Can I follow my heart to freedom? Authenticity ad Discipleship

Hello, and welcome to the Westside churches special Monday Morning Coffee podcast on this podcast, our preacher Mark Roberts will help you get your week started right. With look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think through it further and better work the applications into our daily lives . Mark will then look forward into this week's Bible reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for. And, he may have some extra bonus thoughts from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday Morning Coffee with Mark.

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee podcast for Monday, may the sixth . I'm Mark and I have some coffee. I've got notes from yesterday's sermon. I'm ready to talk about the most important conversion story in the Book of Acts. I'm convinced of that now, and I am ready to help you put into play what we talked about yesterday and load up with more spiritual minimum as we read our Bible together this week. It's May and we are moving forward in the Book of Acts. We're moving forward with Peter and John and we're learning not to follow our heart. That was yesterday. Let's get started. Yesterday I preached about being authentic, which has become such a watch word , such a buzz phrase in our society today. And in some ways, of course that's very attractive. Who's going to say, I wanna be fake? I, I don't want to be real. I , I want to be inauthentic. And clearly Christianity calls us to personify in our own lives the truth. But there are some big issues with this authenticity movement. Lots that goes on with that is not biblical. Talked about that yesterday. And I'm just gonna add this thought. I wonder if you've noticed that when people talk about being real or being authentic, sometimes that almost praises ungodliness and a lack of holiness. Because when someone opens up about giving into sin, they have struggles with temptations. Everyone applauds how real they are and people say, oh, she's being so vulnerable, and oh, that's so authentic. And then when people say, we want you to be real, it seems like that almost means you have to have troubles with sin and be falling into sin all the time and be struggling. You, you take your identity as somebody who is imperfect. You take on an identity as somebody who's a, who is a failure. But I wonder if that's really the path that Christians want to take. Now, I hasten to add, there's absolutely a place for humility and there's a place for praying for one another and there's a place for being candid and about needing help in overcoming sin. But sometimes in the name of vulnerability and genuineness, we may just honor and glorify failure in sin. We, we crown that as so real. But I want you to think about this. Why is that so real when someone who's doing well spiritually somehow that that doesn't equate in people's minds with being authentic? Here's a couple, they've been married 50 years. We go to their golden anniversary party, they give a little speech thanking everyone, and he looks into his bride's eyes and he says, I love you now more than ever, and I thank you for walking beside me for these 50 years. Why isn't that celebrated as being real? That was very authentic. Why don't we celebrate that? Why don't we praise that? Can't we connect with one another in the victories that we have in Christ, those victories that Christ has made possible instead of just wallowing in the muck and admir of sin and saying, yes, I'm dirty. Look at me. Look how dirty I am. I'm telling you how dirty I am. Oh, you're dirty too. Let's all just be dirty. That's not what Christ came for . That's not what being a Christian is all about. Sometimes we really need to rethink some of this authenticity business. And I hope that lesson yesterday will help you to do that. Remember, we are not called to say, I am free to be myself. Instead, we say, Christ has set me free from myself so I can follow him. Don't go be you. Go be him. Hope that helps you. And we see a place where that had to happen in our Bible reading today in Acts chapter 10, let's talk daily Bible reading. It is Monday and today we read Acts 10 34 to 48. This is the conclusion of the story of Cornelius's conversion. And as I said, I have just decided I , I'm gonna go with it. This is the most important conversion story in the book of Acts in the New Testament because it opens the door for Gentiles to be Christians and it opens that door without asking them to pay an admission fee of becoming a Jew first. So in Acts 10, in verse 34, Peter opens his mouth and says, truly, I understand that God shows no partiality. It is a phrase that speaks of acceptor of faces, is the idea there. And it was used by Peter to refer to a God who does not show any preference based upon nationalities. The contrast here, verse 35, every nation, anyone who fears him and does what's right is acceptable to him. The contrast here is the idea that God does favor those who do what's right, having the right color skin, genetic background, heritage, DNA , all that stuff that isn't gonna count for anything, doing what is right. That is what will count. And what we're seeing is Peter's coming to understand that Gentiles can be saved as they are. I think Peter knew that a Gentile could be baptized, but Gentiles were unclean. They would have to go through the process of ritual cleanliness that Jews understood and that was such a big part of their life. It determined how they ate and what you did to go to the temple and the ceremonial bathing and all the things that went with all of that. Peter has to understand that's not necessary for a Gentile to be accepted by God. So then you get the key phrase, verse 36, Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all. That's the money phrase. That's what everybody needs to sit down on. And we get a little highlight reel of Jesus's ministry. And please notice in verse 39, they put him to death by hanging him on a tree, always before in Peter's sermon. It's you because he's talking to Jews. It's not you anymore, it's they. They put him to death. And then yes, the Holy Spirit verse 44 falls on the house of Cornelius. And this is such a dramatic sign, and I talked about this so much yesterday in the 9:00 AM. If you weren't there, then just go and listen to that sermon where I'm talking about, do you need to be baptized by the Holy Spirit today? Lots of misunderstanding about what happened here. Lots of misunderstanding about what Holy Spirit baptism is all about. So much of that is clarified when we just sit down in the text, read the text, see what the text says. And of course the key here, verse 47, can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have one writer said there , reception of the spirit was not regarded as a substitute for baptism and water. Rather their baptism and water was the fitting response to the act of God in bestowing his spirit. But no one appears to have suggested that Cornelius has to be circumcised first. That's what's going on. That's what God is signifying. That's why the Holy Spirit fell upon Cornelius's household and that's why verse 48, he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. If you didn't get enough of that, you wanna talk more about Cornelius? Stick around because yep , Peter's gonna tell this whole story all over again in Acts chapter 11. And that is in Tuesday's reading. Welcome to Tuesday. And our reading today is Acts chapter 11 verses one to 10. Here's a good place to notice that the story of Cornelius's conversion is the longest story in Acts. It is told in Acts chapter 10, and now it is recounted in Acts chapter 11 and it will be recalled and talked about some more in Acts chapter 15. So this is a really big deal and you can't have what happened in Acts chapter 10 without understanding and hearing about the reaction to all of that by Jewish Christians back in Jerusalem. And the big question will be, okay, Gentiles are Christians. How do we treat them? Do we have to associate with them? Do we have to eat with them? That is going to be a giant issue. And in fact, verse two, there is a circumcision party that's unhappy with Peter. Now, the New American standard has those circumcised, the ESV has circumcision party . Some have been critical of that translation, but it is clear that there are some Christians who are still all about keeping the old law and binding the old law. And notice the, notice the charge in verse three, you went to uncircumcised men and ate with them. The complaint here is not you taught them the gospel and baptize them. The complaint is you socialize with them, you ate with them. We don't do that. They are un unclean. You talk to 'em about Jesus if you want, and you can baptize them if you want. They'll start their own church on their side of town. We don't associate with people like that. And we saw that, remember in chapter 10 in verse 28, when Peter says, you yourselves know how unlawful it is for you to associate with or visit anyone of another nation. That's how the Jews felt about that matter. And they're not backing down. So Peter begins to talk about what happened. And the key to this is he emphasizes God's will God doing this. This was the action of God. How could I fight against God? Just seen that several times already in the Book of Acts thinking about Gamal here, aren't you? In Acts chapter five over and over again. You can't stop the gospel, you can't stop God. And that's Peter, how can I stand in the way of God? And please make careful note here of the vision. The vision is not of somebody baptizing a bunch of Gentiles, it's a food vision. It's about eating. It's about what is clean and unclean. And remember those distinctions didn't have anything to do with sin. I I I don't think bacon is sinful. No, it was clean and unclean animals. And there were certain criteria for an animal to be considered clean or for an animal to be classified as unclean. Gentiles were classified as unclean. They didn't have anything to do with their sinful state or whether they had obeyed. No, it didn't have anything to do with that. They were ritually unclean. They didn't eat kosher food, they didn't do the washings. They didn't observe the kind of restrictions that the old covenant put upon the Jews. They were unclean. So holiness in terms of cleanliness, whether you are ritually clean, is being replaced with sanctification by faith in Jesus Christ. That's where Peter is going with this. And that's where we'll take up this story on Wednesday. Westsiders. Don't forget we get to zoom tonight. I'll see you on the zoom call. We'll pray together and we'll just talk more. If you've got other questions about Holy Spirit baptism for the sermon on Sunday and what's going on here in the text in Acts 10 and Acts 11, we can work through some of that, talk about some of that, make good application of that. I'll see you on Zoom tonight for the rest of you, and I know I've got a lot of folks who listen to the podcast outside the West Side family. I'll see you tomorrow on Wednesday. We'll journey further in Acts chapter 11. It is Hump Day , it is Wednesday, and we have a short reading today. Acts 11, 11 to 18 . As Peter sums up what happened in the household of Cornelius and why he did this unthinkable thing for a Jew, he ate with gentiles. In verse 11, he says, at this moment, these men arrived. And so I went with them because the Spirit, verse 12 told me to go. And then when he arrived, he heard about an angel there. Look at the emphasis on God's action. This is what God wants. This is God causing this to occur. God is making this happen. And so verse 15, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning, there has been an effort sometimes by some brethren to say, Cornelius's household was not baptized in the Holy Spirit. And I don't know everything there is to know about that position. I think it's just absolutely untenable. I think verse 15 just nails it down. This is identical to the Acts two event. It happened like it happened to us in the beginning. Sometimes I wonder if we're a little uncomfortable with the Cornelius event because it breaks the mold. If baptism of the Holy Spirit only is for the apostles Acts chapter two, then it's pretty easy to hold the line on somebody who's trying to say, I've been baptized in the Holy Spirit. You need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. I was baptized in the Holy Spirit and I spoke in tongues and all the business that charismatic Pentecostalism entails, we say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that is just for the apostles. But if you say that, then someone's gonna rip over to Acts chapter 10. Acts chapter 11 say , oh , no , no, no, no. Not just for the apostles according to uses household. Got that. And then maybe we start to try to weasel a little bit here and say, well, that's not really. No, it is. It is. They got baptized in the Holy Spirit. Now that does not sanction or endorse charismatic Pentecostal practices. And I talked extensively about that again on Sunday in the 9:00 AM hour. Nope, can't go there, don't do that. But verse 15 is clear, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And so the defense here start is really the key to the defense here is really verse 17, who was I that I could stand in God's way? That's the theme of the book of Acts in so many ways. You can't stop God as he's working through the church to continue the work of Jesus. The Christ, the work of Jesus goes on through disciples and you can't stop it. You cannot stand in God's way. Anyone, one writer said, anyone who stands in the way of the full incorporation of others into the church when they genuinely trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for their salvation stands in opposition to God himself. I think that's exactly right. Somebody has genuinely trusted in the Lord. Faith of course entails and means obedience to the commands of God and repentance and water baptism. Somebody does that. I I am in no position to say, you are not in. You can't , uh, I don't like your skin color. I don't like the way you cut your hair. Can't be doing that. And then finally, verse 18, when they heard these things, they felt silent. Well, some commentators have noted people fall silent, but they don't always agree. And that is true. That is absolutely true. 'cause in Acts 15, we're gonna get a revisit on all of this. And it's clear they couldn't answer Peter right here, but they didn't go home happy about it. But some did. They glorified God and said the Gentiles, God has also granted repentance to them. That leads to life. I love that expression leads to life. We need to think more of Christianity as being live . Not the end of life. Can't go be part of fun, gonna miss out on sinful pleasures. No, that's death. That's the way of death. Christians are alive and they were glorifying God because these gentiles now could be fully alive too. Let's keep thinking about that as we move further in Acts chapter 11 , we're gonna go to Antioch where the church is really alive. It is booming. I'll see you on Thursday. Let's go for Thursday's. Reading Acts chapter 11 verses 19 to 30 says a longer reading and it is just packed. This may be two cups of coffee today in Acts chapter 11 and in verse 19. Now those who were scattered, does that connect to Acts eight , four. We've had some episodes in the meantime and some other parts geographically. Now we're picking up the threads of the spread of the gospel out of Jerusalem, radiating everywhere. And now it comes to Antioch. This is super important because Antioch is such a big deal. It is one of the most important cities in New Testament times. It is the third largest city in the Roman Empire. Roman Alexandria would be bigger and the population here is probably a half a million. That is a huge city in New Testament times. Think about the issues that you would have with that many people in one place. Garbage collection comes to mind. And then of course enough grocery stores, food, they don't have grocery stores. Uh , food has to be brought in fresh. And so there's just lots of logistical issues when you have that many people in one place and that will limit the size of a city. So when you get really, really large cities that are set up and that are working, they become important centers. And this city is not only large, it's old. It was built in around 300 BC by Lucas and it was known for being very beautiful. There were long paved boulevards, all kinds of trees and fountains, many beautiful buildings. Some people think Luke actually is from Antioch. How about some of that? So lots to be thought about here. We met a man from Antioch in Nick in Nicolais . He's in Acts chapter six in verse five. This is a key city and a big key to this is Jerusalem and Antioch are on the same page. As you read down through this and you see Barnabas's good teaching, just make note of the fact that he is not making people into Jews and then they can become a Christian. There's no discussion of binding the old law. No discussion of making people be circumcised. Instead, we get giant growth statements. Verse 21, the hand of the Lord was with him. That's one of Luke's very characteristic expressions for conversions. Sometimes he'll talk about faith in baptism or repentance in baptism, sometimes it's just faith. Sometimes it's just repentance. Sometimes it's just baptism. Here it's the hand of the Lord. God is getting the credit. A great number belief . Then there's a gross statement in verse 24. A great many people were added to the Lord. I love that. Added to the Lord, not to some institution, some denomination added to the Lord the body of Christ. And then for a whole year they met with the church verse 26 and taught a great many people. And now Saul of Tarsus is in on this. We don't know where Saul was. We don't know what Saul was doing during this time, but he's here now. And of course he will become an enormous figure in the rest of the Book of Acts. We're not gonna read a lot of that 'cause we're gonna stay with Peter and John. But we have read that in the past and you know how important Paul is and a great number. They taught a great many people. Verse 26. And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. There is a fair amount of discussion about exactly how that came to be and what that means. And probably, probably there was some ridicule attached to that. These are the people talking about that Christ all the time. And that's where that name came from. The term Christian is only used three times in the New Testament. It is used here in Acts chapter 11, and then it'll be used in Acts 26, 28 in one Peter four 16. It is not the only way Christians are referred to, but of course it has become the dominant way we are referred to and we delight in wearing the name of Jesus. The chapter then ends with famine relief. And this is the first time that we see elders in action. And this is the place where the Western tax , that's a different set of manuscripts. Text are grouped into families and you can tell by the way things are spelled in the way things are copied and so forth. This manuscript came from that manuscript, which came from that manuscript. Sometimes you can see the whole tree. One manuscript kind of branches out and and is the father, if you will, of many other manuscripts. Well, the Western text, those manuscripts, they have a section here with a we in it that puts Luke in Antioch. And there are records of this famine during the time of Claudius. And this gives the opportunity for the church to complete the cycle. Jerusalem blessed Antioch with Barnabas and now they send relief to the brethren there in Jerusalem and they did. So verse 30, sending it by the elders to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. That completes then our interest here in Acts chapter 1108, except there's one more giant event that uses Peter as the centerpiece of everything. And we go there next in Acts chapter 12. It is Friday. It is Friday, and we open our Bibles to Acts chapter 12. We're gonna read verses one to 11 today. I've talked a lot about how you can't stop the gospel. You can't stop the work of God through the church doing the work of Jesus. But of course Herod thinks he can and he kills an apostle. What's going to happen as a result of that? How will that play out? Certainly does look like somebody's capable of standing in God's way. Peter said, who is I to stand in God's way? Well, Herod the king, chapter 12 verse one, laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church and he killed James. The brother Johnath the sword . Herod said, I can. I'll stand in God's way. And I think one of the key points that's being made today in chapter 12 is that God is not finished with the Jews and he's not finished with Jerusalem. Maybe that would be a concern. It seems like things are moving towards the Gentiles and that's really been where the spotlight has been here in the Book of Acts. What's going on with Cornelius? Gentiles are in now the gospel's going to Antioch. What's happening back in Jerusalem? Unfortunately what's happening back in Jerusalem is there's concentrated persecution. And this is being done by Herod grip of the first . I always encourage people to write this sort of stuff in the margin of your Bible. You want to have this written there. So you're doing your Bible reading. You have to stop and kick on the internet and go look and see who is this guy and what's he all about. You just got notes written right there. This is Herod grip of the first . He reigned from AD 41 to 44. His father is Aristo. Aristo was Herod the great's favorite son, Herod The Great is the baby killer, the one who killed the babies in Bethlehem and Herod the Great was paranoid and ex sometimes kind of crazy, killed a lot of people, his favorite wife. And yes, his favorite son. Aristo was executed in seven bc . But her grip's mama saved him by sending him to Rome. And he experienced all sorts of political misadventures there. He had a remarkable ability to get into trouble and talk his way out of trouble. He offended the Caesar Tiberius in AD 36, but he was good friends with Kula . And when Caligula became Caesar, he was back on the good side. And then when Caligula died, Claudius was also his friend and he gave him even more lands to rule over in AD 41 . At this point in Acts chapter 12, he has almost all the territory of Herod the Great under his jurisdiction. He is ruling over almost all of that territory. And the Jews did love him. In 80 40, he kept the Caesar Caligula from setting a statue of himself up in the temple in Jerusalem, which would've caused a massive civil war. And when he read from the law publicly at the Feast of Tabernacles that no foreigner was ever to be put over the people of God from Deuteronomy chapter 17, he wapt because he was an IE and not not truly Jewish, but the crowd shouted, you are our brother. So they loved him and he liked to grandstand and do things that pleased the crowd. And part of that was killing James the Apostle about that time would tie this to the famine relief effort verse one that we just read about at the end of Acts chapter 11. So this is ad 43 or 44. And to be killed with a sword here probably means that he was beheaded. And there's a lot of question about that. I know you're thinking what just happened right there. Peter gets rescued. James did not get rescued. They were praying for Peter. Did nobody pray for James? Oh, come on. You know, they prayed for James. We just don't have any information about that. There's no commentary whatsoever about why James died and Peter did not. And this is a good place to just note, there are things that will happen in your life and my life and we just do not know why God allowed that to occur. We'll just have to trust the Lord. The big key here maybe to note is that when an apostle is killed, there is no effort made, none to appoint another apostle. Do you see that? There's no apostolic secession. When an apostle dies, that's the end. And when all 12 of the apostles die, that will be the end of the apostolic time. And what they can do will they'll , there'll be no more apostles today. In verse five, Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church and the term earnest . There is a term similar to a term used of the praying of Jesus in Gethsemane. So they are in treating heaven on Peter's behalf . And Peter is released beginning in verse six. I love verse seven. I mentioned this as I read today on Facebook. The angel had to strike Peter on the side. The word strike here is the same word that's used in verse 23 when Herod is struck dead. So it is a powerful word. Peter is sleeping soundly. He clearly is not very worried. The angel has to really get after him to get him up, and Peter doesn't even seem to fully realize what's going on. But in verse 11, he wakes up and realizes this is not a dream. I don't have to wake up. I am awake. I've been saved by an angel. You can't. You can't stop God. On Monday, we'll see more of this rescue story, including a passage that always makes me chuckle just a little bit. That's the podcast then for the week. Thank you so much for listening. You know what to do, subscribe, and follow. So we'll download automatically and please do give us a rating and review because that will help more people find the podcast. So until Monday when we will open our Bibles together. Again, I'm Mark Roberts and I want to go to heaven and I want you to come to, I'll see you on Monday with Yep . With a cup of coffee.

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