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Acts 11:25-12:17
25 So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.
27 Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius). 29 So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers1 living in Judea. 30 And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.
12:1 About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. 2 He killed James the brother of John with the sword, 3 and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. 4 And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. 5 So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
6 Now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison. 7 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his hands. 8 And the angel said to him, “Dress yourself and put on your sandals.” And he did so. And he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” 9 And he went out and followed him. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. 10 When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him. 11 When Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”
12 When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. 13 And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. 14 Recognizing Peter’s voice, in her joy she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. 15 They said to her, “You are out of your mind.” But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, “It is his angel!” 16 But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed. 17 But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, “Tell these things to James and to the brothers.”2 Then he departed and went to another place.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Invite you to open your Bibles to Acts chapter 11. Acts chapter 11. I I was going to just skip over the last bit of 11 and, and just do chapter 12. I had the whole message already written for chapter 12 and then I just there's just too much good stuff in chapter 11. And so, so we're going to have to go back a little bit and and pick up at the very end of 11 before we hit the exciting story in chapter 12.
Jeffrey Heine:And we'll begin reading chapter 11 verse 25. Listen carefully for this is the word of the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year, they met with the church and taught a great many people.
Jeffrey Heine:And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. Now, in these days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world. This took place in the days of Claudius. So the disciples determined everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.
Jeffrey Heine:About that time, Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belong to the church. He killed James, the brother of John, with a sword. And when he had seized him, he put him in prison delivering him over to 4 squads of soldiers to guard him bound with chains and centuries before the door were guarding the prison. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him and a light shone in the cell. Dress yourself and put on your sandals.
Jeffrey Heine:And he did so. And he said to him, wrap your cloak around you and follow me. And he went out and followed him. He did not know what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city.
Jeffrey Heine:It opened for them in its own accord, and they went out and went along one street. And from all that the Jewish people were expecting. And when he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. Recognizing Peter's voice and her joy, she did not open the gate, but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate.
Jeffrey Heine:They said to her, you are out of your mind. But she kept insisting that it was so. And they kept saying, it is his angel. But Peter continued knocking. God, I was struck as we were just singing our last song.
Jeffrey Heine:How how it is almost comical that I could come up here and proclaim your word, With such weakness and with such sin. God, I pray that this weakness will be a platform for your glory. It's almost comical that we can meet in a room like this and somehow encounter the living God with all of the distractions. Yet, God, you choose to meet us here when we call on your name. So spirit of God, you are welcome in this place.
Jeffrey Heine:Lord, I pray that we would hear from you. God asked that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:Before the lord directed Lauren and I to, start a college ministry called University Christian Fellowship in Birmingham, we both thought that we were heading overseas and we were going to do college ministry at Trinity College in Dublin. And we had been there several times, and I had gone there to pick out housing and, to meet with the director of the ministry we're working with. And one of the things that I did when I was there is I went to Trinity College and for an entire day, I did nothing but interview students. I brought with me a video camera and, probably for about 8 hours, all I did was interview. And I asked this very simple question, I said, do you consider yourself a religious person?
Jeffrey Heine:Because I thought I was vague enough, you know, to get some kind of answer that I could I could then follow-up with and maybe have some good conversation. And so, person after person I asked, are you a religious person? I got almost the same answer every single time. Well, no. Well, yes.
Jeffrey Heine:Well, maybe. I mean, I'm I'm Catholic, but I don't really go to mass, and I don't really care. And I got that all day. I did not meet 1 Christian the entire day. Not not one who actually understood the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:And I did one final interview, and I I finally got this guy and I said, I mean, do you consider yourself a religious person? And he said, yes. And I said, why? And he goes, well, I'm a Christian. I was like, really?
Jeffrey Heine:I'm I I remember I'm I watched this now on tape and I'm so embarrassed because I sound like I went through puberty. At that one moment, my voice gets really I was like, really? You know, I I always cringe watching it, but I was so excited. It's like, finally a Christian. I said, well, tell me what why you consider yourself a Christian?
Jeffrey Heine:And he looked at me kind of puzzled, and he goes, well, I'm from Sweden. So I'm a Protestant. I'm a Lutheran. I was like, oh. And so I started talking with him some more, and he had no understanding of the gospel whatsoever.
Jeffrey Heine:But what he said, the the assumptions he made about his country and everybody being a Christian, those are some assumptions that our culture makes. Actually, I think that every culture makes that certain nationalities are identified with certain religions. And we do this today. We might meet a Muslim and we say, well, well, they are Muslim because they grew up in Iran. Or we will meet, a Hindu and we'll say, well, the reason they're Hindu is because they were born and raised in India.
Jeffrey Heine:We might meet a Mormon, and one might say, their reason they're Mormons because they were born and they were raised in Utah. Or if we meet a Buddhist, we'll say, hey, you're you're Buddhist because you were born and raised in Tibet. And so, we we associate certain nationalities, certain religions, or certain countries with certain religions. And it was no different in the 1st century. And that's why when at the end of chapter 11, what we read about Antioch is absolutely astonishing.
Jeffrey Heine:Up to this point in Christianity, Christianity has mostly been growing by by Christians going to synagogues, going to Jewish places, and preaching to Jews, and those Jews would then turn to Jesus as the Messiah. And that was kind of the norm. That is what was happening. But here in Acts chapter 10, Acts 11, when Peter goes to Cornelius, all of a sudden we see this explosion of Gentiles coming to know the Lord, especially here in the city of Antioch. Now, Antioch in this day was about as multicultural of a city as you can get.
Jeffrey Heine:It sits in what we would consider modern day Syria. So it's close to a bunch of different ethnicities. A man named, Seleucus founded the city, he named it after his father Antiochus, and he set up the city to be a multicultural city. He built a huge wall around the city to protect the people from the outsiders, but then he did something very unique inside. Since he knew he would have so many different ethnicities there and he would have Chinese there, he would have Persians there, he would have Romans there, he would have Greeks there, he would have Jews there, he would have all these there, He he subdivided the city into neighborhoods, and we know archaeologists will tell you that there were 18 different quarters within Antioch.
Jeffrey Heine:So there were little cities within the big city, kind of like going to China, I mean, New York and you have Chinatown, you have Little Italy, you have you have different ethnic groups pocketed in different places, but he actually put walls around them to keep them safe from one another because they all had their own religion. They all thought they were superior to one another, and so it was just a hotbed of of of violence, religious violence. And it did not take much to spark that. And this is where Christians come in to Antioch and to the place of 18 different neighborhoods of all these different, these different people groups there. And they begin to proclaim Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:They begin to proclaim the gospel, and it's in an environment like this And so when we read here that little phrase that it was in Antioch, that the disciples were first called Christians. That's because for the first time, Christians were no longer identified with a certain ethnic group. For the first time, that that they didn't know what to call these groups. You can no longer say, well, the reason you're a Christian is because you grew up in Jerusalem, and you were exposed to those teachings. No longer.
Jeffrey Heine:Now you can say you are a Persian Christian, you are a Roman Christian, you are a Greek Christian, you are a Chinese Christian. It spanned all of these different nationalities, all of these different groups, and it formed this new group, and like, what do we call this new group? We will call them Christians because they identify themselves with this person named Jesus Christ. And we're gonna even look at later when we get to acts 13, when you get to some of the teachers and the elders, leaders of the church, that when you look at the names there, you find 4 different ethnicities in those names. You find people represented on 3 different continents, all in that early church leadership.
Jeffrey Heine:It was very diverse. It was multicultural. That has never happened before in the history of man, ever, That now you find groups of people crossing the walls, now meeting together, not scared of people, not like them, fellowshipping with people different from them, all holding the banner of Jesus Christ over them all. That has never happened before. It's here that the disciples were first called Christians.
Jeffrey Heine:This new identity. And I want us to look at, you know, is that as kind of look at chapter 12 through that lens. What what does that identity mean? What does being a Christian part of this new group of people, what does it look like? At the end of chapter 11 or actually all through chapter 11, we we have this, you know, this Christian explosion all through the Gentiles.
Jeffrey Heine:And so it's likely that Rome begins putting pressure back in Jerusalem. So we we gotta put an end to this. And so they go to the king of Jerusalem. They go to Herod and they you've got to put an end to this. He's like, alright, I've tried everything.
Jeffrey Heine:I'll go after the leaders. I'm going to cut off the head of the snake. I'm going to put an end to it. And so he goes after the apostles, and it's here that he kills James. He puts Peter in prison.
Jeffrey Heine:And right at the start, we realized one of the marks of Christianity. One of the things that defines this group is that they worship God, unlike you would follow a cause or be committed to a cause. They worship a person. Whether times were good, whether times were bad, they worshiped all the same. Let's look at James who was killed.
Jeffrey Heine:Let's look at chapter 12, first two verses. It says about that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James, the brother of John, with a sword. Just like that. I mean, this this text kinda reads like a slap in the face, really.
Jeffrey Heine:Just kinda it sobers you. There's it's short. There's no martyrdom story here. There's there's nothing like remember when Stephen was killed and you have the longest speech in in the bible right there? There's there's nothing like that.
Jeffrey Heine:There's not even a mention of James' last words. Luke describes this in a brief sentence. James, he's one of the apostles, James was killed by a sword and then he moves on. And and that just had to come as a tremendous blow to the church. I I can imagine, at least I hope, that if, you know, people came in and they arrested me and they took me out and they killed me right here, I I'd hope that would shock you.
Jeffrey Heine:I I would hope. Great. Time for a new pastor, you know. And that happened to one of my friends in India just 2 weeks ago. They they came in, they arrested the pastor, didn't kill him, just took him off prison, middle of the service, shocked everybody.
Jeffrey Heine:Can you imagine them doing that to one of the apostles? Ripping them away from the church. The apostles were untouchable. I I mean, the apostles in Acts chapter 5, all they have to do is Peter just has to say, Ananias, Sapphira, bye, and they are dead with a word. In Acts chapter 9, one of the apostles, he raises somebody from the dead.
Jeffrey Heine:People were lining up just so just so Peter's shadow would fall on them. They were so powerful. When Stephen did his his speech, and and he was martyred and all the Christians fled, fearing for their lives, the apostles stayed in Jerusalem because they feared no man. These were the rocks of the church. And then James just killed with the sword, just like that.
Jeffrey Heine:When I began studying this text a few weeks ago, my mind immediately jumped back to Mark chapter 10, and a conversation that James had with Jesus. And I wonder if this was a conversation that he was replaying in his mind in those last moments. In Mark 10, James and his brother approached Jesus and they said, teacher, do for us whatever we ask. Pretty, pretty bold. Jesus says, Go on.
Jeffrey Heine:And, James says, Well, will you grant us, one of us to sit at your right hand and the other at your left hand in power and glory when you come into power? I wish I could have seen Jesus's expression. He says, you have no idea what you asked for. Said, are you able to drink the cup that I'm gonna drink from? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism I'm gonna be baptized with?
Jeffrey Heine:And foolishly, they said, yes, Lord, we are. We can. We could drink from that cup. We can be baptized with that same baptism. Not having any idea that Jesus was talking about his death.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus says, okay. You'll drink the cup that I drink from. I wonder if that was going through James's mind as the sword was falling. James had approached Jesus and asked for a place of honor and glory, and he was given death. The the thing that strikes me about this is there's nothing really honorable or glorious, I guess, about the way James died.
Jeffrey Heine:When when you look at this, all these other martyrdoms and stuff were to come in an accident, you usually can see the silver lining. You usually can find the purpose behind it, but but here, it seems to be no purpose whatsoever. You know, there's there's not the Steven getting the chance to do the great speech. There's there's not Paul on the sidelines observing and being affected by what he sees. It's just simply James and the apostles being killed, and there's no silver lining.
Jeffrey Heine:There there's nothing that really happens of any worse here. There's no positive outcome. You only see death. Now, if James was trying to die for some cause, then I would say he had a very worthless death. If he was trying to advance a cause, no matter how great the cause was, if it was, you know, love or or liberty or trying to to advance that because nothing really good happened outside of his death, but he wasn't trying to advance a cause.
Jeffrey Heine:He realized that both in life and in death, he belonged to Jesus. And in the way he died, it honored his king. This is something that would mark every Christian. When you were called Christian, you were saying that all of my possessions belong to my king. Indeed, my very life belongs to my king to do with whatever he wills.
Jeffrey Heine:Whether I live, whether I die, I am the Lord's. I've used this illustration before, but, it bears repeating, kind of like the song I boast no more. I do it every single week. I could probably use this illustration, every other Sunday. Many of you know the story of Jim Elliot and his friends, how many years ago they went to try to reach the Auca Indians in Ecuador and they were killed.
Jeffrey Heine:They were martyred for their faith. At the age of 29, Jim Elliott was was speared down, he and all of his friends, by the very people he was trying to reach. Many years later, somebody was talking to his wife, Elizabeth Elliott, and, I remember I can remember reading this so vividly. It struck me so deeply. Somebody had asked her and said her told her, you know, Elizabeth, if just one person comes to know the Lord because of your husband's death, it will all be worth it.
Jeffrey Heine:And her response was, it's worth it anyway. It's worth it anyway. Even if no one comes to know the lord. Even if there's no silver lining there. Even if there's no positive outcome that we can see, Jesus is worth living for, and he is worth dying for.
Jeffrey Heine:Our lives are his, and he could do with our lives however he pleases. Man, I wish we could see Jesus as having that worth in our life. Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. James glorified Jesus not because of his last words, not because of the results that what happened, what is simply because he proclaimed, god is great, and he could do whatever he wants with my life, whether I live or whether I die. He was simply demonstrating he belonged to Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:And if you call yourself a Christian, that is what you are saying. Your life is not your own. You've been bought with the precious blood of our Lord and savior, and he owns you. Now after James is killed, Peter is arrested. I I think Herod so I was like, wow.
Jeffrey Heine:People really like this. Now, let me go after the head, the rock, the rock of the church, Peter, and he arrests Peter. And the ironic thing is this is during the Passover or it's during the Festival of Unleavened Bread, which is the Passover. So when Israel is celebrating their deliverance, the head of the church is arrested, and he's thrown into prison. He's chained by 2 guards.
Jeffrey Heine:He is watched over by 16 soldiers. It kinda looks like overkill here, but if you remember, he escaped before. So, Herod's not gonna allow that to happen again. I actually love it when when Peter does escape, there's this little line that says, and Herod left. He went someplace else.
Jeffrey Heine:He is embarrassed after Peter escapes for the second time, and he leaves the city. But here, they're taking every precaution to make sure he doesn't escape again, And it's likely he's gonna be killed the moment the feast is over. You're you're not allowed to put anybody to death during the the feast of unleavened bread, but the moment it's over, it's likely that his life is forfeit. Now I want you to notice as Peter is in chains, as he is in prison, as one of his friends has just been killed, I want you to look at just verse 6. Says, now when Herod was about to bring him out on that very night, Peter was sleeping between 2 soldiers bound with chains and centuries before the guard were guarding the prison.
Jeffrey Heine:He's in chains. He's awaiting execution and yet he is sleeping like a baby. I mean, it's almost comical that the angel has to come. He's like, get up, like, kick, you know, poke, get up. I mean, he is he's out here.
Jeffrey Heine:And what you see here is Christians, they're marked by such a trust in the sovereignty of God that you can actually fall asleep in a situation like this. I don't know about you, but I can lay awake at night, and I I can my mind can just go and go and go. You know what I was thinking? I was having a hard time falling asleep last night, confession time, you all can laugh at me afterwards or during this, But I was thinking about the lights in here. I hate these lights.
Jeffrey Heine:They're fluorescent lights. Who wants to worship under fluorescent lights? And so I'm thinking, it's like, I really hate these lights. I wonder what I could do to change these lights. I wonder if I could do all this and that, and my mind is going, I'm anxious.
Jeffrey Heine:I begin thinking, I wonder if people, you know, they'll leave the church because they hate the lights, you know, and my goodness. My goodness. Where is the peace? I know you probably can't relate. Parents, you probably never worry about your children late at night, probably never worry about your finances, how you're gonna pay for college, whether you've put aside the $300 for each child every month just so you could pay for state school when it's time.
Jeffrey Heine:We haven't. Just one more thing to worry about. We're bombarded with these things, but Peter awaiting death in chains at perfect peace. This should be the mark of a Christian. Such trust in the sovereignty of God.
Jeffrey Heine:Peter's resting in the fact once again that whether he lives or whether he dies, he belongs to the Lord. That's what being a Christian is. Would you think that in light of James being killed, the church would have given up on prayer. I know many people who have given up on prayer because it's like, God didn't answer my prayer. I'm done with that.
Jeffrey Heine:But but Noah says the church was earnestly praying because to be a Christian means to pray. To ask Christian not to pray is like asking a Christian not to breathe. It's like asking them to cut off their arm. Christians pray. And so we read in verse 5, this kinda hinge verse.
Jeffrey Heine:It says, so Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. And that word earnest literally means stretched out. The people were stretched out in prayer, seeking the Lord. I don't know about you, but I I I grew up in a church where we had prayer meetings. I don't know if y'all had those.
Jeffrey Heine:The Wednesday night prayer meetings, which was usually, a badly sung hymn or 2. Then we get together and there'll be a brief devotional that was also pretty poor because, you know, I grew up with a pastor who had to do everything, and so this was definitely like an afterthought. So, let me give you a 5 minute devotion, 4 minute story, 1 Bible verse. And then it was time to take the prayer request that took 40 minutes in which people are talking about, you know, their grandmother's sick parakeet, their, you know, whatever it is that's bothering them. They are all just bringing them before the Lord, and then you have your 5 minutes.
Jeffrey Heine:It's always, Oh, gosh. We we've got to pray. We've got to pray. And so pray in some kind of King James English for for 2 or 3 minutes, say an Amen, prayer meeting. That's what I grew up in.
Jeffrey Heine:Here, these are people stretching out before the lord. That's what the early church did. That's what Christians did. And this is happening all over the city. We know that in Jerusalem at this time, there's thousands and thousands of Christians.
Jeffrey Heine:If you if you just kinda add up the numbers, you're over 20,000 Christians at this point, just as mentioned, if you're counting the the the wives or the women and the children as well. And so, you have thousands and thousands of Christians. Verse 5 says that they are praying for Peter. Yet when Peter is released, he goes to one house where it says, and there were many gathered there together, but there were not 20,000 people gathered there. It it was just probably what what can he fit in the house?
Jeffrey Heine:Forty people, maybe? And what that tells you is, scattered throughout all of the city, you have all of these people in homes. All of these Christians packed in houses. 20,000 plus Christians praying and interceding for Peter with such fervency. That's what churches were known for.
Jeffrey Heine:That's what Christians were known for, is gathering together to pray. When we use the words, fellowship, Christian fellowship, we we have in mind potluck dinners. We have in mind movie nights, just hanging out. But true Koinonia Fellowship is gathering together with believers and seeking the Lord's face. You see that happening all over the city for Peter.
Jeffrey Heine:I pray that that that that would be a mark of our church is spontaneous prayer throughout the cities. We also see here that to be a Christian is to be part of a community that seeks the Lord's face together. All these Christians gather together. You're you're you're not an isolated Christian. No Christian is on an island.
Jeffrey Heine:No Christian is by themself. If you think you could do it all alone, you have fooled yourself to be part of a Christian is to be part of a community that seeks the Lord together. Let's look at one final thing, and then we'll move on. One final thing this passage teaches us about what it means to be a Christian. And to do that, we're gonna look at the faith in which these Christians prayed.
Jeffrey Heine:Once again, kind of comical. Up to this point, man, Christians have been fearless in their prayers. It's been amazing. They they they've been absolutely fearless. They've seen miracle after miracle happen.
Jeffrey Heine:They've seen cripples walk, dead raised, people released from prison, all as a result of prayer, but then James is killed. And when James is killed, the early church was shaken. I actually find that kinda comforting. You know, that there there there was kinks in their faith. It hurt them.
Jeffrey Heine:They're like, woah. Woah. Woah. Wait. As we've prayed that he'd be delivered and he's killed, And we know that they were struggling in their faith when they prayed because Peter was delivered and they were shocked.
Jeffrey Heine:Peter is delivered and he comes through the door and he's knocking. Nobody's coming. He's he's knocking. Servant girl comes. It's like, It's Peter.
Jeffrey Heine:And she just runs away. I mean, the irony is he goes and city gates are opening up before him like magic. He actually goes to the church. Nobody opens the door for him. He's standing out, and he is still knocking.
Jeffrey Heine:And so Rhoda goes back and she tells, Peter's alive. He's delivered. And they think that is so improbable that they said, no. It's it's his angel. They think it is more likely that an angel is side of the door than actually Peter, who they've been praying that God would deliver.
Jeffrey Heine:That is weak faith. That's pathetic faith. But I find great comfort in the fact that they still prayed. And this is a mark of Christianity right here. It does not depend ever on the strength of your faith.
Jeffrey Heine:It depends on the object of your faith, which is Jesus Christ. You don't ever don't ever walk away from here and, like, you know what I heard from Joel? Man, we we have got to go and we've got to pray harder. We've got to go and we've got to be more devoted to our home groups. We we've got to go and we've got to, you know, just be on fire for the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:We've got to go and do all this. No, you know what? You're going to fail. The early church failed. The early church had pathetic, weak faith in prayers.
Jeffrey Heine:But it doesn't depend on you. You know that same word for stretched out or earnest is the word that's used to describe Jesus in the garden. When he went to the garden before his death, it said that he prayed earnestly. He stretched himself out before the lord. Jesus performed where we failed.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus endured the wrath that was due our failure. And so that's what it means to be a Christian. It's not the the the strength or the quality of your faith. It's who is the object of your faith, Jesus Christ. And so if you have faith this big or as Jesus would say, if you have faith as a strength.
Jeffrey Heine:And that marked the early church. I pray for us, as a church, that we would come to understand what what we represent when we hold up the name Christian. What does that mean to be marked by our Lord and our savior, Jesus Christ, and to be a disciple of his? And I pray that what we've heard would become a reality in our hearts. Pray with me.
Jeffrey Heine:Lord Jesus, we fail. There's no doubt about it. We fail. We fail in every way. God, my best efforts, the very best that I have is nothing but rubbish before you.
Jeffrey Heine:And so, God, I pray that you would remind us of that in the sweetness of the gospel. That says it doesn't depend on us. It depends on you. And God, I pray that you would press on us what it means in this room to be marked by you, to be called by your name, Christians. We pray this in the strong name of our Lord and our savior, Jesus Christ.