Peacefully Correcting One Another

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I want to invite you to remain standing and take out your Bibles.
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We are going to read Acts chapter 18 verses 24 to 28.
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This will finish out the 18th chapter of the book of Acts which we have been seeking to study verse by verse in our Sunday morning sessions.
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And the title of today's message is Peacefully Correcting One Another.
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It says in verse 24, Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus.
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He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures, and he had been instructed in the way of the Lord.
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And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John.
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He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Achilla heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately.
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When he had wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him, and when he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed.
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For he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that Christ was Jesus.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I pray now that you would keep me from error as I seek to bring an exposition of it, and that Lord, I would never bore with the word of God, the people of God, but that I would proclaim with power and passion the truth as my prayer, and that I would be kept from error, for Lord, your people are precious.
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And Lord, I pray for their sake, that you would keep me from error and for the sake of my own conscience, for I know that I am a fallible man and capable of error.
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And I pray, Lord, as we study the word today, that believers will be edified, challenged, called to repentance if necessary, and that unbelievers, who are always among us, would be called to repentance and faith in the one Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, without whom there is no peace with God.
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And it's in his name we pray.
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Amen.
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Well, today marks our second in our series in Advent, or rather our celebration of Advent, and the second week of Advent is when we celebrate the subject of peace.
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And the focus of the theme in regard to Advent is the peace with God, which comes through knowing Jesus Christ.
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The Bible says we were at war with God, we were at enmity with him, but because of the work of Christ, we now have peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
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But also, that peace that we have with God should also give birth to peace with one another.
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Christ said, the way that the world will identify my church is its love for one another.
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They shall know you by your love, not just by your love, but by your love for one another.
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And I must say, it is a very unfortunate thing, it is a very sad reality, that the world oftentimes has not been able to recognize the church by that description.
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Oftentimes when the church is described, we hear words like hypocrisy, backbiting, gossip, self-righteousness, and that is not good, that is an indictment against the church.
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But at the same time, in seeking to have love among the brethren, sometimes that does require correction within the church.
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And that's been probably the biggest problem in the world today, is that the world doesn't believe it needs any correction, particularly unbelievers.
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If you try to bring any correction at all, what's the response? You're judgmental, you're hateful, you're a hater.
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So there is a balance that needs to be understood.
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In our text this morning, honestly, when I first started, this has been a few weeks for me studying just these few verses, because I've really tried to, in my heart, get to know Apollos, Priscilla, and Aquila, which however you want to say his name.
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Because this scene in this story, and it's a true account, obviously, this narrative demonstrates two believers who are forced to correct another believer in his error, and his response and their way of correcting him, though it's just a few verses, there is a lot here for us to see.
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And a lot that we could apply in our walk with Christ with one another.
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No one here is walking with Christ alone, we're all walking together.
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And my question, sort of the sermonic thesis, if you will, the thesis question of the lesson is this.
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Are we spiritually mature enough to give and receive correction peacefully? Are we spiritually mature enough to give and receive correction peacefully? And I think that's an important question, and I think it's one that the text really demonstrates by virtue of the narrative.
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So we're in our study of Acts, we know, those of you who have been here know where we are at this point.
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When we left off last time, Paul was ending his second missionary journey.
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He met with Priscilla and Achilla in Corinth, they worked together making tents, and he journeyed, as he was journeying back to Syria, back to Antioch, where his home church was, he brought Priscilla and Achilla with him and they stopped in Ephesus and he left them there.
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Because there were Jews there who wanted to learn what Jesus was about, they wanted to learn the Scripture, they wanted to learn, so Paul couldn't stay because he had a mission to go on, but he left Priscilla and Achilla there, so they are there in Ephesus.
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And like in Corinth, Ephesus is a place where there was pagan worship going on.
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In Ephesus there was the temple where the pagans would go, and it was an important part of the social and economic part of the city.
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In Corinth they were worshipping Aphrodite, but in Ephesus there was the temple of Artemis, one of the great seven wonders of the ancient world, and the temple of Artemis was the goddess of fertility, and so that was a big part of the worship there, and it was a place where people would come to worship this false goddess.
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So here is a church being established again in the house of paganism.
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Not in the house of paganism, but in the midst of paganism.
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And Paul meets some Jewish people and they beg him to stay.
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Stay with us, teach us the Word.
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And he says, no I can't, I've got to go, but he leaves with them Priscilla and Achilla, and that's where we leave off in verse 23.
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And so in 24 it says, Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus.
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He was an eloquent man, competent in the scriptures.
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Now we don't know a lot about him outside of this verse, but this verse does tell us some things that we should understand.
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Alexandria is in Egypt.
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So this man was coming from Egypt, and Alexandria was a place where there was a large Jewish population, and it was a place of higher learning.
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You've heard of the library of Alexandria and all that.
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It was a place of higher learning.
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And this would have been a man who would have been a knowledgeable, learned man.
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And he comes...
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By the way, how many of you remember the Septuagint? You've heard me talk about the Septuagint.
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That's the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.
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That was done in Alexandria.
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So it's the home of scholarship.
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So here's this man who comes, sort of birthed out of the scholarly field, and he comes to Ephesus, and he comes proclaiming a message, and the text says that he was an eloquent man.
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The term eloquent is logios, and it simply means he's learned.
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His speech is attractive.
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He has a way of speaking not only with confidence, but he speaks with conviction, and he speaks with the ability to convince people of what he's saying.
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He's an orator.
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He's different than Paul, by the way.
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Paul says, I didn't come with you with eloquence of speech.
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I didn't come with fancy language.
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Well, Apollos is the opposite.
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Apollos is coming with eloquence of speech and power in his words.
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And it says he was competent in the scriptures.
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And I don't really like the word competent as a translation.
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The word is dunitas in the Greek, and dunitas means powerful.
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He was powerful in the scripture.
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In another way, maybe well-versed could be the translation there.
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He knew his stuff.
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He was a scholar and an orator.
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It's one thing if somebody knows how to talk, but they ain't got nothing to say.
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You ever heard that? Just turn the televisions on.
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You'll hear people who can really get it, but they ain't got it.
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They know how to speak, but they ain't got nothing to say.
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This is a guy who both knew how to speak, and he had something to say.
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So he comes in, and he's proclaiming the word.
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He's proclaiming the scripture.
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He's competent.
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He's powerful in the scripture.
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And this would have been the Old Testament.
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Verse 25.
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He had been instructed in the way of the Lord.
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Now, we do not know exactly what that means, or how far his instruction goes.
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We do know this.
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The term the way of the Lord is actually an Old Testament term.
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You'll go all the way back to Genesis, and you'll see the way of the Lord, the way of the Lord.
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It's an over and over term.
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So this doesn't necessarily mean that he was instructed in the gospel, but that he was instructed in the way of the Lord is simply to say he was instructed in the things of God in the scriptures.
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He was competent in the scriptures, and he knew the way of the Lord.
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But it goes on to say, and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus.
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Whatever he knew about Jesus, he was right about.
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But later we're going to see he didn't know much.
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He didn't know a lot, but what he did know was right.
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That's fair enough.
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And that's what the text is saying.
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He's powerful in the scriptures.
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He's preaching the way of the Lord as he understood it.
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And what he knew about Jesus was right.
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But we just don't know what he knew.
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It says here, though he knew only the baptism of John.
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That's a hint.
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That gives us a little hint.
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Who is John the Baptist? Well, he's Jesus' cousin.
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He's the forerunner of the Messiah.
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But what else is he, in regard to scripture, who is John the Baptist? John the Baptist is the last Old Testament prophet.
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If you consider the prophets of the Old Testament, you had Isaiah, you had Ezekiel, you had Daniel, you have all these prophets of the Old Testament.
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Malachi, there ends the prophetic voice for 400 years.
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There's a stop in the prophetic utterance.
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But then, there's a voice crying out in the wilderness, saying, prepare the way of the Lord.
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Right? It's John the Baptist is the last Old Testament prophet.
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Because he's speaking as the Old Testament prophets about the coming of Messiah.
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He's the voice of Jesus' coming.
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And I can imagine Apollos being someone who had learned from John.
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The text doesn't tell us that, but the text says that's all he knew was John's baptism.
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So, whatever he knew about Jesus was probably gotten from John.
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It's likely that Apollos didn't know about the cross.
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It's likely that Apollos didn't know about the resurrection or the ascension.
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And what's the gospel? The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
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Right? I mean, that's the gospel.
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So, here you've got a guy who's teaching the truth.
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Jesus is the Messiah.
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He's teaching the truth.
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The Messiah is coming, but hasn't realized that He's already come.
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It's not like today.
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It's not like Fox News showed the resurrection, you know, and everybody sees it all around the world.
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It took a little time for things to get around.
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And if he's over in Alexandria, Egypt, and all these things are happening in Israel and other places, perhaps he didn't know what all had happened yet.
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So, he's proclaiming with accuracy what he understood.
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But what he understood was not the whole story.
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So, verse 26 tells us, He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Achilla heard Him, they took Him aside and explained to Him the way of the Lord more accurately.
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And I love that phrase, more accurately.
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If you go back to verse 25, it says, He spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus.
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That word accurately there, acrobos in the Greek, it's the same word as in 26, but more accurately.
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You can be right, but not totally right.
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And there are people that are like that.
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They know a little bit, and what they know is correct, but they don't know everything.
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And that's where he was.
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And I meet people like that sometimes, and maybe you do too.
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People who love the Lord, but they just don't have very much knowledge of the Bible or Scripture, but they know they love Christ.
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And so you take them aside and you begin to teach them, and those are the people that really, they grab on and start drinking in the milk of the Word, and then it becomes meat to them, and they begin to really be good disciples and learners, because they didn't know what they didn't know.
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And then when they learn what they didn't know, they want to know more, and they want to know more.
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And this is Him.
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He's brought off to the side, and I love the fact that they take Him off to the side.
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I love the fact that they didn't stand up in the midst of the congregation and say, Heretic! Or go home and write a blog about Him.
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I don't know what a first century blog would look like.
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Maybe on a tablet scroll or something, and send it out to everyone.
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This guy's a heretic.
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He's not telling the whole story.
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He didn't even mention the cross.
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Right? We don't know what he mentioned or what he didn't, but whatever he's left out is important enough that Priscilla and Achilla loved Him enough to take Him privately, to give Him a more accurate account of what has happened, and then, verse 27, He's sent out to preach.
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Look at it.
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It says, And when He wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged Him.
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And I assume that Priscilla and Achilla are among those brothers.
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That might be who it's referring to, but it might be referring to the church, which is being established there as believers are growing.
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But they give Him encouragement, and they write a letter to the disciples to welcome Him.
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Here is an evangelist.
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Here's a man powerful in the scriptures.
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And now he understands what Jesus has done.
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Now he understands the gospel.
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Receive Him.
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It says, And when He arrived, He greatly helped those who through grace had believed.
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By the way, that's a great Calvinistic verse.
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Who through grace had believed.
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That's just an interesting point.
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They didn't believe and then receive grace.
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They had believed because of grace and through grace.
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For He powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.
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By the time you get to verse 28, Apollos has got it figured out.
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He knows who Christ is.
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He knows what's happened.
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He's been corrected in where he was not fully aware.
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And he now has taken that information and he's become a powerful evangelist.
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So much so, that later when Paul's writing, he would say, I planted, but who watered? Apollos.
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And God brought the increase.
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So Apollos becomes a fountain of preaching.
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He's got this background in scholarship.
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He's got this gift of oration.
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And now he's been given the accurate truth.
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And so he takes it out and he becomes a voice for the gospel among God's people.
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It's an amazing story.
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It really is.
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But like I said, my focus today, I want to focus on the issue of correction.
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Because I love, again, every time I read this, every time I think about it, I sort of put it in my mind what happens.
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I see this as an opportunity where there could have been a huge blunder.
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Because I'm certain that Apollos was a man who was likely very confident in what he knew.
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Not many people stand up and proclaim with power without at least being somewhat confident in what they're saying.
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And not always are men who are confident in their proclamation willing to be corrected.
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In fact, oftentimes I find that they're not willing to be corrected.
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If you go to somebody who has a great, strong personality, one that's able to get up and proclaim with power, oftentimes they're unwilling to hear any form of correction.
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Likewise, Priscilla and Aquila, they could have totally blundered at this point had they sought to embarrass him or shame him publicly rather than pulling him to the side and correcting him privately.
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So there's so much of a wonderful blessing in this narrative that's easy to overlook if we don't sort of consider the personalities involved.
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This week, this past week, I had the opportunity to go, as I do every couple of months, I went to a pastor's forum.
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There's a group of pastors here in the area, actually all around Jacksville.
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We meet over at Ortega Presbyterian and we have lunch together, we pray together, we share our needs together, and we talk.
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And we always have a discussion.
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Sometimes the discussion is prayer life, sometimes it's scripture study, sometimes it's a particular verse.
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But this time when we went, it was an interesting subject, one that we hadn't really tackled before.
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It was how do you measure success in ministry? That was the subject of the roundtable.
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And we noted that often churches measure success by the three B's, bodies, buildings, and budgets.
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How many people do you have? How big is the place that you're holding them and how much money are they giving? And that's sort of the only measurements that people use for success in ministry.
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And honestly, truly, that's not a measurement for success in ministry.
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Because I know beyond doubt that the churches with the most people, the biggest buildings, and the biggest budgets in America are preaching pure heresy.
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So it's not a measure of success necessarily.
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Now there are churches that have more people and more money, like John MacArthur's church and R.C.
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Sproul.
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There are guys out there.
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I'm not saying just because you have bodies, buildings, and budgets that you're wrong.
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But I'm saying that's not the measurement of success in ministry.
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But when it got to my turn, I had been thinking about this text and I had been thinking about correcting one another in ministry because it was sort of on my mind as I had been thinking about this for a few weeks looking forward to preaching this message.
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And so it came to my turn and I said, well, Brother Foskey, what do you think is a measure for success? And I said, you know what I think, and again, it's my opinion.
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I said, I think one of the best measurements of success in ministry is how you handle conflict.
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Because how you handle conflict shows how mature you are in your faith.
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And if we're looking to grow disciples, if we're looking to build believers, if we're all acting like children and we can't correct each other or handle correction, then we're really still children in the faith.
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We're still little babies.
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So I said, I think one of the ways that we could at least have some marking for our success is how do we handle it when things aren't going just right.
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It's easy to be super spiritual when everything's groovy.
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It's easy to be, you know, feel very happy about yourself when everything's right.
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But what happens when something isn't right and it has to be corrected? How does your church deal with that? So, as I said, I sort of just comparing that to this text and I shared with the guys, I said, look at how these people handled correcting a brother, how he handled being corrected, and is that what it looks like in our church, our churches, as I was talking to the men.
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So as I said, that's what I want to look at today.
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I want to show you five truths.
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And normally I have a three-point sermon, so we're going to be here a little longer.
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I'm just kidding.
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I'll make them a little shorter.
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But there will be a five-point sermon.
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The five truths that we should consider regarding conflict and correction from this passage.
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Five truths from this passage.
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And they're in your notes.
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And I give you blanks.
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Not because I necessarily wanted to make you have to write something down, but I was told recently some people like to do that.
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So if you don't get all the blanks, I'll give them to you after service.
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But I'll try to make sure you get to fill in all the blanks if you want to.
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Number one.
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Regarding conflict and erring, correcting an errant brother.
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Number one.
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When necessary, I should correct others with patience and respect.
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When necessary, I should correct others with patience and respect.
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How does that happen? You have to recognize that we are all sinners.
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And as such, there are times when we will be in fellowship with others who make mistakes.
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Even large mistakes.
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And when those times arrive, we may be forced to correct that person.
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And how we choose to correct them is hugely important because if we do not go with a spirit of patience and a spirit of respect, all it will do is lead to more conflict.
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Don't we agree? Patience and respect is how we must, if we are going to bring correction.
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As again, I look at Priscilla and I look at Akilah and I see them taking him to the side quietly and I know that's a small snippet of the passage.
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It's not even the focus.
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But the fact that they took him aside quietly and privately is a show of patience and respect.
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One that is often not afforded in today's world.
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Often times when we want to correct people, today we take to social media and we use shame and we use embarrassment to correct.
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And what does that do? It enhances the conflict rather than discourages the conflict.
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So the first thing, as I said, these are going to be short.
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There are five points, so I'm going to make them short.
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The first one is when it is necessary for you to correct someone.
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It might be me.
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Or it might be your spouse.
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Maybe you say, well, it's my spouse.
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I correct her or him all the time.
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But it may be a good friend of yours in the church or it may be a person that you haven't talked to since Christmas last year.
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When those times arrive, the two things that you should consider in bringing correction, no matter who they are, from the pastor to the church member to the deacon to the elder, everyone deserves respect and everyone deserves patience because you are a sinner too and I am a sinner too.
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And if we approach each other as if we have not made mistakes and as if we've never sinned, where are we then? We're in a state of pride.
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Not patience, not respect, but pride, right? So first and foremost, patience and respect, that's first.
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The second thing, the second blank, is when necessary, I should receive correction with humility and teachability.
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It's kind of a big word, but I couldn't find a better one to sort of go with it.
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But humility and teachability is how I should receive correction and you as well.
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One of the things, honestly, when somebody says, what do you look for in a deacon or an elder or anybody? But what do you look for particularly in leadership? Humility, teachability.
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Humility and teachability.
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And teachability really should come first.
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If your theology has never changed, then that means you had it right from the very beginning.
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And how many of you got it right exactly the very moment you got saved? None of us.
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And if we haven't been teachable, if we have not been humble enough to say, yeah, we could be wrong and are able to be taught.
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It's funny, and I know Collier's not here today, but Collier and I talk about this quite a bit because he and I both have been through several times where we both held positions that maybe were not correct and somebody's come along and sort of knocked us off our rocker or knocked us off our pedestal for a moment.
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And we talk about that in different positions.
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And like I said, he's not here today.
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I don't want to embarrass him.
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But there are things that we both have said, yeah, it's a valuable thing to be corrected.
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It's a valuable thing to realize that you don't got it all together yet, even now.
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I know I don't.
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And we're still learning.
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And if you think you're above correction, then that's going to eventually lead to severe conflict.
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So humility and teachability among us is vital.
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The willingness to correct and patience and respect and the willingness to be corrected with humility and teachability, those two go hand in hand.
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And that's what I see in Apollos.
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You know what? Nowhere in the text does it show him saying, I am the order of Alexandria.
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I mean, think, he came with a reputation.
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He came with a voice.
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He came as a man who people listened to.
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I don't want to embarrass anybody, but I mentioned Brother Jim for just a second.
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Went at camp in 2004.
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Brother Jim was doing youth camp.
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And that was the first time we ever ministered together.
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And he invited me to come and take the youth with him.
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And I didn't know anything about Reformed theology other than in seminary.
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We talked about it for like a half a day.
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And that was relatively negative.
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And I went as one of the counselors of the camp and one of the speakers at the camp.
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I preached on Obed-Edom.
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I remember the message.
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And Nathan still teases me about that because it's a funny name.
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It's a guy in the Old Testament.
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But I went as a teacher and a counselor.
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And there was nobody at that camp who left more challenged than me about what I was teaching and believing.
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And it changed everything for me as far as how I understood Scripture and what I was learning and what I was studying.
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It was a monumental watershed moment in my life.
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And I'm not putting myself on the pedals to say, look at me.
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But I am saying this is a moment where I could have easily bucked back and said, no, I've been taught something different in seminary.
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I don't want any part of that.
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I know what I'm doing.
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Leave me alone.
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But thank God He humbled me.
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I surely didn't do it myself.
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But thank God He humbled me to show me that, yeah, I was going the wrong way and I needed to be taught right.
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And I thank Brother Jim for being a part of that and being used of God for that.
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So anyway, these are two things that are valuable.
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Being willing to correct patiently.
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Being willing to receive correction with humility.
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Hugely important.
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The next three will go a little quicker.
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Number three, I need to realize, I should realize, that correction is not always necessary.
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Correction is not always necessary.
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Now this one is not in the text, but it's, I'm going to say, it's something that needs to be said because in a message like this I didn't want to go without saying it.
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Some people love to correct others.
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Let me say that again.
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Some people love to correct others.
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They get up in the morning.
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What kind of knit can I pick today? I mean, that's just their life.
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Is where can I correct someone? And that can become a source of pride and often does.
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And the worst thing about it is those people are often the least willing to be corrected.
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They're willing to chop the tree of another person down to the very root.
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But they wouldn't let their hedges be trimmed for one second.
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And so, that's something that we need to keep in mind.
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Not everything that happens around you requires your correction.
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If I'm sinning, you are welcome to rebuke me.
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And if I'm doing something that's affecting my witness or offends you, you're welcome to share it with me, offering me an opportunity to correct my error.
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But if you don't like something inconsequential that I'm doing, that is not my problem.
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Romans 14 tells us that there are things in life which are left to my conscience and it is not up to you to bind my conscience on those things.
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We may have a difference on how we raise our children.
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We may have differences on how we spend our money.
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We may have differences on what we read and what we watch for entertainment.
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And so long as I am not sinning or causing you to sinning, I don't necessarily need your correction.
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We should not be professional nitpickers.
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And I felt like I needed to say that because on the subject of correction, we start looking for things to correct one another about.
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And that's not what we need to be about.
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We don't need to be just going around pointing out other people's failures all the time.
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Sometimes it's not our business because sometimes it's not a failure.
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It's just not the way you do it.
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And if you make yourself the standard, guess what that is? Pride.
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Just because I don't do it the way you do it doesn't mean I'm doing it wrong.
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So keep in mind that correction is not always necessary.
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Sometimes people just do things different.
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That's okay.
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Number four.
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I should realize the difference between an ignorant error and an intentional error.
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And I want to go back to Apollos on this one.
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When Apollos came in, he was preaching what he knew to be true and he was preaching the truth as he knew it.
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And he did not realize his error because he was ignorant.
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And that's important how we point out errors to others.
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If we have to point out an error to someone, we need to understand that it's one thing if a man knows that he has erred and he continues in that error, but it's another thing completely if he does not know that it's an error.
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You have to deal with both, but you deal with both differently.
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One may require a different approach.
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Apollos was unaware, so they brought him off to the side quietly.
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They taught him rightly and he accepted it and he moved forward.
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A man who knows his sin may be less inclined though.
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And I do think that this is where the issue of Matthew 18 and Jesus talking about church discipline, I think that's where it comes into play.
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Because when you have a man who's erring purposefully and he knows it and it's brought to bear and he refuses to repent, that's where things have to move forward with trying to bring him to repentance.
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But that's where it all begins.
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It all goes back to that spirit of patience in the beginning.
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Do you know the heart of the guy? You do not.
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But you can tell in conversation whether or not he realizes it's an error and he doesn't care or if he never realized it was an error and he wants to change.
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Those are important differences and distinctions to make and I think that was all the distinction in Apollos.
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I think if Apollos came in as a heretic, knowing that he was...
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Like if he was a Gnostic, which were the Gnostics were the heretics of the day.
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I think if Apollos would have been a Gnostic, I think Priscilla and Aquila would have...
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Maybe they still would have pulled him off privately but I think the situation would have went much differently because I think Apollos' response would have been one of a lack of repentance and so things would have changed.
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So again, there are times where it's going to be more than just quiet correction.
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It may lead to a public rebuke but the prayer is that the private correction will lead to the restoration of the brother.
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That's what Jesus said.
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If you take him aside privately, you share with him his error and he repents, what have you done? You have won your brother.
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That's the goal.
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Fifthly and finally, I should realize that there is no correction which is more important than correction in the doctrine of Christ.
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I'll say that again.
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I should realize that there is no correction which is more important than correction in the doctrine of Christ.
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I find it wonderful in this narrative that Priscilla and Aquila made it their mission to explain what to him more accurately.
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Read the text.
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It says to explain the way of Christ more accurately.
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Often I see people and I got to tell you it doesn't just happen in the world.
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It happens in the church and I witness it and it cringes my bones.
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I see people so concerned about correcting people on things that don't matter.
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They will correct others on all kinds of social and political issues but they will never correct them on the doctrines of Christ.
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And we really do major in the minors.
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Think about the Mormon who shows up at our doorstep.
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Do we waste our time arguing with them over polygamy? I mean, really? When what they need is a better understanding of the doctrine of Christ? Or the Jehovah Witness who comes.
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Do we argue with them about the doctrine of soul sleep? You might not even know what that is but that's something they believe which is an errant view from Scripture.
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But why argue that when they have a wrong view of Christ? When we talk to a lost young person, do we hound them about the clothes that they choose to wear or the choice of music that they listen to? Or do we tell them about Christ? When we speak to our lost family members this Christmas dinner that's coming, do we fuss about who they voted for or do we point them towards Christ? Beloved, there is no more important thing in this world than who Jesus is and what He has done and a person can be correct in every other area of their life and be wrong about Jesus and go to hell.
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Beloved, that's the thing that we need to consider from this story.
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They didn't pull Him aside and correct Him on how He spoke.
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They didn't pull Him aside and correct Him on how He dressed.
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They didn't pull Him aside and correct Him on how He opened the Torah scroll.
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They pulled Him aside and corrected Him on the doctrine of Christ.
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Is that the joy of our heart to share Christ with others? Is that the desire of our heart to see people have a better understanding of our Savior? That's my prayer that it would be.
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And if we want to correct anyone on anything, we should first want to correct them on Christ who loved us enough to save us and calls us to love them enough to be ambassadors for Him.
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So this morning, I would encourage you to remember you don't have to correct everyone, but if given the opportunity to correct someone about Christ, take it and in love and patience share with them the Savior who saved you.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the truth and I do thank You, God, that You have given us truth to proclaim to the world.
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And I pray, when given these opportunities to correct others, that we would do so humbly, that we would do so patiently, and that we would do so lovingly, pointing them towards Christ who saved us and loved us when we were unlovable.
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I thank You again, Father, for saving us.
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I thank You for those in the room who have known Christ and known His salvation.
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And I pray for those who don't know Christ.
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I pray that they would recognize today their need for Him and hear when He says, Come to Me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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May they hear those words and come to Christ today.
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In His name we pray, Amen.
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Let's stand and sing.