Acts 11:19-30

***The Antioch church is the pattern for every church to follow

***The church @ Antioch had the heart of God

***How can you see the grace of God?

(1) THE GRACE OF GOD IS POWERFUL – Romans 5:20

a. do not emphasize sin.  Emphasize grace…

b. the culture

-the environment (culture) made no difference to the Antioch Christians

***Invade the Culture

***It was a pluralistic culture

-this is many ways to heaven or to reach out to GOD

***It was an eclectic culture

-a little bit of every religion – coexist…

Romans 5:20

– Much More – this is the picture of water overflowing to cover an area

1. GRACE IS MORE POWERFUL THAN THE SIN NATURE —

*before we are saved we are dominated by our sin nature

*the symptoms of the sin nature are what we dwell on

*the core problem of humanity is the sin nature

*dwell on the power of grace which breaks the power of the sin nature

2. GRACE THROUGH FAITH + NOTHING = SALVATION – Ephesians 2:8-9

-the power of grace and the Holy Spirit breaks the power of the sin nature

-you do not have to give up anything to be saved

-at salvation, issues and sins start to fall off

-as we grow, sins and issues continue to fall off of our lives

-people sin because they choose to sin – they do not have to sin once saved

*******YOU COULD SEE THE GRACE OF GOD @ WORK @ ANTIOCH…

-People were being saved by grace

-Stuff and sins were falling off of people by the power of God’s grace

-People loving people even though they still have stuff to work through – this also reveals the power of the grace of God

(2) THE GRACE OF GOD EMBRACES INDIVIDUALITY – 2 Timothy 2:20

-every believer and human bring are totally different

     2 Things To Remember About Embracing Individuality

1. Accept people just the way they are –

-this is what the Lord does

-do not try to change anyone

-love, accept and mentor them but leave them alone

-God brought them to save them and clean them up

2. Acceptance of people does not include the acceptance of sin

-Gods grace does not give the believer the attitude to continually sin

-God’s grace gives us the power to sin less and less and to not sin at all