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Dover Assembly of God

7.8.2018 | Acts - Week 11

Locations & Times

4790 Carlisle Rd, Dover, PA 17315, USA

Sunday 10:30 AM

Welcome!

Welcome to Dover Assembly of God! We're glad that you've joined us this morning. If you're on Facebook, we encourage you to take a moment to check in at Dover Assembly.

http://facebook.com/doverassembly

This Week's Bulletin

July 8, 2018 Welcome to Dover Assembly! We are so glad you have chosen to attend Dover Assembly this morning. It is not by accident that you are here. We believe that God has allowed you to be here so that you might receive all that He has for you. We pray you are blessed as you allow the Lord to work in your life. THIS WEEK Today 9:00 am ~ Coffee & Donut Fellowship 9:30 am ~ Sunday School 10:30 am ~ R.O.C.K. Children’s Ministries 10:30 am ~ Worship Service 1:00 pm ~ Spanish Service Sunday—Wednesday 6:30 pm—8:30 pm ~ BIG CITY HEROES VBS! UPCOMING EVENTS Men's Conference Attention all men of Dover. Mark your calendars for the upcoming conference on Oct 19-20 to be held at Trinity Life A/G in Baltimore. It is always a tremendous outpouring of God’s spirit upon hundreds of men. BODY NEWS Mandated Clearances for Childcare Workers It is time to revisit every children’s ministry worker’s need for update clearances. If you work or deal in ANY capacity with children at Dover Assembly and are over 18, you are required by law to have current State Police and ChildLine clearances and Mandated reporter training. Pastor Jeff will be approaching those who need such clearances. If your clearances are out of date (older than 5 years) or we do not have them in our files, you will need to apply for them ASAP. No one will be permitted to work with children until all clearances have been obtained. Never Miss A Service! Can't join us in person? We stream our services live online every Sunday morning at 10:30 am. This is also a great way to invite others to check out our church. To watch online, visit doverassembly.com/live or visit the Watch Live tab in our app. You can also watch via Facebook Live by visiting our Facebook page at facebook.com/doverassembly In addition to streaming live, each sermon is posted to Vimeo early in the week. Check out those you may have missed or would like to hear again at vimeo.com/doverassembly New Entrance Doors Into The Lower Level In our desire to heighten the security for our children, we have installed new doors that lead into the lower part of our church where the children’s ministries take place. In a week or so, we will be adding a security lock which will require anyone seeking entrance, to buzz and wait to be let in. The doors will be locked from 9:30-10:15 and again from 10:30-noon. Faith Pledges So far we have raised $7,999.50 towards our matching goal of $10,000 towards our debt of $50,000. Thank you for your faithfulness! Help us to meet that challenge. In Sympathy To Jeff & Cele Kress at the loss of his nephew, Christopher Kress, in a bicycle accident on Thursday June 28. BIRTHDAYS & ANNIVERSARIES July 14 ~ Mikhail Kohled July 16 ~ Betty Ness July 18 ~ Keith Housseal July 20 ~ Juliet Johnson July 24 ~ Lynette Miller July 26 ~ Mary Fitting July 28 ~ Tiffani Reed July 5 ~ Gil & Marian Tunney July 14 ~ Mikhail & Olga Kohled PRAYER NEEDS Please take time to review and pray for those on this list. Drop them a card or call to set up a time to visit. They will be blessed! Shut-In ~ Helen S. Prayer Needs ~ Robin H. ~ Rose K. ~ Phil & Murina S. ~ Marian T.

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As we have mentioned probably every week for a long time, do we come expecting God to show up?

Do we expect God to answer our prayers?

Are we shocked when He does?

Let's look at the account of the people praying for Peter’s release from prison. When God does free him and he shows up at the door, they don’t believe it!

Acts 12:11-17

It doesn't seem like they were praying with and expectant attitude.

How often do we pray a perfunctory prayer but with no expectation of God doing what we pray for?

When we pray prayers that are canned, or memorized, we are not expecting God to answer.

This actually ties into where we left off in our study of the book of Acts. We left off with the apostles healing many people and because they were preaching in Jesus’ name and healing people, the natural result would be being jailed. The apostles were then given the opportunity to preach to those in authority.

Once again, hardships give glory to God and open up the opportunity to preach. Their jailers and rulers then told them to not preach anymore and we’ll let you go.

Rather than lying to them and telling them what they wanted to hear, they said, nope, were still going to preach because God told us to and we’re going to obey Him rather than you.

Acts 5:29-33

When people stand for truth and what’s right, the ones opposed seem to go off the deep end.

So in the middle of this potential riot, there’s one man who sees the truth of God without maybe knowing God.

He just sees the evidence in front of him and makes a pragmatic, if wrong statement.

Who is he?

Acts 5:34

Gamaliel is a Pharisee.The group he was in was made up of both Sadducees and Pharisees. These 2 groups did not agree on much most of the time.

Gamaliel was such a person that the Sadducees even honored him.

Why? Gamaliel was rather liberal in his applications of Jewish law and moderate in his approach to problems. His advice to his compatriots was unwise and dangerous, but God used it to save the apostles.

He was “go along to get along” kind of guy. He wouldn’t take hard positions when there was opposition. He would play hard if everyone was on his side.

He would ride the middle to avoid conflict.

He was Paul’s teacher while Paul was in "Pharisee school."

Acts 22:2-3

His coming words showed 2 things:

1) He was incorrect about his assessment of who Jesus was.

2) In spite of his mischaracterizations of Jesus, he knew one truth about God.

Acts 5:35-39

So how was Gamaliel wrong about Jesus?

First, he grouped Jesus in with 2 other rebels. He thought that Jesus was just another in a long line of zealous Jews trying to free the Jews from Roman rule. And wasn’t anyone special.

He did NOT accept that Jesus was the Messiah. He did not accept that Jesus was the one true God and the only way to the father.

The fact that he grouped Jesus in with others means he also denies all the miracles that Jesus did.

He denied the tenants of the faith.

What are some of the tenants of our faith?
1) Jesus is God-not A God, but the God and the ONLY way to the father.
2) Virgin birth
3) Jesus’ death & resurrection

We all know people that maybe live good lives, have good morals, do good things and believe a bunch of stuff about many things. They believe in Jesus, but they group Jesus in with all the other “spiritual” leaders.

They deny the exclusivity of the gospel and the Christian faith.

But most other religions do the same.

We have to be convinced in our own minds that Jesus is the only way. And he is truth and his death on the cross was the only payment accepted for our sins.

There have been movies and books that have been touted by Christians as being “good & spiritual” but while uplifting, they also deny basic truths of the faith.

If we get our spiritual lessons and truth from these because they mention God or Jesus, and use them as evangelistic tools, we eliminate the true gospel

If we think these are authoritative in any way, we will drift from the tenants of our faith.

Man’s natural inclination is to drift from faith unless we continue to pursue faith and truth.

2nd thing that Gamaliel is mistaken about is he makes the assumption that if something fails it isn’t from God.

He doesn’t take into account the power of the sinful nature and the power of the enemy in the world today.

God uses people to accomplish His works and people’s actions can thwart what God wants to accomplish.

God will be victorious in the end, but until then, the enemy can have a strong hold on people.

Success is also no test of truth.

Just because something is successful doesn’t mean it is from God.

False cults grow sometimes faster than God’s church.

Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion today.

So just because it is successful and things and people succeed, doesn’t automatically mean it’s from God.

Acts 5:39

He makes this statement under the assumption that Jesus isn’t God, so it’s a statement that he doesn’t believe about Jesus, but he believes it about God.

He understood the power of God in a situation, and while it is not meant to really do anything except calm down the potential riot, he is stating a truth that we need to understand.

If we are fully immersed in God’s will and trusting God in any situation, with God in charge, the enemy will not be able to stop us.

He will do his best to slow us down and impede our progress and get in our way to discourage you, but as believers who trust God for any situation, if we give these problems to God, he will fight for us.

The apostles stood up for the truth and trusted God to get them out of this problem.

If we stand for God, we can trust God for the outcome. Whatever that outcome is.

Gamaliel was able to dissuade the rulers from killing the apostles.

An almost impossible task. . . BUT GOD!

Acts 5:40

God delivered them from death for now, but they still suffered for the gospel.

Being a Christian doesn’t deliver us from all problems, but it does guarantee that we have a God who fights for us, delivers us, works miracles in our lives and most importantly, answers prayer!

Acts 5:41-42

How did the apostles feel about all that had happened?
They realized that their suffering at that moment in time was a chance to bring glory to God and to continue to share Christ.

Let's live expectantly...

That means when we live daily with the expectation that God will intervene in our lives with whatever that means for each of us, and that His intervention is the perfect answer to your situation and the enemy cannot overcome what God wants to do, gives us the confidence to trust in God, to cast my cares on Him.

To walk knowing that God has our backs.

Thank you for joining us!

If you haven't already, be sure to check out our website and follow us on social media @doverassembly! Have a great week!

http://doverassembly.com