Is The Word Of God Growing In You — Westlake Bible Fellowship

0:00 Looking for an outline in Acts

I, some years ago, started an in-depth look at the book of Acts on my own because I was convinced that there has to be in it some order to the phrase the apostles' doctrine. Acts two forty two. They continued steadfastly in the very first thing, the apostle's doctrine. So, I was convicted that I wasn't a very good disciple maker. That in my life, serving Christ in various capacities, I haven't made that many disciples.

I haven't taught other men to be teachers. All these little... And that, of course, is in Timothy. Paul said to Timothy. But the point is, is there in the book of Acts an outline?

Could I find an outline, Lord? From the day that it says that they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, where's the outline that I could follow so I know how disciples were made? And I could follow it myself. Maybe I should have my own. What would be if I had or three men sit down and say, teach us more, we want to learn how to follow Christ.

We want to learn how to follow Christ. The disciples were first called Christians. He knows they didn't say believers. The disciples were first called Christians. Not the believers were called Christians.

The disciples were first called Christians. After Paul and Barnabas had been there for a year teaching in Antioch, and you remember this from last week. This is not a quiz. I'm just reminding you. Then the disciples were called Christians.

Those who followed Christ by the gentile population of Antioch decided we're gonna call these people Christians. They already had a name. They were the way. The Jews called them the sect of the Nazareans. Alright?

Making disciples is hard work. Evangelizing? Fun. Preaching Christ. Just telling people the good news.

If you worry if you worry about their response, and so you're counting how many people were saved, which I know that we don't like numbers. God does, but we don't. You know, that's why he knew there were 3,000 people who were saved on the day of Pentecost. Somebody counted them. How do you count 3,000?

Well, that's 3,000. One, two, three. Can you imagine being the first person who got saved on the day of Pentecost? Counted. Counted.

God keeps track. Evangelism is fun. Unless you worry about your numbers. Then you realize, well, I'm not very good at it. Making disciples even worse.

Making disciples. Alright? So, I want an outline. Lord, show me the outline in the book of Acts that I could use to change the way I think on how I should make disciples. Because that's my task.

You've given me to go and make disciples, and therefore I better have an outline that would be your choice. Where do I start? Where do I start? Let me ask you this. First of all, I want you to know, on Tuesday nights at my house in the area, have a discussion group on the book of Acts.

Very slow moving. Because we let people ask questions. We invite questions. No questions too hard to be asked. You got a hard question from the book of Acts?

You should be able to ask it to somebody. And I trust that you're in a discussion group, not just family bylaw, where you can discuss these details. It'll be to your benefit. I'm not saying that there's somebody who has all the answers. I'm just saying at least acknowledge the fact that some people might have questions.

I have questions. Even on the passage we're gonna do today, but we'll get there. But here's a question out of the discussion group that's at my house on Tuesday nights, and we're only in the sixth chapter. Acts two forty two. They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine.

4:57 The question about Acts two forty two

Prayers? Bringing bread, fellowship. So here's here's my question to the group. This is my question. Make them think that they have to teach them how to be devoted.

They devoted themselves, NIV. They continued steadfastly, King James. Whatever word is before those four items, I want to know, did they have to teach that? You have to teach people how to be devoted. Did they?

Did Peter have to say, before you all go home tonight, I want you to know this. I expect you here next week same time, or tomorrow same time. I want you here, because it's here that you can prove that you're devoted to what we're going to do next. I have another topic. I presented Christ to you.

You all got saved. You responded to this great promise, this huge promise for the first time in the history of the world. This promise was true. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved eternally. Eternally.

Never been true before, till the day of Pentecost. Never been true because Christ hadn't risen from the dead. Only when Christ rose from the dead and proved that your sins are gone could the Holy Spirit take up residence in your body. In your body. A spiritual truth in a physical way.

The Holy Spirit has taken up residence in your body, but no surgeon can cut you open and find them. Still true. That's the first day that promise was available, to that extent. Nobody had ever had the spirit of God sealed into them. Nobody ever had eternal forgiveness.

Nobody ever had the promise of redemption. Nobody ever had that. You could prophecy it, but you didn't have it. On the day of Pentecost, 3,000 people said, I'll take it. I'll take it.

That's a huge offer. Saved forever sins, present, past, future, all gone. Eternally with heaven. And you could list all the benefits of Christ that you can. We wouldn't have enough time.

But the point is, on the day of Pentecost, that was finally available to people. Whosoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved eternally. Not just saved from the Red Sea. Not just saved from the drought. Not just saved from a famine.

Saved eternally. That's a huge offer. You think Peter said, if you don't come back tomorrow, you're losing it? If you don't come tomorrow, you prove that you're not saved? If you've got, thanks for getting baptized, but if you don't come tomorrow, you won't need to go through that step again, but we have to do step two.

And if you don't come tomorrow, then it's an indication that it's not genuine. That there's no pulse, that there's no life, that there's no genuine effect of the spirit of God in your body if you don't show up tomorrow at the same time. Think that happened? See, I don't think it did. I could be wrong.

I'm not, but I could be. You know why? Because people have FOMO. Spiritual FOMO. The fear of missing what's next.

The fear of missing out. Can you just see them? I can't wait to get there. I can't sleep tonight. Why?

I'm excited about tomorrow. I couldn't sleep last night. Excited about driving there in the snow. Kind of. The point is, is there's spiritual foam.

I can't miss a meeting. I'll miss something that Jesus Christ has to say. Oh, I have a quiet time. I can get it on my own. Please, don't dupe yourself into believing that.

You're a member of his body. When he sounds the trumpet, you're supposed to be there. That's what the church is. Period. Can't say it any stronger.

9:27 Teaching devotedness and expectation

He's the head of the church. You're a member in particular. When he blows up, you're supposed to be there. If you don't want to be, you've to have an excuse. You've got to get a note from your mother or father saying they're not going to show up today.

Permission to be absent. That's what we need. You're absent this week, and none of you are because you're here. Those who are absent this week, next week when they come in, they should have a slip. This is why I wasn't here last week.

There's no accountability, but that's another story. Let's open in prayer and get to Acts 12. That's just, I'm just passing through. I'm just passing through. Father, we thank you for your word details, Lord, you've given us historically and also as a pattern.

We pray that we could connect to why you wrote them down for us, and we can make application to ourselves and then also as members of the saints here in Westlake, so that, Lord Jesus, you would be honored. We commit our time thus into your hands in Christ's name. Amen. So, who can quote Acts one verse one and two? Come on now, you're in Acts 12, somebody should be able to quote the first two verses.

Who can read it? Thank you. Stand to read, please. Thank you. See that key phrase?

This is what I was preparing for back in September, when I was supposed to be here to help start the book. This phrase. When Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, gave commands to the apostles that he had chosen. Just that phrase, very unique. One, you would not have to describe anything that Christ did here as through the spirit, because he's God in the flesh.

Nevertheless, Luke, who had never met Christ physically, knows him now, obviously. He describes Christ giving commands through the spirit. Nowhere else. Here only. Through the spirit.

Why do I say that's critical? Because that, to me, introduces the church age. That we don't have Christ physically here. Everything he's doing is through his spirit. Everything he's doing is through his spirit, as he promised to the individuals, to the apostles, how the spirit of God is going to come into the world, and he is going to do all these different things.

Comfort, teach, guide, instruct, bring to our memory. And so you go through the book of Acts, and you find reference to the Holy Spirit. That frightens, brethren. We're afraid, if we say that too many times, people are going think we're Pentecostal. Alright?

Sorry. Just call it like I see it. People don't like that. They don't want to talk about speaking in tongues. They don't want to talk about healing.

They don't want to talk about any of that. They don't want to read about it. They don't want to have to think about it because they don't want to deal with why not. How many times in the book of Acts is the word love used? Zero.

13:48 Where is the word 'love' in Acts?

There's no John three sixteen. But there's a lot of mention of the Holy Spirit. Because is the name of the acts of the apostles really legit? Well, yeah, they're apostles. But is it really not the acts of the Holy Spirit?

And having said that, is it not still continuing? I mean, the last chapter of Acts is what? 66, 64 A. John wrote in the nineties. So the spirit of God has been working on this planet exactly the way Jesus Christ said it was, because Christ is doing exactly what he said he would do.

I'm gonna build a church. One stone at a time. I'm the foundation. I'm the capstone. But I'm gonna put one stone in at a time.

Till I come and get it. That'll be the last trumpet. Today was a trumpet. We all gathered. I trust that's why you're here because you heard him say, let's go.

And the last trumpet, you'll be gathered there in the cloud. The bride of Christ. You see? So we have that to look forward to. Until then, we try to be obedient.

We try to be ourselves disciples, which we admit, hard to do, to follow Christ all the time. Hard. I'm not pretending. Christ said that. Count the cost.

Count the cost. You want to follow, count the cost. You want to believe, that's one thing. You want to follow, that's different. Acts 12.

You with me so far? Acts 12 verse one. It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church intending to persecute them. About what time? It was about the time when Paul and Barnabas were sent from Antioch with a gift to the church in Jerusalem because there was a famine coming.

That happened during the reign of Claudius. We know that from the eleventh chapter. Whenever there's a time stamp in the Bible, you should take note of it. Because it's history. We know exactly when Claudius ruled.

We know exactly who ruled before him. We know exactly how he died, because the Romans kept good history. Alright? They kept good track. Alright?

We know this Herod isn't Herod the Great, it's Herod's grandson, Agrippa. Right? His father was executed by Herod himself, Herod the Great. His father, Aristobulus, was executed for fear. He was sent to Rome to study.

He lived and grew up with Claudius in Gaius Post, or Caligula. So now they make him king, and he's back in Judea, ruling in Jerusalem. His real goal is to keep peace. No trouble in Judea. No political turmoil.

No sedition. No armies trying to kick the Romans out. Pax Romana. We just want peace. That's all we want.

But he realized that Christians were agitating because they were preaching Christ, and the Jews hated him. So, it came upon him that if I put some of those who belong to the church and persecute them, it'll make the Jews happy. So, he had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. And when he saw that this met approval with the Jews, he proceeded to siege Peter also. And this happened during the festival of unleavened bread.

Of course, you know the rest. Right? We know that Peter is miraculously released. We're gonna read that. Here's the first question I have for you to discuss.

18:19 Why did Stephen die and not Peter?

Absolutely he could. Absolutely. And we're only meeting a couple of people in this chapter by name. Herod, James, brother John, Peter, right, Rhoda. Right?

Only a couple of people. But we've to ask ourselves. First of all, this is a chapter that has at least 18 people being killed. 16 soldiers, four sets of four guards, James, and then Herod himself. 18 people dead in this chapter.

Now, fifth chapter, Ananias and fire, two people dead. Now the twelfth chapter, 18 people dead. Details. But when you want to know, Lord, how come you didn't spare James, but you spared Peter. Was Peter more important?

Was he more valuable? Was James not that important to you? See, these are the questions people ask when people die that you don't think they should die. You don't think they... Why?

We're not good at why questions. Let's just admit it. This is what I know about James, and I I know about Peter. James and his brother went to Christ one time and said, we wanna sit in heaven, one of us on your right, the other on the left. And Jesus said, wow, that's a serious request.

Can you drink the cup that I'm going to drink? Can you be baptized with the baptism that I'm going to be baptized with? You know what they said? Absolutely. Even so Jesus said, I can't give that away, it's not for me to give.

We know that Jesus took John and said, at Calvary, take care of my mother. So he had a purpose. We know that he said to Peter at the Sea Of Tiberias in John 21, this is how you're going to die. When you were young, you did whatever you wanted. You dressed any way you want.

When you're old, somebody else is going to dress you. Somebody else is going to lead you to where you don't want to be. And he told him this, on how he was death was going to glorify God. John's gospel chapter one. And I only bring up those details because the timing of people's departure is not in our hands.

Not in our hands. We don't know why those martyrs were killed in Ecuador. We can see the result, but we don't know why that God took them all into his presence. We don't know why. And so, why God takes somebody off the planet?

Only he can answer. And only he decides. And if we think we control life, then we're being like Herod. Herod thought he controlled life. Right?

So James' departure and Peter's imprisonment becomes the point in this passage that requires God's intervention. Why? Because he... It wasn't Peter's time to go. How many of you know the time you're going to go?

You're going to leave the planet. But do you know when? What do you want to be doing when it's your time to go? Do you have a preference? Do you have a preference on the mechanism God's going to use to take you off?

Course we all do. The great trumpet. If we go without dying, just go. That would be, what? Probably unlikely.

23:12 Faith to deal with leaving and loved ones leaving

It takes faith to accept that God has purpose. He has a time. He has a reservation made for you to leave. It's appointed. There's a reservation in a book of the day.

Only He knows when you're going to leave. And all I can tell you, brothers and sisters, not knowing everybody in this room, hallelujah, you can prepare today for that day. You can prepare. And you can't prepare more, but you can prepare fully to leave the planet. Simply by acknowledging Christ and allowing him as he knocks on your heart this morning to come in.

To receive him. To acknowledge him. To bow down before him. To say yes to him. Any little phrases you think are going to be helpful.

The point is you don't have to leave this room not prepared. Not prepared. Doesn't make you a disciple. That's the hard work. But at least you can prepare.

And I can't offer you any better news than that. There is no better news than that. If you're breathing this minute, you're breathing for a reason that's God's alone. And you can prepare for the day that you're not breathing on this planet. And hallelujah, what a savior that he makes that offer.

And there will be many people who will not hear that offer. On this planet, 9,000,000,000 people, there will be people who will leave this planet in the next second. They will not have heard what I just told you. Not in their own language yet. Please, be reconciled to God.

Please, surrender to Christ. Anyway, Peter was kept in prison. Verse five. What was the church doing? Praying earnestly.

Was it a mid week prayer meeting? Probably not. Probably not. Was it a, oh, I have a request. Well, it.

We're going to hear so and so. So and so's got a friend who has a neighbor whose dog was hit by a car, and so the person who hit him is upset, and they're depressed, and they want to... You know how requests go. People just empty their heart every little thing that concerns them. You think that was this permitting?

He's got the what? He's got the flu. Give him some ibuprofen. You want to pray that somebody's got the flu? We're praying for somebody with the flu?

What unites Christians is fervent prayer in a crisis. Go back to 09/11. The country was in a crisis. United. United.

That's what the church needs. We ain't going to have it in America because nobody is going to persecute you. They're just going to keep lying to you. Right? You go to other countries where there's persecution for knowing Christ.

When those saints gather because somebody's about to be beheaded, their prayer meeting is continuous, and it's not casual. It's not a casual prayer meeting where anybody shows up if they want and says, have a request too. These people were praying for somebody's life to be spared. The church prayed earnestly. Is that your permitting?

See, I could go to a prayer meeting where there was only one request. But if we all prayed earnestly and united, it would serve our purpose better than having a litany of requests that people at the end say, do whatever you want anyway. They weren't saying, Lord. They were like the Lord Jesus. Father, let this cup pass from me.

Then he said, nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done. But I'm asking very specifically, let this cup pass from me, Jesus said. Peter or Paul, three times, I've asked the Lord three times, I don't want this thorn in the flesh. Three times the Lord said, my grace is sufficient. But he asked something specific.

Specific. Continuous. Crisis. Prayer. That's what's missing in our prayer meeting.

I don't know about yours. Can only speak about Eris. Our Eris prayer meeting feels like I'm at the Pool Of Bethesda. A multitude of people who are sick for various reasons. That's all we do, is pray for the sick.

And we have no idea what God is doing with that person's body, whether this is bringing him to the point where he's going to take his last breath, and in so doing, he would cry out and say, Lord, remember me. We don't know, but all we do is we want people to be healthy. That's I'm sorry. That's why it's so feeble. That's why prayer times become feeble, because all we worry about is each other's cough.

29:06 A real battle for souls

He struck Peter on his side and woke him up. Get up! The chains fell off Peter's wrist. And the angel said, Put on your clothes and sandals. Peter did so.

Wrap your cloak around you and follow me, the angel said. Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening. He thought he was seeing a vision. Remind you of someplace else? Yeah.

The first day of the resurrection. It's a vision. He's a vision. Here, give me your hand. Touch mine.

Peter just thought he saw a vision. They passed the first and second guards, came to the iron gate leading to the city, it opened before them by itself, and they went through. When they walked the length of the street, suddenly the angel left. And Peter came to himself and said, Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod's clutches, and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen. And when they said dawn on him, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, and also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying, knocked on the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door.

He walked out of the prison. Now he's standing at the door to get in the meeting. Can't you just sit? Why didn't that door just open, too? Why do you have to knock?

Just walk in, dude. Just walk in. You got a lock on your permitting door? I hope not. Peter's at the door, she said.

She's overjoyed, ran without opening it, and exclaimed, Peter's at the door. You're out of your mind. When she kept insisting it was so, he said, It must be an angel. Peter kept knocking. When they opened the door and saw them, they were astonished.

Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet, described how the Lord had brought them out of the prison. Go tell James, not the same James that was beheaded, by the way. This would be James, the half brother of Christ, who wrote the first epistle. In the morning, there was no small commotion amongst the soldiers. And after Herod had a thorough search and did his cross examination, he had 16 soldiers executed.

There were 17 people dead so far. Now we have to see what God did to Herod. We go to 12:15, right? Yeah. I remember correctly.

I'm on schedule. Herod went from Judea to Caesarea. He was in Judea, in Jerusalem, because of the feast of unleavened bread. When the crowds came, he showed up there to keep the peace, and he went back to Caesarea, up on the coast where his normal palace was. He had been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon.

They had joined together and sought an audience with him after securing and supporting Blasphus, a trusted personal servant of the king, they asked for peace, because they depended on the king's country for their food supply. Remember the famine? Remember the famine? Started at the end of the eleventh chapter. There's a famine.

People in Tyre, which is Lebanon, they want to make peace with him because he controls their food supply. Right? So, they need him. And when you're needy, your relationships suddenly become, you know. On the appointed day, Herod wearing his royal robe sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people.

They shouted, This is the voice of a God, not of man. And immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died. But, God's word continued to spread and to flourish. That's my assigned passage. I'm sorry I read it so fast.

33:28 Growth of the word of God

That despite all that was going on, there's a description of the word of God growing, spreading, enlarging. The word of God. And so you read that, and I'm a young believer and I read that, And the person I'm reading my bible with out loud, ask them, ask the question, what does that mean? They started having more books in the bible? No.

What's it mean for the word of God to grow? You see? And that is a genuine, 100% needful question in most assemblies, because we insist we know the truth so long. But is it growing? Where's the evidence of growth of the word of God in your life?

That it's got more control over you. That the word of God is more influential in your decision making. How you go about your day. Where is the proof that the word of God is even alive and sharper than any two edged sword in your life? Not that it technically is, but it is in your life.

The word of God grew and flourished. Would somebody say that about you? Would somebody look at your life and say, you know what, they've been saved now for five years, ten years, fifteen years, or a week. The word of God really grabs hold of them. They're constantly reading that book.

They're constantly searching. They're constantly asking questions about how does this apply? Where does it fit? What should I be doing about this? And maybe not to another person, although that would be great, because that would put them in, like, seat number one in discipleship class.

But tell the Lord. You tell me. What do you want me to do about that? 24 times in the book of Acts, there's specific reference to growth. I want to mention one other thing before I go.

I'm just checking on my clock. It's 12:11. Okay. Thank you. I want to go to something Peter said about Christ in the second chapter.

Because not only are there 24 references of some type of growth in the book of Acts, there are a number of references to individuals by name. And there's some general ones. But I want to just start with what Peter said. Keeping this in mind that the day of Pentecost, on the apostles' side, what happened for them, they were already sealed with the spirit by the breath that Christ breathed on them in John 20. He breathed on them the Holy Spirit and said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit.

Were they same as the day of Pentecost? No, no, not the same. But to get them to Pentecost safely, He breathed on them. And that word is a one time only New Testament word. He literally exhaled on them.

Now, don't mean to minimize it, but I'm saying that they're there in the upper room in John 20, and Christ literally, receive ye the Holy Spirit. He blew it on them. He exhaled on them. Same word used in the Septuagint for Genesis two. And God, on the dust, in his nostrils, and man became a living soul.

Same word. So this is the work of God. Alright? And as much as on the day of Pentecost people heard the wonderful works of God, there's no indication that hearing the wonderful works of God, which they did and brought them all together, put any of them on their knees saying, what must I do to be saved? I make that distinction because they didn't do that until Peter stood up and said, repent.

This is what you need to do. Repent and turn to the Lord. Then they said, okay, we want to be saved. And because the gospel is what does that, not the wonderful things of God. You want to...

I'm sorry. The gospel of the Jesus Christ. The work of the spirit. As the song goes, I don't know how the spirit moves convincing men of sin. Right?

Revealing Christ in his word, creating faith within. I don't know either, but he does, and he's good at it. He's good at it. But in Peter's message, this is what he says in verse 22. Fellow Israelites, listen to this.

Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. See, we would never normally describe Christ that way, you and I. We wouldn't say, well, was God working in him and he accredited him by showing how much power he had to do these miracles and signs and healing people? We wouldn't say that. We don't describe Christ.

He's God in the flesh. He's omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. He can do anything He wants. He can walk along. But Peter describes Him as somebody who God is working through by the power of His Spirit.

Again, right, setting an example for the church age. Alright? By the end of the chapter, after verse 42, which you all memorized by now, everyone, verse 43, everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. So now we have 12 because we had Judas replaced. Right?

Notice we didn't replace James, by the way. Just sidebar. There was no need. We've got to replace James. He had his head cut off.

We've got to replace him. We had to replace Judas. So, there's transition going on in what God is doing. But in verse 43, it's the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. At the prayer meeting about wanting boldness to preach in the fourth chapter, the prayer is, verse 30, stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

It's a deliberate attempt. Peter's leading the prayer meeting and saying, stretch out your hand and heal. He already did. He already healed the man on the way in. Now he's asking for boldness to continue and stretch forth your hand and heal.

Stretch forth your hand and do mighty signs and wonders through your holy servant Jesus. Verse 33 of the same chapter. With great power, the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there was no needy persons among them. Now listen to that testimony.

God's grace was so powerfully at work in them that there was no needy persons among them. Look around. Anybody needy here? And not just physical needs. I'm sure it's not just physical needs.

But there was such a unity of purpose, the grace of God, and the apostles just were totally influenced and controlled by the Holy Spirit. Chapter five, the apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. Chapter five verse 15, Peter's shadow might fall on them. They lay hands. They brought people in the street.

Even Peter's shadow might fall on him. Crowds gathered from the towns, and everybody who got there were healed. Stephen chapter six verse eight. A man full of God's grace and power performed great wonders and signs. Chapter eight verse six, when great crowds heard Philip.

And then, of course, Paul and Barnabas in a later chapter, fourteenth, and then... I mean, it just goes on and on and on, the spirit of God working through people. I'm not saying we duplicate this. I'm saying that we learn how to let the spirit of God work in us. And we don't like to talk about the spirit of God.

I'm acknowledging that again. And we have, basically, amongst all, the way we practice, practice, right? To me, Acts two forty two is how they practice, what they believe. We have two meetings that are spirit led. Two.

Where a brother can be exercised by the spirit of God and stand up and participate. We think any brother who does, because they are doing it, is led by the spirit. I think we all know that probably sometimes is not true. It's just not true. Because the flesh wants to take over.

Discerning the spirit of God in another human being is critical to genuine participation and joining with others of like precious faith. It's critical. We don't like to do it because it feels judgmental. And we don't want to be like the group that says, well, if you want to manifest the spirit of God as in your life, you need to speak in tongues. Yeah.

We don't. That's a lie. That's part of the lie. So, how does one really get to the point that you can determine, you can discern what is actually of the spirit of God, and what's just of the flesh, or the eagerness, or the zealousness of an individual who just wants to help people. Right?

Yeah. It's tough. That spiritual discernment is critical. It's incumbent upon you and I, every one of us, to be able to distinguish between right and wrong, truth in error, false and true. And also then, by the time Paul wrote, the church of Galatians said, keep this in mind, there's fruit of the spirit.

45:13 Fruit of the spirit, no fruit, no spirit

We can't do that. We can't have form without the spirit of God functioning. We can't. It's deadly just to have form. Our young people are looking at form and they're walking away, because there's no fun in our form.

There's honor to the head, but they don't find fun in our form. We have to teach them that. We have to teach them to have a critical thinking when it comes to the things that are supposedly the spirit of God, and the spirit of man, and the spirit of air in this world. And it's not an easy task. I'm not presenting it to you as if it's something easy.

It's hard.

Is The Word Of God Growing In You — Acts 1-2

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Is The Word Of God Growing In You — Acts 1-2

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