Christ Presbyterian Church is a local congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America. Visit us for morning or evening worship in Mobile, Alabama, or on the web at cpcmobile.com. In preparation for our speaker coming, Our Old Testament section this morning comes from Ezekiel chapter 36, and we'll begin reading in verse 22. Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I'm about to act, but for the sake of my holy name. which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses. And from all your idols I will cleanse you, and I will give you a new heart, and I will give you a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses, and I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, so that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and for your abominations. It's not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord. Let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord God, on the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt, and the land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that was in the sight of all who passed by. And they will say, this land that was become desolate has become like the Garden of Eden. And the waste and the desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited. Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the Lord. I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the Lord. I have spoken and I will do it. Thus says the Lord God, this also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them, to increase their people like a flock, like the flock for sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts. So shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of people, then they will know that I am the Lord." Oh, what a great passage, man. It's a privilege to be able to introduce to you Ben Nelson. Ben Nelson is the assistant pastor at Grace Community, and he's going to be our preacher for this morning as he comes and talks about God the missionary. Ben is also planting a church in the Midtown area, as you just heard. Ben, brother, friend, come on up here and share God's word with us. If you'll please stand in honor of Ben's reading the scriptures. He's alright. Thank you. Listen as we read God's Word. This is from Acts chapter 10 verse 44 through 11. We'll go through verse 18 here. God's Word to us. While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the Word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days. 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 party criticized him, saying, You went to the uncircumcised men and ate with them. But Peter began to explain. 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 who were drawn up again, and it was all drawn up 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 entered the man's house. And he told us how he had seen the angels stand in this 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 remember 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 heard and when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I who 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 unto life. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Amen. You may be seated. Joshua, should I just use this guy here? All right, I'll take this piece off if that's okay. Actually, maybe I won't. I'll have to get undressed. I don't want to do that in front of you. Not a good first impression. Thank you for having us here. Thank you for having me and my family here. My wife Katie and kids are back there. Katie is the gifted one in our family. She's back there dealing with our kiddos, loving our kiddos as they're here. Really do appreciate you having me, your generosity, and inviting me over here. We are, as Joshua mentioned, we've moved this summer to Midtown, beginning the groundwork to plant a PCA church in the heart of our city. Those that know Mobile know the landscape there in Midtown, and I think you can understand why we need a gospel-centered, Christ-exalting church there in Midtown. God has raised up some men and women already that live in that part of town, and we're looking forward to partnering with them We're in the book of Acts this morning because the theme is the missionary God, and there's no place more do we see God's missionary heart than the book of Acts. We talk about, it's called the Acts of the Apostles, if you read the beginning of the book, but it's really the act of God, isn't it? If you study Acts, you see God is the one that continuously pushes the gospel forward, despite the acts of the apostles often. It was in college, I was an undergrad, and I was in a comparative religions class, and my professor, who had a PhD from a conservative Christian university, she said these words, she said, all religions are basically the same. They're different practices and different customs, but all roads eventually lead to heaven. Now I was still young in my faith, and frankly I was pretty cowardly, I was pretty afraid, but I knew that didn't sound right, and so I was trying to figure out, I've got to say something, and I looked over to the one Christian girl I knew in the class, and she was over there, and she was looking at me in tears, begging me to say something. And so I finally had some courage to say, well, hang on a second. Jesus said in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. So certainly can't all paths be the same. It's either Jesus, this can't be true, and that be true. Put my hand down. I thought I had done the trick. I didn't impress my professor. She said, of course, Mr. Nelson, Jesus, he is the way because you are a Christian, just as Mohammed is the great prophet is for the Muslim, as the teaching of Buddha for the Buddhist. And she rolled off three or four other religious beliefs. And of course, I was frustrated. I was confused. I didn't know a lot about the faith, but I knew that didn't sound right. And yet I'm thankful for that moment. Because I was in that context, and again, I think there were only a couple Christians in the room, and it forced me to understand and to believe what I do believe as a Christian. It thrust me into God's Word. What is the difference between Christianity and all world religions? I began to study comparative religions to understand that. What sets Christianity apart from these other faiths, these other practices? There are many differences, there are many distinctions, but there is one main difference. This is my conclusion. Many have come to it before me. One main difference. The difference is grace. It's grace. What is the basis by which we are made right before God? All religions tell us that we obey, we appease, we please, we sacrifice, we do something, and therefore, our God, our self, whatever it is we're trying to, is satisfied. But as I looked at Christianity, it was the opposite. It was, we are accepted, we are beloved, we are made righteous based on what Christ had done alone. That's grace. And therefore, we what? We obey. We love. We serve. It's the missionary God, because God first comes to us. God first initiates us. All the religions say, you've got to go do it. Get to work. The Christians say, no, no, it begins. It begins with an outpouring of God's grace. And we get grace, then we respond. So we think about missions. Missions and grace, they're tied. They are inseparable. I love what Kurt said. One, it was really encouraging to hear his words about their work, but he talked about incarnational. That's the movement of God to us. And as we begin to study scripture, we begin to study acts, we say, that really is a distinction. God has made the first move. God has come. to us as we think about missions to do missions to have any heart any inkling whether it's disaster relief whether sharing the gospel it begins this understanding of grace so let's look at our text this morning and we're going to talk about we're going to learn some things about our gracious missionary god the first thing we're going to see here is that he gives us the gracious gift of his spirit. And by the way, there are handouts of this. I was told to give that to Joshua. You can pray earnestly that this, that I stay on track with the handout. So I'm not too good with the manuscript, but we'll do our best, Joshua, to keep online for those that are following. First thing we see about God, this missionary, gracious God, is he gives us the gift of his spirit. Let me give you the context. You wanna understand where we are when we start at verse 44. So chapter 10, Peter is hungry and he goes up on the roof and he has this vision. And he sees animals coming down out of heaven. Some are clean and some are unclean, according to Old Testament law. And Peter is told to rise to kill and eat. And Peter, as a good Jew, says, No way! I don't do bacon. I can't have that, right? No, I can't do that. And he hears it three times. And so finally, the Lord says, What I have called clean, don't call common or unclean. At the same time, there's a man in Caesarea up north named Cornelius. He's a Gentile, and he has this vision, and he hears this word to send men down to Joppa, where Peter is, to bring him up so that Peter can come and explain the gospel to them. And so Peter's having this trance, this vision, and all of a sudden, knock on the door, and these men have come down, Gentiles, and Peter invites them in. They tell him where he's come from. We've come from Cornelius up in Caesarea. Will you come? And Peter says, I guess. I hear this vision. So Peter goes up to Caesarea. He enters the house of a Gentile. We'll talk about that in just a second. And Cornelius says, I've gathered everybody I know. We're all here. Would you tell us about Jesus? Would you tell us the gospel, right? It's like every preacher's dream, right? You went and gathered all your friends because you want to hear this great message. And so Peter, in the verses right before this, has been preaching to them about the gospel, about the death, the resurrection of Jesus, and there is no distinction, Jew and Gentile. And then verse 43 says, to him, to Jesus, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives the forgiveness of sins through his name. And he's just preached this, and Peter's going. Peter's preaching the word. He's excited. And then verse 44, I'll read these verses to you. Here we see this gracious gift of the Spirit. While Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised, that's the Jews, who had come with Peter were amazed because of the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And he asked them to remain for some days. He's preaching and the Holy Spirit is poured out on them. I want you to notice the Jewish audience that was here, they're amazed, they're shocked at this. The first thing I want you to know, it's pretty simple, but grace, God's grace is a gift. Those words are synonymous. This pouring out is a gift. It said it poured out the Holy Spirit. It didn't say, like many of us assume, the Gentiles really started doing better. The Gentiles started getting their act together, it was the new year, they turned over a new leaf, they started getting religious, and so now the Holy Spirit, God was led, we're going to pour out my Spirit. No, Peter wasn't thinking about it, right? He was hungry, on the roof, he wanted to eat. And God makes a move to the Gentiles. And He comes to pour out His Spirit. Often we think we start doing better. They start acting better. They behave more. They're more moral. And of course, God would bless. God would come. God would give us good things. But here that's not the picture. Here the picture, for no reason, for no merit, for no effort, God chooses to do what He said He would do from the very beginning of the Bible, through Abraham, that He would pour out His Spirit upon all men. It's a picture of lavishness. We don't believe that. If we think about missions, we often don't think about that, do we? We think God's kind of stingy. A few years ago, remember this, we did the ice bucket challenge, you remember that? It was the ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, and someone challenged me to do it, and you had to do it on Facebook. And you had to get this bucket of cold ice water, couldn't be a little, it'd be full bucket, and you had to pick it up, right? And you had to just dump it on your head, right? It didn't count if you just kind of did this. You had to just pour it out on your head to be sopping wet, and then you'd challenge someone else to do it, and you spread the message on and on. That's what's happening here. Peter's with this captive audience. He's not sure why he's here. He's not even sure if he should be here. He didn't want the other Jews to find out that he's here. And God does something amazing. God's grace is this gift that he pours out his spirit. You see, God wants to do that. Did you know that? He wants to do that in disaster relief. He wants to do that across the world. He wants to do that in Mobile. He wants to pour out his spirit by his grace upon many. God wants to give His grace. The second thing we see about this is that this gift of grace is a person. This gift of grace, the Holy Spirit, it's a person. He didn't come and say, Peter didn't say, I have this object out here God wants to give you. There's this propositional truth over here, you just need to believe that. No, Peter's speaking and God comes and He gives it Himself. It's not just circumcision, it's not just a mark on the body, but He gives the Holy Spirit, it's poured out inside of them. God wants to give His Spirit. You remember the disciples were concerned, Jesus said He was leaving, and they're a nervous wreck in John 14. But Jesus says this in 14, 16, 17, 17. And I will ask the Father and He will give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the spirit of truth in the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he dwells with you, and he will be in you." Did you know that when you engage your neighbor and someone at work and they don't know Christ, we're actually offering them that God actually wants to come and indwell you. Think about that. I mean, that's a radical concept. We're saying to you, listen, if you believe this message of what Christ has done, not what you do, but what Christ has done, He'll actually invade in your life and come and transform you. We're telling people that. That's what's going on here. And Peter's amazed. The brothers that are with him are amazed. And this is the reality, not just for a few. This is the reality for all who have put their faith and their trust in Christ. This is the offer. The third sub-point here about this gracious gift of the Spirit, we see that this gift, this Holy Spirit poured out, it shows God's missionary heart. This missionary heart, what do I mean by that? You know the thesis of the book of Acts is Acts 1-8. You can trace Acts 1-8 through the whole book. It says this, it says, Jesus tells the apostles, you will be my witnesses when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, You'll do it in Jerusalem, right here at home, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. God's going to take this message, He's going to start here, and we're going to move out to the whole world hears of who He is. And here we see, with this pouring out of the Spirit, this says that there is a speaking in tongues and extolling God. Now this is not going to be a theology of the sign gifts right now, but I'll say this. What's happening here is that these gifts, these tongues, this manifestation of the Spirit is displaying that God is doing what He said He would do. Acts chapter 2, the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost, and there's a firework show, right? There's tongues, there's fire. Acts chapter 8 in Samaria, remember? Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, there's miraculous gifts. And now we come to Acts chapter 10, the Gentile Pentecost here. And they're speaking in tongues. You see, God promised He would take the gospel and He would spread it out. Peter and the apostles weren't thinking about it. They were enjoying themselves together. Peter's at Simon's house, a Jew. He didn't have the Gentiles on his mind, but God does. Because God's heart is to spread His grace and to take it, not just in our little circle, but to men beyond our circle. to the ends of the earth. God moves, it shows His heart, it shows His faithfulness. You see, this Pentecost, this experience of tongues, this is not universal, this is not what happens at our conversion. The life, the death, the resurrection, the ascension of Jesus are historical events, and so is Pentecost. The Spirit was sent, Acts chapter 2, and this is an extension of Acts chapter 2, To validate, this is the real deal. The Gentiles got it also. Acts chapter 2, Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 10, we have this Pentecost. So don't get caught up in, is this what we're supposed to be doing? Is this how it's supposed to be? No, that's not universal. What's universal is the Spirit comes and lives in all of us who believe by faith. The point is that God is the one moving the gospel out. He wants His grace to be known. throughout the earth, what's the application? We can be very confident that God is generous with His grace. Like that ice bucket challenge. He wants to pour it all over our city. He wants the people of Houston through mercy. He wants the people in our cities. He wants the people around the world to know of the goodness of His grace. Do you believe that? Do we believe that? We struggle to believe that. We do believe that, we go tell him. He wants to give you himself. He was on this mission trip way before we got on board. It's the first thing we learn about our gracious missionary God is that he pours out his spirit because that's what he does. The second thing we learn about our gracious missionary God is really not about him, it's about us. We don't like grace, did you know that? We have a problem with grace. We resist it. So we have this mass conversion here. All the Jewish brothers are amazed. It should be celebration time, right? High five, rejoice, party. Not so fast, right? Chapter 11. Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea, Heard the Gentiles also received the word of God." These are the Jews. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, they gave him a high five and celebrated. No. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised party criticized him, saying, you went to uncircumcised men and ate with them? Do you hear the condescension? The contempt? He did what? You ate with them? One commentator said this, the circumcision party wasn't just upset that the Gentiles received grace, but that Peter associated with them. See, the problem was that grace to the Jews didn't mean grace, right? There wasn't an equal using of terms. I'm fine with those Gentiles being saved. Just keep them over there in their camp, right? Good for them, you know? Bless their heart. That's great. Right? That's the language here. The Jews, they didn't understand the implications of grace. If it was grace, then we add nothing. If it's grace, then we stand on Jesus and Jesus alone. See, all of us have badges of separation. We have ways we try to distinguish ourselves from other Christians. Well, their style of worship really isn't, you know... I mean, their form of church government You know, they're trying to love the Lord. Some even teach the second baptism of the Spirit. You know that? So that there's one baptism and another baptism. It's kind of a second tier. It's an elevation. And most of us in here probably haven't experienced that. So we're kind of second tier. Maybe we'll get it one day. People teach that. We teach it in our camps. You know, I tell this joke. I was in college when I gave my heart to John Calvin. If you don't know what that means, we'll talk later. I read the Institutes of Christian Religion, and it was like crack cocaine. And I read it, and I thought, this is amazing. And I had grown up with a very nominal understanding of scripture, and this was amazing to me. And that's a good thing. I believe Reformed theology is biblical, do you hear me? Don't hear what I'm not saying. But I use it as a separation, it's a badge. I've got my theology, it's airtight, solid, I can not argue you. And you're over there, I don't know what you're doing, the guitar, you know. We separate, we try to separate. We have badges. And what we do is we try to give ourselves credit. We add merit. It's Good Reformation Month. We add merit because of these things we've done. And we try to discredit other people because of things they're not doing. Now again, I'm not saying there's not places to disagree. I'm not saying there's not places to have dialogue. There are. And we want to be biblical in every way. Hear that. But we come to Jesus. We come to God. We come to Christ on one basis. It's grace. It's what Christ alone has done for us. standing with God and what it is is we try to add value because the reality we don't believe grace we're so insecure we try to add value we try to add merit but here he says in verse 15 we'll talk about a second they came the Holy Spirit fell on them Peter says just as on us you mean the Gentile yeah just like us you know Jews and Gentiles hated each other hated each other One Jewish proverb went like this, Gentiles are good for nothing except keeping the fires of hell burning. That's how they thought of one another. So you understand why the circumcision party's upset, right? You're having bacon potluck with the Gentiles here. This isn't right. And Peter's saying, I don't know. I think it's grace. I'm being told it's the same ground. That's humbling, isn't it? Right now, we have nothing to hold up over anybody else that belongs to Christ. No education, no system of understanding of theology, no family history, no seminary experience, nothing but grace. And that's humbling. It exposes us. I can't build myself up over you. I can't look down upon you because of your... I can't do that. I have nothing to stand on. But it's also free. There's no performance. I'm not grappling to be better. I'm not trying right now for you to like me and prove myself because we have the righteousness of Christ for us. See, to be missionaries, to take grace to people, to our neighbor, to our coworker, we first have to get it ourselves. We have to believe it's grace. What if grace is all we have? What if Jesus is all we have? Is that enough? What if that's the only basis you have? That's what he's trying to say. I've argued for reason, let's argue from scripture, that Peter wants to equate what's happened to the Jews to the Gentiles. He's trying to say, hey guys, we're just alike. Look at this, verse 44 and 45. While Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. Verse 45, the Holy Spirit was poured out. These words fell, poured out. These verbs are used in Acts chapter two. Same thing happened to the Jews. It's happening to the Gentiles. Both audiences in Acts 2, Acts 10 were amazed at what happened. Both crowds, it says, were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. You see what he's doing? He's drawing a parallel. We can't one-up them. It's the same. Verse 15, I read it to you a second ago. Peter's telling the circumcision party, as we began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, guys, just as on us at the beginning. We're on level playing field. It's grace. It really is grace. Acts 15, Peter's giving a report to the General Assembly and he says this, but we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus just as they will. Do you see what a point this is to Peter? He's gotta tell these people, it's grace, it's the same, we need to know that, we need to believe that. That's why it's so important. It wouldn't be an easy picture to imagine the Jews. They had the fireworks of Acts 2, right? The tongues, the fire, everything's going on in Acts 2. And the Gentiles get a little bit of an experience. I think they're saved. That's good. You know, they've got a little, you know, they had a Bible study afterwards. No, the Holy Spirit falls and they're speaking in tongues and all this stuff's going on and the Jews are like, wow, that looks like what happened to us. Maybe they're in too. Maybe this grace thing is way more radical than we thought. Maybe we have to grapple, it's not our circumcision, it's not our feast, it's not our laws, it's not anything we've done to actually add merit. It's actually Christ. It's actually Christ alone. I'll move on. God wants us to go out with grace, but we first have to get grace, to share grace. Final thing I want you to see about our gracious missionary God is that he not only to give us the gracious gift of his spirit, not only does he work through our own resistance, but I want you to see the transforming power of his grace. Grace is a process. It really is a process. Notice how Peter responds. I really love this. This has ministered to me as I think about how he responds. He gets through verse three. These folks are criticizing him. Uncircumcised men, you ate with them. Verse 4, Peter began and explained it to them in order. Peter says, let's talk about it. He could have done a couple of things. He could have been a coward and said, you're right guys, I'm sorry, I got wrapped up, I saw all the fireworks and so I just, you know, I let them in, I had dinner. Some of us do that. He could have done what I would have probably done, what many of us make, we could have been defensive, right? If you've seen what I've seen, guys, could have got critical, could have criticized back, and then there's the verbal volleyball, you know that? He doesn't do that. He starts explaining. See, grace doesn't mean we don't disagree, we don't engage with people. It means we disagree differently, we engage differently. Because we believe, we get it, not because we're smarter, because we have the light. We get it because God just dumped it out on us for no reason. Because of His love only and His goodness. Peter has come a long way from Acts chapter 10 where he says, never will I eat anything unclean. And now he's advocating for the dogs, for the Gentiles, and this assembly. But it's interesting, the story, because God's been at work at Peter for a while. We obviously know the Gospels and the way Jesus interacts with him. But the beginning of Acts 10, when this whole thing starts, Peter is at the house of a man named Simon the Tanner. There's a little clue there. Simon is a Jew, so Peter's on good ground there. But you know what tanners do? Leather, right? They deal with animals, dead animals at that. How do you think that sits with the Old Testament? Not so good, right? Simon the Tanner, he's a Jew, check for him. Ooh, unclean. Dead animals. You don't touch dead animals. That's what he does. Peter is in the home of someone that's unclean. Why is he there? I don't know. The text doesn't tell us. God's kind of moving Peter along this path, I think. And then Peter has this vision and he argues with God and he finally surrenders. And then he lets Gentiles who have come in his home. He said, come in. That would never happen. Only grace. And then they say, Peter, you've got to come with us to see Cornelius up in Caesarea. And Peter goes. And then Peter actually goes in that Gentile's house. I mean, he must have been walking around like this with hand sanitizer, right? And then he has that pork tenderloin. He eats dinner with him. Right? That's what they got Chris. You ate with him? I mean, what is going on? And now Peter's arguing that they're in. It's grace. And Peter's been on this journey. And so, when Peter hears the criticism, he doesn't get defensive like I do. He says, I get it, guys. I understand. I don't know. Let me explain to you. So this is what he does. Let's go through some verses here. Verse 4, Peter began, explained it to her in order. I was in the city of Joppa praying in a trance. In a trance, I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending. He goes on, looking at it closely, I observed beasts of prey and animals and birds. And I heard a voice saying, rise, Peter, kill and eat. But guys, guess what? I said, no means. I said, I can't do it. But the voice answered a second time and said, What God has made clean, do not call common. Hey, fellas, this happened three times. I was trying. This happened three times. And then the sheet was drawn up, it says, verse 12. And then the Spirit told me to go with these men, making no distinction. Blame the Spirit, fellas. He told me to go. And then Peter's smart, though. It says he took six brothers with him. The Old Testament required two witnesses. Peter took six. I'm going, this is dangerous territory, y'all come with me. I don't know what's going to happen in Caesarea. And then he gets in verse 15, I read it already the third time. And guys, as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. I don't know. Remember Jerusalem, Acts 2? It's happening again. I can't explain it. And then he pulls in verse 16, he pulls the Jesus card. He says, hey guys, remember the words of the Lord, how He said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. That's what happened. If then God, verse 17, if then God gave the same gift to them as He gave to us when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God's way? Who was I? See, Peter's being changed, isn't he? Peter's getting grace, and he's going to new vistas. He's stepping out into new worlds, and that's what happens when you get grace. When it gets to seeping, we start doing crazy stuff. Start inviting neighbors over. Start speaking to coworkers. Start giving our resources to disaster relief, to people spreading the gospel. We start going on missions. We do all kind of crazy things when grace begins to invade. I love how Peter engages. It's not just the gospel message, it's the gospel disposition. See, that's where we struggle. What if you and I engaged in the same way? What if our dialogue was the same? That we actually lived what we preached? I find this missing so much in Christian dialogue. Missing with our non-believers. We tend to do one or two things with non-believers, right? We're too afraid, or we're not bold, we're scared, they say things back, and we just kinda, I don't wanna ruffle any feathers, it's just easier just to stay in my corner. Or what do we do? We attack, we go for blood, we go after them. It's not what Peter does. Peter has an attitude that shares the gospel for grace. Martin Luther said to have said that sharing the gospel, missions, evangelism, it's like one beggar telling another beggar where the bread is, you know that? If you believe it's the gospels, the bread, then we're beggars. It changes how you live, doesn't it? So you engage with some of this. Yeah, I can't believe the whole Bible stuff. You know, it conflicts with science. And what about creation? You say, you know, that's a hard subject. I know it's difficult. I'd love to talk with you. You want to meet? I've got some resources. I don't know all the answers, but I know I've got some bread. I was hungry for a long time. But this thing, grace, came in and invaded me. And I'd love to share it with you. Yeah, yeah, but what about suffering in the world? And how could a good God allow suffering and evil? And I don't understand, what about my family member? And you say, that sounds tragic. I'd love to talk to you. I know some people, pastors, elders, would you wanna meet up? All I know is I was hungry and I found bread. See, I'm not afraid of the conversation. I'm not attacking, I'm not visceral, I'm not after them. I'm saying, listen, it's grace too. I know, I don't get it either. It's grace. Why me? I was a lost college student, didn't care about God. Why? And what about other religions? And what about the history of the church? What about all these problems? And you just keep saying the same thing. Can we walk together? There's a Bible study. I could pick you up and we could... I'd love for you to find some bread. What if we related like that to the non-believing world? Gosh. But we do it with one another too. What if we related to one another like this? You know, some of us in here are truth people. I hope I'm in that camp. Truth, we're about the truth, right? Right doctrine, theology, and praise God for that. We need that, right? Absolutely. We need to champion that, but often many of us aren't very loving. We're not very kind. We're not very generous. So all the truth we have and all the what we know, I'm not gonna send someone to you. You can't give it to anybody because there's no love, there's no kindness, there's no grace. So we got our truth in our corner. And so what we do, people, we pray, we pray, God, would you season this truth, this strong bearer of the faith that loves the word of God, would you give him the disposition of the gospel to love, to care, to provide life? And then some of us in here, arms this wide, you know, we have some in our church, the millennials mostly, they love everybody, they're happy, right? It's grace, it's a party, but they're pretty shy about the truth sometimes. They waver on some things. And we're so thankful for them because we need them, because we're over here in the truth corner. And we come together, we pray for them, and we mentor them, we coach them. Hey, help me with that disposition. Help me love the way you love. And hey, by the way, these are things we need to hold on to. Let's make sure we're grounded. Let's don't get swept away. It's grace. It's truth. What if we live this way with one another? Look at verse 18, we're wrapping up here. The transforming power of grace. I don't know if you read, when you heard this when I read it, this verse is amazing. When they heard these things, this is the circumcision party, the Jewish Judaizers, they heard these things, they fell silent, and they glorified God saying, then to the Gentiles also, you hear the also? They heard Peter say it like 10 times, they finally got it. Then to the Gentiles also, God has granted repentance that leads to life. You know what's interesting about this? They changed their minds. How often does that happen in our Facebook posts, right? I had a very compelling argument for like three pages in the dialogue, but no one was changed. Shocking. No one changed their position. Peter engages graciously, because it's changing him. He's engaging, he's explaining it, and these guys say, well, gosh, shucks, I guess it's true. God's also given them. Your argument is compelling, Peter. It is grace. It really, really is. If it's grace, then it's grace. And they say that. To the Gentiles, also God has granted repentance to life. Also. Which means God granted us repentance. He did it to us. God's kindness leads to repentance. God first came to us, the missionary. He came to this heart, and now He's going to their heart. There is no distinction. And when they realized this, this all of grace, what did they do? I love this. And when they heard these things, they fell silent. You catch a glimpse of God's glory, you know, like this much, catch a glimpse of grace, and you don't have anything to say to you. Remember Job? Job argued, wrestled with God, and at the end of his life, he said, I didn't know what I was talking about. I didn't understand. And he just fell silent. Remember Isaiah, chapter 6, holy, holy, holy. It's too much. I'm unclean. I can't speak. Remember Peter and the boat. Go back out in Casernet again. We've been fishing all night. Casernet, there's so... And what does he say to Jesus? Get away from me. I don't even know. This is too overwhelming to be in your presence. See, and we get grace. When it changes us, it just overwhelms us. And then we do what they did. We should do what they did. And they glorified God saying, they worshiped him. The only proper response when we understand grace, when we know it's changing us, when we're empowered to share it is that we worship like we've done this morning, that we praise Him for His grace and for His goodness and for what He's done, and that's what they do. They glorify God. He is given repentance unto life. You say, what does this have to do with missions? It has everything to do with missions. Everything. We can guilt into missions. We can try to force. We can try to twist arms. Or we can say, God's heart, what kind of God is like that? Peter and the apostles are napping and he's trying to reach the world with the gospel. What must his heart be like to do that? He wants to pour His grace. And then, not just out there, He wants to do it in us. He wants to keep reminding us that we have one foundation. It's Christ and Him alone. And we're not going to be bold to share it. We're going to be scared. Or we're going to start attacking, right? If we don't believe the footing is evil, it's level at the cross. And then we go out with God's heart and understanding grace. But if we don't believe that the gospel can actually transform and change, we won't share it. We won't offer it. We won't give it. But God wants us to move forward. He is the missionary God. He has come to us. And now we have the great privilege of living in grace and mimicking and imitating in a small way His movement back to the world. May we be people who love and live out of a deep understanding. of God's grace for us and for his world. Let me pray. Jesus, thank you for your word. It is a gold mine we could dig in forever. And I pray as we think about missions and the various types and ways, and there are so many, I pray we remember that it started with your mission to us. You left the heavens to come to put on flesh to save us. Not because we got it together because we're good enough, but out of your sheer mercy and grace. And move our hearts to live in this grace and out of this grace, wherever you may call us. We praise you for this, in Jesus' name, amen.