(Notes taken from the sermon at Calvary Baptist Church presented by Pastor David Epstein on February 17, 2013.)
He will be out of town next Sunday so the notes, God willing, will follow the following Sunday. Stay blessed.
6 - Paul changed his worldview from no longer trying to be good enough getting other people to like him but to his life being given grace from Jesus Christ.
[Saul hated people that didn't agree with him. He had no peace. Now Paul's life was to search for true peace from God.]
NYC is like Ephesus (Asia Minor - Turkey).
Ephesus like NYC is a world class city and what happens in both of them affects the world .
Ephesus had a large Jewish population and so does NYC.
Acts 19:8-10
Christianity is a historic global faith.
Paul immediately went to the synagogue.
Paul was changed from a Rabbi to a Jewish Christian Rabbi. [Jewish Christian - A Jewish person that believes in Jesus Christ.]
Paul preached the Kingdom and the King.
Paul went out every day to proclaim Jesus Christ.
The Jewish people and the Greeks heard the word of the Lord.
Acts 9:1-2
Saul went to the synagogues to arrest the Jewish people (The Lord's disciples).
In Acts 19, Paul is converted/changed and now wants to preach to the Jewish people.
Paul now loves all people just as God loves all people.
Paul and God do not embrace every life style but they still love the people.
Loving people is speaking truth in love to them.
Paul is letting people know he loves diversity.
He wants people to be reconciled to God and to one another.
Reconciliation and diversity go together.
Paul informed the Gentiles they didn't have the privileges as the Jewish people, (Ephesians 2:11-12).
Now they do. Paul wants them to know that God loves them in Christ (Ephesians 2:13).
If Jesus Christ is our peacemaker, we have to make the bond of unity and peace. The unity of God for peace in the church is a great miracle of God, (Ephesians 2:14).
God bringing people together is the greatest proof that there is a God.
If God can bring the Muslim and Jewish people together or any other nations together in unity, He is great, (Ephesians 2:15-16).
The Jewish people/nation only have two friends left in this world today: they are the United States and the Evangelical Church.
Ephesus was a big trading center and had a large population. It was politically powerful.
In NYC we are the same. We have the UN.
Ephesus had a strong religious influence. So does NYC. Christianity is/was power in both places.
The religious influence was great. The church in Ephesus was strategic.
In Ephesus there was/is wall to wall idolatry. In NYC the same applies. When you worship anything more than God, that’s idolatry.
In Ephesus you have the Temple of Artemis. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
In Ephesus there was the Emperor Cult. They worshiped the Roman Emperor as their god.
Rome allowed you to worship your own god as long as you worshipped the Emperor too, if not, there was a problem.
In NYC people worship celebrities. They can have a life here. They are acknowledge and left along but in California the opposite occurs. They are stalked and can't live their lives. They don't have privacy.
The American Idol is a TV show where people worship them. Look at the name. It says it all.
In Ephesus the theatre seated 25,000 people.
The Way - The Christian Faith
"Man made gods are no gods at all" (Acts 19:26)
You can't make an idol and worship it. Don't trust the stuff you build yourself, (Acts 19:27-30)
Paul knew he was facing Spiritual Warfare.
Ephesians 6:10-18 The Armor of God
The battle is being waged on the spiritual level. This realm is real today. BELIEVE IT!!!
Let's smell the roses and get on the same page.
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