Sermons Christ Community Church: Daytona Beach, FL

“What causes you to get angry?” Most of us think of people that are irritating or circumstances that don’t go the way we thought they would. You can be provoked to anger, but anger is something that you decide to be. It has been defined as the heart's response in an attitude of sinful disappointment to unmet desires and expectations. It is much more than just an emotion that needs to be managed, it is a moral decision - a response to our circumstances.

In this passage in Acts, Paul launches into a prayer that is pointed. We discover that pointed prayer aims at deepening your knowledge of God and elevating your appreciation for His work in your life. What is the point of Paul’s prayer for wisdom and revelation? That a people who had been called out of one life and into a new life would possess a deeper knowledge of God.

His point here is not to be confused with a knowledge of the facts of God. Knowledge of the facts of God is not equal to knowledge of God personally, intimately, deeply. Paul is stressing the need for Christians to know God more deeply.

From the story in Acts 13:1-5 where the church at Antioch sent out Paul & Barnabas, we can learn at least three things about how God can prepare us for the work of church planting. First, God equipped his people. Second, the church gave generously and third, the familiar met the unfamiliar.

I know the word "authentic” is in danger of being overused but I like it. Authentic means real or genuine but in today's culture it also implies sincere, not hypocritical. So authentic Christianity suggests a faith that is genuine in the sense that it is the kind of Christianity actually found in Scripture, but also the idea of people that are authentic in that they are sincere and honest.

There is no question that baptism has been an important part of Christian faith from the earliest days of the Christian church. The book of Acts tells us that the Christian church was birthed in a baptism. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured down on the church to empower the Christians for life and ministry. Now we might think, “If the reality of the Holy Spirit has been given why go on baptizing with water? ” What happens then throughout Acts is that whenever someone or some group of people believe in Jesus they are baptized with water because baptism is an outward, visible symbol of an invisible and spiritual reality.

It is one thing to grow and it is another thing to grow strong. It is one thing for a movement to expand. It is another thing for it to endure. When we look at Acts 14 the issue is not just how the church expanded but how it endured. How it grew strong in a hostile culture. That's important because the principles revealed in these verses are relevant not only to Christian faith as a movement but to each individual in it.

When the Bible talks about salvation, it means that God Himself comes into your life and connects with you and commits to you and promises you that every little thing is going to be all right and nothing will every separate you from Him. It means he forgets every fault, washes away every stain, tells you he loves you, promises that he is going to put right everything that is out of joint and promises that you are going to enjoy the awesome perfection of his eternal kingdom forever and ever.

If you believe that God is at work in the world and in our lives it changes the way you look at life and at yourself. It doesn't mean that every difficulty is going to be overcome through a miracle. But it does mean that God is not only real but involved with us, hearing our prayers, and that means that there is hope in every situation and it is the assurance that our lives have meaning because we are part of a larger story.

There is a big difference between the idea of a perfect church and the reality of it, between the idea of authentic servant hood and the reality of it. It’s easy for a church of authentic Christians to become selfish, ingrown and distracted from its purpose, so we need to guard against this problem by integrating Biblical principles into the practice of Christ-like servanthood.

One thing we see clearly in Acts is that authentic Christianity is not a plant that only grows and thrives under perfectly favorable conditions. In Acts you have the story of the followers of Jesus, thriving and growing under very adverse circumstances. One thing the church has always had to battle is unbelief. The unbelief the Christians encountered in Acts was not a passive unbelief but an antagonistic unbelief.