The patterns and practices of the early Church

The Holiness of God and Divine Providence

Amen. Acts chapter 14, and we're going to read in your hearing today, we're going to begin reading in verse 21. Actually, we'll begin in verse 19, and we're going to read down through verse 29 of chapter 15, and we're going to be continuing in the line of thought that we've really been focusing in on the last couple of weeks, particularly the message of the church, the theme.

If you want to go ahead and write down the theme of the message, according to the text of the scripture this morning is simply this, the patterns and the practices of the early church, because we're striving to be a glory of God centered, Bible saturated, missions focused, Holy Spirit empowered body of believers, and we are constantly called to take our cues and our patterns, the way we do things and the practices, how we do things from and according to the word of God.

But I want to say this, that we are here today to worship the Holy God as the songs have been sung. That word holy, before we get into the text this morning, is important. It means sanctified, set apart, and unique.

There is no God besides the Lord. Amen. A matter of fact, in Isaiah, the prophet said this, or the Lord said through the prophet Isaiah, I am the Lord and there is no other. There is no God beside me.

I will gird you though you have not known me. What a, that specifically when he's speaking, that he's speaking it concerning Cyrus and how he raised Cyrus up for his intended purpose. I will gird you though you have not known me.

I want you to know today, every single person that is here, you are here by divine providence. You are divine, you are here because God in his sovereignty and in his mercy has allowed you to have life and breath in your body and brought you to where you are.

You are not here by accident today. I am so thankful for the word of God concerning who God is and the holiness. He said this, I will gird you though that you have not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting, that there is none besides me.

I am the Lord and there is no other. I'm thankful for that today. So let's read the text. We'll pray together and then jump right in this morning. A lot for us to look at and to consider. Acts chapter 14 beginning in verse 19, the word of God says this, then Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead.

However, when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and went into the city. And the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe. And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith and saying, we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.

So when they had appointed elders in every church and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed. And after they had passed through Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia.

Now, when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down to Italia. And from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work which they had completed.

Now, when they had come and gathered the church together, they reported all that God had done with them and that he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles so that they stayed there a long time with the disciples.

And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Therefore, when Barnabas and Paul had no small dissension and dispute among with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question.

So being sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused great joy to all the brethren. And when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders.

And they reported all things that God had done with them. But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up saying it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.

Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, men and brethren, you know that a good while ago, God chose among us that by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved in the same manner as they. Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles.

And after they had become silent, James answered saying, men and brethren, listen to me. Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name. And with this, the word of the prophets agree, just as it is written.

After this, I will return and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which had fallen down. I will rebuild its ruins and I will set it up. This is the Lord speaking so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord.

Even all the Gentiles who are called by my name says the Lord who does all these things known to God from eternity are all his works. Therefore, I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled and from blood.

For Moses has had throughout many generations, those who preach him in every city being read in the synagogues every Sabbath. Then it pleased the apostles and the elders with the whole church to send chosen men of their own company back to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas, who is also named Barabbas and Silas, leading men among the brethren.

They wrote this letter by them. And this is the letter, the body of that letter, the apostles, the elders, and the brethren to the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. Greetings.

Since we have heard that some of you who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your soul saying you must be circumcised and keep the law to whom we gave no such commandment. It seemed good to us being assembled with one accord to send chosen men to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who will also report the same things by word of mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things, which are that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality.

If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell. So, Heavenly Father, as we come before your throne, we'll stop the reading there, God. I'd ask that you bless the reading of your word. God, I know there is much in what we have just read.

I pray that you would give us clarity of thought, give us freedom, liberty in our tongue, that we may speak forth your word today, that we may teach according to the scriptures what your word says today.

Dear God, that your word would teach us, that your word would guide us, that your word would instruct us for truly according to your word. Your word is a lamp unto our feet and your word is a light unto our pathway.

Help us as we strive to be a glory of God-centered church, dear God. Saturate us in the word of God. Help us to wisely and to rightly discern, to divide your word, that we may interpret it correctly before the people, before the congregation.

And I know that's only done through the power of the Holy Spirit, God. Help the people to retain what they hear today, that we may apply it in our daily lives, not just Monday through Friday, but on Sundays when we gather together as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Heavenly Father, I pray and I ask today, God, as Sir had mentioned earlier, and he reminded me through the word of what your word says, that your word is quick, your word is powerful, and your word is sharper than any two-edged sword.

I pray today that you would cut us today, that you would flay back and off of us anything that is unnecessary and not right and not true to the truth of your word, that we would line up with your word, that we would apply ourselves to the truth of your word.

Convict the lost as we proclaim your truth today through the gospel that is preached. God, convict the lost hearts and minds that may hear the truth today of their sinful nature, of their standing before you, that you are wholly separate, that you are wholly high and undefiled, and that we are sinful.

But God, today I'm thankful as well that you would point us to your Christ today, the Savior of sinful men, that the hearts, the minds, and the entire being of those who hear your word today would be drastically and dramatically affected and changed.

For it's in Jesus' name I pray, amen and amen. I know that this is a long passage of scripture that we're looking at. Again, the theme of the text today is the patterns and the practices of the early church.

The Book of Acts as Historical Pattern and Prescriptive Practice

I want to say this from the beginning too. If you're taking notes, you've heard us use these terms before, but it's so important when we read the scriptures, when we read the text of the scriptures, to know when we are reading, what we are reading, whether or not it is describing what is taking place or whether it is, or whether it may be even at the same time, sometimes prescribing the actions that we are to take.

The book of Acts is a historical account of the early church. We have described for us by Luke in his writing of this Acts, it's called the Acts of the Apostles, and I guess that's the official long name of the book.

We just call it the book of Acts. It could also be referred to as the Acts of the Holy Spirit because we have in it the history of how the, when the Holy Spirit came in and the church, the visible church was established and set up and founded because it is very important that you understand if you are a Christian today, that you are called to be a part of the visible local body of Jesus Christ.

For God's glory, number one, but for edification, for growth in the Lord Jesus Christ. But notice some things here as we begin in verse 19. I wasn't going to read 19 until I just decided to do that right before we came up here.

Notice in verse 19 where the scripture, our scripture text begins today, the Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead.

We open this passage of scripture with a very sad, a very grim scene. I was watching, there was watching, I'm sure it was history or NBC, a special that they had done on Jesus, but they were showing about how the disciples were stoned and I'd never really pictured the stoning being like what it was we saw on the screen there.

I picture them, you know, stoning little rocks, but they likely were bigger stones that they throw through at them and they had them tied up so they couldn't run, couldn't dodge. And all they could do was stand there and be pelted with those stones.

So those stones would hit them all over their body. Their stones, the stones would hit them in the head. I remember as a, as a child, for some reason, I don't know why we did it. Me and my cousin used to throw rocks at each other.

Maybe that's what's wrong with me today. Maybe you did that as a child from Nebo or from where Kim's at. They probably did that for fun too. Thus explains Tim. In any case, this is a very grim, sad, horrible, awful scene that this text of scripture opens with here, but they were stoning Paul because he preached the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He preached it. As a matter of fact, if you, if you jump back, you can just make note of this. Earlier in the 14th chapter there, we see that when Paul and Barnabas went, they preached Jesus Christ and there was an uproar in the synagogue because part of the Jews believed the gospel, part of the Gentiles believed the gospel, and the other part that didn't believe became upset and they stirred up the people's minds.

There was an uproar in the church. So this is why Paul, Paul was stoned and left for dead. They assumed him to be dead. And so they, everybody just kind of went off on their way. But the Bible says, however, when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and went into the city.

And the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe. Now what would happen in our day? Sir mentioned this in Sunday school and I loved it. My friend Paul, if he'd have been a preacher in our day, likely would have said, that's it.

I quit. I'm not doing anything else. If you go throughout church history, we see men who have stand, stood on the word of God, proclaim the truth of God. George Whitefield, one of the noted evangelists throughout church history, a godly man who stood and proclaimed the truth of God, come hell and high water.

When he would stand many times, he would preach outdoors a lot of times because they wouldn't even let him in churches preach because the message was so strong. There would be people who would throw dead cats and dogs at him.

But did he stop? No, he continued to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we have his sermons, many of his sermons recorded for us. They're not scripture, but they are sermons just like what's being preached to you today, worthy of taking note of because their chief end, their chief aim was the word of God.

So the Bible says the disciples gathered around him the next day, him and Barnabas left off to Derby. And then verse 21, you notice, begin to see some things here. If you remember three weeks ago, when we preached the message concerning the content of Christ's message, which was repent, does everybody remember that message was repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.

Last week, we preached to you the content of the apostles message, which was Jesus Christ and him crucified and that the kingdom of God is at hand. Guess what? We're alive today. It's September the 8th, 2019.

And the kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus is coming soon. The old song says, Jesus is coming soon morning or night or noon. Many will meet their doom. Trumpets will sound. And when that happens, all of the dead will rise.

The righteous will meet in the skies and forever will be heavenward bound. So the Bible says here, take note. The first thing I want you to note here particularly is this, when they had preached the gospel to that city, the pattern and the practice of the early church that we ourselves should strive to seek and to be modeled after is this, that the gospel is proclaimed.

How often do you need to hear it? How often does a saved person need to hear the gospel every single day? Maybe I answered that too quick. I didn't give you time to think about it. Nevertheless, it's the truth.

How often do lost people need to hear the gospel every single day? How often should we be proclaiming the gospel as a Christian? Every single day. It helps if you preach it to yourself before you leave the house and then preach it to others that you come in contact with.

When they had preached the gospel, that was the content of their message. When they had preached the gospel to that city, there in Derby, and they made many disciples, the Bible says this, they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch.

And notice what the scripture says, strengthening the souls of the disciples. What was the pattern and what was the practice of the early church that the preachers, when they came, they proclaimed the gospel and that they shared the good news of Jesus Christ come to save sinful men.

Paul said in one place, in first Timothy, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. The Bible here says they strengthen the souls of the disciples.

This was done by the gathering in of the church. We'll see the term, the word church used. Remember when you see that it is the Greek word, ecclesia. It's the called out assembly of the saints. How are people going to know if you're a Christian or what is a defining characteristic of a Christian?

It is that as a Christian, you gather on the Lord's day with other believers. Not that you do it sporadically, but that you do it regularly and consistently and faithfully. Because when you do that, your soul will be strengthened.

Have you ever tried to go three days in a seven day week without eating? It's hard on you. It's hard on you. Have you ever tried to go one day in a seven day week without eating? It's hard on you. You need sustenance.

Our sustenance comes from the word of the living God. So the Bible says they strengthen the souls of the disciples, exhorting them. What's the word say? Exhorting them to continue in the faith. What should you be hearing when you come to church?

You should be hearing encouragement from the word of God, encouragement from your brothers and sisters in Christ to keep on keeping on. To not lose heart, to not faint, to not give up what did the apostle Paul write to the Galatian church?

Do not grow weary in well doing for you will one day reap what you sow. If you sow to the flesh, you'll of the flesh reap death and corruption. But if you sow to the spirit, you will reap life everlasting.

That is good news today. They were strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith. And this is what they said. Now, remember the context of what we know to be the truth.

What Paul tells them, Paul says, after they strengthened their souls, they exhorted them to continue in the faith. Their statement was this, for if you follow God, your life will be easy. Everything will be great.

You'll get everything that you ever wanted. Jesus is the icing on the cake that you already have. No, he says we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God. Wow. What a message today. What was the pattern and the practice of the old Testament church?

Not teaching easy believism, not teaching men that if they come to Christ, their life will be fixed. Not teaching men that if you come to Christ, God will fix your marriage. Not teaching them that if you come to Christ, you'll forget all about your wretched past.

No, it's if you come to Christ, your sins will be forgiven. Your names are written in the lamb's book of life and you will have, but it's not going to, it's going to come at a price because the pattern and the practice of the old Testament church was to suffer for Jesus Christ.

You say, you say this, well, preacher, it's hard for, it's hard for us to get everybody that quote unquote might normally be here. It's hard for us to get everybody here on a Sunday morning. If we preach a tough, cutting edge message, we're going to lose even more folks and we won't have hardly anybody here.

Jesus said, if you want to be my disciple, deny yourself, come after me, take up your cross and follow me. If you want something easy, if you want to be entertained, you can go to multitudes of churches around about us, but our cause is not to be an entertainment driven church.

It's to be a gospel driven church, a church that teaches and preaches Jesus Christ and teaches and preaches that not everybody's going to like you if you tell them the truth. So the Bible says, Paul said we must through many tribulations and here he is beat up from being stoned half dead.

And here he is preaching and he says, we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God. So notice this verse 23 now the pattern and practice of the early church. Now, not, not everybody may be aware and not everybody may know how the church government is set up, but the church government has always biblically been this, that a church is to be elder led.

It doesn't just need to have the pastor who's the chief and the king over everything that makes all the decisions and, and what he says goes, no, the church is to be elder led. That means a plurality of godly men taking oversight over the body of Christ, leading it in the direction that he should go in agreement with number one, God, and in agreement with one another.

Now, right now we only have two elders. I pray and I hope that in the future that we have more elders for truly we, we need more elders, but the pattern and the practice of the early church has always been to be an elder led body of believers because the Bible says here when they appointed elders in every church and they prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they believe.

So they knew Paul, Paul and them were not ignorant men. They understood, they knew that they weren't going to be there forever, that there needs to be godly men within a body of believers, understanding, having a right understanding of doctrine, of the truth of the scriptures so that they can lead the body of Christ.

So they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed. Verse 24, after that, they had passed through Pisidia, came to Pamphylia. Now verse 25, when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down from there to Italia.

Do you notice the, the consistent pattern here, what they did? They continually preach the word. They continually preach the word. I want to, I want to make a statement here. I love, I absolutely, I can't sing it.

I can't sing a lick, but I love singing. There are some churches that are just known for singing. There are some churches that are known for preaching, but biblically the pattern and the practice of the Old Testament church, the center of it all was the preaching of the word of God.

It must always be the center. I believe it was in England back 15, 16, 1700s, John Knox, after they'd gone through a period of time where kind of the pulpits had even been removed from churches and everything had been, even then was moved to entertaining the crowd so that the crowds could get larger.

When John Knox came back into the church, the first thing he did was took the pulpit, nailed it down on the stage to let the people there know that the word of God was there to stay. And it was the center of everything.

It must always be the center of the church for it is by the preaching that God chose to save men. That's what the word says. That's what the word says. When they preach the word, they went down from Perga to Italia.

They sell the Antioch. So know where they are now. They're in Antioch. They sell the Antioch where they had been commended to the work, to the grace of God for which they had completed. Now, when they had come, verse 27, and they did what?

Gathered the church together. Everybody got word. They didn't have Facebook. They couldn't send out an invite or announcements. They didn't have Instagram. They didn't have all these things, kind of good things that we have today.

All they had was word of mouth and they would let each other know the apostles are coming. We're going to hear what the word of God says. So they came. The Bible says this. Notice what the Bible says here.

They had gathered the church, the ecclesia together. They reported all that God had done with them. They told them about preaching the gospel. They told them about folks believing. They told them about getting stoned and being left for dead.

Everybody's rejoicing and not in a bad way. They were rejoicing because yet through that all, Paul was standing before them. They reported all that God had done with them. And here was the really good part and that he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

This was the good news right there because I want to read to you something Alexander McLaren had said concerning the Jewish take on salvation. See, the Jews thought that it was only going to be them. But if you look at, if you look at the, if you take a look at the Old Testament, you'll see throughout the Old Testament that God promised, God certainly did choose Israel out, but God promised that the Gentiles were going to have a way made for them.

Those who seem to be the dogs, those seem to be the rotten, stinking unbelievers. Paul, we later learn this, that the Israelites or, and the Gentiles were both rotten, stinking unbelievers. Sinners separated from a holy God because of the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden and death was pronounced upon all men.

So Paul says this, that the door of faith was open to the Gentiles. Alexander McLaren in his commentary on this said this, the Jew thought that birth and the right of circumcision were the door, but the rehearsing of the experiences of Paul and of Barnabas on their first missionary journey tour shattered that notion by the logic of facts.

Instead of that narrow poster, another doorway had been broken in the wall of the heavenly city and it was wide enough to admit multitudes entering in. Hallelujah for that. I love that statement there.

So the Bible, Paul, the Bible says here that Paul rehearsed to them that God had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. So they stayed there a long time with the disciples. Matthew Henry said this, ministers must not be ambitious of broaching new opinions, of framing new schemes, or corning new expressions, but must content themselves with plain practical things, with the word that is not unto us even in our mouth and in our heart.

Faith Alone in Christ Alone Against Judaizing Teachers

So we see here that this good news was proclaimed that it doesn't matter who you are, Jew or Gentile, because that's the two distinctives, Jew or Gentile, that God can save unto the uttermost. Chapter 15, verse 1, moving along, and certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren.

So I want you to take note of that first verse there in chapter 15, and if you're taking notes, you can put this down for verse 1. These were unapproved ministers. April was testifying in Sunday school about how we need to know what the scriptures teach so that when the man of God stands before us, that we can rightly understand, rightly divide the word of God.

For there are a great many, even in this day on September 8, 2019, who are standing in pulpits, and they are not proclaiming the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ according to the word of God. They are preaching a message, another gospel, based upon what the people want to hear, based upon what the people want to hear, and even based upon just what the preachers want to preach.

I would love nothing more than to be able to stand before you week after week and just preach the things I like from the word of God. Just preach the things that I necessarily quote unquote approve of or think you need to hear.

What you need to hear is the whole counsel of God, whether it rubs you the wrong way or not. Certain men came down from Judea. These were unapproved ministers because know this to understand that statement and why I'm making this statement.

Because here in the early years of the church, this was about probably, well, I'm not even going to put a date on that. In the early establishment years of the church, the word of God was given to the apostles and through the apostles for the purpose of inspiration as far as the inspired word of God goes and the completion of God's revelation to men.

So at this time, what the church had was men of God, the apostles, who God spoke his word through and that God's word was the standard for their faith and for their practice. But the Bible says here that certain men came down from Judea, unapproved men came down from Judea with an unapproved message from Judea.

And the message did not come from God. It came from their personal take on things because the men who came down from Judea were Judaizers, men who believed that you needed to believe on Jesus Christ, but also in order to be saved that you had to keep the works of the law.

So they believed in faith plus works, which is what the Roman Catholic church teaches today, which is what some Baptist churches teach today, which is what some Methodist churches teach today, which is what some charismatic churches believe today.

They all teach and they all preach that you need to believe on Jesus. Certainly, but you need to also do this and you need to also do this. You are not saved by faith and works. You are saved by faith alone in Christ alone.

According to the word of God alone, these unapproved ministers came down. They taught the brethren, and this is what they said. Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.

And here is where the faithfulness of godly men come into play here because the Bible is playing in this. The Bible says, therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question, that Jerusalem was the center of it all.

Jerusalem was the hub of the church. Jerusalem was where the apostles, the large part of the apostles and the elders stayed. So it was the foundation, if you would have it, of truth. Now here's the principle.

The principle is this. How does this apply to us today? How does this apply to the patterns and the practices? How did the patterns and practices of the early church apply to us today? Well, what they had being given to them, the apostles and the apostles there in this time, they had the living word of God being given to them.

What do we have here in the Bible? The living word of God preserved for us. That is the principle. That is the timeless rule that we always must go back to the word of God. And so this Paul and Barnabas rose up and they said, oh no, hold on.

That's not what God has said. That's not what by unanimous declaration has been given to the apostles because the scriptures teach throughout. This was one of the beefs throughout many of the churches that we have addressed in the epistles, the constant, the constant fighting, the constant struggle, the constant challenge of folks wanting to stray from the grace of God and lean upon the arm of the flesh to depend upon themselves and their good deeds and their own good works.

So Paul and Barnabas disputed with them. Listen, nobody likes dispute. Nobody likes trouble. Nobody likes for the church to be in an uproar. Amen. God's not the author of confusion, but of peace. Paul told the Corinthians as in all the churches of God.

However, there is a great necessity for us, for me, as, as, as one of the elders, for sir, as one of the elders, for Kenny, a Sunday school teachers, for us to stand upon the truth of the word of God.

If the word of God is deviated from, then we have a responsibility, whether it's unpopular or it causes unrest to stand on the truth and the church notice this, and we're going to see this. And then it's important that the whole church be unified in that stance on the doctrine that is given to us in the scriptures.

So verse three being sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria describing the conversion of the Gentiles. Hallelujah. They were talking about how God was saving even the Gentiles and they caused great joy to all the brethren.

How can you not be happy when you hear about salvation? How can you not rejoice when you think about what God has done? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see.

Amazing grace was the theme then and it is the theme today. Bible goes on here. Bible says it caused them great joy. And so being sent on their way, they caused great joy. And when they come to Jerusalem, notice what's happening here.

So they went up to Jerusalem. They've sent Paul and Barnabas. Since Paul and Barnabas took the stand and those certain men that had come down said, look, we'll go up with you. We'll stand side by side and we'll test what's being said according to what God has said.

And they went up to Jerusalem. They were received by the church, the ecclesia, the called out assembly of the saints, the gathered church and the apostles and the elders. And they reported all things that God had done with them.

But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up saying it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. There were men who, who are genuine and passionate about their version of the truth.

Men who are sincere in standing for something that is not biblically legitimate any longer. Because the Bible teaches us throughout the text of scripture, we see that Christ was God in the flesh, born of a virgin, sinless, living a perfect life, fulfilling that law of God that no other man could live out or fulfill.

And that being perfect, he lived out the law of God and that he was crucified and that he was slain on the cross and that he was buried and that he was on the third day raised from the dead according to the scriptures and that he ascended to the father.

That is the good news. But Paul noticed here going on, going on in verse five, some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up saying it's necessary to circumcise them. Verse six, now, when the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter, notice the pattern and the practice of the early church, the pattern and the practice of the early church, and even the people within the church was not at the first sight of contradicting your idea of what you think is right or wrong.

They didn't say, well, that's it. I'm taking my little red wagon and I'm going to the church down the road. It was about their willingness as the Berean Christians to search the scriptures, to know what is right, to bear it out, to bear with it.

That's what one of the things that we are called to as Christians to bear with one another in love. So the Bible says this, Peter said to them, the first to speak here is the apostle Peter, the apostle Peter, take note of this before I read you this, this part of the text here, take note of this previously, earlier on, the Lord came to Peter because Peter was staunch about being separated from Gentiles.