I think this is so interesting. The first section calls for the body, brothers and sisters, to give recognition to those who labor among you and lead you in the Lord and admonish you. 

Rest does not come easy to me. I have found that I have a hard time saying no to just about anything – work, volunteering, adventures, helping others, and all of the ideas in my head. We wear our busy schedules as a badge of honor. It’s like we are full of pride when we tell someone we are too busy to find any space on our schedule.

Some might think that hospitality is a gift, and sure, there might be some who are more pre-disposed to extending a hospitable environment moreso than others.  But, my hope today is that each one today leaves here challenged today with this question: Do others feel that I welcome them as the Father welcomes me?

What a scene! There was a lot of shouting going on, drawing attention. “Hosanna! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ The King of Israel!” The people were crazy with excitement. They were anticipating something amazing: a new king. We see this in a few ways here.

In this story of Paul’s “middle,” we will name our own middles we are living in as well as name attacks from the enemy, defend ourselves against those attacks, & declare the truth of God over our lives.

The opening move for Paul, and any of the disciples when they entered a new mission field was to go to the synagogue and start preaching the the Kingdom of God there. But why always go to the synagogue and to the Jews? Hasn’t it been clear that the message of the Way was for the Gentiles too?

But before we talk about the feel-good parts of God’s love, we must get our baseline, our foundation of why God’s love is so radical and transformative. We first start with the human condition. 

The one church of Jerusalem that we started with in Acts 2 is spreading throughout the known world. But with its expansion, with each church that is planted in new cultures with people from different racial and economic backgrounds, the waters are turning murky about what is the “right” way of following the One Way. 

Across the country today, hundreds of other churches watched that same video and are having the same conversation around church planting as we are here in the Northwest. We talk about church planting because we know the impact Jesus has had on our lives and we want Jesus to go viral throughout our neighborhoods.

As Christians, what is our why? Christ is our WHY. Our driving force for everything we do - raising kids, playing with grandkids, mowing the lawn, grocery shopping, having dinner with friends, enjoying that morning cup of coffee, supporting our spouse, going to work and working hard - if we are centering our driving force on our why, then this is all done in pursuit of loving union with Jesus.

Our text today jumps us right into the middle of a story. Bob shared about this story in Acts 2 last week, but here’s a summary. The disciples were gathered together and unsure of what to do next with Jesus’s recent ascension to heaven.

When you think of the ideal woman, what comes to mind? No matter the woman image that you pictured when you think of the ideal woman, there’s a good chance that you are right. Our passage today is Proverbs 31:10-31, more famously known as the wife of noble character.