How the Gospel forms a Multicultural Missional Church

Father God, as we have just sung, there is no one who is holy, there is no one who is like you.

Help us to slow down in this time on Sunday morning here in this venue.

Help by the power of your spirit to clear our minds of all of the things that have been happening in the week,

all of the things that are coming up next week as well.

Help us to just be present in this moment, to hear what you have to say to us.

May I share faithfully and correctly, but may your spirit be at work revealing what you would have to show to us.

For the praise and glory of your name.

In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Betty, why don't you read for us? Thanks.

Today's scripture reading is taken from Acts chapter 11 verses 1 to 30.

Acts 11 · chapter mention

Please follow along your Bible.

If you don't have a Bible, please do still grab them from the front of the stage or at the back near the door.

Our passage is on page 865.

Hear then God's word to us today.

Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.

So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision parties criticized him saying,

You went to the uncircumcised men and ate with them.

But Peter began and explained it to them in order.

I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision,

something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners.

And it came down to me.

Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air.

And I heard a voice saying to me,

Rise, Peter, kill and eat.

But I said,

By no means, Lord, for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.

But the voice answered a second time from heaven,

What God has made clean do not call common.

This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven.

And behold, at that very moment, three men arrived at the house in which we were,

sent to me from Caesarea.

And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction.

These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man's house.

And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say,

Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter.

He will declare to you a message by which you will be saved,

you and all your household.

As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as on us at the beginning.

And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said,

John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,

who was I that I could stand in God's way?

When they heard these things, they fell silent.

And they glorified God, saying,

Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.

Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen

traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews.

But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene,

who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists, also preaching the Lord Jesus.

And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.

The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem,

and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.

When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad,

and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.

For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.

And a great many people were added to the Lord.

So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,

and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch.

For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people.

And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians.

Now in these days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch,

and one of them called Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit

that there would be a great famine over all the world.

This took place in the days of Claudius.

So the disciples determined everyone according to his ability

to send relief to the brothers living in Judea.

And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

Let us believe and respond to God's true and living word.

Thanks, Betty.

Just a quick note before I start.

That was a long passage.

There's a lot of detail in there.

I'm only speaking for 30 minutes,

so for sure I'm not going to cover every single question you might have.

I'm going to be outside at the welcome table after the service.

So if you do have any questions that I don't cover,

just write them down.

Come and talk to me after the service.

Don't let it distract you from the rest of the sermon.

So every now and then in our lives,

I think there are things that can happen

that we previously thought wouldn't or couldn't happen,

but that do happen.

And now they seem very possible moving forward.

Maybe it's something small in your personal life.

I sometimes have this experience where there's someone who I think

I probably won't get along with,

but then I meet them and I realize,

wow, they're great and we get along really well.

Yeah.

No comment.

And then in the world of sports, for example,

I'm often interested in people breaking the physical barriers

of what we previously thought possible

and how that changes people's perceptions moving forward.

I'm not one of those people who breaks those barriers,

but these two pictures up on the screen show two such moments.

Andy Bolton on the right, your left,

was the first man to ever deadlift 1,000 pounds,

or 453.5 kilos back in 2006.

Slightly less than five times my body weight.

I'll let you guys do the math.

Simon Bannister, the other picture,

was the first man to run a four-minute,

a sub-four-minute mile back in 1954.

These events opened the door

past what was previously thought impossible.

Since then, over 40 people have deadlifted over 1,000 pounds,

and over 1,500 people have run a mile faster than four minutes.

So these things are more possible

than what we previously thought.

Sometimes these kind of events are much bigger

and impact the entire world moving forward.

Take our experience of COVID, for example,

or the development of AI.

Our lives are never going to be the same again.

And today, in Acts 11,

we are looking at a passage

that supersedes even all of those events

by a country mile.

We see a powerful and loving God

impacting the very course of history,

breaking down the physical and spiritual barriers

between His traditional people

and the whole world.

What did that mean for the people back then?

And whether you're Christian or not this morning,

what does that mean for us today?

I wouldn't usually do this,

but in the middle of a book sermon series,

I know we're kind of halfway through Acts,

but given the big transition

that we're going to see in the chapter now,

I think it's worthwhile taking a step back

and understanding the story up until this point

and where we are and where we're heading.

Right at the start of Acts,

in chapter 1,

after Jesus died,

was resurrected,

and spent some time with His disciples,

He went up to heaven.

And His last words to His disciples,

just before He went up to heaven,

we see in verse 8.

But you will receive power

when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,

and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,

Judea and Samaria,

and to the end of the earth.

At a high level,

the book of Acts can be split up

into those three main sections

that show how that command played out in reality

over the next generation or so.

In chapters 1 to 7,

we read about the witness of Jesus

spreading in Jerusalem.

In chapters 1 to 8,

sorry,

in chapters 8 to kind of 11 slash 12,

we read about the witness of Jesus

spreading a little bit further,

but still within the traditional Holy Lands

of Judea and Samaria.

Then in chapters 13 to 28,

for the rest of the book,

we read about the witness of Jesus

exploding even further

away from these traditional Jewish areas

and to the Gentiles,

to the end of the earth.

Just in case you were wondering,

the word Gentile essentially just means

a person of non-Jewish heritage.

So probably most of us here today,

I would imagine,

if not all.

And you know the author of Acts, Luke?

He is coincidentally actually

the only Gentile writer

of any book in the Bible.

So I think it's no coincidence

that he wrote the events

that we're reading about today.

It may be...

So chapter 11,

that kind of arrow pointing up

at the bottom of the screen there,

it puts us right in the middle

of this transition,

where we were originally focusing

on the ministry of Peter,

who was the head of the early church,

to the Jewish people,

over to Paul,

the apostle to the Gentiles,

and his ministry to the Gentiles

and to the end of the earth.

It may be easy to gloss over

these small details,

but these are actually gigantic moments

in human church history

and the history of the world.

This is an inflection point

where what was originally thought

not possible

was made possible.

Gentiles, us,

are brought into the people...

are brought in as the people of God

through Jesus

and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So now that's helped

to contextualize things a little bit,

let's actually get into the passage.

And we'll spend time in two sections.

There's essentially two stories here.

Verses 1 to 18

and then verses 19 to 30.

So we'll look at both of those today.

Verses 1 to 18

are essentially just a summary,

a summarized version of events

of what Kevin preached on last week,

which was the whole of chapter 10.

We've heard and read earlier

that Luke is very careful

about what he includes

in his writings.

So why the repetition here?

We don't see that much from Luke.

Why now and why this particular story?

It should actually make us

sit up and take notice.

Well, it goes back

to what we were talking about earlier.

To a good Jew,

this story would have been

absolutely unprecedented,

absolutely shocking.

Peter the Jew

and Cornelius the Roman soldier.

For the first time maybe ever,

for the first time maybe ever,

a devout Jewish man

of some significance

and a Roman soldier,

a leader in the occupying force,

no less,

stay with each other.

Sorry,

Peter comes to stay with Cornelius

and eat with him.

For the Jewish people,

when Peter goes back to Jerusalem,

when they hear about it,

they're understandably upset.

They criticize him.

So in verse 2,

the circumcision party,

so that's just the Jewish people

at the time.

In verse 3,

they say,

you went to uncircumcised men

and ate with them.

Essentially,

Peter,

come on,

you should know better than that.

We've been God's people

for hundreds of years.

We've got rules and regulations.

We're the holy people of God,

clean,

set apart,

just as God is holy,

clean,

and set apart.

We've got all these rules

and regulations

from Scripture,

no less.

This is what,

this is the way God wants it,

to show us how to maintain

that separation.

What are you doing

eating with them?

You've defiled yourself,

tainted yourself,

contaminated yourself.

You see,

the Jewish community

was generally okay

with non-Jews reading

and accepting the Scripture,

acknowledging God

for who He was,

perhaps even converting

to Judaism.

That wasn't the issue.

The issue was the jump

to say that Gentiles

were now equal

in status with God.

As He set apart people,

and therefore,

it was okay to eat with them.

The issue was actually

how it impacted their lives,

what it actually meant

for their identity

and their lives moving forward.

But here in this story,

we see no ceremonial

cleansing rituals,

no conversion of Cornelius

to become Jewish,

as we would have expected.

These religious,

racial,

cultural barriers

have all come crashing down.

For centuries earlier,

having kept them apart.

Even more significant

than that,

the spiritual barriers

have come down too.

The passage ends

with Peter sharing

the Gospel to Cornelius

and his household,

seeing the Holy Spirit

descending on his household,

and realizing,

not easily,

mind you,

it says God had to repeat

this thing three times

to Peter

before he got the point,

that the Gospel

is for all people.

Everyone was welcome

into the community of God.

What was not thought possible

just a few days back,

for hundreds of years

before that,

was now playing out

in real life

before their very eyes.

And this was initially

too much for the Jews.

They criticized them.

But,

just a few verses later,

in spite of their initial protests,

something astonishing happens.

In verse 18,

we read,

if you look at your Bibles,

in verse 18,

it says,

How and why

this dramatic turnaround

in such a short period of time?

Well, partly,

it was because Peter

took eyewitnesses with him

and he was actually there

and those eyewitnesses

were brothers.

Partly,

it was because Peter

was a leader of the church.

He was well respected.

His words would have carried weight

for sure.

But really,

it was the work,

the undeniable work,

of the Holy Spirit,

as we read in verse 15.

In verse 15,

it says,

As I began to speak,

this is Peter saying,

As I began to speak,

the Holy Spirit fell on them,

just as on us

at the beginning.

That's the first verse

at the top of the screen.

Peter is actually taken back

in that moment

to the day of Pentecost.

In the upper room

in Acts chapter 2

Acts 2 · chapter mention

with Jesus' Jewish disciples

where the Holy Spirit

descended on the disciples

and themselves.

So that's the second verse there

on the slide.

And then even further back,

he's also reminded

of John the Baptist's words

in Matthew 3.

That's what he repeats

in his account.

To Peter,

the decisive mark

of God's people

was God giving the gift

of the Holy Spirit to them.

And Peter was directly

comparing his experiences

with the Jews

in that upper room

on Pentecost

with Cornelius

and his household,

this Roman Gentile soldier

in this house

in Caesarea.

And he sees no difference.

He sees no difference.

There's no difference

in his experience.

So who is he

to stand in God's way?

You see,

Luke here has repeated

this story

because it's so huge.

He's doing what he can

to make it crystal clear

for everyone

that the gospel

is for all.

The gospel is for all.

It's quite an easy thing

to say.

We say it all the time

at church.

It becomes very familiar,

especially if you've been

a Christian for a long time.

You know,

it's quite basic,

right?

But the gospel

is powerful

and amazing, guys.

It's amazing.

As we've just read here,

to those who hear it

for the first time,

it can literally

change their life

as it changed the life

of Cornelius

and his household.

Think back

to the first time

you believed

or you really understood

the beauty of Jesus.

I think of moments

in my life

that are once-in-a-lifetime

moments

that just show me

the amazingness

of God

and the world.

I think of

holding my daughter

Isla,

my oldest daughter,

for the first ever time

in my arm,

on my arm.

It wasn't even in my arm.

She was premature.

She was tiny.

She just fit on my forearm there.

I thought,

wow,

this is amazing.

The gospel is infinitely

more amazing than that,

guys.

For us today,

it can also

be easy

to look down

at those Jewish people

and point the finger

at how judgmental

they were.

But the Jewish people

had actually been

conditioned to think

that way

for hundreds of years.

And if we're honest,

it kind of serves

as an example

and points a mirror

into our own hearts.

Think of one person

in your life right now

that you think

could never

become a Christian

for whatever reason.

It could be religious,

it could be political,

it could be family,

whatever reason it is.

Have we lost sight

of the power

of the gospel

to change their lives?

What is stopping us

from believing

that they can come to faith?

Are we willing

to share the gospel

with that person

at cost to ourselves

or continue

to keep sharing

the gospel

with that person

at cost to ourselves?

These questions

are not meant

to condemn us.

Let me be clear

about that.

The tone of this passage

is actually

an encouraging one.

It's a celebration.

It's an encouraging passage.

We can take heart

from the fact

that God

has broken down

all barriers

that could ever

keep us from Him.

But it's through Jesus

and by the work

of the Holy Spirit.

Which brings us

to the second story,

the Gentile church

in verses 19 to 30.

Verse 19 we read,

Now those who were scattered

because of the persecution

that arose over Stephen

traveled as far as Phoenicia

and Cyprus

and Antioch.

So what does it look like

when someone

is radically changed?

The persecution

of Stephen,

firstly.

What was that?

Well if we go back

to Acts,

that's in Acts as well,

chapter 7 and 8.

Sorry,

there's a lot of words there.

Let me just say it,

give you a high level summary.

So there was a guy

called Stephen.

He was one of the leaders

of the church

in Jerusalem

and because of his ministry

he would go around

preaching about Jesus.

He was arrested

and he was brought

before the Jewish authorities

in Jerusalem.

They were accusing him

of blasphemy.

So essentially saying

offensive things about God

which was a huge deal

back then.

While Stephen gets up

and instead of giving

a defense,

he goes on the attack again.

He makes another speech

again about Jesus being God

and salvation being found

in Jesus alone.

And he then accuses

the Jewish authorities

of killing Jesus

and therefore

killing God.

This is so offensive

to the authorities

that they stone Stephen

to death.

Not only that,

they persecute

the remaining Jewish believers

in Jerusalem

to the point

where they get scattered

out of Jerusalem

and into the surrounding regions.

Guess who was there

front and center?

That's the second

highlighted verse there.

No, it's not.

Yeah, Saul was there.

It's there somewhere.

Guess who was there

front and center?

Saul,

who was the same Paul

in this story.

One of the places

they scattered to

was the city of Antioch.

Not in Jerusalem,

not in Judea or Samaria,

but all the way outside

in Antioch, in Syria.

You see, Luke has started

to highlight

this shifting context

that the gospel

is starting to move outside

its traditional

and historical boundaries.

Antioch was a powerhouse city.

So Antioch's on the top

right circle there

and they were down

in Jerusalem,

but they're scattered

up to Antioch.

Antioch was a powerhouse city,

actually.

It was referred to

as the third city

of the Roman Empire

at that time.

That just meant

that it was the third

largest city

behind Alexandria

and Rome itself.

It was a strategic

economic powerhouse

of trade and commerce.

It was multiracial.

It was multilingual.

It was multinational.

It was cosmopolitan.

People would come

from far and wide

to make their fame

and make their fortune

in Antioch.

Sound familiar?

Like any place

we might be living in right now?

Well, as we'll see

in the coming chapters,

Antioch becomes

the first venue

for the international church.

And it's the springboard

for the worldwide

Christian mission.

So what was that church

like in those

very early days?

Given the parallels

between Antioch

and us,

sorry,

Antioch and the Gentiles

there,

to Hong Kong

and us

here today,

I just want to look

at a couple,

we could look

at a lot of things,

but I just want to highlight

a couple that would

have been clear

to the church

back then

and therefore

relevant and important

to us in our context.

Two things.

The first one

is how the church

engaged in everyday evangelism,

which actually

led to the changing

of lives

and the movement

of the gospel,

and how they responded

in generosity

that was radical

and transcended

traditional boundaries.

In verse 21,

we see,

so we'll look

at the first section,

everyday evangelism.

In verse 21,

we see,

we read,

and the hand

of the Lord

was with them,

and a great number

who believed

turned to the Lord.

I don't know

if you guys remember

a couple of weeks ago

when Henry was preaching

and we were looking

at Saul's life

immediately after

he became a Christian.

Henry mentioned,

and how his life

had changed.

Henry mentioned

that Saul

and Christians as well

experience a change

in their belief,

their belonging,

and their behavior.

You see,

these people

who were saved

in verse 21

both believed

and then they turned

to the Lord,

so their behavior changed.

The core of their worldview

had changed,

and that necessarily

resulted

in a visible

and obvious change,

turning to the Lord.

In verse 26,

we actually read

that this is the first time

ever

that people who believe

in Jesus

are called Christians.

Christians.

Now,

there's some debate

as to whether

this was actually

a positive term

of endearment

or a negative term

of ridicule

for those early Christians,

but the point is

that their turning

to the Lord

was so distinct,

unique,

full of Jesus

that it was obvious

to the outside observer.

We also see

the church itself

was not started

by the leaders.

It wasn't a church

plant as such

where a leader

is chosen

to go and start

a church,

but by ordinary

Jewish men

and women

faithfully sharing

the gospel.

Look at verse 20.

It says,

but there were

some of them,

these are some

of the people

who were scattered

from Jerusalem,

men of Cyprus

and Cyrene

who on coming

to Antioch

spoke to the Hellenists,

the Hellenists

are the Greek-speaking

Gentiles

who lived in Antioch,

preaching the Lord Jesus.

I just want to pause

here a minute.

It's very easy

to gloss over that verse,

but think about

these men and women.

If you really

think about it,

they were refugees.

They were fleeing

persecution.

They've just seen

one of their leaders

brutally stoned to death

and they're fleeing

persecution

from the authorities.

Most of their neighbors,

it says,

were scared

to share the gospel

and yet,

here we see

a small group of them

still doing it.

Why did they keep

sharing the gospel?

How did they do it?

What was their secret?

Who were they?

What were their names?

I mean,

they literally started

the first international church.

This is literally

how we're here

this morning, right?

But of course,

we don't know.

That's not the point.

I think sometimes

we here today

can fall into a trap,

whether consciously or not,

that the human aspect

of evangelism

is only the work

of the pastors,

the leaders,

the people up the front.

We do believe

that God can change lives.

It's not that we don't

believe that.

but actually,

sharing our faith,

planting those seeds

ourselves

is a step too far.

Surely someone

more appropriate

needs to do that.

We just need to get

people to church

so they can hear

the right sermon.

We just need to sign

people up for the right

alpha course

so they can hear

the alpha course material.

We just need to introduce

them to the right leader

so they can have

the right conversation

with them.

I wonder why.

That's not what we see

here in the scripture

today, right?

It is indeed hard

to find the time

in busy Hong Kong today.

Maybe there's a fear

of what other people

will think.

It can be intimidating

for sure.

But is part of it

that we are taking on

the responsibility

of saving people

ourselves?

We feel the need

to find the exact

right words,

the exact right argument.

sophistication

in our engagement

with people.

Well, God here

both gives us

an example

that evangelism

is for all of us

to be engaging with,

for all members

of the church,

but also that it's

not up to us

to save people.

He's the one

who is doing

the hard work.

Verse 21 says,

The hand of the Lord

was with them,

and a great number

who believed

turned to the Lord.

God is the one

who saves.

He is the one

doing this amazing work.

He will take

your weak,

muddled,

clumsy words,

and He will grant

salvation to someone

who's far away

from Him.

Now, of course,

this all above

assumes that we

have someone to

share the gospel

with in the first

place.

Most of us

probably do have

friends who are

not Christians.

We should be

spending more time

with these people.

We should be

getting to know

them.

We should be

rearranging our lives

so that we can

engage with them

more.

Getting to know

them,

praying for them,

sharing our lives

with them,

introducing them

to our other

friends who are

Christian.

Let me share

with you an example.

Now, I know

she's going to be

embarrassed by this,

but I ran it by her

before I'm sharing.

Let me share

with you another

example of someone

who I think is

particularly good at

this,

my wife,

Soda.

One thing that

used to really

bother me about

Soda when we

first met,

only one,

I'm just kidding,

was a tendency,

especially when we

first met,

it was a tendency

to randomly spot

people or someone

in a moving

crowd and strike

up a conversation

with them.

She often isn't

even sure she

knows the person.

They just look

familiar.

We'd be walking

inside Causeway,

like a busy

Causeway,

like literally

walking in

Causeway Bay

on a weekend

in the MTR,

and suddenly she

would stop

and say,

and point,

and I think I

know that person.

Well,

then we'd have

to make our

way through

the crowd

over to this

person,

or if they're

going in the

opposite direction,

we'd kind of

stop and have

this awkward

moment where we

had to find a

space to not

get in the way

of people.

And bump them.

And then we'd

spend the next

minute awkwardly

trying to find

out who this

person was,

and now Soda

may or may not

know who they

were.

Do I know you?

You look familiar.

Have I seen you

before?

I mean,

the introverted

side of me is

still getting

nervous as I'm

sharing this.

And you know,

after all these

years,

I only just

properly asked

her why she

does that as I

was preparing for

this sermon and

thinking about it.

Well,

to Soda,

it's about looking

for opportunities

to see people

and share the

gospel.

She is often

scanning,

observing,

looking for

people,

looking at

people.

She often

invites those

people to

church or

texts them

afterwards to

catch up.

She actually

asks herself,

she dreams about

what it would

look like if

this person

believed in

Jesus.

She prays for

them.

Now,

I'm not saying

we all need

to go out

and hold up

the MTR line,

but for some

of us,

maybe we do,

right?

The point is

the heart

behind it.

How many of

us do this?

Actually look at

people,

look for people,

think about

their salvation,

pray for their

salvation.

Ordinary people

doing what they

can to share

the gospel.

It's going to

look different

for all of us.

Just like those

nameless men and

women who

will never

know what

their names

were from

Cyprus and

Cyrene in

Antioch.

Something to

think about.

The second

aspect of the

church that I

want to share

about is this

generosity that

transcended

boundaries.

You see,

the other thing

we see about

the church is

this seemingly

random section

at the end of

the chapter,

verses 21 to

30.

I think it's

no coincidence

that this came

up during the

love offering

month,

actually.

But if we

look at

verses 27 to

30, what we

see here is

another never

seen before

event in human

history.

Basically, there

was this prophet

Agabus who

came down from

Jerusalem to

Antioch, and

Agabus shared

that there was

going to be a

big famine sometime

in the future

in the Jerusalem

area.

Agabus shared

and it's not

clear if there

were any

motivations or

expectations or

actual ask behind

this sharing from

Agabus, other

than to pass on a

God-given message.

There is no

direction from

Paul or

Barnabas, who

were the leaders

there at the

time either, to

give.

There is not

even a timeline.

There's no

severity provided

to them as to

how bad the

famine is going

to be, when

it's going to

happen, how

long it's going

to happen for,

just that something

is coming up.

And how do

the Gentiles

respond?

They give.

They give

according to

what they can

afford.

This is huge.

If previously

at Cornelius'

house, a Jew

eating with a

Gentile was

too much, now

we have

Gentiles saved

and transformed

by the gospel,

previously shunned

for hundreds of

years, voluntarily

sending monetary

relief back to

the Jewish

communities in

needs.

This is

radical.

Martin Luther

once famously

said in one of

his sermons,

there are three

conversions necessary,

the conversion

of the heart,

the conversion

of the mind,

and the

conversion of

the wallet.

I think this

is an especially

apt quote for

the church in

Antioch and us

here in Hong

Kong, the

church today.

We can give

ourselves in

many ways, our

time, our

skills, our

intelligence.

We absolutely

should, that's

wonderful, but

oftentimes parting

with our money can

feel a step too

far.

Again, the point

of the passage

here is not to

condemn us and

make us feel

bad.

This is an

encouraging and

a celebratory piece

of scripture.

But the fact is

that one of the

marks of the

church in

Antioch, that

they had received

the gospel, been

empowered by the

Holy Spirit, was

this radical,

unexpected, and

generous giving.

The early church

shows us what

this can look

like, and it

should cause us

to think what

it can look

like for us

today.

Let's come

into Lent.

I gave some

examples at the

start of events

that shift our

understanding of

what is possible

moving forward.

We've seen in

Acts 11 here

another such

event or events

that were never

seen before, that

impacted the

course of history

moving forward.

In fact, that's

why we are able

to stand here

today and

worship God in

the first place.

Gentiles, the

people of God

from all

backgrounds and

races, a

motley crew, if

you ask me,

worshipping God

together.

How do we

respond to this?

Well, if you're a

Christian today, just

as it impacted the

church back then,

let these events

similarly change

us.

Spur us on to

share the good

news and give

generously to

those in need.

If you're not a

Christian today, I

don't know what

stage of your

spiritual journey

you're at.

God does.

But I want you

to know, as an

ordinary man up

here on the

stage, with a

very simple,

ordinary message,

I want you to

know that Jesus

loves you so

much that he

died for you.

And he is

asking you to

respond to that

by believing in

his name, so

that you can find

true life and

relationship with

God.

He is powerful

enough, and we've

seen that in the

chapter today, to

break down whatever

barriers are in

your way.

And he cares

enough to change

your life.

life.

So I invite you

to respond to

this invitation.

If you're not a

Christian, believe,

turn to Jesus

today.

I'm very happy to

speak to you about

it after the

service.

Let me pray for

us as we finish.

Father God, thank

you for your son

Jesus.

Thank you for the

Holy Spirit.

These very simple

truths that were

the way that you

grew your church

back then is the

way that you grow

your church now.

Help us to not

grow complacent at

the familiarity of

the gospel in our

lives, but to see

it for the amazing,

life-changing,

transformative thing

that it is.

May we be

encouraged to share

it with others, to

give generously to

those in need, for

the praise and the

glory of your name,

so that many people

would come to know

and say that Jesus

Christ is Lord.

In his name I

pray.

Amen.

Amen.