For Tri-County's 20th Anniversary, we invited Chris Anderson, the pastor who invested fifteen years planting and establishing the congregation. On this occasion, he explained the promise of Jesus that gave -and still gives- strong conviction.

From Paul's arrest and detention in Jerusalem for allegedly instigating a riot, we learn again that nothing can stop the advance of the gospel because it is the Lord's will to make it progress. The gospel will progress in the face of rejection, persecution, and powerful politics. So we should spread it, and we should suffer to advance it and sacrifice freedoms to advance it. God will see that, no matter what, the gospel advances.

In Acts 20-17-38, Paul speaks his farewell address to the leaders of the strategic church in Ephesus, and, in doing so, gives us the most succinct manual on faithful church ministry anywhere in the Bible. Do you know what a good church looks like- When you walk into a gathering of Christians, how would you know if it's a faithful church ministry- Study Paul's farewell address to find out.

When Paul came to Roman Corinth he came to a city known for its business, sports, and sexual immorality. And Paul knew that this city's greatest need was a community of Jesus-followers. Simply put, this city needed a church. Study Paul's church-planting philosophy, message, and perseverance.

The main theme of Acts is unstoppable advance, and Paul's time in Ephesus -ch. 19- develops this theme by showing that the most challenging times are often the most productive times. To use Charles Dickens famous description, Paul's time in Ephesus was -the best of times- and -the worst of times.- The account we read shows that the most strategic church in the first generation of the Roman world gets planted while Paul is busy to the point of exhaustion, while people who claim to know the Scriptures are constantly deficient in understanding, while he is deeply discouraged over the problems of the church in Corinth, and while he's facing opposition to the point that he thought he was going to die. Put simply, the most stable and strategic congregation in Asia is planted during the hardest of times. Ministry for Jesus is usually like that.

Luke's main point in Acts 16 is that the gospel advances in every level of society. The gospel advances in the life of a respectable, religious, and successful businesswoman like Lydia. It advances in the life of an abused girl who is treated as property by her owners and by her demon. And the gospel advances in the life of a common public servant-a prison guard who probably tends to see himself as a pretty good guy, especially better than the people he spends most of his time with. The gospel is for men and women, the respectable and the despicable, those who suffered abuse and those who never did, Jews and pagans, high class and low class and everyone in between-it's for every kind of person. Joe draws five applications based on this central truth.

These three episodes of gospel proclamation that Luke recounts in Acts 17 -in Thessalonica then Berea then Athens- teach that the gospel spreads in the toughest places. It advances in Thessalonica where religious hostility quickly surfaces. It advances in Berea, where the open-minded people seek to critically examine what Paul teaches before they will be convinced. Luke commends this critical examination, but we have to recognize that the audience was tough-they carefully scrutinized everything they were told. And the gospel began to advance in Athens, among pagan idolaters and philosophical skeptics. The point of the passage is that the gospel advances in the hardest places, among the most critical audiences.

The main point from these two passages -Acts 14-15-17- 17-22-31- is that when Paul speaks the gospel to those who don't share his fundamental view of God, he starts his presentation of the gospel differently -i.e., much more basically- than when he shares the gospel with those who already believe in a single Creator-God -for example, Jews-. Joe explores the five crucial realities that Paul speaks to skeptics, and, in each case, shows how to use them in conversations with skeptical friends.

Tak explains Jesus's parable of the soils while also recounting how God's grace spread mightly in his family. Christian, this message will deeply encourage you.

Joe first explores who the Spirit is, and then he unpacks eleven ways in which the Spirit glorifies Jesus in the lives of individuals.