3. Being the family of God Christians have been adopted into the family of God. When we receive Christ, we are taken in. An act of grace and mercy—God comes to us. Only as we see that we need it—God acts in mercy and grace.

4. 1. Everybody is in some spiritual family. Verse 10: it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil – No other family but these two. – Everybody is religious; everybody is spiritual

5. Science is empirical observation-Can tell you what is, but not what ought to be. – Choose whatever belief you want, whatever morality you want are inherently religious statements. The basis of such a statement is a certain view of judgment. We all live our lives based on faith. – I am competent or God is competent to live my life. – The first created being to ever say that he was competent to live his own life without God was Satan. – It is an illusion to think that you are not religious. – It is either my will be done or thy will be done. Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day, you are children of the devil. John 8

6. 2. Generator of the spiritual life—family consciousness Never moralism or behaviorism – Behavior flows from identity-identity flows from family relationship You are so sinful that Jesus had to die for you and you are so loved that he chose to die for you. Doing in order to become or you have become so do.

7. A completely different psychology here. 1. The father holds nothing against you. 2. The father has bound himself to your destiny; committed to you thriving 3. He has a joy in who you are and what you’re becoming-in him a secured future 4. He will never stop. His love will never end John never says love God and he will love you. We love him, because he first loved us.

8. 3. Here is the mark of the Christian that we love one another. Christianity amazed the people of the first century because of the manifestation of the love. Antioch is a prime example.

9. As people from various races, classes and conditions come to faith in Jesus Christ, he reconciles them to God the Father and therefore to each other. The Church, therefore, has an inherent and God ‑ given diversity. As Paul wrote to the divisive Christians at Corinth, "The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts... so it is with Christ" (1 Corinthians 12:12). Paul himself experienced a rich and blessed diversity in the church of Syrian Antioch, where for the first time Jewish and Gentile Christians worshiped God together on equal footing (Acts 11:19 ‑ 26). The Antioch church's multiculturalism is dramatically displayed in the names of its leaders as listed in Acts 13:1 ‑ 2.

10. "Barnabas" -- a wealthy Cypriot ‑ born Jewish Levite; "Simeon, called Niger" -- probably a black African proselyte to Judaism; "Lucius of Cyrene" -- probably a Greco ‑ Roman from North Africa; "Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch" -- a Hellenized Jewish aristocrat whose name is the Greek form of the Hebrew "Menahem"; and "Saul" -- a Tarsus ‑ born Jew raised in Jerusalem, otherwise known by the Greco ‑ Roman name Paul.

11. The Book of Acts emphasizes the cultural diversity of the Antioch church, because it was here that the disciples were first called Christians (11:26). The newly coined term, meaning "Those of Christ," was invented to describe these believers in their unprecedented mix. Pagan Antiochians knew about Jews worshiping in their synagogues. They also had heard of Gentiles who had become proselytes to Judaism, and they likely were familiar with the "God ‑ fearers," Gentiles who revered Israel's God but who stopped short of full conversion. They could not account, however, for the strange multi ‑ equality of these Antioch followers of Christ.