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.
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
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.