The Church: God’s Divine Construction Project, Part 4 (Romans 12:3-10; Acts 10:34-43)

Good morning everyone. Good to see each one today. We are going to continue in our study of the church.

Come around third base and cross home plate here this morning. The church, God's divine construction project.

And if you have not been here and you need a set of notes, there are still some out on the table out in the foyer out there, so help yourself to those if you need a set of notes.

And we're going to continue in our look at the four purposes of the church. As you remember, we saw the foundation of the church early on.

That is Jesus Christ. And then as he said, I will build my church, he began to do that, as he said, by empowering his followers.

We looked through the book of Acts, a very quick trip through the book of Acts as we saw the superstructure of the church began to be built.

And then last week we began to look at the four purposes of the church. And basically we're answering the question, then what is the church supposed to do?

And so whether you call it the purposes of the church or even the duties of the church, we're talking about what is the church supposed to do.

And last week we looked at worship and from Romans chapter 12, which we're going to go back to here this morning, and that it all starts with giving glory to God.

We saw how Paul started out with that great doxology at the very end of Romans chapter 11, and then he moved right into chapter 12 to then say what the church is supposed to be and do.

First and foremost is worship, and we saw that worship must glorify God alone and so on.

And then we moved through verse 2 and the transformation that has to take place.

Core purpose number one, worship, and then number two, transformation. And then today we're going to look at the remaining two purposes, fellowship and witness.

And before we do, let's commit our time to our Lord in prayer. Father, thank

You for this opportunity that we have to open Your Word, to be taught by Your Spirit, and we know it is by Your grace, and we just pray,

Father, that You would be our teacher today, that You would show us what You would have us be and do, and we pray that You would be glorified in all things.

In Christ's name, amen. If you have your Bibles open to Romans chapter 12, we're just going to continue to move right through with this third purpose, fellowship, and then we're going to go to Acts chapter 10 to look at witness.

But we're going to see, hopefully, if I do my job correctly, the connections that are here in the text.

And we see here Paul wanting to move the church through a progression of principles here.

And really, we need to see from this fellowship aspect of purpose, the connections, the continuity.

And so that's one of the things we're going to stress this morning. But Paul says, and I'm just going to start with Romans 12, so we can just see how it flows through.

He says, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

And we mentioned last time with our transformation and the very interesting word that we have transliterated into our language, metamorphosis, that the mind is the focal point, the mind, the mind, the mind.

And he just carries right on through with us into verse 3. And we see he says, for by the grace given to me,

I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

Again, he's just banging away on this principle of the mind, the mind, the mind. Think, think, think, sober judgment.

What we want to see here, and this connects us right back to last week's study, that Christian fellowship is a work of the

Holy Spirit who begins with the proclamation of the gospel, or the word of God, by which he generates personal salvation and then produces renewal of the mind through the word of God.

That's verses 2 and 3. And then in doing this, we see in verse 4 and 5, he creates unity within the body of Christ.

And he goes right to it in verse 4. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function.

So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

And there you see one of the early one another's of the New Testament. We can go back behind this, which we're going to do, but the proclamation of the gospel, the word of God, generates personal salvation, produces renewal of the mind, creates unity within the body, and then 6 through 13, it results in love for one another.

He says, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.

If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good.

And the way you know the difference between what is evil and what is good is because your mind is being renewed on the word of God, and you have the discernment to tell the difference.

Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope.

Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints.

Kind of put a little highlight on that in your mind. And seek to show hospitality.

What you can clearly see here from this progression, and of course Paul starts with the fact that he's addressing brothers in Christ.

He's just given them 11 chapters of doctrine as far as how to get saved, how to be justified before God, and then he moves right into what we are to do as a church.

Christian fellowship is a work of the Holy Spirit who begins with the proclamation of the gospel, the word of God.

He generates personal salvation through the word, and that produces renewal of the mind, and you might just mark down there humility, because humility produces unity within the body, which results in love for one another.

What we're going to do here real quick, we're going to do a little, used to be called a sword drill, okay?

So loosen up your fingers, get your Bible ready. We're going to see other passages that validate this progression, and what really is key here is to see the connections.

See the absolute necessary connection and progression, and that is a work of the

Holy Spirit. Starts with salvation and ends with love. Classic, historic liberalism takes love, focuses on it, but it severs it from everything else.

As you know, you can recognize it, whether it's several centuries old liberalism, used to be called socinianism, or whether it was the liberalism that Spurgeon dealt with called modernism, or coming into the 20th century, it was just called liberalism, or whether it's late 20th century, early 21st century liberalism of various kinds, it does that very same thing.

You can just mark it down. It isolates love, focuses on love, talks a lot about love.

You hear it all the time, love, love, love, it's all about love. Could even go back to, let's say the

Beatles, maybe John Lennon, you know? All you need is love, all you need is love, love is all you need, love is all you need, love is all you need.

It's like a mantra, right? But it is always isolated, separated from the

Spirit's work through the Word of God, justification, salvation, and so on. Little anecdotal story,

I was, just happened to be out working in my garden this week, had my little radio on. Listen, I heard an advertisement, and it was an advertisement, and the little interview was with Carlos Santana, right?

The legendary guitarist, and apparently he's, I don't know, maybe going to be touring again, they were just asking him about his music.

He went right to, it's all about love, there's only one thing that counts, and that's love. My music is about love, love, love, love, love, okay?

I wasn't surprised, I thought, there you go, bingo. It is a mantra, but it's separated always from the rest of what you see here in the text of God's Word.

Let's go to John chapter 17. John chapter 17, the high priestly prayer of Jesus Christ.

Now, there's much that we could say about this. This, as you know, John 17 and even the whole

Upper Room Discourse is a very, very deep well, but what we want to see in this very brief walk through John 17, this part of it, is this very same pattern.

Jesus taught this. In fact, Jesus prayed for this. This is why this is guaranteed, because he gets what he prays for, right?

Always. So look at John chapter 17. The Lord is praying for his disciples, and in verse 14 of 17, he says, praying to his

Father, I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. So we go from the Word of God, and these men are truly saved, and then he prays that they be sanctified, renewing of the mind through the

Word of God, and then he moves into unity. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world, and for their sake,

I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask for these only, but for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you,

Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one.

I in them, and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me, and love them even as you loved me.

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.

I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."

It's all right there. Word of God, sanctification, renewing of the mind, producing humility, unity, and love among the brethren.

Now look at Acts chapter 2. We did a fly -on trip through the book of Acts when we first looked at it.

We're going to go back to Acts chapter 2, and very quickly see if we can't spot this same progression in Acts chapter 2.

Spirit empowers the church. Peter is preaching the word of God, and when we get down to verse 36 and following, verse 37, when they heard this, that is the gospel, he's preaching about Christ, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter, the rest of the apostles, brothers what shall we do?

Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the

Holy Spirit. And then down in verse 41, so those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

Okay, see word of God is preached, regeneration takes place, first evidence of regeneration, first obedience that people do is be baptized.

Now look what they did. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, or doctrine, and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers, and all came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles, and all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

What happened? Word of God is preached, regeneration takes place, there is a renewing of the mind, they had the apostles right there, they were being taught apostolic doctrine, that produced unity and humility, and then what?

Needs in the church were met, fellowship through the outreach, distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

By the way, not a text you can use to try to establish some kind of Christian socialism, it's not there.

They met needs, needs within the body were met. Acts chapter four, the church is moving out, they're beginning to preach more publicly,

Peter and John are hauled before the Jewish council and rebuked for preaching and teaching, then they're let go, and in chapter four, verse 31, it says, when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, it's kind of a little mini

Pentecost here, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul. Word of God preached, regeneration takes place, unity, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.

And with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold, and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

Exact same progression, you can just kind of check off all the different parts of it there. How about chapter 11?

The church moves out into the Gentile world, up in Antioch, north of Jerusalem.

It became kind of a focal point for the outreach to the Gentile world. The missionaries went out, and then they came back in, and were bearing testimony.

And in chapter 11, verse 19, it says, now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, and Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews.

But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the

Hellenists also, these are Greek -speaking Gentiles, preaching the

Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the

Lord. Word of God preached, regeneration. The report of this came through the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent

Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the

Lord with steadfast purpose. For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a great many people were added to the

Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul.

How interesting. He goes to find the apostle Paul. Why didn't he just stay there and minister to these people? Well, Paul, number one, was an apostle.

It was really important for this to have apostolic documentation or certification, but also

Paul was a master teacher, right? You want to have somebody come in and teach this situation to the

Gentiles, you go get the person that was commissioned to go to the Gentiles. And when he found him, he brought him to Antioch.

For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people, renewing their minds.

And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. Well, now if we're going to complete our little cycle here, we need to have some sort of need be met, right?

Well, it's right here. Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them named

Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine all over the world. And this took place in the days of Claudius.

So the disciples determined, everyone according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea, and they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

This predominantly Gentile group of Christians, all the way up there in Antioch, took up a collection, sent it down south to the

Jewish church down in Judea. They didn't distribute it locally to people who were unsaved.

They ministered inside the church to the church, even though there was a general famine taking place.

Once again, you see the exact same order. Christian fellowship is a work of the

Spirit, proclamation of the gospel, salvation, renewal of the mind, humility, and then unity within the body, which results in love, outreach, and meeting the needs within the church.

Chapter 16 of Acts. There's quite a few here. Some of them have different, a little different order of things perhaps, but let's look at chapter 16.

Remember Paul goes to, he's on his missionary journey, winds up in Philippi, okay?

And Luke says in verse 13 of chapter 16, on the

Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods who was a worshiper of God.

She is a, she's not a Christian. She is what they would call a God -fearer. This would have been a

Gentile convert to Judaism, and they had very limited access to, as you know, in the temple there was the court of the

Gentiles, so they were still considered separate even within Judaism, but that's what she was.

Now here's an amazing statement. I always love this little verse. Absolute sovereignty of God in salvation.

The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. So you have the preaching of Paul, the teaching of the gospel.

You have regeneration by the power of the Holy Spirit, and maybe you would expect at some point to be there to be some kind of a fellowship on the part of this woman.

Well, and after she was baptized and her household as well, she urged us saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the

Lord, come to my house and stay, and she prevailed upon us. There it is.

Exact same, somewhat of a different format, but the exact same order of things takes place there.

It winds up with love for one another. What did she have? She had her house, and she just opened it up. How about the

Philippian jailer, right? Over in verse 28 and so on, you know,

Paul and Silas were arrested. There was a great big riot, and they were arrested and beaten and put in stocks, and in the middle of night there was an earthquake, and the jail busted open, and all of the prisoners took off.

This jailer thinks he's in a world of hurt because he let the prisoners escape, and so he says in verse 30,

Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.

Word of God. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house, and he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, he and his family.

Then he brought them into his house and set food before them, and he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.

A little shorter form there, format, but you can see, Word of God preached, regeneration, come to my house, fellowship, love for one another.

You can look for yourselves at Ephesians chapter 4, read through some time

Ephesians chapter 4, and then the first couple of verses of chapter 5, you'll see Paul walk you right through this same sequence of events.

Chapter 4 of Ephesians, he really hammers away on unity, as you know, one Lord, one spirit, one, one, one, but he winds up with the same thing, talking about love.

And I just want to look at a couple more here. These are sort of the short form of this. Look at Colossians chapter 1,

Colossians chapter 1, and in Paul's salutation to the

Colossian Christians, Colossians 1, starting in verse 3, we always thank

God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints.

There's the short form. Paul, essentially there, he's using a figure of speech called a merism, where you take a hold of the first and the last, like Jesus said,

I am the Alpha and the Omega. He used the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, and basically he's saying,

I'm not just first and last, but everything in between. It's kind of an inclusio, it's called. But what does he do?

He goes after the very first thing, your faith. And it's almost as if somebody said, hey

Paul, how do you know they have faith in Jesus? Well, the love that you have for all the saints, and he's thanking

God for that. And there, by taking those two bookends of this process, he's basically including everything else.

How about, you can jot down 2 Thessalonians 1 .3, that's another one. They're all through scripture, but I just want to look at one more, because this one

I find kind of fascinating. 1 Timothy chapter 1. As you know,

Paul sent Timothy back to Ephesus to set right things there, and to do ministry there.

And in verse 3 of chapter 1, he says, As I urged you when

I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus, so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, there were false teachers there teaching false doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.

Now verse 5, the aim of our charge, okay, here's what I'm looking for Timothy, here's what

I want to see. The aim of our charge is love. Well, there you go.

Love, love, separated from truth so that you can define it however you want?

No. What love is Paul looking for? The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

What is that? Salvation, right? So Paul simply reverses the order here.

The end result that I'm looking for is love, ultimately. I want to see love within the fellowship. I want to see the outreach within the fellowship.

But I'm not looking for love defined by the world or defined by individuals. It has to be a work of the

Spirit of God if it's going to be legitimate love. And so he just simply reverses the order, but he says it has to be the love that issues out of a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Simply using the two elements, again, the two bookends, he just sort of reverses them. So Christian fellowship is a work of the

Holy Spirit who begins with the proclamation of the gospel, the Word of God, by which he generates personal salvation, and then he produces renewal of the mind, just like Paul said.

And in that same verse, Paul says, don't be high -minded. The word literally means high -minded. So there has to be humility.

Humility creates unity within the body, which results in love for one another.

And then he mentions in that passage several one -anothers, but then you could do a study of the one -anothers throughout the

New Testament, and there's a lot of them, and they tell you how to carry this out. So I thought

I would just pause here real quick and see if you have any questions or comments.

Okay, let's look at core purpose number four, witness. And, by the way, as we'll see, this is very much connected to what we've just seen, very much connected.

Let's start with John chapter 13. We're back up to the upper room, Jesus' own teaching, and he was trying to ground his disciples in some basic, fundamental truths.

You know, the next day he was going to the cross, he was going to depart from them, at least temporarily.

He wants to ground them in what the most important things are and what they should put top priority.

In chapter 13, as you know, that's the chapter where he washes their feet, gives them that amazing audio -visual example of servanthood, and then he carries on that teaching.

But down in verse 34 of chapter 13, he says, a new commandment

I give you that you love one another, right? And he goes right to the end that he's looking for.

Same thing we saw Paul doing in Romans chapter 12. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

Now, there's a lot we could talk about with this verse. It's an incredible verse. But one of the amazing things is, to me, it's so counterintuitive to how the define love, right?

Now, if you were to ask the basic person out in the world, man on the street interview, finish this sentence.

Jesus said, all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for, they would say them, right?

Doesn't that make sense? People will know you're a Christian if you love them. That's what the world would say.

But that's not what Jesus said. Now, does that mean we don't love people? No, we do. But that's not what he says.

The greatest testimony of the church, above anything else, is the internal working and ministry of the church.

Jesus says so. All men. And I think there he's really saying all kinds of men because the church will be made up of Jew and Gentile.

The Jews are going to look at that and say, how can you Jewish people fellowship with these Gentiles in your churches?

And they're going to say, well, they're my brothers and sisters in Christ. I have a transcendent relationship now that goes above any kind of ethnic or social or cultural kind of relationship.

But that is counterintuitive to what the world would say. It's also counterintuitive to what a lot of the church says nowadays.

Church, great bigger quotes, right? All men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

Well, let's look at the witness of the church from Acts chapter 10. Back to the book of Acts, Acts chapter 10.

This is where Peter really comes to a realization that God wants to save Gentiles.

He wants to save Gentiles. And we know that there's a series of visions.

Cornelius, he's a centurion, is what was known as the Italian cohort in chapter 10 verse 1, a devout man who feared

God. So like Lydia, he's a God -fearer. He is a Gentile convert to Judaism.

All right? He gets a vision of telling him to send people to go find this man named

Peter. Peter at the same time is getting a vision of the food coming down on the sheet.

You remember that story? And basically the bottom line to that is Peter, of course, he says,

I'm not going to eat any of this by no means, Lord, down in verse 14, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.

Right? And this tremendous verse, chapter 10 verse 15 could be a theme verse for the book of Acts.

The voice came to him again a second time. What God has made clean, do not call common. Okay? Very critical verse.

What God has made clean, do not call common. And it happens three times and Peter finally gets it, you know.

Then he goes and he visits Cornelius in his house. Remember, Cornelius to Peter would have been an unclean vessel, an unclean person.

To a Jew, a Gentile, would have been a filthy, filthy person. Ceremonially unclean.

They wouldn't have had anything to do with him. They wouldn't have, let alone come into their house, touch them or anything else.

But he does because of this vision. And so down in verse 26.

Well, let's just say verse 28. He goes to the house of Cornelius. He goes into the house and there are people there.

And he said to them in verse 28, you yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation.

But God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.

I want you to see a very important thing that happened in Peter's thinking here. There's a progression here. Remember what he was told earlier?

What God has called clean, don't call it unclean. But he progresses from the what, you know, the food, to who, any person, common or unclean.

And that's what God wants to do with him. The food issue is kind of irrelevant.

What he's really doing, he's moving him in his thinking to see that God is moving the gospel from Jew to Gentile.

Critical, critical theme all through the book of Acts, all through the New Testament. And he says, so when

I was sent for, I came without objection. I asked then why you sent for me? Cornelius relates the vision that he had.

And then down in 34, Peter opens his mouth and said, truly

I understand that God shows no partiality. So the witness of the church, and we see here

Peter spending several verses proclaiming Christ. The first thing the church is to do is to proclaim

Christ, tell people about Jesus. And he does exactly that. He opens his mouth and said, truly

I understand that God shows no partiality. But in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he is

Lord of all, not just Jews, Lord of Gentiles as well. You yourselves know what happened throughout all

Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the

Holy Spirit. He obviously is approved by God, so he is who he says he is, and with power.

He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. I think the all there also includes

Gentiles. Where is he doing this? He's doing this in Galilee. Remember the nickname of Galilee? Galilee of the

Gentiles? Personally, I think one of the main reasons Jesus was crucified was because of his outreach to Gentiles.

The Jewish hierarchy couldn't handle that. He was healing

Gentiles and other people that would have been considered unclean and despised by the Jews.

And then Peter says, and we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.

They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear not to all the people, but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses.

By the way, that is a requirement to be an apostle, a true apostle, okay?

Just you want to file that away in case you hear or read of someone claiming to be an apostle today. Wrong.

All charlatans, all con artists, all liars, because they were not witnesses personally of the resurrected

Christ. Just a little footnote there. Verse 42, and he commanded us.

So here we have the Messiah is the topic of our witness. And all of those things, he preached on his life, his death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension, and then he will mention his future return in judgment.

And then he commanded, that's the mandate. Who did he command? The messengers, us.

He commanded us. He commanded us to do what?

To preach. To preach to who? To the people. How are we supposed to carry out this mandate?

Well, we just simply tell people what God says, right? It's as simple as that. Preaching can be formal preaching.

Preaching can be over the backyard fence. Preaching can be to your children, gather around you in your living room.

Just tell people what God says. Tell them about Jesus. And to who? To the masses, to the people, to the people, wherever and however we can do it.

He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.

To him, all the prophets bear witness. So he anchors this back in the Old Testament. This is nothing new.

This is fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. And what does he say? What's the message?

To everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.

That's what it means to be a witness. Now look what happens here. Very interesting. While Peter was still saying these things, the

Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed.

Why is it important that they be there? Because these are Jewish Christians who are witnessing now the movement of the gospel from Jew to Gentile.

How did they know that the Spirit of God was saving these people? Well, the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the

Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. How do you know? Verse 46, for they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling

God. When a Jew looked at a Gentile, again, they saw a filthy vessel.

Ceremony unclean. It wouldn't have anything to do with them. But now the gospel is preached.

And what do they witness? They see the same exact phenomenon that took place on the day of Pentecost.

The speaking in languages they hadn't learned. And when the Gentiles did that, they just simply reasoned backwards to the conclusion.

They heard the same thing as taking place that took place when the Spirit of God filled and empowered us on the day of Pentecost.

The Gentiles are doing that. They would say, well no, well that means the Spirit of God is in them.

And the first reaction would have been, no, no, no, no, no, no. Those are filthy vessels. The Holy Spirit would never enter into a filthy

Gentile vessel unless he first cleansed them.

Gentiles are saved. And it's just that simple. If you were thinking we wouldn't get around to talking about tongues, you know, in our little study here through the book of Acts, there it is.

And that's what it was for. It simply validated the movement of the gospel from Jew to Gentile.

That's their conclusion. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling

God. Then Peter declared, can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the

Holy Spirit just as we have? They made that one -to -one connection. This is what happened to us on the day of Pentecost.

Therefore, God is in them and he is cleansing them. He's saving these

Gentiles. And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

Oh, by the way, remember our little progression of events up there in fellowship?

Then they, the Gentiles, asked him, Peter, to remain for some days.

A few days before, Peter could hardly stand walking into their house, you know. He was really hinky about that.

But now, what happens? Fellowship. And there's the same exact progression of salvation producing fellowship.

So, the church is to witness. And that witness tells all men that we are disciples of Jesus Christ.

How? When we have love for one another within the church. Involves telling them about the

Messiah. We're commanded to do it. We are the messengers. And how do we do it?

We preach or proclaim or tell people. And we tell everyone to the people.

And we preach about the forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ. And that produces fellowship.

Okay? Do you have any thoughts or comments? And, um, this seismic change cannot be overstated.

Exactly. And then, you know, in my own personal belief, what the

Holy Spirit can do, you know. Yeah. And it took the Holy Spirit. It also took three times the sheet, you know.

I mean, Peter had to kind of get a little. But he did. He saw. He saw. If God says it's clean, it's clean.

And then he just transferred that right to the people. No person is unclean. Peter? She basically was commenting about how the shift in Peter's thinking.

And how it's obvious that it was a work of the Spirit to move him to actually reach out to the

Gentiles in light of his deep -seated, lifelong animosity.

And look at the history of Israel. Overrun by Gentile powers all through their history.

The Babylonians, Assyrians, Babylonians, you know, Medo -Persians, Greeks, Romans, standing on the street corner at that point in time, probably here and there were

Roman soldiers, right? Gentiles. And yet, this outreach is going out to the

Gentiles. Any other questions or comments that you might have? Well, down at the bottom of page six is,

I think, a really great statement from 1 John, where he really captures both what it means to be a witness and also speaks of the fellowship that we have.

He says, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life.

The life was made manifest, and we have seen it and testified to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the

Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us.

And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be made complete.

Amen? Fellowship and witness right there in one big verse. Well, let's pray.

Father, thank You for our time in Your Word this morning. We pray, Father, that even though we moved quickly through these passages,

You would impress upon our hearts the need to minister within our body and to each other, and pray,

Father, that You would continue to work among us and through us to reach out to those that do not know

You. And we thank You, Father, for Your Spirit who accomplishes all of these things, and we just thank