On Mission For All People

My name is Justin.

I'm one of the pastors here.

It's my joy and privilege to be able to bring God's word to you as we are making our way through the book of Acts.

And we finished up chapter one last week.

This morning, we get to open chapter two with the coming of the Spirit.

Now, in our culture today, one of the biggest topics of discussion is what do we do about the reality that the nations are coming into our backyard?

And we've got all of these different voices of how we should engage with this reality, this ever-growing reality with inside our very context.

Do we welcome them with this measure of inclusivism that is rooted in our own definition of love and acceptance and kindness?

Or do we face it with this exclusivism and try to preserve what we have and protect ourselves and make sure that we keep ourselves safe?

What do we do with the reality that we live in an ever-changing landscape that is becoming more and more multi-ethnic, multicultural, multilingual?

What do we do with that?

Praise God, the scriptures speak to that.

And I think that what's what we see predominantly here with inside of Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

You see, here in our own context, in just the Mason, Westchester area, there are roughly 95,000 people.

Mason alone has 8,000 who are not white or black.

Westchester, 14,000.

That means out of 95,000, 23,000 are not white or black.

We are living in a multi-ethnic, multilingual reality.

The predominant groups that make up that population: Hispanic and Latino, Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern, Uzbekistan, Russian, more and more and more.

But not only do we have an ethnic diversity, we have a language diversity that comes with it.

Languages like Spanish and German, Arabic and Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian, Hindi.

In Mason City schools alone, 30% of students come from multilingual homes, and they represent more than 70 different languages.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Now, what we need to understand is that's just going to increase.

And there's beauty in that.

You see, the nations for whom Christ died, church, they're being gathered to us.

And that's a glorious reality.

Let's dive in.

Verse 1, chapter 2.

If you have your Bible or app, make sure that you open it up.

We're going to be working through this very specifically this morning.

So, verse 1, it says this.

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.

So, so Pastor Tim did a great job last week of setting the scene for preparing for Pentecost.

And they were in the upper room waiting.

They had this one accord, this united, fervent passion to seek the Lord in this prayer-filled expectancy.

They didn't know what was going to come, right?

They didn't know how it was going to look or be expressed.

They didn't know how it was going to impact them or transform them, but they knew that Jesus promised he was going to be sending the helper and that they needed to wait with this prayer-filled expectancy for him to come.

You see, this expectancy-filled prayer.

It's critical for us.

We were talking about prayer in group this week.

And I always love referring back to the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Now, while they were proclaiming, not praying, they said these three things.

Our God can, our God will, but even if he doesn't.

And I simply asked this question: normatively in your prayer life, is your faith behind the our God can and our God will, or is your faith behind the but even if he doesn't?

Our expectancy is often behind the if God doesn't.

Rarely is our expectancy pushing the our God and our God can and our God will side of prayer.

These people were expectant that Jesus was going to come through on his promises.

And here's what we have to see.

They had spent three years in public ministry with Jesus, sitting under his teaching, being discipled by him, being trained by him.

But look, training alone was going to be insufficient for the mission of which God had called them to.

You see, a lot of times that what we try to do is put all of our energy behind classes and books.

We want to do multicultural training.

We want to dive deeper into systematic theology.

We want to read old dead dudes and try to make sure that we're faithful to the scripture and history, Christian Orthodox, right?

We want to do these things.

We want to train, train, train.

But look, these people spent three years with Jesus in public ministry, and their training was going to be insufficient to accomplish the mission.

They had to have the power of the Spirit to be able to fulfill the great commission of which Jesus called them to.

And so we don't reject training, right?

We don't reject training.

We don't reject the spirit.

We see both of these things working in harmony that as we work to understand how we engage in more effective mission, we become ever increasingly dependent upon the Spirit's power to accomplish it.

Because without the Spirit, without his empowerment to the church, there would be no prophecy, there'd be no preaching, there'd be no mission, there'd be no conversion, there'd be no signs and wonders, there would be no worldwide gospel movement.

You would have trained, impotent men who could not fulfill what God had called them to.

So are we dependent on the Spirit in that?

Are we dependent on the head knowledge that we've acquired?

Verse 2.

And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.

Jesus had promised his disciples throughout his ministry that he was going to go away and he was going to send a helper for them.

We actually see this promise in John 14, amongst many other places, but here in John 14, 15 through 17, Jesus tells them, If you love me, you will keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper to be with you forever.

Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.

You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

And so here in the upper room, this is the promise of the coming of the Spirit fulfilled.

And we see this indwelling reality take place right here as the Spirit makes his presence known.

Because at Pentecost, the Spirit showed himself in these three supernatural states.

We have a sound, we have a sight, and we have a speech.

Let's look at the first two: a sound and a sight.

These elements of wind and fire reflect and resemble the power and presence of God.

It said that they heard a sound like a mighty rushing wind.

Wind being this invisible and uncontrollable force.

Right?

Jesus teaching Nicodemus about what it means to be born again.

He relates to the Holy Spirit as a wind who blows however he sees fit, who moves however he sees fit.

The Spirit is sovereign, he moves among his people, and he is this force that brings life to all of those whom he comes across.

The Spirit is this mysterious yet powerful movement.

And here's what this shows it shows that God's presence is not confined to the temple anymore.

But it fills his people, it fills every believer.

And we see the same thing in the presence of fire, the sight of fire.

God's presence now resting on each believer in that room, the new temples of his presence.

That's what this is showing us.

That the Spirit refines us, purifies us, but empowers us to be a living temple filled with the presence of God.

This is the fulfillment of John 4.

Jesus with the woman at the well, she's asking a very specific, geographically based question.

My fathers say we have to worship God on the mountain.

Your fathers say you have to worship God in the temple.

Jesus, which one is it?

And Jesus says, I'm telling you the truth.

The hour is coming, but yet not here, when you will not worship God on this mountain or in that temple, but in the spirit of the living God.

Through spirit and truth will you worship him.

And the Father is seeking such who will do so.

So this is the fulfillment of John 4.

The Spirit indwelling us, making us temples of his presence, that we might worship him rightly.

Verse 4.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

We're going to park here for a moment because I want to try to unpack this theologically for us.

I'm going to preface it with some things.

The first thing I'm going to say is that Sacred Mission is an unapologetically continuationist church.

We love the gifts of the Spirit.

We value the gifts of the Spirit.

We desire to see the gifts of the Spirit manifested among his people for the building up of the church.

So we want to see more and more of that happening because we believe that the Spirit's gifts continue because the purpose of building up Christ's church until he comes again continues.

We do not see the perfect as having come, but yet to come.

And with this eager anticipation, we want to be united in Christ and empowered by the Spirit to see the church come to the maturity of which she's been called to.

So we want to see the gifts manifested.

In that, there's a reality where there's going to be very brilliant men, theologians and scholars who are going to have a different perspective on what I'm about to submit to you than I have.

Here's what I want to say: there's beauty and diversity.

I'm not asking for uniformity around this, the way that I'm about to interpret the text.

I'm not asking for uniformity.

I'm just asking that we can have unity even in the midst of diversity.

Because there are people who see this differently and they're great men.

They're great scholars.

They're great theologians.

We don't have to divide over this.

We can find unity around this, right?

But I'm going to submit to you how I see it, how other people here with Inside Sacred Mission see it.

But yet there's even diversity within the midst of this congregation.

Here's what we want to see: we want to see God glorified.

We want to try to see him more rightly and clearly as we learn to relate to him, right?

Those are the things that we want to see.

And so let's dive into this verse four together.

First thing is this it says, and they were all filled.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

This is important because there's some people who want to try and parse out these different verbs that take place throughout the book of Acts.

But what we actually see is Luke is going to use a multitude of different verbs.

He's going to use filling, he's going to use pouring out, he's going to use baptizing, he's going to use receiving.

These are all verbs that Luke is going to use interchangeably to communicate the same thing.

What we don't want to do is get hung up in the weeds, trying to parse out each verb as some type of distinct experience that's supposed to communicate to our Christian life.

Luke is trying to communicate one thing in a multitude of different ways.

God's people having spiritual experiences.

It's as simple as that.

And I think we need to leave it in that simplicity.

And so they're all filled, but there's this pattern that we do see within Scripture.

Not trying to parse out the verbs, but trying to understand the normative pattern throughout the text.

And it's that there's this initial filling, baptizing, pouring out, receiving, and then there's perpetual ones that follow it.

You're going to see here where Peter being filled, right?

Paul being filled.

But then this Christian life is about pursuit of these perpetual fillings of his presence and power.

Because here's the hope: is that you're pouring yourself out in mission.

And then you're needing to go back to the prayer closet, back to fasting, back to the word, back to communing and abiding in his presence, being filled back up again, emboldened for mission, going out and proclaiming, having the gifts manifested in your life, pouring yourself out as an offering to the great commission of which he's called us to, and then you're getting filled back up again and filled back up again.

This is the normative pattern that we see throughout Scripture.

And so this filling takes place for the first time here in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

But then from that, what do we see?

We see this third supernatural sign of a speech.

It says this they began to speak in other tongues.

Began to speak in other tongues.

So here's what I'm going to submit to you.

This tongue speech is an unknown language to both the speaker and the hearer.

I believe that that's the normative interpretation and understanding that we see throughout Scripture.

That this tongue speech here in Acts chapter 2, what I'm going to submit to you is that it is not a known language even to the hearer.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

We're going to try to unpack that more and more.

But what we see here throughout here in Acts chapter 2 and throughout the rest of Scripture is the need for spirit-empowered interpretation.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

So we see that this distinctly is different even than the outpouring of the Spirit to the Gentiles in Acts chapter 10.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

Most theologians, most those who are trying to understand what's taking place within the book of Acts, would hold what's happening here in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

The pouring out on the nations, though, of Jews, and then the pouring out onto the Gentiles in chapter 10 as different experiences.

We don't want to see two different things.

We want to see one thing, and we're going to try and use scripture to interpret scripture so that we have a better hermeneutic across the whole of the Bible.

And so what we see is that there is this need for spirit-empowered interpretation.

Paul doubles down on this when he's writing to the church at Corinth.

We don't see, first off, let me back up just a minute.

One is we don't see the gifts as ever being listed out in an exhaustive or comprehensive way.

That's not what Paul was trying to do.

He wasn't trying to say, these are the gifts of the Spirit, and these only are the gifts of the Spirit, and we can't have any type of room for difference in this, right?

We're okay with the Spirit gifting his church however he sees fit.

We're okay with the Spirit gifting you to be able to go into a context where people speak a different known human language and empower you supernaturally to be able to speak their language so that you might reach them with the gospel.

I'm okay with that.

I'm not against that.

I just don't think that's what's happening here.

What I think is happening here is what we find normatively throughout the scripture, and that is the need for an accompanying spirit-filled gift of interpretation.

And so what I would submit is that this is an angelic tongue.

This is not a human tongue.

As they are there in Acts chapter 2, they are speaking with angelic tongues that's unknown to both the speaker and to the hearer.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And the gift of interpretation is given to the crowd.

And we're gonna walk through that here in just a moment because I'm sure I see wheels spinning, right?

But but but here, when we look at this, there's biblical and historical evidence for a multitude of angelic tongues.

So you might think, oh, if I think of this tongue of angels, I might think of heaven as only having one language.

And so then why does tongue speech typically sound different from person to person?

Well, I want to make an argument that there's actually a multitude of angelic tongues in heaven.

So here's a historical place I'm coming from.

First off, I want to preface it with this there are extra-biblical writings that we have in our possession.

They're not authoritative, but they're profitable.

In fact, the early church fathers saw these extra-biblical writings as profitable normatively, but they didn't hold them authoritatively within their life.

So that means we should be fine, and I would even, we should be encouraged to read what is offered to us in the Apocrypha, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other places that we can find these extra-biblical writings, but we don't pull all of our truth authoritatively from them.

We find them profitable, we do not find them authoritative.

The canon of scripture, the 66 books of the New and Old Testament, are our authority.

And so we interpret everything: our life experiences, extra-biblical writings, the daily news by the scriptures, the canon.

I want to be clear about that.

At the same time, as they looked through the caves of Qumran, they found this Dead Sea Scrolls collection.

And it was many manuscripts that dated all the way back to 1 BC.

And here's some things that they found.

In the book of Jubilees, in Enoch, and in the songs of the Sabbath sacrifice, many places do they uh communicate a diversity, a multitude of angelic tongues.

We also have Paul himself in 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

He says this.

He says, If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clangy cymbal.

So, so something I'm going to submit is that there is a multitude of angelic languages that is reflected in the spirit gifting of tongues.

Take that for what it's worth.

You agree with me?

Cool.

We'll go out to lunch afterward.

You don't agree with me, you have to buy my lunch, right?

But we can still hang out.

That's the beautiful thing of all this.

Lastly, on this, so so we have they're filled.

How are they filled?

By the Spirit.

The Spirit gives them this language to speak.

I'm submitting that's an angelic tongue, unknown to the speaker, unknown to the hearer.

But there's this language of as the Spirit gave them utterance.

I think that this is important to park on for just a minute because I want to differentiate between manifestation.

And possession.

What I mean by that is oftentimes, especially people in the reformed camp or the cessationist camp, those who believe that the gifts of the spirits have ceased and they're no longer for the church, they see spirit gifting through the lens of possession.

So they'll say something like this Well, if you have the gift of healing, why don't you go into a hospital and clear it out of all the sick people?

One, Jesus never did that all the time.

So put that on the top shelf for you to reflect back on.

There are many places Jesus went into and he didn't heal the sick, he didn't raise the dead, he didn't cast out demons.

So if anybody had the potential to wield a possessed gift through their own strength and determined purposes, it was Him.

We're gonna go with that, right?

Okay.

The apostles didn't do that.

There are many places that they went where the sick stayed sick, dead stayed dead.

So what we're not saying is that when the Spirit gives us a gift, that it's something we now possess, and we're able to wield it according to our own purpose and power.

We're not saying that.

I don't think the scriptures ever communicate that.

What we do see within scriptures is that the Spirit manifests gifts as he wills, according to his sovereign purpose, for the good of those whom that gift impacts.

And so there's a diversity of gifts.

There's one spirit, and what we don't want to do is try to strip away the spirit's moment by moment agency and sovereignty because we have an unhealthy understanding of his gifting.

The spirit will do as he pleases.

Here's what I'm trying to submit to you.

I'm not trying to put the spirit in some box.

He's wild, tameless.

And so we just want to try to understand the best that we can and submit ourselves to it as we pursue him with everything that we have.

So the spirit gave them utterance, manifested distinctly through them for this moment of time, the gift of tongues.

Some of them became more familiar with that as the Spirit continued to use them in that way.

But then the Spirit also manifested other gifts through other people, apostles and disciples, and regular old Job followers of Jesus.

Verse 5.

Now there are dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven, and at the sound the multitude came together and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

So, first off, when this text is saying every nation under heaven, I want to qualify that, right?

I don't think Native Americans were there like Cherokee and Chippewa.

I think they were still hanging out somewhere else.

To the context of the disciples, the known world that they understood, every nation was being represented here.

And they were there at the Feast of Pentecost.

Why is this important?

Why didn't the Spirit fall the day before Pentecost?

Or the day after, or the week before, the week after, right?

Well, maybe you don't know this, but the Feast of Pentecost was a Jewish holiday and a Jewish feast long before it was ever a Christian one.

And what it was was a feast where they celebrated the wheat harvest and the gathering of wheat out of God's provision for his people.

I think this is beautiful because what does the New Testament show us?

That there's this harvest of wheat, right?

Jesus even says that the fruit is there, the harvest is ready, it's the workers that we need to pray for to come into the harvest.

And so what does God do?

At this time where Israel traditionally celebrated the harvest of the wheat, God brings the nations to the feet of his very disciples, the harvest of souls, and he empowers them with the spirit and begins to enable them to live on mission to reach them.

3,000 people respond to the preaching of the gospel from this moment.

Out of a potential 20,000 plus people there surrounding them in this moment.

Peter's gonna stand up.

He's gonna preach the gospel, emboldened and empowered by the Spirit, and 3,000 will repent and believe, and the harvest is coming.

That's the beauty of Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

God is going to bring the harvest.

But do we have the spirit empowerment to be able to do something with it?

So the feast of Pentecost, it's the gathering of the nations, the spirit falls, and then here's what the text says.

Each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

So let's work through this.

I believe that this is spirit-empowered interpretation.

Again, I'm just submitting this to you as my perspective.

But I believe that this is consistent with the need and requirement for interpretation as a spirit-grace gift.

That's what we see as the normative reality with inside of the church.

There's a need because the person doesn't understand what they're hearing, and there's a requirement because those who are hearing must understand for spirit-empowered grace gift of interpretation.

So if I'm in a place and uh everyone's speaking a different language than me, and I start to proclaim in a known language to them, but unknown language to me, there's no need for interpretation.

They they understand what I'm saying.

There's no need for that grace gift to be manifested.

But think of the chaos even here in this moment.

There's 120 in the upper room.

They're all speaking in the same time.

There's 20 plus thousand people gathered around.

They're all here hearing them speak in their own language.

There's 15 languages represented, not including all the distinct dialects that are represented within that crowd.

So you just have chaos.

But in the midst of that chaos, you have supernatural clarity.

Where is that coming from?

I believe it's the Spirit.

Because the Spirit brings clarity to our chaos.

Now, you might be asking yourself, and I think this is a very important question.

Uh do we ever have any examples of grace gifts being manifested through unbelievers?

Because if everyone in the crowd is hearing supernaturally by a grace gift of the Spirit, but they weren't all saved, they weren't all filled with the Spirit, only 3,000 repent and believe in the gospel.

Do we have any examples of unbelieving people manifesting grace gifts in their life?

I'm glad you asked that.

Because we do.

I'll give you two examples, even though the Bible has multiple examples.

One is out of John chapter 11.

John 11 · chapter mention

John tells us that Caiaphas the high priest prophesied by the Spirit that Jesus would die for the nations.

So there's one example, two examples.

I'll give you this.

Jesus himself, teaching his disciples in Matthew chapter 7, says, There will be many who come to me in that day who say, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Did we not cast out demons in your name?

Did we not heal the sick in your name?

And what he responds to them with is, Turn away from me, I never knew you, you who practice lawlessness.

So someone who is never known by Christ the Messiah is able to manifest grace gifts in their life.

I'm not trying to bring logic to that.

I'm just trying to just submit to it as a reality.

So is there a possibility that even unregenerate, unbelieving people are manifesting a grace gift of interpretation here in Acts chapter 2?

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Why not?

Sure.

So this passage also, though, is filled with this linguistic pattern of we hear our own language.

We hear our own language.

As you read through Acts chapter 2, 1 through 13, you'll see that multiple times over again.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

We hear in our own native tongue, our own language, our own uh um uh language, yeah.

That pattern draws an emphasis toward the reality that there's something supernatural of language happening, but the hearer is able to find clarity in the midst of all of this chaos.

But here's what I want us to really focus on, right?

At Pentecost, we see the church being birthed.

And I just want you for a moment to ask yourself what would be the first expression in your world of the church being birthed?

We can probably come through all different conclusions of what that might look like if we were the ones in control.

But God sovereignly and control had the very first expression of the birth being church, of the church being birthed, the spirit-empowered mission to every nation.

Think about that for a moment.

God says, You want to see what my church is like?

You want to see what my church looks like when I fill it with my spirit and empower them from on high?

You want to see what it looks like?

It looks like supernatural, spirit-empowered mission to every nation.

That's what it looks like.

You see, church, the spirit empowers us for mission to all people.

This moment, this coming of the spirit, it's it's the epicenter of empowered mission, a mission four and a mission two, all people.

Verse 7 through 11, it goes through all of those who are listed there.

Like I said, estimated over 20,000 people, over 15 languages, not including their dialects.

They're there at the feet of the disciples as the Spirit empowers them.

But I love what the crowd says.

This is aren't these all Galileans?

Here's the modern-day equivalent to that.

Aren't these all hillbillies?

Aren't these people who can barely get their own language right?

You ever met a dude like that?

Like, I don't even think you've you're, I think we're both speaking English, but you're speaking a different kind of English than I am.

These Galileans were uneducated people.

But what's crazy is they hear the very nuance of their emphasis in dialect.

They hear the clarity of their own native tongue through these uneducated hillbillies, and they're marveled at it.

What do they hear them say?

The mighty works of God.

Here's our last theological point on tongues for today, because we're gonna run into it a lot within Acts.

Tongues is a vertical language, not a horizontal one.

What do we mean by that is when tongues is mentioned throughout Scripture, it is one that magnifies, glorifies, brags on God.

It's a vertical language going upward of praise and adoration and worship about who he is and what he's accomplished for his people.

It's not a horizontal language.

That's prophecy, word of knowledge, word of wisdom.

We can go through some of those things at another time.

But if we are ever in a context where someone feels like they have the manifestation of the gift of tongues, and they get up and they speak publicly within this congregation, and someone believes that they have the interpretation of that tongue, and they get up to try and interpret, and it's a horizontal language.

You, you, you, I just want to say they they miss the spirit on that one.

There's grace for that, there's patience for that, there's long suffering for that.

But we want to try to bring clarity to what the spirit might be doing or is not doing.

And any interpretation of a tongue, in scripture, we see it as a vertical language that glorifies who God is, rather than a horizontal one that instructs, corrects, rebukes, teaches people.

Okay?

So what did they hear?

They heard them in their own tongues, the mighty works of God.

Verse 12, and all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean?

But others mocked, said they are filled with new wine.

Here's what I want to draw our attention to in this.

Two responses, one spirit.

Two responses, one spirit.

Why is that important for us?

People can observe and witness and be impacted by a miraculous move of God.

And the spirit is the factor that determines the individual's response.

It's not you.

Charles Spurgeon used to say that the same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay.

Three thousand repent and believe because the spirit's sovereign purposes took out the heart of stone that was in their chest and put in one of flesh that they might believe and have faith in the finished work of Christ.

While tens of thousands of others were given over to their own hard-heartedness by the same sovereign spirit.

You see this miraculous move of God, the outpouring of the Spirit, the perplexity that it created, or the curiosity, there only happened in some of them.

Right?

Some of them they were curious.

What does this mean?

Others of them they were mocking.

Well, they're just filled with new wine.

But both the curious and the mocker were the outcome of the Spirit's power.

So to accomplish what God's called us to, we've got to have the Spirit.

We've got to have a reliance and a dependency on Him.

And when we walk away from any situation, no matter the outcome, we can't have this shame and guilt that something didn't go the way that we desired it to.

What we do is we submit ourselves to God and we praise Him that His purposes are always fulfilled.

Whether in the believing or in the unrepentant.

Many of us, though, we have to realize mission to all people will not look the same.

I'm not saying that it's going to look like Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

In fact, the rest of Acts, it rarely ever looks like that again.

It looks in this diversity of expressions to be able to reach people with the gospel of Jesus.

But it's all one spirit.

And so by God's grace, maybe he'll give you the manifestation of tongues.

Maybe he'll give you the manifestation of prophecy.

Maybe he'll just give you the manifestation of boldness to be able to preach Christ.

Maybe he'll give you the manifestation of hospitality that you can open up your home and be able to welcome people in as you share your life with them.

He will empower you.

But it's going to look diverse ways, but it will be by the same spirit.

But many of us, we we fail to live on spirit-empowered mission in my life.

I'm way over time.

So when you don't let me preach for a month, things happen.

But let's try to work through this.

You all good?

You good?

We need to order food or anything like that?

I'm going to try to get through this part.

Many of us, we fail to live on spirit-empowered mission.

Look, we find ourselves in an ever-changing culture.

And that culture is becoming increasingly complex to navigate.

And I think that there are predominantly two voices that are shaping and influencing our worldview and our way of life.

And I think both voices are unbiblical.

And they sit on this extreme of this spectrum of how we should engage with the culture around us.

There are some of us that have an unbiblical inclusivism.

We think that the nations should come and they should bring all of their values, culture, way of living, everything with them.

And we're just going to become this happy melting pot society, right?

And that view is actually determined or understood by their own perception of what love is, of what kindness and charity look like.

And so they have this unbiblical inclusivism that actually fosters and creates an unhealthy culture.

Then there's others of us who have an unbiblical exclusivism.

We want to preserve our own kingdom.

Anyone who doesn't look like us or sound like us or act like us, we don't want to be here.

Because we're trying our hardest to protect what we've created, and we only see their presence jeopardizing that.

But praise God, the Bible speaks to a different way.

Some of us, we engage all people without calling them into the kingdom.

Let me try to unpack that for a moment.

I think one of the greatest atrocities that's happened in the evangelical church over the last several decades when it comes to mission is that we have strived to give people the kingdom and not call them to submit to the king.

We've done everything we can to make their quality of life better.

But we haven't called them to submit to the Lordship of Jesus.

And so we've lost our sense of mission.

And in fact, the world jumped on those coattails and rode it to the point of where they could just do it better than we could.

And they didn't even need us anymore.

And so they're working tirelessly to improve the quality of life for millions of people around the world.

But that's not the mission of the church.

Ultimately, our quality of life increases because we've submitted our life to Christ Himself, not because of what we possess within our hands.

And so we cannot continue trying to give people the kingdom without calling them to submit to the king.

And when we submit to the king, we're assimilated into his kingdom culture.

You see, there's a beauty around assimilation.

And the gospel calls us into a gospel culture.

In fact, this is actually Peter's sermon.

He's going to stand up in front of the nations.

We're going to get into this next week.

And he is going to preach Christ, and then he's going to call them into something.

What's he called them into?

Assimilation into gospel culture, the kingdom of God submitted to the king.

He says it right here in Acts 2.38.

And Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized.

Every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We've been talking a lot about repentance lately for some reason, meetings I'm having, counseling sessions, and so forth.

And the church has a horrible lens around repentance.

We think it's saying we're sorry or asking for forgiveness.

It's such an anemic view of what the biblical perspective of repentance is and what it means.

Most of the time we repent, ask for forgiveness, say we're sorry, because we're afraid of the consequence for our actions.

We don't want the person to leave us.

We don't want to suffer whatever our actions have caused, right?

So what do we do?

We ask for forgiveness, we say we're sorry.

Repentance isn't that.

It's not being afraid of the consequences.

Repentance is believing that what you did is wicked and evil.

You see, repentance actually means changing our mind to think the way that God thinks.

Does saying we're sorry and asking for forgiveness flow from that?

A hundred percent.

But it's because we are burdened by the grief and sorrow that our actions were wicked in the sight of God and harmed an image bearer.

So Peter's saying, you gotta repent.

You gotta change the way you think if you're gonna come into this kingdom.

Not only that, he says, be baptized, be united with, be identified by Christ's finished work.

We don't belong to what we came from, we belong to what we've been called into.

His kingdom under his kingly rule.

That's gospel culture assimilation.

So that's how the church becomes healthy.

Not because we try to bring our old life into this new one, because we leave the old one behind and we run forward to grab hold of what's Ahead of us, Christ Jesus.

The gospel call is to all people, but it's to all people to submit their entire life to the Lordship of Jesus.

Others of us, though, we retreat from all people for the preservation of our own kingdom.

We retreat from all people for the preservation of our own kingdom.

Look, it's tough.

Katie and I were driving the other day, my wife, uh Katie, and uh we had to check each other's hearts about the presence of people from different nations around us.

Because it can get frustrating.

It can get frustrating because of the way that they all drive, right?

No, I'm joking.

I'm not gonna get into jokes uh here.

But if we're honest with ourselves, it gets frustrating.

It's okay.

It's challenging.

What's my sinful propensity to respond?

I'm gonna retreat and I'm gonna try to preserve what I've built.

It's more comfortable, it's more safe.

And the reality is like we love homogeny.

We love homogeny to the granular level because we think that we thrive in hyper-tribalism.

If you ever have some spare time, I encourage you to do something fun.

Google image search, fundamental Baptist signs for their churches.

They're crazy, they are wild.

Uh, the stuff they say.

Uh anyway, here was one I found.

It's not an image, don't worry.

Uh, but this this is how much they communicate their love for hyper-tribalism.

We are a full gospel, free will, premillennial, rapture, 1611, KJV only, fundamental, independent Baptist Church.

They would have done better with a sign that just said, go away.

Like two words, printing's cheaper, right?

Like, we don't want you here.

It would have been so much easier.

And we often live in these insular lives where we see people who are different from us as threats to our feeling of safety.

And so we want to live in this protected homogeny.

And look, remember what I said at the beginning of the sermon?

30% of students at Mason City Schools come from multilingual homes representing over 70 different languages.

You think that number is going down?

No.

Thank you.

No, it ain't going down.

It's gonna keep going up.

What do we do?

We have two options cower and die, or be faithful to what God's called us to do and reach every single person who represents the beauty of whom he died for with spirit-empowered mission.

Those are our two options.

We don't have the right or freedom to forsake and not engage the multi-ethnic and multilingual world around us.

To do so would be unfaithful to what God has called us to.

But, church, though we fail to engage people biblically, the work of the Spirit is still gathering a people into the hope of the gospel because Jesus died for every nation, tribe, and tongue.

And so, church, Jesus is calling all people into his kingdom.

Give me two more minutes, ish.

Sorry.

Jesus tried to help his disciples know this.

The kingdom was always for all people.

It wasn't just for geopolitical Israel, it wasn't just for this bloodline of Hebrews, it was for the nations to know the joy of his salvation.

That his glory would fill the earth like the waters fill the sea.

And he even tries to help them understand this, even though they couldn't get it through their dense skull.

John 12, 32, he preaches to them.

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, what's he going to do?

He's gonna draw all people to himself.

You see, God is most glorified in diversity rather than our own sinful homogeny.

Because he's the God of all people.

And I want to submit to you one of the primary reasons he gave us the Spirit, just so that we could reach them with the hope of the gospel.

So, what are we gonna do?

Are we gonna live protected, safe, comfortable lives and just die in the next 15 years?

Because look around us.

We're a growing church and I love it, and we're growing by diversity.

I want to celebrate that.

Every empty chair in this room represents a story that God wants to tell of a person that he's gathering into our context that might cross paths with you, filled with the Spirit, emboldened by his presence to share the hope of the gospel.

And so I pray over the next 10 years that this room fills.

We have to add three, four, five gatherings.

I don't care.

Because it's not about my comfort, it's not about your comfort, it's about Christ's glory.

And so my prayer for us is that we would live on mission, empowered by the Spirit to all people.

We need training, we need classes, we we we need instruction, we need all that.

But more than that, we can be a hillbilly Galilean and have the Spirit empower us to reach all people.

And that's what matters.

So are we gonna have spirit dependency?

Are we gonna have anticipation behind our prayers?

Are we gonna be a people emboldened to love and serve and reach?

Because, church, the nations are coming to our backyard.

Jesus is gathering his harvest.

Let's go.