We continue with the Apostle Paul as the gospel breaks forth into Europe. The Lord is accomplishing His purposes and building His kingdom through faithful gospel proclamation. This is not without opposition, and though we find Paul and his team persecuted greatly, their demeanor, posture and persistence serve as an example to us and a demonstration of Christian contentment in every joy and trial.
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Closed Doors, Open Doors (Acts 15:36-16:10)
Has a door closed on you lately? Has a chapter come to an end, and you did not exactly invite that? To boot, were you trying to serve God when the door closed or the chapter ended? Endings are hard. Really hard. But the things is, God does some of His clearest leading by funneling us by closing doors and then opening new ones. Every closed door leads to a new open door, and a beautiful door. God does not have dead ends. This Sunday's text will remind us of these truths of God's sovereign grace as it leads by way of closed relationships, closed opportunities, and yet new relationships and new opportunities. At the end of the day, we will see that the whole point of our lives is to make Christ known and the only doors we should want are the one's God has planned. What a solid and encouraging place to be.
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Global Church, Deep Unity, Wise Decisions (Acts 15:1-35)
Legalism is like the Applebee's menu. It promises so much and yet never delivers (apologies to you Applebee's fans 😉). Legalism is not debatable, though. Adding anything to Jesus as the ground of salvation is wrong and it robs us of life. Legalism never relents, it manifests itself in all times and in all cultures. The church in Acts 15 responds swiftly, clearly, and graciously in how it dealt with it in its own time and I think we have a great example of how to respond, teach, and disciple the church on how to reject legalism, all the while embracing the way of Jesus Alone love, which may involve choosing to avoid certain things for unity sake. Legalism is the forcing of unbiblical commands. Love is the choosing to give over rights for the sake of the common good. I think Sunday will be helpful to all of us as we seek to live by grace and truth together.
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Seven Marks of a Healthy Church (Acts 14:21-28)
The text this week is a summation of the first missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas. It lists a bunch of important and basic things these missionaries did as leaders in local churches. We will take the seven marks of a healthy church this Sunday and look at them. It might be helpful for folks looking at joining CHBC and hopefully it will help us value the basics more as a church, to long for growth in each of these reasons, and to see how we can help with our spiritual gifts in the growth of these health markers.
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Mini Jesus Ministry (Acts 14:8-20)
The passage this week has a lot to say about a couple things. First, is gospel clarity. Paul and Barnabas go to great lengths with their word and actions to make people clear on what they represent - the heavenly gospel, not an earthly worldview gospel. To that end, they push glory and honor away. Paul is then physically tortured because of this clarity, almost to death. But, with gospel power and hope, Paul gets back on his feet and heads right back onto mission? How? The dude was scared for life, physically. Well, because he knew he was in Christ and so lived like Christ, he believed his scars would lead to glory. May we feel reminded and anchored in that hope, for our own gospel scars, this Lord's Day as we sit under the good and loving Word.
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