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And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders, about this question.

So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing the conversion of the Gentiles; and they caused great joy to all the brethren. And when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders; and they reported all things that God had done with them. But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to commandthem to keep the law of Moses.”

Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them: “Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?  But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they.”

Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles. And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, “Men and brethren, listen to me: Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written:

‘After this I will return
And will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down;
I will rebuild its ruins,
And I will set it up;
So that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
Even all the Gentiles who are called by My name,
Says the Lord who does all these things.’

“Known to God from eternity are all His works. Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”

Then it pleased the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely, Judas who was also named Barsabas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren. They wrote this letter by them:

The apostles, the elders, and the brethren,
To the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia:

Greetings. Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, “You must be circumcised and keep the law” —to whom we gave no such commandment— it seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who will also report the same things by word of mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.

- Acts 15:1-29

I took many things out of this chapter, but there is one point that I want to focus on in this post. I think that the church in Acts was handling itself very well and I think that we should be modeling our church leadership after them. As you notice in the first few verses, it says that some men (Judaizers led by converted Pharisees) came down and were telling all these new gentile converts that they could not be saved unless they were circumcised and were following Jewish law. That must have been a huge bummer. Imagine if you just accepted Christ and were so excited about it to then find out that you are actually not saved! When Paul and Barnabas heard of this, they were not too happy! It says they had “no small dispute”, which probably means it was a big dispute. I think they had a reason to be angry, considering they just went through and brought all these gentiles to Christ!

Now this is where it gets cool. The first thing they do is have a meeting with the church leadership and explain the problem. Paul eventually gets up and says, in verse 8, that God gave the gentiles the Holy Spirit just like God gave them the Holy Spirit. The point he is making is that they are indeed saved, otherwise the Holy Spirit would not be inside of them. They go on further explaining the miracles that they performed among the gentiles. James eventually recites scripture spoken by the old prophets that says that God will call the gentiles to His name. The Word even says that the gentiles will respond to God’s call, you can not argue against that!

Of course, some of them were having a hard time grasping the concept of being saved through grace. They could not believe all these gentiles were simply saved without having to follow the law and be circumcised. But James says in verse 20, that they should still abstain from certain things such as: things polluted by idols, sexual immorality, things strangled, and from blood.

In verse 22 it says that they were all in agreement. They then sent a letter, explaining the decision they all agreed upon, back to the gentiles and to the Jewish men in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia who were teaching false doctrine. The best part is in verse 28 where it says: “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us..” We should be able to say that about all of our decisions!

Imagine how great the gentiles must have felt after hearing that they were indeed saved by grace through Jesus Christ! Imagine the worry they must have had wondering if they were saved or not. All those doubts went away when they heard that letter from the church read to them with a decision that “was good to them and to the Holy Spirit.”

“Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert. So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.” So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. The place in the Scripture which he read was this:

“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter;
And as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.
In His humiliation His justice was taken away,
And who will declare His generation?
For His life is taken from the earth.”

So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?”  Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”
Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”
And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.” - Acts 8:26-40

 

I wanted to share a few things that we can learn from Phillip. The first being that when God calls you somewhere, go! The angel did not tell Phillip what would happen or what to bring, the angel just said to go to a desert! I know for myself, that I tend to doubt the Lord. I mean, why should I go to the desert? What could God possibly have for me there? The thing is though, God always provides a “then” moment. After Phillip had gotten up and went to the desert, “then” the Lord revealed the next step. We always have to take the first step.. usually in complete faith! But then the Lord always shows up and reveals the next step. By Phillip’s obedience, the Ethiopian man was saved and baptized.

Another thought that came to my mind was that I think some Christian’s try to make their own “then” moment. They decide what to say and they decide who needs to hear it. As you can see, Phillip was just obeying God and God showed Phillip where to go, what to do, and what to say. The Ethiopian man’s heart was soft and ready to accept Jesus as his savior. A lot of people’s hearts are hard and we need to be aware of that and be praying for their hearts to be softened, not preaching to them every time we see them. The “wrong motives” I mentioned before might be the thought process of:  ”If I witness to him and tell him about God every chance I get, he his bound to accept Him at some point.” That thought process is about “I” and is thinking that you can save someone by your own power. It is all in God’s timing and power.. not your eloquent words and repetition.

“Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, ‘It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.’

And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles; and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them.” – Acts 6:1-6

So many times people in the church judge others because they do not serve in certain areas. We are all given different gifts and passions to use in the body of Christ. If God calls someone to serve in a specific area that they are gifted in, why would we want to take them away from that? Of course there are the people that feel called to be on the worship team, yet they have never played an instrument in their lives. We, the church, need to be able to discern if that person is in the right place to serve God to his or her fullest potential.

The point is that these twelve disciples were chosen by Jesus himself to spread the word. The disciples were not special, they were just tasked with another job in the body of Christ. Notice though, that they did not take this job lightly! They asked for seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. They laid their hands on these seven men chosen to be in charge of the daily distribution and prayed for them. That is yet another great thing that they did that we should enforce in our churches. When someone is given a job, small or large, we should be praying for their success and that God’s hand would be in it.

“Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple; who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked for alms. And fixing his eyes on him, with John, Peter said, “Look at us.” So he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. Then Peter said, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. ”And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them—walking, leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God. Then they knew that it was he who sat begging alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.” - Acts 3:1-10

Peter and John were heading to the temple to pray, which they did three times a day everyday. There was nothing unusual going on. Even the lame man sitting at the gate was always there. The lame man was in his forties and he had been asking for alms at that gate for a very long time. According to his age, Jesus was actually alive when this man was at the gate. Jesus had walked through that gate before and he did not heal this lame man. I am sure that the lame man had lost hope many times, maybe he never thought he would be healed. Maybe he asked God to heal him everyday, and maybe there was a time when he hated God for his handicap. Why would God let this man suffer for such a long time and then just heal him on a random day? God has his reasons and he knows far more than you and I do. He is just, he is mighty, and he is all-powerful. God knew this day would come. The funny part is that this lame man responded the same way he probably would have if he had been healed twenty years earlier. He jumped up and down and praised God. God was glorified in this man’s healing and that is all that matters.

Something we can all take away from this story is that you need to trust God’s timing. It may seem so strange to us that God would wait so long, but he did. When we ask for things we need to understand that God will work everything out for our good. We may not see it as good at the time, but in the end it fulfills his plan. God knows best.

We also need to be ready and listening to God. As I said before Jesus, Peter, and John had all passed by this lame man many times. Maybe they had even given him money at some point. This particular day though, God moved them to heal this man. Always be ready for what God is going to do when you least expect it. He loves doing extraordinary things in ordinary circumstances.

We were able to lead worship at the Leadership Rocks conference at Calvary Chapel Ft. Lauderdale. Leadership Rocks is a high energy event that encourages and challenges students to reach and exceed their potential. The event was two days long and we played three sets with a total of fourteen songs. I had a great time and it felt amazing to be in the theater again. The challenge for me was the fact that I was the only electric guitarist, which was the same as the night of worship we had the night before. It is always tough picking out which leads you should do and then transitioning into rhythm parts so that the band sounds full. The conference was a great success and I am so glad we had the opportunity to play.

instagrams: #LeadershipRocks

Calvary FAU invited us to lead worship at their second annual Worship Under The Stars event. The event was held in an amphitheater located in the middle of the campus. It was a beautiful day with clear skies, and it was pretty humid, but we got over it. We were all dripping with sweat after hauling our whole sound system and gear down there. There were some challenges in the venue. The first being the location. The amphitheater is surrounded completely by buildings, so as you could imagine, there was some nasty echo. We also did not have enough monitor mixes, so Myles and I did not even have a monitor.  We got to run through a couple songs and trouble shoot a few things but we did not have too much time to fix things. The night went well, and God showed up as he always does. The performance was a little rough and a little sloppy but given the circumstances I think we did alright. We played thirteen songs as well, it was quite a large amount of progressions and lines to remember. I had a fun time, it is always great (aside from the heat) to play outside.

Setlist: Manifesto / Here For You / Our God / God Is Able / Beautiful / How He Loves / Taste of Eternity / Revelation Song / You Revive Me / 10,000 Reasons / Forever Reign / The Stand / Our God Is Love

“Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.” - Acts 2:44-47

These people are living the “Christian life”. They had accountability, community, fellowship, simpleness, and “favor with all people“. That last line really sticks out to me the most. Being a Christian is like a lifestyle these days, and it sure is not like the one in Acts! I am talking about a lifestyle that only effects the shirts they buy, the music they listen to, the statuses they write, the Instagrams they post, and where they have to be on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. That is usually how deep Christianity goes in a lot of people’s lives.

Sometimes you do meet those Christians that you look up to, respect, and strive to be. Those people are few and far between. I tend to notice those people know everyone they run into, are always in a good mood, are slow to speak, and always have the right advice backed with scripture. I also notice nobody talks bad about those people. They just seem to have “favor with all people“, Christian or not. I imagine the church of Acts consisted of people like that. I imagine they were all down to earth and had nothing to hide, that they respected each other but still had the guts to call one another out, that they loved all people and did not judge anyone, and that they were quick to help and slow to complain.

 

“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” – Acts 1:8

I know I grew up hearing stories about Jesus and how the Holy Spirit lives inside of me but I think a lot of us never fully grasp the reality of it. The same Spirit that empowered the apostles lives in us! The same Spirit that made the blind see, healed the lame, and caused thousands to receive salvation lives in us! That means we can be doing the same things that the apostles did! They were ordinary people, just like us! One of them was a tax collector, I mean come on! We have such little faith and that is what hinders us from moving mountains. We just need to receive God’s gift to us and believe that we have the same power that the apostles had. I know that I want to be a witness for Christ to the end of the earth, do you?

Last night I got to play an electro worship set with my Ocean’s Edge family. Daniela organized the whole thing and had Frank, Meghan, Myles, and I come and play at Calvary Chapel Boca’s The Friday Night Thing. They have this event once every month for their high school group as a way to invite their friends. It was a very powerful night filled with worship, fellowship, and connecting with God.

We were missing some people (Tyler Prange!) but it was so great to reunite the electro band. It is always refreshing playing these arrangements and having freedom to make new parts. Everything went really well and even when we ran into some loop problems we kept going and made it through. I do not think anyone even realized. I hope we get to lead there in the future and get more opportunities to play electro worship.

Setlist: God Is Able / Our God / Desert Song / Hosanna / Healer

I got to spend last Sunday with the guys at Hollywood. I love playing at Hollywood because the team is always so friendly and we always have a good time. I got to play there so much over the summer that I have actually gotten to know some of the people there really well. It has been difficult floating around the past year. I never really got the chance to know people and feel a sense of having a “home”. I get that feeling when I play at Hollywood now. Although, that will all change soon. Since my second year of Ocean’s Edge School of Worship started this past week, I will be assigned a campus to play at every week. It could be Hollywood, or it could be one of the other campuses.  We will see it all in time!

Setlist: God Is Able / Your Great Name / Be Lifted High / You Are Holy 

Like I said before, Ocean’s Edge School of Worship has started up again and the new class is in. It has been really inspiring meeting everyone and getting to know who they are. It has been an amazing week for me. I am so excited about this next year and about what God is going to do in my life. I have been spending a lot of time connecting with God and growing my relationship with Him. I have also been putting an effort towards building strong relationships with this year’s class. I already feel like I know some of the students pretty well and we have had some seriously funny times together already!

The second years, which includes me, got to lead worship this week for the class and it went over really well. The rest of the band would agree with me by saying that we really felt connected with God and could see Him moving. Although, this whole week I have felt so connected to Him. He has been so present, or I should say that I have been more aware of Him. He is always present, I just need to search for Him and He will show up.

Setlist: Manifesto / God Is Able / Forever Reign / How He Loves / Revelation Song

Jordyn Kohles and I got to lead worship for the Patmos commitment night last night. It was a beautiful time of worship. We were in a small room lit by candlelight and everyone was singing with passion. It was such an amazing time and I am so honored to have led for them. I will be praying for them as they all spend the next four months growing their faith and seeking Him. God really spoke personally and through other people to me that night. I was encouraged and refreshed!

This Sunday I was supposed to play at Calvary Hollywood but it was canceled because the performing arts center in which they meet was closed. I decided to go see Jordyn lead at Calvary Sandalefoot. A bunch of the Ocean’s Edge guys came to the service as well. This morning was another fantastic time of worship and I can really see God moving in this year’s class as well as His church. Pastor Bob preached a great message as usual. I am just so excited about this next year of my life. Everything is great. I had some failures this week and some lame things happened to me, but I am content and jovial because I know that God has favor over me and His followers and that He is going to work everything out for me.