Strong Theology

God, we praise you this morning. You are good to us. You have given us your word.

And this morning, we've taken of communion. You've given us your body and your blood for the forgiveness of sins.

Our hearts are filled with joy. We are filled with thanks. And now you give us this opportunity to listen to you and learn from you.

You are the teacher. You're the master. You're the rabbi. We are disciples who need to be taught, who sit at your feet to listen.

So Lord, speak to us through your word. In Jesus' name, amen. We have been doing a study, as we're doing a building project, on Jesus as the cornerstone, which is a building motif.

Jesus being the chief and cornerstone upon which the building is built.

The first place we looked was Luke chapter 20, verse 17. In Luke 20, 17, we hear an evangelical.

And he then becomes the dividing line. He's the issue. Either you build your life upon the cornerstone, and therefore you can stand.

Or else, says Jesus, you will be crushed by that very stone. Jesus is the cornerstone.

Luke 20, verse 17. The second week, we talked about the cornerstone in terms of the foundation that's built around it.

Ephesians chapter 2, verse 20. We are told there that Jesus is the cornerstone.

But the foundation that surrounds him is the apostles and the prophets. The apostles refers to the

New Testament that's written and entrusted through their writing, through their oversight. We have the very words of the apostles handed down to us.

And the prophets of old, they're long dead. 400 years before Christ came, the last prophet died.

His name was Malachi. And yet, God has preserved for us the writings of Malachi and all of the 39 books of the

Old Testament. So the church is built on the apostles and prophets. The 66 books of scripture is the foundation upon which we stand with Christ as the cornerstone.

Today we come to a third cornerstone passage and we will find it in Acts chapter 4.

We learn from Acts chapter 4 that strong theology is necessary for a thriving church.

You have to have evangelicals to be a strong church, don't you? You've gotta believe in Christ.

You've gotta stand on Christ or else you're building on shifting sand. You have to be biblical to be a strong church.

You have to be built on the apostles and prophets. But third, you have to have strong theology to grow strong as a church.

Strong thinking, strong theology. Our theology is how we think about God, especially who he is and how he involves himself in the world.

When I was in seminary at Dallas Theological, there were two major departments for teaching the

Bible. Now you still had other departments like preaching and you had Greek classes and Hebrew classes, you had missions classes and all kinds of other things.

But the two main Bible departments were the Bible exposition department and the systematic theology department.

You needed about 30 credit hours in each. So what's the difference? We talked about Bible exposition last week.

Bible exposition is going to a particular passage of Scripture and allowing that Scripture to speak to us.

Not reading into it what we wanna see there, but letting that Scripture speak to us. That's how you exposit the

Scripture. You listen to what it says and it tells you what it means. That's Bible exposition.

But systematic theology is a little different. Systematic theology starts with a particular question and it looks to the entirety of the

Scriptures to understand what does God say about that particular question.

For example, the Trinity. If you teach that Jesus is

Father, Son, I'm sorry, that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three persons, one essence, one

God, where do you get that theology from? Well, it comes from a number of different places in the text.

There's Matthew 28, 19 and 20. There's the passage in 1 Corinthians 12 that speaks of the

Father, Son and the Spirit in each of their roles. There's many places that speak to the Trinity. But in order to do theology, you have to take account of all of those places and draw them together to form your systematic theology.

A strong church does this well. A strong church listens to what the whole

Bible says about any particular subject. That's what we're looking at today. Now, the passage that we're drawing from, see, last week

I preached, interestingly enough, I preached a topical sermon about expository preaching, which seems kind of ironic.

Well, today we're going to do an expository sermon on a theological topic.

We're gonna flip the script. We are going to, instead of, I thought after preaching on exposition that we needed to demonstrate that this week.

We need to look into a particular passage and say, what does this passage say? And so we're gonna find that in Acts chapter four, verses five through 31.

It reveals the thrust of it is about the sovereignty of God, but it also reveals the responsibility of man, the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man.

And another concern that comes out of that or kind of the practical theology that drives out of the sovereignty of God in Acts chapter four is the boldness of the

Christian, the confidence of the Christian. Not long ago,

I was praying with some of the other pastors in town. We meet every Wednesday morning and pray together. And Pastor Mark from Fellowship went around the room and said, share with us what you think is your greatest strength that you bring to your church.

What would you guess that all the preachers said? They're preaching, right? They all thought that it was their preaching.

But I actually answered differently. I said, I think the greatest strength that I bring to the church

I pastor is confidence. It's faith in the ability of God.

Confidence, if it's placed in yourself, is an ugly thing. That's called arrogance.

But confidence, if it's placed in the true and living God, is a beautiful thing and a powerful thing.

That's called faith. I think that the Lord has gifted me in the area of faith.

When I was a missionary in Kensington, I had no problem going up to a group of drug dealers and preaching

Christ to them. And it didn't have any fear in my heart to do that. Now, is it because I'm a tough guy?

Okay, you can all see my gangly arms and I'm kind of awkward. It would take one of those guys to take me down.

As soon as I started fighting, I would probably go into a back spasm and just be locked up on the ground. But a whole group of them, it's not even a match.

So it had nothing to do with my physical strength. But I believe that unless God handed me into their hands, they can't touch me.

I fully believe that. And I had no fear walking up to preach the gospel to a group of drug dealers. That confidence came from my theology.

It came from the way I thought about God. But not just that, a second aspect of confidence is the empowerment of the

Holy Spirit. When the Spirit of God comes and fills you, he gives you confidence.

Catch this thrust. We're gonna just read it through and then we'll talk about it, just like the expositors did in Nehemiah chapter eight.

They read it through and then they talked about it. So Acts chapter four, beginning in verse five. Catch some of the main themes.

The sovereignty of God, the responsibility of man, and confidence that comes from having strong theology.

Verse five and following. On the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem.

With Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and all who were of the high priestly family.

And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, by what power or by what name did you do this?

Pause right there. It's the healing of a crippled man. They've healed a crippled man and now they've been thrown in jail for doing that.

Verse eight, then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom

God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well.

This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished and they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition.

But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another saying, what shall we do with these men?

For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and we cannot deny it.

But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.

So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

But Peter and John answered them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge.

For we cannot but speak what we have seen and heard. And when they had further threatened them, they let them go finding no way to punish them because of the people for all were praising

God for what had happened. For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than 40 years old.

When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, sovereign

Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who threw the mouth of our father

David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, why did the Gentiles rage and the people's plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.

For truly in this city, there were gathered together against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed, both

Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

And now Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant,

Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken and they were all filled with the

Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. Calvin Coolidge was not a church -going man, but one

Sunday, he decided to go to the local church and listen to the preacher. When he came home,

Calvin Coolidge's wife asked about the preacher and said, what did you think of it?

He said, it was fine, I guess. Well, what did he preach on? Sin. What did he say about sin?

I think he was against it. That was the summary of Calvin Coolidge talking about the preacher.

Sometimes in sermons, it seems like all we hear is morality. Do this, don't do that.

Don't sin. Now go home. My error tends to be in the opposite direction.

I asked somebody for a little bit of feedback on my preaching and they encouraged me, but they also said, don't forget to put some of the cookies on the bottom shelf.

My tendency is to put the cookies, to put the meat, actually, on the top shelf, to speak about the word of God and to present so much, it's actually hard to digest.

This amount of scripture, first of all, in volume, but also in the depth of what is being taught, runs the risk of being too much to handle.

So my desire this morning is to take as much of it as I can and put it on the bottom shelf. And I'll probably err in doing that.

I'll do my best, it's a lot. But what I want to encourage you to do is to just step back from your life and say, okay,

I've been told not to sin. How's that working for me? I've been told to be confident and go witness to people.

Am I doing it? I've been told not to panic when something goes wrong and not to lose my head, not to get angry.

How am I doing in that department? And I would like to say to you that how you think about God, your theology has everything to do with how you behave.

It's very practical. How you think about God, if you understand what the apostles understood, there's gold here.

And that's why I want to put it out there. I want to preach this, but there's so much.

Sometimes I just throw too much out and the danger is you're drinking from a fire hose. Don't panic.

Cherish this text and you need to go back and read it and reread it and reread it and let it sink in.

We only have a short amount of time together on a Sunday morning, but you have all week to go read it again and to take the notes and study it and think about it.

See, moralizing won't change your life. God will change your life.

And how you think about God, changing your theology has practical implications on how you live, the boldness that you have in witnessing and how you stand up when a trial hits you.

Do you crumble or do you stand strong with confidence? So in Acts four, verse five, when you read this list of names, each one sounds like danger.

Why? These are the people that just crucified Jesus a couple months ago. In verse five, the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem.

That means all the bigwigs, some of them who might've been down in Jericho where the Sanhedrin would meet, all of those who lived in Jerusalem, they gathered together.

In other words, this is a big deal. They're coming together to do something.

They have a real problem with Peter and John standing in the temple preaching Jesus. And so when you hear this list of names,

Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, think danger, danger, danger, and danger.

And all who are of the high priestly family, these are dangerous dudes. They killed

Jesus, they murdered him. Verse seven, when they had set them in the midst, they inquired by what power or by what name did you do this?

So step into their shoes. Will you identify with Jesus in that moment?

Because these are the enemies of Jesus. And if they're capable of killing

Jesus, they sure don't mind killing you. You made no claim to be

Messiah. You don't have the followers that Jesus had. If you speak up here, you very well could lose your life.

Where does confidence come from? Let's keep reading, verse eight and following. Then Peter, filled with the

Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the people and elders, pause there, the filling of the

Holy Spirit. Right theology is the starting point. But unless you have the empowerment of God himself by his spirit, your confidence will wane.

Have you been struggling to have confidence in God? Even as I'm preaching, ask him to fill you with the

Holy Spirit. Confidence, empowerment comes by the spiritual activity of God, his spirit filling an ordinary vessel.

In fact, a broken jar of clay. We have this all -surpassing power to show that it comes from God and not from us.

We're broken jars of clay. And yet that treasure lives inside of us.

We need the Holy Spirit to fill us, to give us power, to empower our words and our life.

Verse nine, Peter then cleverly brings some perspective to the undertaking.

If we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed?

Rulers of Israel, let's put this in perspective. We're not on trial here today for murder.

We didn't steal anything. We're here because of this man who is healed.

If you're examining us today because of this healed man, we'll give you our answer. In other words, what

Peter and John do here is they put it in perspective. They take a step back because it seems that the leaders of Israel are caught up in a moment.

They're controlled by their anxieties, by their fears. And what they need to do is step back and get a new perspective on what they're seeing.

Isn't that true of your life? When you're caught up in the moment, when something seems huge in your brain, maybe what you need to do is step back and look at it from a heavenly perspective.

See it again for what it really is. Verse 10 now, and 10 to 12 is the core of our teaching today.

It's a cornerstone passage in verse 11. But in this, you'll see the three things we're talking about today.

The sovereignty of God, the responsibility of man, and the confidence that comes from right theology.

Verse 10, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom

God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

That is the bold preaching of the gospel. That is confident preaching of Jesus Christ.

That's evangelism. That's lifting up Christ as the only way of salvation. That's the first thing you see.

They preach the name. The preaching of the name that is above every name. The name at which every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is

Lord. They preach the name. But secondly, they talk about the sovereignty of God.

Notice, yes, mankind had their plans, but God raised him up.

Verse 10, you crucified whom God raised from the dead.

This is the activity of God who has a plan, who's sovereign over these things, in order that Jesus would be the cornerstone.

Look at verse 11. Yes, he's rejected by you, the builders, but he has become the cornerstone.

So you have the responsibility of man. Notice that, by you. You did it.

You crucified, verse 10. Verse 11, rejected by you, the responsibility of man.

But the sovereignty of God is over. Do you see that stress that Luke is sharing with us here?

The one rejected by you is the one that God has raised up. This is theology, but this will change your life.

If you understand what this is saying, God is sovereign even over this, the most wicked thing that's ever happened, the most sinful thing that's ever happened.

God raised him up. God made him the cornerstone of the church. Verse 13 and following.

But when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished and they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

Where did Peter and John get this? They were taught. They had been with Jesus for three years with the rabbi, with the teacher.

They were the disciples, meaning they had been students of Jesus for three years.

Their thinking was built upon the teaching of Jesus Christ.

Their theology had been formed by him, but more than that, the very spirit of Jesus now was filling them.

They had been with Jesus and they are now inspired or filled more than inspiration. They actually have the person of the

Holy Spirit living inside of them. Verse 13, they had been with Jesus.

Now, notice in 14 to 18, we have the leaders of Israel and their minds are not thinking right.

They don't have right theology, so they're baffled and they do things that are not according to the will of God.

They're floundering, verses 14 to 18. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition.

But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, saying, what shall we do with these men?

For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and we cannot deny it.

And here's their scheming, their own human reasoning. But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.

So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

But Peter and John, verse 19, answered them. Notice the back and forth. You get a contrast from the text.

You have the leaders of Israel who operate by their own will, their own thinking, and make up their own plans.

And you have Peter and John who are filled with the Holy Spirit who think right because they've been with Jesus. Now in verse 19,

Peter and John, notice the contrast. Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge.

In other words, you're responsible before God for what you decide. But as for us, we stand before God, verse 21,

I'm sorry, verse 20, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.

Here's the sovereignty of God in verse 21. And when they had further threatened them, they let them go.

Do you get that? The same people that had Jesus crucified, not only, and Jesus was just silent on the trial, wasn't he?

Don't you know we have the power to either crucify you or let you go? And Jesus didn't even answer them.

He's like a silent lamb going to the slaughter. These guys aren't silent. These guys are confidently saying, you crucified him.

God raised him up, he's the Lord. You tell us we're not gonna preach. We tell you we are gonna preach.

Where is this headed? This is headed to death. These men don't take that kind of answer kindly.

The expectation here is they're gonna die. The very least, they're going back to jail till they can figure out a plan.

Verse 21. But the apostles, Peter and John, they defy these men to their face.

That confidence. Verse 21, they let them go.

Here is the sovereignty of God. That nothing which happens to you is outside of his control, including the sins of men.

Yes, these men had murderous intentions. But their will was not so free that they could just do what they wanted.

They were bound by their own nature, their own self -preservation. Their desire to please the people.

That's what bound them. Notice the circumstances. In verse 22, the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than 40 years old.

Verse 21, all the people knew it. They were praising God for this miracle. So if they do something to Peter and John, the public opinion of the people of Israel will turn against the leaders.

And so the leaders are hamstrung. They can't do what they wanna do. Remember when

Jesus first began to preach in his hometown? The people hated it so much, they took him up on top of a cliff, and they desired to throw him off.

That was their will. They were planning on doing it. They tried to do it. But the text in Luke tells us, but Jesus walked right through their midst.

God has control, even over the sins of men. What can man do to you?

Nothing, apart from God's sovereign plan. It gets explicit now.

It's already been implicit in how Luke plays the language between the responsibility of man and the sovereignty of God, and the confidence that we see coming through because they trust this, but now they're gonna say it themselves when they get back with their own.

23 and following, when they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.

And when they heard it, they lifted their voices to God and said, sovereign

Lord, sovereign Lord, sovereign Lord, Lord, master, who is king, who is sovereign, who has control of everything, who's not out of control, even in the slightest, you are sovereign.

How do we know you're sovereign? You made everything. Go to the

Franklin Institute and watch a beautiful planet, or see that planetarium, and see how big this universe is.

And our galaxy, the Milky Way, of which we're just circling one little star, the sun.

And we're told that the God we serve spoke that into existence. What is hard for him to do in our little lives here on Earth?

What are the limits on a God who can speak the world into existence? In prayer, the disciples confess this, sovereign

Lord who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them. He's the creator, he has control.

He's governing this world. Verse 25 and 26, who through the mouth of our father

David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit. Why did the Gentiles rage? And the people's plot in vain.

The sinful plotting is vanity. They can't do anything unless God allows it. The kings of the

Earth set themselves and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.

Now verse 27 and 28, I was just, I looked up a teaching by John Piper last night.

I said, I wonder what John Piper says about Acts 4, 27 and 28. And it just so happened, just so happened, in the sovereignty of God that he just did a look in the book teaching on this last week.

After my notes were done and submitted to Dave and printed, and what he says is precisely what

I'm trying to teach here. So I encourage you, if you want a little bit more meat, and if it feels like you're drinking out of a fire hose, go to Desiring God, look at the book.

Acts 4, 27 and 28. These verses, John Piper says, are two of the most important verses in the

Bible. Because this will change how you think about God. And if you think differently about God, you'll think differently about your problem.

Verse 27, for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed, both

Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel. Pause right there.

The responsibility of men. Operating according to their creaturely will. They're made in the image of God.

They have a will, they can make choices. But they're also bound in sin, they're sinful.

And they operate according to their nature and their desire. But here you have four groups.

Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Jews and the Gentiles. All making their own willful choices.

And think about that, you can go back to Luke 23 and read what each one did. Herod, what did he do?

He mocked. That's 2311. Luke 23, you can mark these down if you're taking notes.

He mocked. You have Pilate in 23, 24 and 25.

He delivers Jesus to be crucified. The Gentiles in verses 36 to 37, they mocked and spit and beat and killed.

In Luke 23, 21, you have the Jews. And they yell, crucify, crucify.

Here's what I'm trying to say. In verse 27, you have the most sinful, wicked thing that has ever happened in the history of the world.

The most, it is the torture and mockery and killing of the precious lamb of God.

The son of the living God treated with this kind of contempt. Verse 27, by the willful choices of men.

But now look at verse 28. To do whatever your hand,

God's hand, and your plan, God's plan, had predestined to take place.

Thus sayeth the Lord. The word of the living God. God, his hand, which speaks to his power, his present activity, his plan, which speaks to his eternal wisdom, his predestination, which is pre the destination.

Before the thing happens, before it unfolds in real time, in the history of the world, he has planned it.

And that includes the most wicked, sinful things that have ever been done.

That is the teaching, and here's a dirty little word. I'm just gonna say it anyway. Calvinism.

It's what it teaches. The idea here is that God is sovereign over all. He has a plan, he has a hand that's active, and he's not only setting the world into motion, he is governing even the sparrow falling.

He has numbered even the hairs on your head, and not one of them falls apart from this. Couple caveats.

The responsibility for sin is with men. The scripture does not present him as the author of sin.

God is not the author of sin. He has a plan, but the scriptures hold the sinner, the secondary cause, responsible.

God's plan, his decree, is greater than the sinful activities of men.

And the scripture does not present God as a sinner. It does present

God having two wills. One will is his decree, his secret counsel, his plan from the beginning of time.

Notice, when Jesus was crucified here, this is not God's plan B. This was predestined to take place.

He has a secret will, but follow this. He also has a revealed will. Deuteronomy 29, 29, the secret things belong to the

Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever. We live by the revealed will of God.

We don't know the secret will of God. His decree of what is going to happen is his.

We live by the revealed will of God. That's his commandments. That means that when these men, the four groups, did what they did, they were breaking the commandments of God, thou shalt not murder.

Certainly, it's commanded that you not spit on the Messiah. This is the revealed will of God, the commandments of God.

But we're taught here that God also has a decree. The scriptures in verse 28 teach us that he predestines whatever your hand and your plan to take place.

So in closing, we're gonna get relevant. We're gonna get practical again in 29 to 31. And now,

Lord, so this is their prayer. These are the disciples praying this way. They think this way. They think of him as sovereign.

They think of him as creator, governor, involved. They think of him as predestiner whose hand is active and powerfully doing these things.

They think of him as the one with a plan. And now they say, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.

That's been a theme running throughout, hasn't it? The Pharisees and the Sadducees, they noticed the boldness.

Verse 30, while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant

Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken and they were all filled with the

Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. They prayed for more boldness.

The spiritual power of the Holy Spirit to give them words to say and to give them the boldness to start conversations, to preach the gospel.

Confidence in God comes from a right theology that understands that he is in control so you have nothing to fear.

Man can do nothing to you apart from what God allows. Confidence in God, when you understand his decree, when you understand that he is secretly the mover behind this world, you have nothing to fear.

And when something goes wrong in your life and you feel like everything's unraveling, you understand that it's

God who's giving you these circumstances. He has a purpose for it.

There's a reason for it. Someone came by my office on Monday who I hadn't seen for 17 years, popped into Mount Laurel on a business trip.

And he spoke a word of encouragement to me to the very point of my fear. There's an area in my life that I have fear about.

And he said, even God has a plan for that. Even fear has a purpose, he said, because it will drive a fearful person straight to God.

And in eternity, you'll understand that there was a reason for this.

When this friend spoke that to me, it was just like a weight lifting off my shoulders. I thought, yeah, yeah,

God has a purpose even in that. One of the most painful things. Whatever it is that you're struggling with,

God has a purpose and a plan. It's part of his plan and his decree. And he will work it together to the good of those who love him,

Romans 8 .28. And you need this filling of the spirit to be bold in this life.

Otherwise, you're gonna cower in shame and in fear. You're gonna be overwhelmed by the weight of the world.

I encourage you to continue to study this. I don't expect you to just understand everything that I've said and take it and think, okay, that's all there is to it.

No, I expect you to read other passages about this. And I've listed them for you in your notes. Ephesians one and Romans nine and John chapter six.

But not only that, also look at what some say contradict this position.

What does 2 Peter 3 .9 say? The eye is not willing that any should perish. Follow the pronouns and say, who is he speaking of there?

What is the context? Who is the you in that text? 1

Timothy 2 .4, we're speaking about kinds of people. See, systematic theology means you harmonize all the texts of scripture.

Matthew 23 .37, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I wanted to gather you.

But he doesn't say you, he says your children. What does Matthew 23 .37

say? Fire hose, sorry, I'm getting going here. But listen, take the notes and harmonize the scripture to arrive at a biblical systematic theology.

And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Let's pray. So Father God, we thank you for your word.

We are just mere students of your word. We're disciples and we're doing the best that we can.

And there is room for differences as long as we humbly come before your word and say,

Lord, teach me. I am your student, not your teacher. Lord, thank you for Acts chapter four and the theology that it presents of a strong God.

A God who is so strong we have nothing to fear. To have a predestined plan that your hand is powerfully active around us.

God, teach us these things. Pray that you grow us up in theology.

Make us stronger and stronger in your word. God, we thank you for this church.

We also pray for blessing upon the fellowship that we have as we have a barbecue together out in the field.

Let that koinonia be sweet and let it be built on you. Help us to talk about you and your word, who you are.