Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Acts chapter 11, emphasizing how the gospel transcends boundaries and reaches unexpected people. He highlights the importance of recognizing God's grace in the salvation of Gentiles, urging the congregation to embrace those who may seem far from faith. The sermon encourages believers to actively share the gospel, engage in discipleship, and demonstrate generosity, illustrating that true faith leads to transformative actions within the church and the community.
Housekeeping and Welcome
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In the house of the Lord, if you have a child or young person who wants to be dismissed to Children's Church, you'll be dismissed at this time. We're going to be in Acts chapter 11 today.
Acts chapter 11, we're going to go through all 30 verses this morning, and just excited about what the Lord's doing.
What a blessing that song is, that we were made for more, and that we were not made to be 10 in the grave, but we're made for more. And this morning,
my voice, if you can't tell, has been struggling with the weather changing, and so I've asked my beautiful bride to come and read the verses this morning for us. Acts chapter 11, verses 1 through 30.
So let's all stand, and we'll read, and we'll jump into the message this morning. Acts chapter 11.
I also heard a voice telling me, get up, Peter, kill and eat. No, Lord, I said,
for nothing impure or ritually unclean has ever entered my mouth. But a voice answered from heaven a second time, what God has made clean, you must not call impure. Now this happened three times, and everything was drawn up again into heaven.
At that very moment, three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to accompany them with no doubts at all. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we went into the man's house.
He reported to us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, Send to Joppa and call for Simon, who is also named Peter.
He will speak a message to you by which you and all your household will be saved. As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came down on them just as on us as at the beginning.
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 them the same gift that he also gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, how could I possibly hinder God?
When they heard this, they became silent, and they glorified God, saying, So then God has given repentance, resulting in life even to the Gentiles.
Now those who had been scattered as a result of the persecution that started because of Stephen made their way as far as Phenossia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the words to no one except Jews.
When there were some of them, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks,
also proclaimed the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord's hand was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord.
He was about them, reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to travel as far as Antioch.
When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged all of them to remain true to the Lord with devoted hearts. For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and large numbers of people were added to the Lord.
Then he went to Tarsus to reach for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch for a whole year. They met with the church and taught large numbers. The disciples were also called Christians at Antioch.
In those days, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, named Agabus, stood up and predicted by the Spirit that there would be severe famine throughout the Roman world.
This took place during the reign of Claudius. Each of the disciples, according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brothers and sisters who lived in Judea. They did this, sending it to the elders by means of Barnabas and Saul. Father, we thank you for the reading of your word. We thank you for this day today.
I pray that you'll have your will and way, and all this done in your name we pray. Amen.
You can be seated. Thank you for that reading, Allison. I appreciate that. As you can tell, my voice singing two high songs will definitely throw my voice out a little bit. Maybe a good thing for you. I may preach a little shorter today. Lord knows.
Some of you may want that. I don't know. But we're going to begin talking about when God moves beyond borders. So we looked at last week, those 48 verses and how God's grace knows no boundaries and no one's too far gone for the Lord.
God's Boundaries and Borders
And this week, as we're looking at the 19th installment of Acts chapter 11, we're looking at when God goes beyond the boundaries and borders of what we can see fit sometime. Years ago in South Africa, in the days of the apartheid, a white pastor named Michael Cassidy was holding an evangelistic event.
One night while he was preaching, a man showed up in the back of the tent. He was a black man. He was dirty. He was a drunk. And he was belligerent and causing problems.
Most people assumed that he was there to cause trouble. And some of the staff that was in the event came to him and began asking him to leave and was almost forcing him out. And Michael stopped and he stopped his message and he said to them, let him stay.
This is exactly who we're preaching to. The man stumbled through the sermon as he listened to it.
He heard the gospel. And on that day, he met Jesus and was transformed. Years later, Cassidy was speaking at another event in a distant, far place away.
And while he was speaking, at the end of the event, a sharp-dressed African-American man approached him and said, do you remember me? Cassidy looked at him and shook his head no. The man said, I was the drunk that night when you let me stay. You told them I mattered.
And that night, Jesus changed my life. He said, since that day and forevermore, I have been preaching the gospel to everyone I come in contact with.
I say that story to tell us that we don't ever know who is listening when we're speaking. We never know who God may be calling that's around us that is primed and ready for the gospel to be told to them.
And sometimes it's the people that we least expect and are the furthest away from the gospel and from church that God is reaching.
But the truth is, we wrestle with this every single day of our life. We wrestle with,
is God's grace enough? And are we going to expect God to be able to handle what we've gone through in our life? It always amazes me how God's grace moves in ways that we didn't necessarily expect, but God intended for them to move.
And as we look at this passage of Acts chapter 11, we see the gospel going further than even the disciples in Jerusalem thought.
It shook them that the gospel was going to these Gentile barbarians. It shook them that other people were being changed. And it helps us to remember and to know this one simple statement. The gospel breaks down barriers,
builds up the church, and the gospel ultimately blesses the world. When we understand the power of the gospel and how the gospel goes so much greater than just what we can say and do and act, when we share the life-giving, changing news of the gospel,
it changes the way people live their life. Think about the moment in your time before you knew the gospel, before you knew Jesus. You were living in sin. You were living away from the Lord. And someone told you about the gospel.
It may have been a pastor. It may have been an evangelist. It may have been a clip on social media. It may have been a mom and a dad. And when that moment happened in your life, the world that you knew changed forever.
The static you're hearing is one of our amps, by the way. It may be going out. We're working on that. It's not the mics.
It's just one thing that's going on. And so when we understand this, we understand the gospel is bigger and greater than anything we can imagine. And so I want us to walk through this passage here this morning as we jump into it.
Critics of Salvation
And the first situation that we see is the critics. We see there's suspicion over salvation in verses 1 through 3.
The Jewish believers in Jerusalem had heard what was going on. They heard about these Gentiles that were coming and receiving the word. And like I would be, I would be rejoicing.
I would be excited if a brother, friend of mine called me and said, Hey, Pastor James, man, we're having some great things happening over here. We're seeing young people saved. We're seeing things going on.
We're seeing people that have been away from the Lord come. And some of these stories I was sharing and they were sharing with me this last week. Man, I would be rejoicing.
I would be excited that the Lord was working. But what happens when the Jewish believers heard this? It says that instead of rejoicing, they began to criticize what was going on.
They went to Peter and they said, How dare you eat with these uncircumcised people? How dare you go into their house? How dare you go against the traditions of man?
And all of a sudden, the gospel was breaking down these borders and breaking down the things of life that they thought was near and dear. It would be like this.
It would be like Scotty's been sharing a story about a guy that he's had an opportunity to, his path has crossed recently with tattoos all over his head, upside down crosses.
He knows that he's away from God. He's had a short conversation. It'd be like Scotty coming in next week and saying, Preacher, I talked to this guy. He accepted the Lord. He's ready to get baptized. And we filled the baptism up.
And all of a sudden, we baptized. And people in the church saying, I can't believe we're baptizing that guy with those tattoos and how bad he is and how horrible he is.
And the critics saying, I can't believe that we're actually allowing him in the church house. This is what was happening here.
The Jewish people were saying, I can't believe we're allowing the Gentiles to come into what we're doing and allowing them to come in and see God move in their life. Sometimes when we resist what we don't understand,
especially if it challenges our comfort zone, we resist seeing the Lord work in a mighty way. We resist seeing what God is doing.
Oftentimes, we don't rejoice the way we should when God saves people and when people whose lives are different than us and their lives have been changed for the gospel. That should energize us. The Bible says that when one soul comes to know Christ, all the angels in heaven rejoice. And there's a celebration.
There's a, I like to put it this way, I like to think like this, a party in heaven when one person comes to know Christ.
And if that's happening in heaven, how much more should that happen on earth when this happens in our life and in our arena and where we're at? When we begin to see lives changed and souls changed for the gospel.
The question I want you to ask yourself this morning is, who do you struggle to believe God could really save?
A couple weeks ago, I asked you to write down, I'm going to keep coming back to this, those five names. Those three names that you wrote down that are in your realm of circles, in your realm of people that you're operating in.
Maybe it's a sports person, maybe it's someone who goes to golf with you, maybe it's someone who's at work with you.
Or you see them in a daily path and you know they don't know the Lord. And you have an opportunity to share the gospel with them and begin praying about how you can share the gospel.
Be praying for an opportunity for you to be able to invite them to church.
And when you begin to do that, I promise you the Lord's going to allow opportunities to come in your way for you to share the gospel in a mighty way. And their lives are going to be changed.
They may not accept Jesus, but we're going to be able to plant seeds as me and Roy and Buford were talking about how we're planting seeds in our garden. And we're eventually going to see that crop come forward. The same thing happens when we share the gospel.
We're planting those seeds of the gospel for lives to be changed forevermore.
So we see the critics first, but then we see the defense coming in. God's hand cannot be hindered.
Church, I'm here to tell you that God is more powerful than you and I believe.
Peter's Defense of the Gospel
God does not, it cannot be hindered by us simply just doing things that we don't think is right. I love how Peter doesn't argue from emotion.
He doesn't look at them and say, hey guys, listen, listen, look at what's going on. Look at the emotional things that are going on. He looks at them and he gives them this. He says, there is a clear work of what God's doing. There's a vision.
He begins to recount the vision that he had. He said, the spirit directed me. The spirit led me down to Caesarea.
I went down to these men and God began to work as we looked at last week. And he said, simultaneously when I was having this vision and this was going on, Cornelius in a different region far away from here was having the same thing happen.
And then he said, there's this spiritual encounter that the Gentiles had.
Very similar to what the Jews had on that day of Pentecost.
And he lays out this defense. He lays out this, this almost like a courtroom style experience.
He's standing up and he's given his final retribution of this. And he's saying, listen, this is my final argument. I'm laying out the facts.
And after he's laid out everything in the case, everyone looks at it and says, well, I guess we can't really deny what's going on here. It would be like what we see here in verse 17. He says, who was I that I could stand in the way of God?
Oh man, what a powerful statement. What a powerful thought that who are we to stand in the way of what God is doing? Another way I sort of wrote this down is this wasn't my idea. This was God's idea. I'm just following the Lord.
I'm just following what he's doing. As he leads, I follow. As he directs, I go. As he tells me where to go, that's where I'm going.
And the question I want to ask us is, are we willing to follow where the Lord is leading?
As the Lord directs our paths, as the spirit leads us to do things, even though we don't understand it, even though things come in and we're like, God, are you sure that's what you want me to do? Are you sure this is the direction for me?
A practical example of vulnerable here when we were in Idaho, eight or how long ago? Eight years ago, nine years ago, January of nine years ago. And we're laying there at night.
And I looked over at Allie and I said, Allie, I think the Lord's telling us that it's time to leave Idaho and go back to North Carolina.
This was a step of faith. When I sat down and told my pastor that, this is the question he said, what church are you going to? My response was, there's not a church we're going to. We're just stepping out by faith. It was the scariest moment of my life,
stepping out, not knowing where we were going to go, not knowing what we were going to provide, not knowing what was going to happen. We're just simply trusting that the Lord's hand is going to be at work and we're going to jump in behind it and see what's going on.
Oftentimes we try to control how things happen. I'm a control freak.
I like to know what's going on. I like to control a lot of things. My wife will testify to this and I like to be the fixer. But oftentimes when we follow what God is doing,
we're no longer in control and we're just following the moves of God. God, we're sitting there at the chess board. I don't know chess a lot. Birdie's learning.
He's trying to teach me a little bit and we're sitting behind it and we're not moving the pieces. God is moving the pieces around.
And you look at it and you go, I wouldn't move it there. I wouldn't know where to move it anyways, but I wouldn't move it there. And God says, I know you wouldn't, but I'm putting this piece in this place for a reason. And how often is it that we bucket that?
We say, no, no, God, I'm going to move that piece. I'm going to put it way over here. And then all of a sudden something happens. Something happens that's out of our control. And God says, I told you, this is where you were supposed to go.
And you didn't listen. And this is what Peter is laying out. He's saying, listen, God is in this movement. God is in what's going on. And we cannot stand in the way.
We've got to get behind here so the Lord can continue to work. And then we begin to see the mission in verse 18. This one little verse here lays out such a critical thing because praise begins to be replaced with, replaces prejudice.
Where once they were against the Gentiles, once they were against these, and I keep using this word because this is the word that they would use as Gentiles, barbarians. These were unclean, unwashed.
These were uncircumcised Gentiles that are barbarians in their face. And Jesus, through the gospel, begins to use this. The critics began to be silent.
They had no longer any clever words to sort of come against them. They were undeniable evidences that was going on that, as the Bible says, they were glorifying God even to the Gentiles that gave them repentance.
This is a movement here where the Gentiles begin to see this work of God. And it's almost like I could illustrate it like this. Imagine for a moment you've got a child.
This child, you've held them since they were little babies. You've held them in their arms. And all of a sudden, they begin to grow into a fourth, fifth, sixth grader. They're in middle school. They're in high school. And you still want to treat them like they were that little baby. Right?
You still want to coddle them. You still want to try to control a lot of what they're doing. And then all of a sudden, it's like you blink your eyes. And they're in seventh grade. And they say, Dad, I can handle this myself.
No, you can't. I'm your dad. Man, I've got to do these things. No, no, no. I'm a big boy.
I can handle this. And it's like in that moment as a parent, you just feel hopeless and helpless because they're growing up and they're growing faster than you can imagine. And yet God is still working their life. They're beginning to grow up. And what once seemed hard and they couldn't figure out, now they're figuring it out.
And now they're growing. And now they're learning how to do these things.
And it's proud at one moment when you look at that, but the other moment you're like, I still want to do that for them. I still want to be the hero of the story.
And God tells us as we look through that, that we always don't have to be the heroes.
That God is maturing other people to step up into those places that the mission is going to go forward and that God's will is going to be done if we simply just turn and praise the Lord in a
way that is greater than we can ever see fit. When is the last time you truly praised the Lord for something he's done in your life? Where you sat back and you said, God, I've prayed for this. I've prayed for these things in my life.
And I'm looking back and I see the answers. And God, thank you.
Thank you for doing things not the way that I would see them done, but a greater way that more people came to know you, that more people were changed in the direction because you stepped in and you did something.
When's the last time we truly just sat there in the awe of God and said, God, you are so much greater than me.
I try on my Saturday evenings just to go into the building. Now he's giving Hudson and I try to just go out to the building and just pray and meditate and just focus on what God has done and just, just get away for a moment.
I'll tell the kids, Hey, you can come out. We'll play pool in a little bit, but just give dad 20, 30 minutes just to go and, and meditate on what God's been doing. I'm telling you, church, when we begin to praise the Lord in a, a, just a beautiful picture of just unrestricted praise.
I sort of couldn't think of the word, the unrestricted praise to the Lord and just say, God, you're too good to me. You've given me all these things. You've given me children.
You've given me a wife. You've given me a house and land. You've given me these things. I just want to worship you.
When that begins to work in our lives, we begin to see God work in ways that we never saw possible, which leads us into verses 19 through 21, the, the grace of God.
Oh, I'm so thankful this morning for the grace of God and what he's given me and my family because it was unstoppable and undeniable.
As we look back in our life and we see what the grace of God truly is, the protection he gives us. I pray for that more.
So now as the older I get and I'm on the road a lot, I pray for the protection and the, the grace that God's given us.
And yet in this moment, in the time of this church, in the time that the Gentile church was growing and, and expanding, there was persecution that was going on. People were coming in and literally they were saying, are you a Christian?
And if you said, yes, if you were a believer in Jesus, this, this, this man, that was a prophet from Jerusalem, if you said, yes, they would take you out in the streets and they would stone you. They would crucify you. They would behead you as we're going to look at next week.
These things were happening. And yet the gospel was being spread.
Believers were being scattered, even from Stephen's birth a couple of weeks ago that we looked at. And then when they were being scattered, the gospel was going with them. God was using persecution to spread the church,
some to Gentiles, some to other people. And the Bible says that it was a great number that believed in Jesus because of the persecution that was going on. Oftentimes persecution happens.
Trouble comes in our life and we bucket that. We say, God, I don't like that. I don't want that. And God says, no, no, no. The persecution is there to grow your faith.
The persecution is there to help your faith get stronger and to allow other people to see what's going on in your life. It's like a wildfire that begins to come up to a boundary and all of a sudden it jumps that boundary and continues to go and they can't put it out.
They can't stop what's going on. This is what the gospel is. The gospel and the grace of God always finds a way. The grace of God always will go forward. God's grace knows no boundaries. He knows no boundaries by location, by language, by lineage.
God's grace is so much bigger than we can ever think or imagine. And the question we have to ask ourselves is, are you using the persecution, the suffering that you are having as a platform for God's grace and gospel to be spread? Are you allowing those circumstances to be part of your story?
That's a couple of weeks ago as Ms. Pat talked about her story and about how the suffering, the pain that she went through brought her to the Lord and then allowed her to share that with other people.
Are we allowing that to be a part of our story and allowing that to be a part of what we are telling to other people?
Birth of the Gentile Church
And then in the fifth portion of this scripture, and I'm going to spend the majority of the rest of my time on these next two points, the Gentile church begins to be birthed.
This was a growing gospel community. This community began to grow here and some things started happening.
Some things that I believe as we look through these couple of verses are some marks of a healthy church.
Some marks that tell us this is some things that we should have attributed to our church as we begin to look and say, are we like the Old Testament, like the New Testament believing church here in Acts?
All throughout this chapter and all throughout these chapters that we've looked at has been the goal of mine to say, where are we at? Where is our church at? And this is the Gentile church been birthed.
And we see some metrics that they have that we should say, these are part of our metrics.
The first one is this, they discovered servant leaders. The very first part here, we begin to see that Barnabas is the man that's mentioned. Barnabas in verse 22 is the one that they began to send out. And Barnabas comes and it says that he is a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.
When Barnabas shows up, Barnabas doesn't look at him and say, God, why'd you bring me here? God, why did you bring me to this place, this location? What are you doing here? He looks at him and he rejoices at what he sees. He doesn't try to take control.
This is the beautiful thing about Barnabas here. Barnabas comes in, he rejoices.
He says, I'm just going to jump in with what's going on and I'm going to find people that are going to be servant leaders. God's already working in their life.
God's already doing some great things. Let me find the people that are doing these things and allow them to be the servant leaders of this church. I want to ask ourselves, are we someone this morning that rejoices in what God's doing and steps in and serves when God's doing things?
Are we someone that says, God, I'm willing to do something.
I'm willing to be the person that you need me to be. I know you've given me gifts, talents, and abilities. I know that you've given me specific areas of my life to be able to work in the church. How can you use me?
When the nominating committee begins their process here in the next couple of weeks and months, they're going to be looking for people and they're going to say, hey, would you be willing to serve?
Are you going to be one of those servant leaders that steps up and says, whatever I can do, I want to help.
Devotion to Discipleship
Whatever I can do, help me be the person that God's given me to do to help grow the church that God's given. But not only did they discover servant leaders, they devoted themselves to discipleship. They devoted themselves to this beautiful picture of discipleship.
He says that when Barnabas came, he sought after Saul and he brought Saul in for over a year and began teaching him and intentionally investing in this man named Saul. You see, discipleship takes time. It takes energy. It takes effort. It takes relationships. It takes truth.
It takes a lot of effort when discipleship happens. Right now, I'm discipling about three different guys, going through some counseling. Some are having some marriage problems. Some are having just some struggles in life. And I'm just working on them.
I'm giving them my time. I'm giving them my effort. And I'm trying to work and disciple next leaders and next people in the church.
Question is, are we willing to take that same time and devote ourselves to discipleship? Be like raising a young child. Hudson, he's four years old. He's growing.
It doesn't happen in one day. Hudson doesn't go from drinking milk and pooping in his diaper to the very next day.
He's eating T-bone steaks and he's running around playing with the dog. It doesn't happen overnight.
It's a time and it's a process. If you've ever been a part of potty training a kid, you know it's a process that's going to make you rip your hair out. Because it is something that is deeply discouraging at times.
But it's needed. And we have to see that growth is, it's like this. It's daily depositing truth into other people.
In discipleship, as we begin to invest in other people, it's daily depositing, just like you would in your bank account, about love and joy and truth and encouragement and giving them the tools that they need to grow.
I want to ask you, who are you discipling right now?
Who is it that you're saying, if I were to come to you and say, hey, who are you working on? Who are you dealing with? Who are you meeting on a daily, weekly basis, monthly basis?
You would say, I'm meeting with these couple of people. I'm discipling these people because I want to see them grow. I want to see the Lord use them as they begin to grow. I want to see the Lord begin to work in their life when I'm no longer on the scene.
I want to see the gospel penetrate their heart. Because these churches here were devoted to discipleship. But also, the church here demonstrated patience and grace.
Oh, this is something that when I began studying through this, it was one of those knives to the heart, right? The Lord began working.
It's like they were patient and they were graceful. Are we that patient? Are we that graceful? I don't have a lot of patience. I pray the Lord gives me patience. But oftentimes, we can begin to push out.
We can begin to rush things that happen. And they didn't rush anything here. They were patient.
And it says that when they were patient and grace was abounding in this church, that the first time we get to see this beautiful word Christian comes to light. It says that the term Christian emerges from this community.
It wasn't the community in Jerusalem. I want us to understand that it wasn't the community where Peter and James and John were planting the church in Jerusalem. That was a good church. It was a great church. But it was the Gentile church where we get the term Christians. Why?
Because they were patient and they were graceful.
They reflected the life of Jesus in everything they did.
And when they looked at them, they said, these are these Christ-like people. These are Christians. And that's the only term we could come up with. And all of a sudden, we begin to see these nicknames that come out. The nicknames often reflect character.
And now in the character of this church, they're saying this church so models after Jesus, we're going to call them Christians.
If Peter were coming and Luke were writing this story, as I share so often, would he write to us and say the church in Clingman would be called Christians? Because they so model after Christ.
How are we living our life? How are we living our life when we're around our friends and our neighbors? If you were to be walking through your school and you were to be walking through your classroom and your work, would someone say, yeah, I know they're a Christian because of how they act?
Or would they look at us and say, yeah, Christ is the furthest thing from their mind? And it's a challenging thought for us because people are looking at our actions. People are looking at the way we live our life. And they are determining what they believe about us before they ever meet us.
And it says that when they were looking from the outside into the church, they said, that's a Christian over there. That's someone who loves Christ. That's someone who is demonstrating patience and grace. And church this morning, is that us this morning? Are we demonstrating patience and grace?
And then we see this beautiful thing that happens in the very last couple of verses. We see the generosity that begins to happen. We begin to see themselves giving beyond themselves. We begin to see them doing things that is unheard of in this day.
Generosity and Giving
They said that they heard a prophet, that the famine was coming. The disciples, they were young in their faith. They were Gentile in background.
They had never heard of these giving of alms. It says that the community of Gentile believers began to step up and give to help their Jewish brothers and sisters in Judea. They began to give so much that it says that the church began to go through this famine and it was great.
As I began studying through this and in my life as a Christian, I've been saved for 31 years now. I was a believer at five years old and I'm a numbers guy. I'm a math guy. How many of you love numbers in here? Okay.
How many of you hate numbers in here? You hate math. Okay. More raise their hand for hating math than loving math. I'm a budget guy.
I do the budget for the household. I've learned in my years when I take 100% of my money and I spend 100% of the money on what I think it should be done for, it doesn't go as far.
But somehow when I take 10% of my money away and I give it to God and I take this 90% over here and I try to do what God wants me to do, it goes further than 100% does. I don't understand it. The math doesn't math as the kids say.
When I take 90%, it goes more than the 100% that I took and did for my own things with. But God says when you give to me generously beyond what you can ever think or imagine, I'm going to allow that 90% to go more.
And as I continue to give, as I continue to grow, as I continue to give beyond ourselves,
God continues to bless and continues to work in our lives in ways that we never saw possible in our own 100%. And God's challenging us in here in these last moments.
He's saying, listen, dear church, we must be giving beyond where we're at. We must be giving to others and sending relief and helping others so that we can give beyond ourselves so that God can take that and grow it in a way that is so much greater than what we could do.
You see, they gave not out of excess, not out of what the extra they had, but it says they gave out of love. They gave as a mother and a father who sacrifices their early mornings and late nights for that child.
They sacrifice their sleep. They sacrifice their energy to invest in that young child. The Bible says that's what generosity is.
It's giving when it begins to hurt. It's giving in a way that God says, I'm going to bless them because they're giving so much more than I can ever think or ask or imagine. And God steps in and his generosity is so much greater.
His grace is so much greater than we can ever imagine or think when we begin to step out and say, God, I'm going to give beyond myself. As we think through this and we think how God moves beyond our borders. We think how God has moved in our lives.
I want us to challenge ourselves as Terry comes and plays as we begin our time of invitation. When has the gospel broke down your walls of your life?
When has the gospel come in and shook you in a way that you didn't like it? It shook you in a way that you were like, God, I don't like this, Lord.
I don't like what you're doing right now, but I know the gospel is true and I know that you're faithful and I know you're just. I know your grace is greater than everything I can ever imagine. But what you're doing in my life, I don't really like.
This is what this church was going through. This is what this church in Jerusalem was going through. They were beginning to see the gospel go to the Gentiles and they didn't like it. They wanted to stay where they were at.
And God said, no, I've got bigger plans. I've got greater plans for you.
When was the time where you invited someone who you didn't really even think was going to receive the gospel? When you just began pouring in their life and praying for them and loving on them. And all of a sudden God begins to produce grace-filled generosity in your life.
Because you begin to step out one step at a time.
Saying, God, I don't understand this next step, but I'm going to take it anyway because I know you're directing me. I don't understand what you're doing right now, but I'm just going to keep stepping. I'm going to keep trusting.
I don't even see the platform that I'm going to step on, but Lord, I'm going to take that next step. I'm going to continue moving forward because this is what you've called us to do.
Church, are we going to be a church that steps out by faith? Are we going to be a church that steps out in grace and says, God, I don't matter the cost. I don't care what's going to happen. I don't care what persecution comes my way.
I don't care what happens in my life or my family's health. I'm just going to step out by faith because you are directing my mission to be greater than I can ever imagine.
Training Future Disciples
We're going to train disciples. We're going to train this next generation that's coming up after us to be deacons and leaders and lawyers and police officers and Christian honoring society members who are going to go out and change the world where they're at. Are we willing to give our lives for them?
And are we willing to give God first to say, God, I know you've given me some things.
I know you've given me a lot and I'm just going to give a small portion back to you. Are we willing to take those steps of faith and say, God, no matter the consequences,
no matter the persecution, no matter what the world says about me, I'm just going to step out and I'm going to trust in you for what happens. Let's all stand.
Father, we love you. God, you're so good to us. Your grace is so much greater than we can ever imagine.
Your grace is so much more greater than we can ever think about. And I'm so thankful this morning, God, that you have given us the opportunity to step out by faith. Lord, it's difficult. I know it is.
But I pray, God, that you would help in the service today as we step out by faith this morning, that you would help work in our hearts to show us the areas we need to disciple more, to show
us the areas we need to give more, to show us the areas where we just need to trust you more. Lord, be with us this time of invitation. In your name we pray. Amen.
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