The Church The World Hates (part 2) - [Acts 5:17-42]

Well, I'd invite you to take a Bible and open it to Acts chapter 5 as we continue teaching in the book of Acts.

And of course, while I tell you to do that, I'm going to open to 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verses 3 to 5 and read that.

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey

Christ. And I read that because I think the way I framed this is one of spiritual warfare as we go through Acts 5.

And really, it's one of the themes of the book. It's not obvious. You have to kind of think about it for a moment.

But when Jesus says to his apostles, his disciples, you are my messengers and you're going to take my message throughout

Jerusalem, throughout Judea, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Fine, but there's going to be opposition.

And that's what we see today. The existing spiritual powers don't just yield.

They don't just cave. But they're not conquered by force.

They're not overcome by means of arms. They're overcome actually by the power of the word of God and by the spirit of God.

So with that said, let's read. You know, I just have to say this.

When we think spiritual warfare, what do you think about? And I'll tell you what a lot of you think because it's how

I used to think about things. We think about angels, demons, the whole spiritual realm and what we can't see.

And we go back to 1 and 2 Peretti. For those of you who are laughing, you know what I'm talking about. And we think about this battle and our prayers having this effect on this battle and all these kind of things.

And really what it is, spiritual warfare, it's the truth against error.

It is essentially in many ways, you know, it's the doctrines of demons. But then on the other side, it's the truth, right?

So it's this constant battle between truth and error. And it even gets involved in our churches.

There are churches that allow error to creep in. So with that said, now let's read our text here.

Acts chapter 5, beginning of verse 27. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council.

And the high priest questioned them saying, we strictly charge you not to teach in this name.

Yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. And you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

But Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men.

The God of our fathers raised Jesus whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.

God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

And we are witnesses to these things. And so is the Holy Spirit whom

God has given to those who obey him. When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them.

But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while.

And he said to them, men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men.

For before these days, Theodos rose up claiming to be somebody and a number of men, about 400, joined him.

He was killed. And all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.

After him, Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him.

He too perished and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case,

I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone. For this plan or this undertaking is of man.

It will fail. But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them.

You might even be found to be opposing God. So they took his advice.

And when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go.

Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

And every day in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching.

That the Christ is Jesus. Now, last week, we looked at the first ten verses or so of this particular section.

And if you recall, the apostles were visited by grace.

We had five V's. They were visited by grace. And the chief priest, the head of the

Sanhedrin, responded with jealousy. The Sanhedrin was the center of religious authority in Israel.

The Sanhedrin was composed of Pharisees and Sadducees. Kind of, if you thought about it like our

Congress, that would be a close approximation. But they had no civil authority.

Their authority was all religious. The Romans were in charge of the civil government. The Pharisees, if you recall, were in charge of the synagogues.

The local churches, as it were. They were the religious party of the common man.

The everyday people. They believed in a resurrection. They anticipated a coming

Messiah. And they were infamous for their rulemaking. You can read

Matthew 23, and Jesus talks about their rulemaking. The Sadducees, on the other hand, were the elites, the rich, the well -connected.

And they controlled the temple. Unlike the Pharisees, they welcomed other cultures, so they were better situated to sort of negotiate with the

Romans. They did not believe in any resurrection. They did not believe in life after death.

Nor did they accept any man -made rules. They were, just give us Scripture, Scripture alone.

They were very much literalists when it came to interpreting Scripture. And as I said last week, we don't have any writings of the

Sadducees. It's pretty easy to surmise that when the temple was destroyed in 70

AD... By the way, why was it destroyed? Because the Jews rebelled. I mean, we're going to see a couple other rebellions.

But they had this habit of rebelling against the Romans. They didn't like being occupied. And so in 70

AD, they rebelled one more time. And the Caesar said, enough. And took care of it.

Destroyed the temple. But because of his jealousy, the chief priest ordered the public arrest and imprisonment of all the apostles.

So that was visited by grace, then visited by an angel. The apostles were miraculously set free by an angel, a messenger of God.

The angel told them to return to the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life. In other words, keep preaching

Jesus. And that's what they did. Then thirdly, we saw vacating the cell.

When the temple guard, the police as it were of the temple, went to the prison to pick them up, the apostles were all gone.

The angel had set them free. So they find the cell empty. Fourthly, we saw vexing the

Sanhedrin. There was no natural explanation for the vanishing apostles. I like that.

Throw another V in there. The vanishing apostles. So the

Sanhedrin was befuddled. Fifthly, we saw the apostles vindicated.

Someone, likely a priest on early morning duty at the temple, saw the apostles who were supposed to be in jail, saw them on the temple preaching and teaching

Christ and came running down to the Sanhedrin to tell them. The temple guard and their supervisor then go re -arrest the apostles.

But they don't use any kind of force, which is notable only because you suspect that in that day and age, and especially given the circumstances, force was typically used.

But the apostles were up there preaching and teaching. And the Sanhedrin was determined to stop them.

The truth of God being opposed by basically a demonic wrong theology.

This morning, we have the apostles on trial before the Sanhedrin again. The prosecution, of course, is the

Sanhedrin, which remained determined to stamp out this Christian sect.

The defendants are the twelve, those who were chosen by Jesus to be his messenger.

And this morning, the outline, the format is going to be this. I have four numbers. And if you think about, if it's a soccer team, and they've lost one player to a red card, okay, never mind.

Four numbers. Two, three, two, two. Two, three, two, two. Two charges.

Three witnesses for the defense. Two responses. Two endings. Two, three, two, two.

So first, two charges. Verse 27. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council.

Again, this is all twelve of the apostles. And they would be down kind of in a, I guess you could call it, you could think of it as a sunken, they're on the bottom.

And all the way up are these platforms where the Sanhedrin are seated.

Seated? They're seated, and they're looking down on the apostles.

So there's, you know, that kind of pressure that comes from, well, I guess from having somebody up in the pulpit.

But they're looking down on them. It's a constant reminder of who's in charge, where the authority is.

And they're charged with two things. Firstly, teaching in this name.

Again, look at verse 27. And the high priest questioned them, saying, we strictly charged you not to teach in this name.

Yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. And yes, they did do that, right?

If we look back, chapter 4, verses 15 to 18. But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, saying, what shall we do with these men?

For a notable sign, in other words, they knew that something miraculous had happened through these men.

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, I mean, you would think, you would think if these men represented

God, that they would think, a miracle's been done in our midst. We should want people to talk well of God.

We should want this message to spread, but they didn't want that. 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.

Don't talk to anyone about Jesus. Verse 18, so they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

And you recall their response in verse 19. 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.

Right? We have to obey. You can think that you've got authority over us, but our authority, ultimately, or the person we're accountable to is

God. So back to chapter 5. What does the high priest mean when he says that they have filled

Jerusalem with their teaching? It's interesting, firstly, that he doesn't use the name

Jesus. You can almost feel his sense of disdain for them and for Jesus.

Maybe he said it like, that man. You've filled Jerusalem with that man's name.

Second, the high priest doesn't ask how they escaped from jail. Now you would think, you've got this place that you put them so that they can be seen by the public, so they can be embarrassed and shamed, and then the police go and they can't figure out how they got out.

You would think he would be like, okay, how did you guys get out? But I guess maybe like a good lawyer who doesn't ask a question that he doesn't know the answer to, he doesn't ask that.

What does it mean that they filled Jerusalem? It's a mild exaggeration, but he's been observing.

This is what angered him. He's been seeing people constantly coming to Christ.

He knows that there are thousands and thousands of believers now. Second charge.

Bring this man's blood upon us. You intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

One commentator, Paul Hill, says this. He says, you are trying to get us killed for responsibility in this man's death.

In other words, you keep talking to everybody and saying that we killed him, that we're responsible for his death, that we essentially murdered him.

Well, what happens to murderers in that system? They're put to death. So he says, what are you trying to do?

Get us killed? But the apostles didn't shrink from laying the blame where it belonged.

When Peter and John were arrested, again, back to Acts 4, 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,

Israel was responsible. But the Sanhedrin actively sought the death of Jesus.

They had him arrested. They interfered with the trial. Therefore, his blood, meaning guilt for his death again, is upon them.

Who was responsible for putting Jesus to death? Well, the crowd that didn't want Barabbas released.

Pilate could have exonerated him and let him go. I mean, Pilate did exonerate him, but he didn't let him go.

Herod could have let him go, didn't. The Romans, who complied.

But ultimately, we know this was the plan of God. So could you say that God put him to death?

Yes. But the Sanhedrin, when you think about it, what's the worst part of this?

Is that the high priest and the other members of the Sanhedrin are not heeding the preaching of the gospel.

They're not thinking to themselves, we're sinners who need a savior. Sure. That's the ultimate problem.

All they hear is the truth of their guilt. They don't hear about a savior who can forgive all guilt.

So two charges, now three witnesses for the defense. You know this, but by Jewish law, you had to have how many witnesses to establish a fact?

Two or three. So they've got three. First witness,

God the Father. God the Father. Peter says, the

God we obey. Look at verse 29. But Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey

God rather than men. This is a basic principle, something that we should always be thinking about ourselves.

If the government commands something that goes against the word of God, who do we obey? We have to obey

God. I mean, this is something that even the Sanhedrin shouldn't have argued against.

And they don't really. But by simply denying it in their minds, well, they simply deny it.

And in their minds, who was really in charge here? They were. They represented God. That's what they thought.

So God the Father, whom the apostles obeyed. God the Father who raised Jesus from the dead.

Look at verse 30. The God of our fathers raised Jesus. The high priest is acting as the prosecutor.

He makes the charges. He asks the questions. And the apostles' response appeals to some common ground.

God our father, right? He's the God of our fathers. So it's like the

God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You could call him the

God of David, whatever. All of our common ancestors believed in this God.

You say you believe in this God. We believe in this God. And he raised Jesus from the dead.

But of course, the Sadducees deny any kind of resurrection. And this is the same

Jesus that the Sanhedrin were so keen to have executed.

And he points it out here. In verse 30, Peter does. Whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.

I mean, you talk about bold. Just you're on trial, potentially for your life.

And you accuse the DA, as it were, of killing

Jesus. You oppose God. You killed Jesus, and God raised him.

In other words, you're doing the works of Satan. God the father, who exalted

Jesus. He raised him from the dead, and he exalted him. Verse 31. God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

Again, they're working against the God they profess to worship. They saw to it that Jesus was crucified and buried.

What did God do? He raised him from the dead, and then exalted him. They mocked him on the cross, but through him,

God offers forgiveness of sins, even for the sin of crucifying him.

Now, what does it mean that Jesus is, when we see in our text, that he's described as leader? That word means one who has a preeminent position.

Could mean leader, or ruler, or prince. Peter is talking to the high priest, who would be considered the leader of the

Sanhedrin. In earthly terms, he was the religious leader of Israel.

But there is no forgiveness, there is no repentance apart from faith, which they did not have.

And there's no forgiveness. So our first witness is

God the father. Our second witness is the apostles themselves. Look at verse 32.

Peter says, and we are witnesses to these things. We, the 12, are witnesses to these things.

We saw Jesus exalted. We saw him crucified. We saw all these things.

We saw him exalted. We even saw him leave this earth, right? Peter uses the word witnesses.

And that's exactly what Jesus commissioned them to be in Acts 1 8. He said they were to be his witnesses.

And so here they are, testifying to him. Witnesses, that word just means one who testifies to something.

It's one who declares facts directly known to himself. The disciples weren't theorizing.

They'd seen Jesus in action during his ministry, and after the resurrection, even watching him ascend into heaven.

They testified of his person and of his work. The third witness, the

Holy Spirit. Peter says in verse 32, the second half of it, and so is the

Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him. Now that's significant here, that Peter is calling him the

Holy Spirit essentially as a witness. Why? If you think about how the

Holy Spirit is treated in many branches of so -called Christianity, he's treated as a force.

Can you call a force as a witness? Can a force testify? Absolutely not.

So what we see here is evidence of the personhood of the Holy Spirit. He is declared to be a witness, and only a person can be a witness.

Therefore, the Holy Spirit is a person. He is an eternal person, but he is a person nonetheless.

And also notice the presence of the Spirit. Who has the presence of the

Spirit? Simon Kistemacher says this, he says, the Holy Spirit qualifies the apostles to testify for Jesus and works through them.

Again, now, as we're just thinking through this passage, God, this common

Father that the Jews and the Christians would believe in, the

Son, Jesus Christ, whom the apostles are testifying to and whom the Holy Spirit testifies to.

And now the Holy Spirit, well, what do we see? We're seeing the Trinity on display here in his testimony.

In a very unique way, he's taught them who

Jesus is and offered the Holy Spirit to them if they will but what?

Obey the Father. Well, what does that mean? What does it mean to obey the Father? What did Jesus say? What is it, the will of the

Father? It's to believe him who God sent, the Father sent.

If they do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, they will not receive the Holy Spirit and they will not receive forgiveness of sins.

So, two charges, three witnesses for the defense, the Father, the apostles and the

Holy Spirit and two responses, two responses to this defense. First response, the

Sanhedrin raged. The Sanhedrin raged. Look at verse 33. When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them.

You've heard the saying from Tozer, what comes to your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you, right?

Well, how about this? How you respond to the gospel being preached to you tells us a lot about where your heart is.

Might be the most revealing thing about you. If you get angry when the gospel is preached, what does that say about you?

How about this? If the gospel is preached to you and you want to kill the person who preaches it to you, what does that say about you?

I mean, I took the liberty of modifying Romans 10, 15. Imagine this.

How despicable, how hateful are the feet of those who preach the good news? No. How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news?

When you hear the gospel and you believe, don't you just look at that person forever, whoever it might be, and just think,

I really love that person. I'm so thankful for that person. How could you not be? But in this situation, even though there was rage, even though there was hate because they wanted to kill him, apparently, some kind of seed or something was planted, because if we just skip ahead a little bit to Acts 6, 7, listen to this.

And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

I just mention that because I thought, you know what, sometimes we preach the gospel to people over and over again, or they hear the gospel over and over again, and every single time their response is, yawn,

I don't care, or they get angry, but we don't know.

The gospel is powerful. The Holy Spirit works through the preaching of the gospel, and sometimes those people who shake their fists, who just kind of ignore or rage after we preach the gospel to them, sometimes

God saves them. Sometimes that happens. I want to encourage you,

I mean, even thinking about the evangelism yesterday, we never know. We never know how

God's going to use what we do. Freiberg describes enraged, he defines it this way, strictly the word means divide with a saw.

I thought that was pretty good, right? Enraged. How mad were they?

That mad. I thought it was interesting though too, King James and a couple other versions have it translated something akin to pierced to the heart.

And so then I thought of Acts 2, how the Jews were pierced to the heart when they heard the gospel and they repented, and I thought, oh, maybe it's the same.

It's not the same. It's a different Greek word. They were enraged.

They were infuriated. It can mean cut to the quick, and that's why some go pierced to the heart or cut to the heart.

It just means that they were over the top in their anger. That's why they wanted to kill them.

The second response in addition to the rage, the second response though comes from Gamaliel.

And immediately he just kind of takes charge. Look at verse 34. But a Pharisee in the council named

Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while.

Now, if I could just say a word to parents here, just kind of random, but as I thought about this and you get this mental picture, what's he saying?

He's turning to the council and he says, let's take these apostles and put them outside for a minute.

Why? Because he wants to talk to the council and he doesn't want these men to hear it.

Practically speaking, you and your wife or you and your husband as the case may be, are having a disagreement about something.

Take this principle and use it. Put the kids outside, send them somewhere else while you guys resolve it.

Now back to our text. It was just a commercial break. Gamaliel was no ordinary

Pharisee. In fact, the Mishnah Jewish writings says this, when

Rabbi Gamaliel the elder died, the glory of the law ceased and purity and abstinence died.

To say he was revered is to, you know, just to understate it.

He could even interject in this trial. He could interrupt, as it were, the high priest.

He was also the man who taught Saul, who became a persecutor of the church, right?

Here's Gamaliel in a position to go, yeah, put those apostles to death. Which we're going to see

Saul would say, let's do that. But Gamaliel was, no, let's wait a minute.

He taught Saul who later became Paul the apostle. Gamaliel has the apostles, as I said, taken out of the room.

And now notice in verse 35 that he gives them a caution, a warning. And he said to them, men of Israel, take care of what you are about to do with these men.

Look at how he separates himself from them. Men of Israel, watch what you are about to do.

Not us. It's like, here's Gamaliel, the man of great respect and renown.

He's the teacher. He's the one everybody looks up to. And he says, hold on, I don't want any part of this.

Why? Why should they, as it were, slow their roll? Well, maybe the

Sanhedrin doesn't need to worry so much about these men. So he gives two examples of men who failed, who tried to overthrow the government and failed.

First, he gives the example of Theodos. Look at verse 36. For before these days, in other words, some time ago,

Theodos rose up, claiming to be somebody. There's a statement, right?

He said he was somebody. And a number of men, about 400, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.

In other words, Theodos doesn't even rate an asterisk. He came, he said he was somebody, got a bunch of followers, then he's put to death.

What he's trying to say here, Gamaliel, is some fires burn out on their own.

We don't have to worry about them. He gives a second example, Judas. After him,

Judas the Galilean, so this is not Judas Iscariot, rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him.

He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. Now, just as a historical note, there was a party that developed after this, after this uprising, called the

Zealots. In fact, one of Jesus' disciples was a

Zealot. So here's his point. Sometimes, not everybody who just comes rolling down the street needs to be dealt with.

Sometimes we can ignore them, and they will go away. This movement will just cease. Then he says, don't risk opposing

God. Don't risk opposing God. Verse 38, so in the present case,

I tell you, keep away from these men, and let them alone. For if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail.

But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing

God. Now, there's irony here, because they are opposing God. They just don't know it.

And in all probability, Gamaliel doesn't know it either. As a side note,

I'm filled with side notes today. Gamaliel, I've sometimes heard this used,

Gamaliel's advice here, as an excuse for Christians not to take action on something.

Right? If it's of God, we can't stop it. And if it's not, it will just fade out on its own. Well, when is that good advice?

It's good advice when it's not clear in Scripture. When it is clear in Scripture, it's really bad advice.

It's exceptionally bad advice. But again,

I think this, the promise of Jesus in Matthew 16, 18, just looms large.

I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Well, the gates of hell in the form of the Sanhedrin, they were working on it. They wanted to defeat the church.

But Gamaliel says, you know what? You guys might be on the wrong side of this battle.

Maybe we should just kind of wait and see if this is of God or not. So that is the second response.

And now we come to our fourth point, two endings. Two endings. Had two charges, three witnesses, two responses, and now two endings.

Verse 39, So they took his advice. They listened.

They heeded. But this isn't over yet. Look at how they're going to treat the apostles with some brutality.

They're going to, the Sanhedrin is going to make sure that these men understood the seriousness of the situation.

They're going to give them a message that they won't soon forget. Look at verse 40.

And when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go.

Now when you read that word beating, you know, you might suspect, like I used to joke, and it was a joke, that some of the inmates were asking for a visit from Mr.

Lumpy, which is my nickname for my flashlight. Now, I have to make it clear, because,

I mean, if you looked over my record, you'd go, you know what, Steve, you weren't very violent. And the answer is, no, I wasn't very violent.

For the record. They gave these men a severe beating.

What was known as 40 minus 1. 40 lashes minus 1. So in other words, 39 lashes.

We read that and we think, you know, if you just pass over the word beat, you might just think, well, that doesn't sound so bad.

Oh, it was bad. Again, commentator Paul Hill said this. He said, So you get 13 on the front, 26 on the back.

He says, So, this is very serious.

I mean, they're beaten nearly to death. So that's the beating.

Then they order them. Once again, they are ordered not to preach and teach in the name of Jesus.

And then they're released beaten, bloodied, you know, you think they might even be stumbling or need help.

They were released from custody. And I'm sure many of the Sanhedrin with Gamaliel's kind of words ringing in their ears, you know, will just leave this to God now, thinking that's it.

These men are done. Nobody would take that and then go on and go back to preaching and teaching.

But this is how the apostles ended in gratitude, with rejoicing.

Look at verse 41. Then they left the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name, for Jesus.

Rejoicing. These 12 men who'd been chosen by Jesus, filled with the

Holy Spirit, granted experiences that no one has ever had the equal of. Were fully equipped for whatever

Satan sent their way. You know, as I just read this, and you think about the suffering that they underwent, you think, well, speaking for myself,

I'd be in the hospital for weeks. I'd be moaning and groaning. Janet could attest to that.

But they left rejoicing. It's a present active participle, meaning it was constant.

It was an apt description of their overall demeanor. They were joyful from the heart that they had been counted worthy to be beaten within an inch of their lives in the name of Jesus Christ.

So they were joyful, but they also were obedient. Look at verse 42. And every day in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the

Christ is Jesus. Well, what do thankful, joyful, redeemed hearts do?

They obey the Lord. They obey their Master. He said, be my witnesses.

So they went out and they were his witnesses. They taught and preached. Now, you know, you could just imagine because people know they were arrested.

They know they were imprisoned. They know that they were beaten. Would that increase or decrease the number of people who wanted to hear them?

I think it would increase the number of people who wanted to hear them. And they're constantly teaching that Jesus was the

Christ. Well, what does that mean? They had to talk about the fact that he was truly divine, that he was truly

God, that he was eternally begotten of the Father, that he was equal with the

Father, but that also he was truly human, that he was born of a virgin, that he was without sin, and that he never sinned either in mind or in body, not even with his tongue, the easiest way for us to sin.

He was, therefore, the perfect sacrifice. And his sacrifice, because he was divine, had infinite value, was able to pay for all the sin of everyone who would ever believe.

Then, of course, he was raised from the dead on the third day and exalted to the right hand of the

Father, where he intercedes for all who believe. That is how you respond to trials.

That is how you respond to difficulty, testifying of the goodness and the grace of God in Christ Jesus.

Well, let's pray. Father in Heaven, we thank you for your

Word. We thank you for the Gospel. We thank you for the Holy Spirit. We thank you for these men who, in the face of great difficulty and trial, were faithful to their calling, who, when they were beaten, treated with complete disregard and just dismissed as nothing, as a probable asterisk in history, went out and didn't bemoan their fate, but went out and faithfully preached the

Gospel, both in obedience and also because they wanted to see people get saved.

They wanted people to have forgiveness of sin, to have eternal life, to know the joy that they had.

Help us to have that same spirit, knowing that the joy comes in watching people come to Christ, watching their lives be transformed, watching the hopeless have hope.