, when God’s got a job to do, he doesn’t go up to the dusty shelf of dilapidated, impotent, non functioning Christians and say, hey guys, I think I’ll dust off you Joe and give you, give you a job.

God only uses people who are already in the mainstream flow of what he’s doing. And that’s why some people have abundance of ministries while other people are sitting around saying, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. Everybody who’s active seems to be able to find enough to do. The little principle the rich get richer can apply in terms of spiritual richness as well. When you get into rich ministries, you’re going to find that you, first of all you’re going to bear fruit and then you bear more fruit and then before you know it’s, you will be bearing much fruit.

That’s what scripture says. So after Peter, with all of the burden he carried, and I know he was a very busy guy because that’s what scripture tells us. And I bet you people wanted his time, wanted people that people wanted his time and demanded his time and for wanted to talk to him and sit with him and counsel with him and have him speak for their grips and this and that. And yet God kept opening new ministries for him. Think about your life. I don’t have any time to do this. Oh, but God just opens another ministry, you know, just keeps doing it and keeps doing it and keeps doing it.

And he seems to find a way to give you more time. There was never any end to it. Now I really believe people that if you ever want to be fruitful in the ministry of Jesus Christ, you’re going to have to now get in the mainstream of what God is doing. God does not go up to the shelf and dust you off for some great important ministry. He starts where you are. And if you’re on the couch, it’s going to be very difficult to get you off that couch. There’s so many things needful to be done to pray, to teach, to minister and other to other needs to use your spiritual gifts.

And as we begin to do this, as we are into the mainstream of the priorities of what God is doing, he will butt out us right up against the ministries like after the other, one after the other, after the other after other. He’s just going to take you to one. Oh, you’re done with that. Go to this, go to this, go to this, go to this. He’s going to use you as a running back. Yeah. And it gets to the point where you start or sit down at night and you say, God, I don’t know if I can handle all the stuff you’re giving me to do.

Really. He always comes back with the power of or of the Spirit and never gives you something to do that he doesn’t give you the equipment to do. Right. Do you realize, let’s go to the conduct, let’s go to Ephesians application. Do you realize the majority of our limitations in the application of God’s will in our life resides between your two ears, your physical brain? And it stems from, I can’t, I don’t know, I have no more. Instead of going to your spiritual side and says, God, you’re asking me to do this. Just show me how to do it.

I think I need more time. But you know what? You’re going to make this thing work, whatever it is. Let’s Go. Now that’s a great illustration of this. That comes to my mind in Genesis chapter 24, if you recall the. In Genesis chapter 4, they had kind of an interesting custom back in those days of picking out brides and so forth for guys who wanted to get married today, it’s the elimination process. Okay? They say, oh, there’s a lot of fish in the sea. Well, now you just got to go out, find the right one. That means you go through an elimination process of getting there, which has all of the issues of the world tied to it.

And the elimination is due to several factors in each case. Remember, we’re supposed to write down that which we want and we’re supposed to talk to God about it. And we’re supposed to tell the world exactly what we want. That’s not eliminating anything. We’ve made clear what we want and we just have to wait for God to deliver that individual to us. The Old Testament, they had a different method. In the Old Testament, the way it worked was mom and dad picked out for who you would marry. And the older my children get, the more I think I like that.

Well, my, my daughters are all married now, but I like that approach. It would have been a lot of this removing of, of heart issues, especially with my older daughter. But anyway, that was the way they did it then. So Abraham wanted to get a bride for Isaac, his son, and he didn’t want one of those Canaanite women, if you recall. So he wanted to go back to his family and get a girl of his own upbringing and one who really turned out to be his second cousin. And so he gets a servant. And he says, now you go find my son Isaac a nice bride.

Well, the servant, how does he, what does he know? You know, I mean, this is really a second hand type of stuff to this servant. He’s a servant. He’s not a bride picker. What am I gonna. How is this going to work? He’s not Isaac, he’s not Abraham. He’s twice removed from the real issue. So he’s got to find a bride that’s going to, to please Abraham and Isaac. But he doesn’t stand around. He goes, I want you to think about this. He goes. He’s not told beforehand what he’s looking for. He just goes, he gets into the floor of the deal and he just packs up his camels and whatever else and off he goes.

And, and as he’s going along, believe it or not, according to the scriptures, he bangs right into the right girl. He doesn’t Even know where he’s going. He just goes down a road right into the right girl. Her heart is willing. Her father is willing. Fantastic deal. And you ask him now in the world, how in the world did you ever. Did that ever happen? And a beautiful answer comes in Genesis 24:27, when she says, blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham. Now this is a servant talking. Who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and of his truth.

You know, he says, God is superintending this deal. What did I just say? God calls, you better go. Might not give you all of the conditions of the trip or even how are you going to get that? Then comes this little statement which is just a really potent statement. He says, I being in the way the Lord led me. What is it? What does that mean? I went. I didn’t know where I was going. The camel was directed to take me to the right place. You know who the Lord leads to? Successful ministers, the people who are already moving.

He says, I being wandering around all over the place. God just put me where he wanted me. Believe me, Christians, you can go. You can’t. You can go back to Acts chapter nine. That’s how it works. That’s the reason why it’s important here. I being in the way. The Lord led me to the right house. He said, there was the girl conduct. You do not need all of the answers. You need to move. You need to move in the direction of what God is doing. That means what? Faith based ministries, whatever they may be, you need to listen to what God is telling you, not just through scripture.

God speaks in all things. You need to be sanctified in Christ in order to allow the Holy Spirit to direct you so you can listen. And you need to seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance in testing and discernment. If you do that, it doesn’t matter where you go, as long as you’re going in the direction of God’s word. You will be successful, you will be fruitful, and you will be blessed. We’re going to stop here and we’re going to pick this up next time, next week from where we ended up today, which is about halfway through. It’s about where I thought we’d get.

So any, any points? Questions? Comments? Nope? Okay, let’s pray. Father, thank you again for the time of worship. Thank you for giving us the truth. Thank you for showing us the truth. Father, we come to you with broken hearts, all of these tragedies that are happening. But we also come to you with a Joyous heart to know that basically you’re in control. We ask that basically you give those that have lost family members comfort, presence of you, healing power and the blessings that we are going to come out of this. May they be so significant and may they be so profound that we will absolutely know that this was from you.

Father, continue to grow the family, continue to grow our faith. Continue to work with us in becoming sanctified in you. Work on our application of life, our conduct, the natures of our being. Show us exactly what we need to do. Give us the opportunity of ministering one to another, ministering to anyone else in need. And Father, grow our faith in such a way that we can become a fruitful servant for you. Brother. As we go through this week with the explanation point of last week, we seek your guidance as to the things that are going to be unfolded and we ask that you give us peace and understanding as they are rolled out throughout this world.

And Father, give us a great heart, Give us a fearful heart of you. Give us a heart of love for one another and may we ever, ever, ever not leave the presence of your Holy Spirit. Ask all these things in your son’s name. Hey, Jim. Yes, ma’. Am. I have a comment. I’m. I’m on the cell phone on the road, so I couldn’t press on you fast enough. But, you know, on the topic of persecution, we in the Western world don’t even know what persecution is really. Beverly, I don’t know if that’s her last name, but, you know, Trump pardoned her.

She went to prison for praying outside of an abortion clinic. That’s persecution. But, but we really don’t know in our world here what persecution really is. And you know, the underground church in China, they know what persecution is. Iran, the underground churches in Iran, they know. So, you know, when we talk about persecution, you know, my. Again, I don’t know what persecution is. I’ve never really experienced it. I would say that we’re more inconvenienced in the Western world rather than persecuted. But one day we, we probably will be for our faith, you know, if Jesus Terry is coming.

And of course I pray to that end. God help me to be steady and ready and faithful to be able to. Are willing to give my life for you like they are in China and Iran and these other churches around the world. But you know that I just wanted to mention that. And also in the areas of the world where they are persecuted, they see miracles. They, they see limbs grown back, they see the blind see, see the blind see again. They see the dead raised. And so it, you know, it’s just goes back to your teaching about the early church and persecution.

You gotta be kidding me. Some. Some churches really do experience that. And, but, but as far as myself, I look at it as more being inconvenienced, you know, rather than persecution. And we’ll probably get there someday. But you know, I pray for those who do go through persecution and I planned it. Trump pardoned that lady. But anyway, that’s all I all want to say. You know, that, that persecution, you know, there are a couple of things. Add to that. Number one, we can’t be persecuted if we don’t have a church. Think about that. Do we really have a church in the United States? No, no.

Therefore we can’t be persecuted. Right. Persecution comes by. By faith of walking with Christ in one with him as a church. And scriptures. Go ahead. Does not work. Right, right. And when you are doing that, he says you’re going to be persecuted for my sake. And if it’s for my sake, I will provide you the miracles. We don’t get them because we’re not a church. We individualists who have a belief system that’s predicated on a world system that nobody’s taken the time to test. And because of that, as Billy Re says, all we do is feel inconvenienced.

Inconvenienced of what? Being a Christian? No, your time. Your time. We will only see the true blessings of the Lord Jesus Christ when we understand who we are as a church and who Christ is as the head of the church. Those underground churches in China and Iran and used to be Iraq and you know, Pakistan, all, all these, they understand what it is because they have to stand up as the church to go to the underground church. They’re held accountable. We could hardly get off our couch. We’re not moving in the direction of God’s work. We’re sitting at home in the convenience of what we can provide.

And they’re willing to lay down their life for Christ. Yep. And where there is persecution, there is the power of God. Yep. To move forward. To move forward. The kingdom you froze up while ago. I may be saying stuff you already said, but anyway, sorry. As. As Bobby. Okay, get off this.
[tr:tra].