Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now, come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has
for us here today.
All right, well, we're going to go ahead and conclude our study
in the Book of Acts.
If you have your Bibles, you can turn there with me.
Acts, chapter 28.
I know it's been a while since we've been in this book, obviously.
Again, thankful for Pastor John covering last week as we got
a head start down to Alabama.
But, and I believe weeks leading up to that, we had our fellowship
outside and we had an abbreviated service.
But here in Acts, chapter 28, I want to just refresh your memory
where we are.
Paul has been on this long journey to Rome.
It started all the way back in what we would say is the middle of
the Book of Acts, when Paul was on his missionary journeys and
God pricked his heart, convicted his heart, challenged his
heart to go to Jerusalem.
You remember, that was something that all of his companions
at that time said, hey, no, don't go to Jerusalem.
You're going to be persecuted.
And Paul says, hey, you know what?
I'm bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem.
And so whatever happens, I'm okay with that.
He says, so what?
I'm bound.
He goes, I'm willing to die for what the Spirit has called me
to do.
But we know that even back further in Acts, chapter nine, when
Paul was called by God to be a minister of the gospel, he said,
he.
He made God made a promise to Paul by saying what?
He said, you're going to minister to the Jews and also the
Gentiles.
You're going to preach to kings and leaders.
And so I. I can't help but get into the mind of Paul and say, lord,
you.
You said this all the way back then, but it seems like you're.
You're taking me down a lot of detours.
But we realize that within our Christian life that just because
there's detours and just because things aren't happening the
way that we expected, that doesn't mean that God has forgotten
about us.
We sang the song.
We know he cares.
And.
And I thought about a verse in the book of Hebrews, Hebrews, chapter
10, verse 23, because I think that this is a great summary of what
Paul was dealing with in his life.
And the concept of holding fast or holding strong unto what
God had promised him.
Because there's times in our life that we know what God has promised
us through his Word.
But yet we're tempted to doubt because of the circumstances, because
of the detours.
What did Paul face?
Well, Paul faced shipwreck.
Paul faced being bit by a venomous snake.
Paul faced persecution by his own people.
Paul faced persecution from the Romans.
Paul was beaten.
Paul was stoned.
But through all of that, Paul stayed faithful.
Why?
Because he went back to the one who made the promise.
He didn't look at the circumstances around him and say,
well, you know what that situation that's happening to me
must mean that God is not with me.
No, he went back to the promise keeper.
And In Hebrews chapter 10, verse 23 says, Let us hold fast the
profession of our faith.
Another way that you could say this is let us hold fast to the hope
that we have in God.
And it says, without wavering, why?
For he is faithful.
That promised God has proven over and over and over again that
he is perfectly faithful.
And so many times in our life we'll doubt because of a situation
or a doubt because of a detour.
Some of you know how frustrating those can be when you're
on the road and you have your ETA and all of a sudden there's a
detour or there's a roadblock.
And it takes us out of our comfort zone.
It takes us out of what we have expected.
But the Bible says that life and the will of God is going to be
faced with a bunch of detours.
We're going to have a bunch of conflict, we're going to have a bunch
of issues.
But ultimately God has made a promise to Paul and that's what we're
seeing fulfilled here at the end of Acts chapter 28.
And so go to Acts chapter 28 with me.
We're going to start in verse number 16.
We're going to pick up where Paul arrives in Rome.
And we would essentially say that this is the end for Paul, even
though he doesn't die right away.
We know that Paul spent some time here in Rome, but this is the
last leg.
And we know that there's some other things that are going to happen.
But ultimately, if you want to read Paul's last words, read second
Timothy, because that's Paul's real last words.
But we come here to Acts chapter 28, and we're going to start
in verse number 16.
It says, and when he came to Rome, the centurion delivered the
prisoners to the captain of the guard.
But Paul was suffered or allowed to dwell by himself, the
soldier that kept him.
And so here we see the setting.
What's the setting?
The setting is, Paul is now arrived in Rome through the shipwreck,
through the difficulties, through the detours.
Finally, the promise of Jesus was fulfilled in the life of Paul.
And you might say, what promise is that?
Well, back in Acts, chapter 19, verse 21, it says that Paul purposed
in the spirit when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaya
and to go to Jerusalem, saying, after I have been there,
I must also see Rome.
We also know that in Acts, chapter 23, verse number 11, after
Paul was persecuted by his own people, after Paul was thrown in
prison, Jesus meets him and it says, be of good cheer, Jesus.
This is Jesus specifically talking to Paul.
He said, be of good cheer, Paul.
He doesn't say, be of good cheer, Paul, because everything's
going to work out for you.
He says, be of good cheer, Paul, for as thou has testified of
me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.
And so the promise all the way back in Acts chapter 23 was, hey,
Paul, have comfort in me.
Have comfort in my call.
Have comfort in my will.
Because just as you've gone to Jerusalem and preached, you will
go to Rome and preach.
Now, if you don't know the full context of that, you might not
understand the, the.
The troubling nature of that.
Because really, he went to Jerusalem to preach, to be persecuted.
And what is God saying to Paul?
He says this, hey, just like you went and preached in Jerusalem
and got persecuted, you get to go to Rome and do that.
But Paul's excited.
Why?
Because he's following the will of God.
And this was a promise.
He said, be of good cheer.
This is going to happen.
And we even know that he repeated the promise during those
two weeks of the storm at sea in Acts chapter 27.
And so here in Acts chapter 28, verse 16, we see the culmination
of God's promise that Paul would get to Rome and preach.
We even know that Paul had a desire to preach to those people
there in Rome, to the Jews in Rome, and to the Gentiles at Rome.
And so we can stop here and we can just think about the fact that
God is going to keep his word.
Even if it's not in our timing, even if it's not in our way,
God will keep his word.
And we look over and over again in Scripture and we see God
making promises to his children.
And sometimes we're tempted to doubt those Promises, and we don't
have time to go through all of those here this evening.
But some of the more popular promises that you might know from
Scripture is that God's never going to leave us nor forsake us.
That he's the same yesterday, today and forever.
That we can.
That we can come boldly before the throne of grace to find mercy
and grace and help in time of need.
There's all these different promises that God gives to us and
throughout Scripture.
And so when we claim those promises, it's not just claiming
it by the circumstance that we're in right now, but it's claiming
that future.
That's really what.
That's really what faith is.
It's believing that God is going to keep his word in the future.
It's in the here and now.
But also he's going to keep it tomorrow, he's going to keep it the
next day.
And so it says, what.
What does Paul do here when he gets to Rome?
He could have done a lot of things, but it says in verse 17,
he says, and it came to pass that after three days, Paul called
the chief of the Jews together.
This is what Paul does.
He says, I'm going to preach to my people.
I'm going to preach to my people here in Rome.
And I think this is a beautiful thing because it shows
that Paul is consistently holding fast to the confession of
his faith.
Paul is standing true to what God has called him to do.
And so he says, it doesn't matter what circumstance I'm in,
it doesn't matter that I'm in the custody of Rome right now.
I am going to preach the truth because that is what God has called
me to do.
And you can read different prison epistles.
The book of Philippians is one of the great ones that talk about
how Paul can have joy and confidence and hope in the midst
of these trials.
And so it says, and it came to pass after three days that Paul called
the chief of the Jews together.
And when they were come together, he said unto them, men
and brethren, though I have committed nothing against the people
or customs of our fathers, yet was I delivered prisoner from Jerusalem
into the hands of the Romans.
So Paul is going to appeal to the Jewish community here, and he's
going to basically say, I didn't do anything wrong to get here,
but I'm here nonetheless.
Verse 18. Who, when they had examined me, would have let me go
because there was no cause of death in me.
So he's giving his testimony here.
Verse 19.
But when the Jews spake Against it I was constrained to appeal
unto Caesar, not that I ought to accuse my nation of for this cause,
therefore I have called for you, to see you and to speak with
you, because that for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.
Find this so interesting that he says this.
He says he.
He wants them to know that he is a prisoner, not because of his
own sin, but because of his hope in the Messiah and because of
the Gospel, because of Jesus.
He says, it's worth it.
And so he says, hey, there's.
There's hope for Israel there.
There's hope for all.
And so he says that it's not because I'm a sinner necessarily,
it's not because I have committed a crime.
It's because I've preached the Gospel.
And he wants them to know the Gospel as well.
And so verse 21 is the response of the Jewish leaders.
They're going to respond to Paul.
And this demonstrates that the religious leaders who accused Paul
back in Jerusalem really understood that they were in the
wrong.
Why?
Because it says in verse 21.
And they said unto him, we neither receive letters out of Judea
concerning thee.
Neither any of the brethren that came showed or spake any harm
of thee.
And so Paul here is learning that no one said anything about what
he did there in Jerusalem.
And I. I believe this shows that the people there in Jerusalem
and even up in Caesarea later on, they knew that their case was
hopeless.
And so they didn't send any documents confirming their case because
they knew they didn't have anything against Him.
Verse 22.
But we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest.
And, and so they didn't know anything about Paul or his ministry
necessarily.
They had heard of Christianity, obviously, but they
wanted to know more.
And so they wanted to understand what Paul had to say about
what he believed.
And so this says here, but we desire to hear of thee what thou
thinkest.
For as concerning this sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken
against, they're like, well, why?
We want to know why everyone's speaking against Christianity.
We want to know why everyone's against this.
We want to hear your case.
We want to know what's so compelling that's causing all these
people to believe and causing all these people to come against
of the gospel.
Verse 23.
And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him
into his lodging, to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom
of God, persuading them concerning Jesus both out of the
law of Moses and now the prophets from morning Till evening.
This shows Paul's heart, this shows Paul's faithfulness, this shows
really where Paul had his direction focused.
And it was to preach the gospel to his people.
And so I believe, I mean, I would have.
There's certain times in the Bible that I want to be there and
see.
And there's other times in the Bible I don't want to be there and
see.
Okay, so there's some situations I'm like, I'm glad I wasn't
there.
I'm glad I wasn't there during the plagues in Egypt.
Okay, that was pretty crazy.
But this would have been one of the times that I would have loved
to see Paul teaching from morning till evening from the law
of Moses, from out of the prophets and pointing them to Jesus
through those.
Anytime we see that Paul went to the scriptures, he's not going
to the Gospels, those aren't written yet.
He's appealing to the Old Testament and showing how Jesus is
the culmination of the prophecies that were found in the
law and the prophets.
And so ultimately we see that he is pointing them to Jesus.
It says there that he testified of the kingdom of God.
Paul taught, no doubt what Jesus taught.
Jesus taught about the kingdom.
So what is Paul going to do?
Paul is going to teach about the kingdom, he's teaching about
Jesus.
And, and we see that here some were persuaded by the things which
were spoken.
And, and so in response to this day long teaching from Paul,
there are people, as we see here, that are going to come to believe
verse 24.
And some believed the things which were spoken.
What an amazing thing this is.
Even in the midst of what we would call the capital of evil in
the world.
Rome was an evil place.
Rome was the center of paganism.
But yet even in this, we see the gospel working.
The gospel is working in this passage of scripture, the gospel
is working later on in the different epistles.
And we know that the gospel is working today.
There's a lot of times that we are tempted to doubt the power of
the truth of the gospel.
And sometimes we as humans try to get in the way of the power and
the message of the Gospel.
But if you go to Romans chapter one, what does it say?
It says that there is power in the gospel.
And so what we need to do is unadulterated preach the message
of the Gospel.
That's what Paul does.
He preaches the truth.
But just as some believed, we see at the end of verse 24 that some
did not.
So some believe and trust in Jesus, others don't they?
They're living in disbelief.
They're living in rebellion.
And even I think this is comforting for me as a preacher and
as a teacher sometimes, because sometimes a preacher and
a teacher in any of you have ever taught adult classes or even
children's classes, you're tempted to think, well, if they don't
get it, maybe I'm doing something wrong.
The reality is, is that we can present a very clear message, but
that doesn't mean that people are always going to believe.
Our job is not to necessarily make everyone believe.
Our job is to present the truth of the gospel to people.
And so you know what?
There's times in our life where we do see people gaining knowledge
from our teaching, but ultimately it's the power of God.
And so some believe and some don't believe.
And so even in the best circumstances, there are going to
be some people that reject the truth of God.
That's not our fault.
The only thing that we are at fault in is when we don't present
the truth of God to people around us and the opportunities that
we have.
And so Paul preaches, Paul takes the opportunity.
And that's one of the things that I think about Paul's life.
I think about if we were to write a biography about him, what
would be his key phrases?
And you know, one of his key phrases is, I'm ready, I'm ready.
I'm ready to go.
He was always ready.
He was always willing to walk through an open door.
There's another opportunity and where we can read in scripture
that he says he, he prayed for door, a door of utterance, which
would essentially mean an open door to present the gospel.
And every situation that I see in the New Testament, when Paul has
an opportunity to preach the gospel, he doesn't just knock at
that door, he just pounds it down.
He goes right through it.
And I'm going to tell you folks, if you want to have opportunities
to present the gospel, pray for those open doors, and God will
send you those open doors.
But when those open doors begin to crack open, go through it.
Don't be afraid.
Because the truth is, is that the worst thing that can happen is
that people can reject what you preach.
But if people reject what you preach, you're in good company.
People rejected Paul, people rejected Jesus, People rejected the
best preachers throughout our history.
And so the reality is, is that it's not about success.
It's not about coming and saying, well, this is how many followers
I have.
No, it's about Paul going and preaching and being faithful.
To what God has called him to do.
And Paul is going to explain, basically he's going to explain from
the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 6, verse 9 and 10.
He's going to explain that even though there are going to be
some people in Israel and Jews around the world that believe that
for the most part there's going to be a hardened heart to the
gospel.
He quotes that there in verse 25 and says, and when they agreed
not among themselves, meaning there was division amongst those
that were listening, they departed.
After that, Paul had spoken one word.
Well, spake the Holy Ghost by Isaiah's the prophet unto our Father,
saying, go unto this people and say, hearing ye shall hear and
shall not understand.
Seeing ye shall see and not perceive.
Verse 27.
For the heart of this people is wax gross and their ears are dull
of hearing, and their eyes have they closed, lest they should
see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with
their heart and should be converted and I should heal them.
And so here we see Paul quoting the book of Isaiah.
And so when we see this happening, there's a suggestion here,
when it says that they did not agree, the suggestion would be that
those who believed were there and those who didn't believe were
there.
And there was probably some arguing that was happening.
And as Paul is watching this happen, he's brokenhearted and he
understands the prophecies that there would be hardness of heart
with the people of Israel.
And so obviously Paul is happy that some are believing, but he's
also brokenhearted about his own people rejecting the gospel of
Jesus Christ.
And we don't have time to go there tonight, but we are going to
go there in the future in the book of Romans.
But if you read Romans chapter nine, you can really see the heart
of Paul for his people, specifically the Jewish people.
His heart is that all the Jewish people will come to know Christ.
And he's brokenhearted over that because they're rejecting their
Messiah.
Now we know again in the future, we know that there will be
a day when the nation of Israel is revived.
And we are excited for that day.
We, we are longing for that day where they'll trust in Jesus
Christ as Messiah.
But what Paul is saying here is that there is going to be a time
period where there's hardness of heart, where there's blinding
of the eyes, where there's scales over the eyes of those people.
And so essentially what Isaiah was saying in the prophecy is that
there will be people that reject Jesus.
They will hear the message, but they won't understand they, they
will see the things happening, but they will close off to that because
of their hardness of their heart.
And just as that is true 2000 or so years ago in this time frame,
so is it's true today.
I mean there, there, there are going to be many people who hear
and reject the word of God simply because they don't want to
turn to God, they don't want to have accountability.
Many people will say the reason why they don't believe is
because of a lack of evidence.
And that might be true for, for some, but ultimately at the heart
of that we know that the Bible teaches that when people reject God,
it's not necessarily an evidence thing as much as it is an
accountability thing.
And coming to Christ and saying, lord, I want you to, it's
a relinquishing of power and many people don't want to relinquish
power.
I saw this one famous atheist and they asked him a question, they
said, if God came down in front of you and proved himself to
you, would you still believe?
And he goes, well no, I would think that I was delusional or I
would think that it was a hologram or you know, the reality
is that for some people there will never be enough evidence.
So what do we do in that case?
Well, all we do is we preach the word.
We stay faithful to preaching the gospel.
Paul says it has the power to change.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.
To the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from
faith to faith.
As it is written, the just shall live by faith.
And so what we can see here is that this prophecy in Isaiah, though
it's specifically dealing with the nation of Israel, will still
be the case for today.
There will be people who even sit in this building that come to
church that, that read the Bible, that will not believe because
of certain hangups that they have.
But ultimately, ultimately, if we can boil it down, it's a lack
of faith and trusting in Jesus Christ as their Savior.
And there's a self reliance there, there's a selfishness there.
And the original lie from the very beginning was a humanistic lie.
What does Satan tell Eve and Adam?
You can be like God, you can be your own God, you can have that
type of wisdom, you can have that type of power.
And that is really what the lie is today.
And sometimes what Satan does is he packages it as atheism, but
sometimes he'll Package it as religious, or sometimes they'll package
it as.
As, hey, you're a good person.
You're an honorable person.
But the folks we talked about this morning, there is none good.
No, not one.
And so what we have to do is we have to go back to this understanding
of why is the gospel so important?
Why do some believe?
Why do some not believe?
Ultimately, we have to go back to the thing of, hey, you know what?
It is not my decision who goes to heaven.
It is my decision who I tell about heaven.
It's not my decision about who is going to come forward on a Sunday
morning.
You know what?
There were times when I would preach on a Sunday morning, and you
know, it.
My measure.
I'm going to be really transparent with you here this evening.
I hope you guys can appreciate that.
My measure of whether or not I was successful or faithful was how
many people were stirred, how many people said, wow, that was a.
And.
And though I'm appreciative of your thankfulness to the messages,
if I think of that as my only measure of success and faithfulness,
I'm missing the point.
Because really, at the end of the day, all of us are really serving
for an audience of one.
And though I'm ministering to different people, I'm ultimately
ministering to people for him.
I'm preaching the gospel for him.
Now, I can't understand the type of love that Paul had for people
who were persecuting him.
And he still loved them.
He wanted them to come to Christ.
He was even willing to give up his blessings for his own people.
But yet, at the same time, how many of us have not even a shred
of that compassion for the lost around us?
I know I struggle with that.
I know that I want my family to be saved.
I know that the people that I love, I want to go to heaven.
But who cares about that one that doesn't have a family member
that's saved, who.
Who.
Who's going to be like Paul and say, if it means I get shipwrecked,
if I.
Means I go to prison, if it means that I'm willing to go to another
place and maybe never even see my homeland again, it's okay, because
I'm following what God has called me to do.
And that's that type of commitment that that's talked about
there in Hebrews when it says, let us hold fast the confession of
our faith.
Verse 28, Paul tells them that though he's brought the message to
the Jews, he's going to take the message of Salvation to the Gentiles.
Which again, that doesn't sound really alarming to us now because
we're completely comfortable with Gentiles being saved.
But for those folks, it was alarming for Paul to say, those Gentiles
over there in Rome are going to get saved the same way you're
going to get saved.
The Jews did not like that because the Jews had a way for Gentiles
to come into the family of God, but it was a different way than
they came in because they were able to be in it because of their
bloodline and Abraham.
But what Paul is going to say is, no, it's, it's the same.
It's.
If you, if you question that, read the book of Galatians.
He says salvation is the same across the board.
It's through Jesus Christ, verse 28.
He says, Be it known therefore unto you that the salvation of God
is sent unto the Gentiles and that they will hear it.
He's basically telling them that as you that are rejecting the
gospel, hey, there's going to be Gentiles who receive the gospel.
You better get used to this.
And verse 29.
And when he had said these words, the Jews departed and had
great reasoning among themselves.
And so these people rejected the salvation of God.
But what it means is that it doesn't mean that God's less powerful.
It just means that they weren't willing to hear it.
And now there's going to be a new group of people here.
That's the Gentiles.
We know that in Romans chapter one, it says that, that the gospel
was for the Jew first, but then to the Greek, then to the Gentile.
And so those who preach the gospel are preaching the truth.
They're preaching, if we preach the gospel fully, we're preaching
sin, we're preaching truth, we're preaching judgment, we're preaching
salvation.
The gospel cannot be reduced down to one word.
Well, you'll hear people say the gospel is love, and if we just
love, everything will be okay.
But the reality is, is that the love that's described in Scripture
is a.
Is a different type of love than the world says is love.
Love is not an acceptance or an affirmation of evil.
Love is care and concern enough for a person to tell them
the truth about their eternal destination.
So Paul's heart was so evidently clear here that he wanted
them to know Jesus, but he really wanted all those people there,
the Gentiles as well, to know Jesus.
And so there's a mixed group.
There's some that are saved.
There's some that are not saved.
But Paul says, hey, you know what?
There's going to be an opportunity for these Gentiles to
be saved.
And we know that eventually Jerusalem is going to be destroyed.
God's judgment is coming.
But in this case, ultimately Paul is speaking to some people that
don't understand that completely yet.
Verse 30 and Paul dwelt two whole years.
So it's going to say that Paul spent two years in Rome before his
trial in Caesar's court.
Paul dwelt two years in his own hired house and received all
that came in unto him.
So even in these years, as Paul was spending these two years,
he is going to still have people come into his house and he's
going to preach the gospel, he's going to write letters.
This is all part of God's plan in preaching the kingdom.
And verse 31 is how it all really ends.
The book of Acts at least.
What does he do when they come to him?
Preaching the kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern
the Lord Jesus with all confidence.
No man forbidding him.
What does this, what does it mean, no man forbidding him?
It really is this idea that he was just unhindered in preaching
the Gospel.
The chains that Paul had on his hands and his feet, the Roman
soldier that he was chained to there in house arrest, it didn't
matter.
The word of God was unhindered because nothing that Rome could do,
nothing that the Jewish people could do, nothing that anyone could
do could stop the message that God wanted Paul to preach.
And so as Paul comes to Rome and as he faces shipwreck, as he
faces being snake bitten, as he faces persecution, God delivers
him from all of those things to get to the place where God wanted
him to be.
God shows him that he is faithful, that the gospel cannot
be stopped.
Even though there are people that don't believe, even though that
there will be people who persecute him, even though there
will be people that eventually put him to death, he is going to
preach with all confidence, knowing that he is doing the will
of God.
And that's why Paul can say at the end of his life, I've I finished
the course.
He's ran the race.
He's been faithful.
And so trusting in Jesus Christ means to rely on his power,
to rest in his promises, to find his feet, to find his peace,
to perform his purpose.
And I want you to think about that here this evening.
We have to rely on the power of God to give us the strength to
trust in his promises so that we can walk forward in his purpose.
God has a purpose for all of us.
God has a purpose for this church.
And it's not some mystical thing that we can't put our finger
on.
God's purpose for the church is to present the gospel, to present
the truth to a lost and dying world, to win people to Christ, to
evangelize the lost, then to educate and to edify and to disciple
folks, by the way, the Great Commission is not just leading people
to Christ in salvation.
That's one aspect of the Great Commission.
The other aspect of the Great Commission is to teach them what
it means to follow him.
And then it goes on to say, to make disciples so that they can make
disciples.
When we study the Book of Acts and we look at authentic church through
Scripture, what is the purpose of the church?
The purpose of the church is to be the pillar and ground of truth,
to be the hands and feet of the body of Christ so that we can
move and we can change and we can lead people to the truth of Jesus
Christ.
I want to take you to one last passage of Scripture.
And, you know, I think that this is appropriate as we conclude
this study, talking about the church.
Matthew, chapter 16, verse 18.
This is before the church.
Now, some would argue this.
Well, this is before the Book of Acts.
We can all agree to that.
And Jesus is having a conversation with his disciples,
who we know will be the apostles.
And we know that will be leaders in the early church.
You can't argue that.
Peter was one of the early church leaders.
He was the one that was preaching in the day of Pentecost.
He was the one who was going to be at the top there in Jerusalem
in many ways, in leadership.
And.
And we see in verse number 15, we'll go back a few verses.
Matthew, chapter 16, verse 15.
Jesus has been asking the disciples, who do people say that
I am?
And they say, well, some say that you're John the Baptist.
Some say that you're Elijah.
Some say that you're Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
Jesus is okay.
What.
Who do you think that I am?
And Peter answers and says, thou art Christ, the Son of the living
God.
You're the Messiah.
You're the Son of God.
You are God.
That's what he's saying there.
Verse 17.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, blessed art thou, Simon
bar Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but
my Father, which is in heaven.
Meaning there was no way that you were able to find this in your
own wisdom.
This was.
This is a truth From God, that Jesus is the Christ.
And this verse here is.
Is a popular verse that gets misappropriated to the fact that
that Jesus is saying that he's going to build the church on Peter.
He's not going to build the church on Peter.
And we could have a breakdown on the Greek here about the word
rock.
Really, the word for Peter is little rock.
The word for the rock that he's about to say is the big boulder
rock.
But what is he essentially saying?
He says this, and I say unto thee that thou art Peter little rock.
And upon this rock, what Peter just said the boulder, I will build
my church.
So what is he saying here?
He's saying that the church will be built on the gospel of Jesus
Christ, the truth, that Jesus is Messiah, that Jesus is king, that
Jesus alone is the way for salvation the church.
And I'm going to speak frankly here this evening.
The church is not just a social club.
Are we going to find social elements within the church?
Of course.
We are the family of God.
But if the church is reduced just to a social club, we're missing
the point.
Is a church a place where we can show off our gifts?
Yes, but not show off our gifts.
Serve in those gifts.
Why?
For the cause of the gospel.
It always goes back to the truth of Jesus Christ.
If we lose sight of that, if the programs and the machine, so
to speak, of the church take priority over the purpose of the
gospel, we've missed the point.
The Great Commission is our purpose to go, to share, to.
To evangelize, to edify, to disciple.
And that's not just a responsibility for the pastor, though.
It is my responsibility to equip.
Ephesians, chapter four, equip the saints, you, me, for the work
of the ministry, meaning my job is not to do the Great Commission
alone.
And everyone just watch from the grandstands.
It is that we come together.
And my goal is to point you to scripture and encourage you to do
the things that God has called every Christian to do within the
church.
And that's what Paul is trying to do throughout all of this time,
is not just a spoon.
There's a time and a place to spoon feed people.
Micah is not in the same place as Silas.
Like Silas, we have to spoon feed still.
I mean, he's getting better at it, but he's a baby still.
It's hard for me to know that he's a year and a half, you know,
and it's like, man, it's crazy.
But if I treated Micah the same way I treated Silas, I would
not be doing a service to Micah.
He's 10 years old.
All right, son, come get your mush here and let me be the CEO.
He's gonna be like, oh, no, Dad, I can do this myself.
But we, we.
You, you maybe you've seen instances where someone has coddled
their child so much to the point where they can't live without
somebody.
And that's what we have created within the church environment,
specifically in Western society, is we've spoon fed individuals
in the church so much to the point where they're not able to find
truth in the word of God themselves.
They rely on a leader to do all the work.
And hey, you know what?
Just spoon feed me.
I'm ready to go.
And though there is a time and a place for the feeding corporately
within the church, there is a time and a place for individual growth
within the work of the Lord in the individual's life.
And so the point I'm trying to make is that the church is not just
like the body of Christ.
The church is the body of Christ.
He is the head.
And I don't know about any of you guys, but last time I checked,
if we don't have a head, we don't have life.
Okay, the head is Christ, but the body is the church.
You are the body, we are the body.
And when the body hurts, the body hurts.
When the body is not working in unison, the body is not working
the way it should work.
And what we have to do is we have to say, what is our purpose?
What's our ultimate purpose?
The ultimate purpose, we must come alongside in one accord and
say the ultimate purpose is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
That's what Paul demonstrated here.
That's what Peter demonstrated there.
That's what the church fathers demonstrated, that this is what really
matters.
And when we get that focus, when we're, when we're ready to get
to business, a lot of the other things that are distractions
in our Christian life and in our church life will go away if we're
all just focused on that same mission.
And I don't know about any of you, but like there is like a bond
ever gone through like a really traumatic situation with somebody
and you have like a bond with them now because you were in that
tragic situation or difficult situation.
It's somewhat like what it means to be within the church.
Like we're supposed to go through it together.
Well, we're not designed to be isolated.
And so the church is to be the body and we're to come alongside
of Everyone that's going through pain and struggles and to
encourage them and lift them up and challenge them, as the Bible
says, exhorting.
That's why it's.
That's why In Hebrews chapter 10, it says to not forsake the assembling
of ourselves together.
It's not so that we can check our boxes and say, all right, they're
in church, okay, they're good Christians today.
The reason why we're supposed to get together is, as it says later
on to.
We are to exhort one another.
The exhortation is what matters.
To come together and exhort each other in love and in good works,
to provoke each other to love and good works.
And so I'll end with Matthew 16, verse 18.
He says, on this rock will I build my church.
And here it is.
The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
The evil will not win.
The church will prevail.
And actually, does a gate attack us?
Have you ever had a gate attack you?
Maybe some of those automatic gates.
I don't know if you ever had your car.
But a gate doesn't attack, right?
You attack a gate like you think about in the picture of the
old times.
There would be like, the gate of the city, and the army would attack
the gate of the city.
So what we see here is that a lot of times we think, well, the
church is just passively waiting and evil is attacking us.
And we're just like, okay, we're going to preserve.
We're going to.
We're going to prevail.
No, the Bible says that we are on the go.
We are on the initiative.
We are to attack.
And it says the gates of hell will not prevail against.
And so it's an encouragement to us that we are not just only a
defensive church.
The Bible says that there's an offensive weapon.
What's the offensive weapon?
The sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
We are to use this as our weapon against evil.
Now, maybe some of you have heard of a Bible thumper.
I don't literally mean use this as a weapon, okay?
Don't use this a weapon.
Don't hit anyone with your Bible, but hit them with the truth
of the Bible unapologetically, with grace, with love, with patience,
with meekness, but at the same time understanding that that is our
purpose as a church.
Our purpose is to be the proclaimers of the message, the proclaimers
of the gospel.
So authentic church through Scripture.
That's the Book of Acts.
We've been in it A long time.
We've studied a lot of things through that, and there's a lot of
lessons that we could take.
And again, I think we can summarize it all just with that simple
fact that we build the church on the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The heart of Jesus is a heart of unity.
He wants this church to be unified.
As a pastor, I want the church to be unified.
In reality, we're going to have struggles.
The church will always have struggles.
I was having a conversation with someone today, and we were having
the conversation of, hey, you know, the church has brought a lot
of evil in this world.
And I understand that argument.
There are a lot of people that say I can't be a Christian because
the church has just had a lot of atrocities over the years.
And to some degree, that's a false narrative because the church
isn't as bad as what the media has portrayed it.
But at the end of the day, the church has done wrong things.
The church is still doing wrong things today at large.
But why is that?
Is that because God is failing?
No, it's because the church is made up of humans who are sin, cursed
and marred.
And when people go their own way and try to do church their own
path, that's when the church has gotten into a lot of problems
and fallen into sin.
Is anyone exempt in the church of sin?
No.
But what we do is we don't base a church off of a person.
We don't base a church off of a movement.
We base the church off of Jesus Christ.
There is no one that's irreplaceable other than Jesus Christ.
And so I want you to understand here this evening, is
that as.
As a church, we will make mistakes.
As a church member, you will have an offense against you.
It's.
It's an inevitability.
It's not justifying it.
It's not condoning it.
But the reality is, is that there will always be issues because
we're humans.
But at the end of the day, we always go back to the bigger purpose
and the bigger plan.
The bigger purpose and the bigger plan is again, presenting
the gospel of Jesus Christ to love people.
I'm so thankful for Middletown Baptist Church.
I. I can't share all the details with you, but, you know,
I've been to a lot of different places, and there are different
churches that have different strengths.
And one of the things I will say about this church, among the
many things that I'm thankful for, is this church is a loving,
caring church.
Is it perfect?
No.
They're Going to be people that have bad days, of course.
But I will say that I believe, I truly believe this is that there's.
The spirit of God is moving at Middletown Baptist Church.
I do believe that there is true, genuine concern and care and
love for the lost.
And sometimes it's just we don't know what to do or we're misguided
or maybe I'm just not sure how I fit into this plan.
That's the beauty of scripture.
The beauty of scripture tells us that all of us have been gifted
uniquely for the purpose of the gospel.
And one of the most rewarding things that I can tell you in your
life is when you find that gift that God has gifted you in.
And when you are working in that gift, that is the most rewarding
process.
Because you know what?
No one can throw shade on your day, right?
Because every day is a beautiful day when you're walking
in the truth of Jesus Christ.
Can I tell you that?
Ministry.
And by the way, when I say ministry, I used to grow up thinking
the pastor and the deacons are ministry people and all we are just
church people.
There's been a lie that was told.
All I'm going to.
How much time do I got?
Nine more minutes.
Okay, I got you, got me till 7 o'.
Clock.
There was a lie that happened back in the Middle Ages that the
clergy was above and different and more privileged than the, what
we call the laity.
And there was this big division.
Laity, you can't read.
So just trust us, we've got it all under control.
We want to make money, we want to have all this.
And the idea for that has changed a little bit in the Reformation,
a little bit throughout the years.
But what I will say is that there is still some of that ingrained
in our society that, well, the ministry is for the people that are
pastors, vocational people.
But folks, the ministry of the gospel is everyone's ministry.
You, you, you are all in the ministry.
Whether you like it or not.
If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you are signed up for the
ministry.
Some people are vocationally in the ministry.
Some people are, are Christian businessmen, some people are Christian
housewives, some people are Christian whatever.
But you are in the ministry of Jesus Christ.
And so what it is, is like I want to be equipped in every tool
that I can to, to be in the ministry that God has me to be in.
And the ministry doesn't necessarily have to be, well, this
ministry sanctioned by the church, the ministry is pointing
serving people in the truth of Jesus Christ.
And so I know that I have the Sunday night crowd here, the faithful
Sunday night crowd.
But what I'm going to tell you is that change happens when individuals
realize that there is a responsibility to make that heart
change ourselves.
We pray for revival, but revival starts with the individual
that then corporately comes together and say, we're all going
to unify together in Jesus Christ.
The gospel is presented by the individual.
Yes, the church can be a beacon of light to the world, but
it takes the individuals to go in the power of God to preach that
gospel, to share that gospel.
Folks, there's.
It's been laid upon my heart recently.
I want to take the gospel further than Middletown.
Middletown is a great mission field.
We need that mission field.
But folks, I think God has so much more planned for our church,
and I'm excited to see what he's going to do through you.
And you might say, well, Pastor, I. I'm long gone past the
days of leaving Middletown and going somewhere.
I get that.
But God still gifted you in some capacity, and the world now
is more connected than ever.
We can get creative with the gospel.
Paul was certainly creative with the gospel.
Paul didn't have the same tools we have today.
Paul didn't have the Internet.
Paul didn't have smartphone.
Paul didn't have all those types of things.
But I guarantee you, if there was an opportunity for them back
then to have the same tools that we have today, they would utilize
those tools.
And so I would encourage you to think about how God has you in
your place at Middletown Baptist Church.
We're not the only church, but we are a church that has been called
to present the gospel to the world.
So we're going to conclude there with that.
But what I will say is this, as a pastor, I'm no different than
you when it comes to my value in Christ.
God sees us all the same.
Are there different requirements for different positions?
Of course we know that there are different responsibilities for
different people.
Of course we know that.
But don't ever see, well, that person has that ministry and they
must be more valuable than me or that person is more public or
more outgoing than me.
So they.
They.
They have been gifted different.
No, all of us in the eyes of God are.
Are fit for the master's use, as the Bible says.
And so what I want you to think about here this evening is
not what.
What has that person been gifted in, but what has God gifted
me in?
And.
And I really, really think that we can come together as a church
and do miraculous things, even if Just even like three or four of
us said, you know what?
We're going to dedicate ourselves to the Gospel and reaching
Middletown, reaching the world.
Think about how much it started with 12, right?
Well, actually 11.
And then they had to replace the 12.
But think about how that worked.
I mean, just amazingly, how, how the gospel in a short amount
of time covered the known world.
We saw that it reached all the way to Rome.
They said, paul, we've heard about all these people that are rejecting
what you're preaching, what's going on.
So just think about how much impact we can have in the world today.
And that's.
That's an exciting thing.
So we'll go ahead and close in a word of prayer, and then I'll have
a few announcements, and then we'll be dismissed.
Lord, I thank youk for this time that yout've given us.
I thank youk for the opportunity tonight to conclude our
study in the Book of Acts, Lord.
But help us to move forward in what yout've called us to do, Lord.
Challenge us, make us more like youe, Lord.
Help us to be busy about the work that you've called us to do.
I thank you for these individuals who have seen fit to
be here this evening, others that maybe are listening via the
Internet.
Lord, I just do pray that you encourage us and equip us for the
work that you've called us to do.
So we ask all these things in Jesus name.
Amen.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If you would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
or find us on Facebook or YouTube.
You can also email me directly at joshmissaroiddletownbaptistchurch
dot com if you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and follow
along for future podcast and updates.
Thank you so much.
God bless.
Have a wonderful day.