(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

You're listening to audio from Faith Church Indie. This spring we're studying the book of 2nd Peter, learning about how we can find our anchor in God during unsteady times. Now here's the teaching. 

Go ahead and stand with me, we're actually reading from Acts today, Acts 18. Now, a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. 

He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus. Though he knew only of the baptism of John, he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. 

And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed. For he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ. 

This is the word of the Lord. Well, good morning. Thank you, thank you very much for the wonderful welcome my wife and I have experienced since we've been here. 

I was talking to Pastor Jeff and others, and I was saying how this church is an eating church. It's an eating church because since we've been here, it's been eating literally every day. We come down here and we are eating.

There's this dinner, there's this dessert, there's this what, and people are just eating. And I said, God bless this church. My wife and I are so privileged and truly honored to be here, partly because we were looking forward to seeing you, but also because the Dunkers have said a lot about their church back in the US, and they call it faith. 

That's all they call it. So I wanted to know which faith is this? And we thank God for all of you for the work you are doing. Later on, I'm going to mention a few things that make me feel very, very encouraged by the work you are doing as a church. 

Competent, but not complete. That's the title of this sermon today. You know, every day you get to meet people, and people impact you differently. 

We interact with all kinds of people. Family, relatives, you interact with schoolmates, you interact with your workmates, and church members. Those of us who are here today. 

Now, most of these interactions do fade with time, right? They fade with time. But occasionally, someone comes along that actually makes a lasting impact in your life, or leaves a lasting impact in your life. I want us to take a moment and think about that. 

Look back. Look back and think about somebody that actually made a difference in your life. Somebody that you remember, even as I speak. 

Who is that person for you? Could be your pastor, or a former pastor somewhere. Could be a teacher who taught you when you were very young. Could be a friend at work, or it could be anybody here at church. 

But there's something about that person that you remember up to today. My sister just read from Acts chapter 18, and I'm going to take us back there. The story of Apollos is a wonderful story, but sometimes I wonder why it is even included in this chapter. 

The chapter, which is Acts chapter 18, begins with a story of Paul, and the discussion is about Paul and how Paul was moving by the power of the Holy Spirit, doing the work that God had called him to do. And then in verse 24, it says, Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. So we are introduced to this man called Apollos. 

What do we know about Apollos in this introduction we are given? First, we are told he is a Jew. He is from Alexandria. But what else do we know about him? He was a learned man with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. 

He was eloquent. He was a good speaker, a powerful speaker, I must add. He was a man that Pastor Jeff and all pastors would want to have in their church. 

A man like this is the kind of man we all want to be with. Somebody who understands the Scriptures, can quote the Scriptures, can preach the Scriptures. Somebody who is learned. 

But that's not all we are told about him, right? We are also told, and Luke adds this in verse 25 at the end, he taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. So this man is very gifted, but clearly he is not complete. There's something missing. 

With all his eloquence, he's still missing something, and that is he did not fully understand Jesus Christ, even though he taught about him accurately. Now, he was talking about Jesus from what he knew from the baptism of John. So John the Baptist came preaching and preparing the way for our Lord Jesus Christ, and yes, we know, or at least we can assume that that is how Apollos, being a Jew, came to know about Jesus, but up to that point. 

And he went about preaching about it so strongly, and he was happy to declare this Jesus. He was happy to proclaim him, but there was something still missing in his preaching. I think this is the situation with us today and the many people around the world who are sitting in churches.

Think about it. We do have people here who can quote the Scriptures like this, and they know the Word of God, and they can, we say in Kenya, they can quote the Scriptures in their sleep. In other words, they are very good, but that doesn't mean they are true disciples of Jesus Christ, fully committed to the cause to which we've been called. 

We have challenges. Where I come from, we have pastors who are preaching every Sunday and every Saturday in some occasions. We have these pastors, but the truth is they don't know much. 

They don't understand everything that they need to understand to proclaim the Gospel correctly, but they are out there preaching like Apollos. There are people who are so gifted here in this church, so gifted in every way, but they wouldn't offer their gifts because there's something missing. A little something, and we're going to discuss that in a minute.

And then there's an invitation. While this man is preaching out there, he gets a wonderful invitation here in verse 26. If you can kindly look at it, I'm going to read in the NIV. 

It says, He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately. Priscilla and Aquila, they were Jews who had been chased away from Italy, and they came to Corinth.

Paul meets them in Corinth, and as he begins to make his missionary travels, he goes with them on this particular occasion, and he leaves them in Ephesus, where, by God's own grace, he brings Apollos, and Apollos gets to meet this couple. What a wonderful couple they were. 2017, let me take you back into history a little, because 2017 is such a special year for my wife and I, because that is the year we got to know a Bible school called Rich Tanzania Bible School.

Rich Tanzania Bible School is a school that was being run by Mark and Alisa Dunker, together with another couple, the Medinas. And they were doing a phenomenal job over there. My wife and I were leading a church in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, but I've always wanted to go to school and to study.

I wanted to be an Apollos, learned in the scriptures, right? Knowing how to handle the Word of God correctly. But I didn't find a very good school until we ended up at Rich Tanzania. Let me first say this, and today I'm so grateful that we have the Millers here.

I may not say much about what the Millers are doing, but I can say what the Dunkers are doing. The Dunkers have been such a wonderful, wonderful example in Christian living. What drew us to them, first and foremost, was the fact that they were so humble.

They wanted to just proclaim Jesus Christ through their teaching. And we noted that very quickly when we arrived there, because Mark said, if you are here, talking to our students, he said, if you are here to get a certificate, a paper that you're going to put on your wall, he said, this may not be the best place for you. Because here we teach for life change.

That's what he said back in 2017, and I don't think I'll ever forget that. People teach, people have schools. I mean, we have many theological schools in Nairobi, but those schools, some of them are not teaching the truth.

And so when we found somebody whose goal is not to give certificates, but to give the true gospel, we were drawn to that. And so we started studying, and by the end of 2018, just before we returned to Nairobi, we were not only equipped to teach, we were actually saved. My wife and I found true transformation in that school. 

Brothers and sisters, that is exactly what many pastors are going through in Kenya, even as I speak, in Dar es Salaam, in Uganda, all those countries, because people have not received proper training, even as pastors. And because Alisa is here, I'll say thank you. I'm sure you are hearing that for the, I don't know how many times we've said that. 

It's not just in Africa where people are not trained, right? We have people everywhere who need to hear the true gospel, but they need a Priscilla and Aquila. That's what Mark and Alisa were for, my wife and I. They were the, they were the Priscilla and Aquila. And I use it that way because Alisa here can really, she's the, I don't want to say she's the loud one, but she's the more talkative one. 

Let me say that. She invited us in very quickly, and we sat down, and as we wrestled through these different things, it was clear that something was missing, not just in our teaching, but in our salvation as well. And we praise God that we had that opportunity. 

Giftedness is not maturity. Skill is not the same as depth. And I dare say passion is not the same as completeness.

At least we see that in the life of Apollos, and you and I can understand that. The only question is, how about you as a person? Do you feel complete? Do you feel you are ready to go? Or do you feel you actually need somebody to speak into your life and encourage you and strengthen you? Jeff, Pastor Jeff, if I see seven, that means those are my minutes remaining. I want to make sure because in Nairobi, I preach, and I preach, and I keep preaching.

I think here we are a bit sensitive with time, right? Apollos began as a gifted but incomplete man, right? But after meeting this couple, we are going to see a man that actually is now enabled to do the work of God. Kindly look at verse 27. In 27, when Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers and sisters encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him.

When he arrived, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. For he vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debates, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. Since we've been to Nairobi, it's been a lot of encouragement for my wife and I training different people. 

Pastors, church workers, or wherever we find, we say, no, no, no, come, come, there's something here you need to learn. And we've been faithful to the curriculum that we had back at Rich Tanzania, partly because we want to keep that legacy going now that Rich Tanzania was closed, but also because people need this help. And we thank God for the privilege of doing that.

Apollos became a great help to those that by grace had come to believe. Those that had put their faith in Christ Jesus. And I believe these are the believers in the church in Corinth, as well as these other places that he continued to preach Christ.

Here's what I found in 1 Corinthians, in chapter 3, and I'm going to read verse 5 to verse 7. And the reason I'm reading this is just to show what kind of man Apollos became. It says here, what after all is Apollos and what is Paul? Only servants through faith you came to believe as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 

So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but only God who makes things grow. It's amazing to me that Apollos became such a great preacher of God's Word and a great leader that now the brothers and sisters in Corinth being misadvised in their own character thought they can now begin to make him one of those, what do we call them? We call them personality cults. You know, these people that, me, I follow this leader, me, I follow this leader, and that Paul is going to help them understand that's not acceptable, first and foremost, because we are all to follow Jesus Christ even though Paul is actually helping this church to focus on Christ and not on these people, it encourages me that Apollos got to be mentioned from the person we were introduced to in Acts 18 to the man he has become. 

Now he is not the one asking people to follow him, so I can say confidently I don't think it is his fault that people are talking about him like this. The same way Paul did not go around preaching people to follow him, but yes, they said, I follow Paul, I follow Cephas, I follow... So my point is simple, we will have servants like these, but they are not the main focus. The focus is Jesus Christ.

That's what the Dankers have taught, that's what the Mondas are teaching right now, and that's what I believe the Millers are teaching wherever they are, that's what this church is sending all of these people out to teach, and may God help us as we do the work. Here are two things I'll mention in conclusion. We are learning from the story of Apollos that we need, number one, humility. 

Humility to learn. Wherever you are, at whatever level you find yourself in, there is still some learning to be done. There is still some growth that we can experience. 

Where do you sense the Holy Spirit asking you to grow? Even as I speak from up here. For some of us, it is to grow in our knowledge of the Scriptures. Isn't that what Pastor Macy taught last Sunday? That we all need to go back to the Bibles and really read and study God's Word. 

Every one of us needs that. Maybe it is your marriage that needs a bit of work. Some of you have been married a long time. 

You've forgotten you're married. Why? Because marriages have, sometimes we disagree on very simple things. Simple things like a game of football. 

That's a big fight. But then we say, you know what, we will find some help. She feels I'm not giving her enough time because I'm watching football. 

And I'm telling her, that is the only thing that gives me joy after preaching, so I can come and sit and watch a game. She said, no, now the game is number one, I am number two. I'm like, why should you even compare yourself to a game of football? And so we talk and we talk and we are not understanding each other. 

So what do we do? We say, let's talk to the dunkers. So we have to go and talk to the dunkers or we have to go and talk to so-and-so because we need help. Sometimes we laugh at ourselves. 

You're like, so it is football that is bringing you here? I say, unfortunately, yes. What is it in your life that requires that you talk to somebody else for growth? Could be in your finances. Maybe your ministry. 

Something about your character. I mean, it can be anything, brothers and sisters. All I'm saying is we all need growth one way or the other, and we need to be humble to seek for that help. 

I don't think Apollos went around saying, you know, is there anybody here who can explain the scriptures to me? No. It took Priscilla and Aquila listening very carefully, and they said, we need to help this man. And they did it very well. 

The second thing, we need courage to call each other higher in our walk with God. We need the courage to actually look at each other and say, brother, I think you need help. Sister, there's something here that I see that is not in line with the scriptures. 

Can we talk a little about this? Generally, we've reached a point where we don't help each other with anything. We just say, that is your life, man. The way you want to live, live it. 

Can that be the way Christ wants us to live, really? In Hebrews 10, 23 to 25, we read things like, we need to stir one another up onto good deeds. All right? There's love and good deeds, and we need to find a way of spurring one another onto these things. We need to find a way of encouraging one another to be better on a daily basis. 

Thank you for having me speak. But most importantly, may Christ our Lord encourage you, and may He empower you as you seek to be humble and courageous to the glory of His name. Thank you very much, and God bless.

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)