of God's Word to Acts chapter 11, Acts chapter 11. You will find this morning that there is much of the same material in Acts 11, 1 through 18 as what was in Acts 10. If the Spirit of God wrote it twice, we shall preach it twice. Find your place there and we'll be there just briefly in a moment. We'll get there. Unity is only attainable in Christ. I intend to bring out the reality that there are tensions, tensions between people, whether it's racial tensions or some other type of tensions, they exist. So they come out something like this. What do we have? Cowboy church, can't find an Indian church, but we got cowboy churches, we got biker churches, we got contemporary churches, we got traditional churches, we got liturgical churches, black churches, white churches, Mexican churches, we got rich churches, poor churches, we got mega church, and we got rural church. I just wish we could have church, but nevertheless, we've got all these categories. We've got to find our niche where we fit. I just want to fit in the church. But tensions do exist, and they certainly exist between Jews and Gentiles. I'm reminded of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I'm reminded that he went to Nazareth, his hometown, and he went into the synagogue. opens up the scroll and he reads a portion of Isaiah and he says, today this scripture has been fulfilled. Right here before you it's been fulfilled and all the eyes and the attention are turned upon him and they comment on his preaching and they bear witness to what he says and they say that these are gracious or pure words that he has spoken. And then he begins to read their hearts and says, basically, what you're going to say to me is you want me to do a sign, you want me to do this to prove and validate who I am. And so he kind of reads their hearts and then he says this. This is Luke 4 and verse 25. And Jesus says, but in truth I tell you, there were many widows in Israel. There's a lot of Jewish widows in the day. But you see, there's this man named Elijah who's a prophet of God. And God only sent Elijah over here to Zarephath to this Gentile widow. Things just got tense. Jesus is saying that God sent the prophet of God to a Gentile widow, but not to all the Jewish widows. Now the blood's beginning to boil. And then he goes further and he says, and then there was all these lepers in Israel. All these Jewish lepers. But there's this one leper named Naaman. He's the Gentile over here in Syria. You see, Elisha, he was only sent to the Gentile leper. You're in a synagogue with a bunch of Jews and you're telling them that God had mercy on these two Gentiles and did nothing in a sense for the Jewish widow or the Jewish leper, but only for these Gentiles. And the blood begins to boil. You know what they did? They tried to figure out how to murder him. They take him out on the side, on the cliff, and they intend to throw him off and kill him. That's the anger that's mustered up because Jesus had the audacity to say that Gentiles and Jews could come together and be one in Him. You say, yeah, that stuff don't exist anymore. Then why do we have so many different types of churches? in this message today, Jews and Gentiles have equal standing in God's church. In Christ, equal standing. I propose to you this morning that we should give our attention to just building a healthy church. I'm not trying to build a white church, a black church, a rich church, a small church, this mega church, a rural church. I don't know about all these adjectives. I would just like to have a healthy church. where people could gather on Sunday morning, and they could go to a Bible study class, and have a teacher teach the Bible to them. And they could come to a worship service, and they could sing praises that were remotely biblical, and they could give their offerings to God, because he's been so good to them, and a place where they could pray, and they could sit under the preaching of the word of God, and say, wow, what a great God we have. Let's just have a healthy church. And whoever God brings, bring them. And so my purpose in preaching this morning is to exhort you to focus on Christ rather than personal persuasion. Now all that's well and good until we get down to the particulars later. We're all good until it hits home, but we want to say we believe all of that. I'm not sure if we do, but I just hope we do. All right, let's look at the message this morning. Number one is verse one, a powerful revelation. Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. Word got out. The word spread. What did the brothers and the apostles back in Jerusalem hear? Specifically what they heard is Gentiles have received the word of God. Now, to receive in the sense is to take in and to believe and get a hold of. Let me give you a quick example. We're in the building and you get word that there is a fire in the building. Everybody receives the word there's a fire in the building. The people who go out the door are the people who received it. The people who stay didn't receive the word. They didn't believe it. These people here receive it. They believe it. They embrace it. They say, yes, this is the gospel and I believe Christ. I give my life to him. These Gentiles have embraced the truth of the gospel. Now, I don't want to belabor it much, but I do want us to at least consider and understand this word that is spread, and they hear that these Gentiles have received. I just want to remind you, as we go back several thousand years, there's no internet, there are no phones, there are no text messages. Why things pop up in my brain, I don't know. You had on the TV the other day, there are millions of kids without internet. I don't care. I never had an internet, I didn't even know what an internet was. No text messaging, no email, but yet all Judea, all Judea hears. How in the world did they hear? Well, they told somebody who told somebody who told somebody who told somebody who told somebody. It's not complicated, church. We have a gospel. We believe in Christ. Tell somebody, and they tell somebody, and they tell somebody, and the word spreads. That's how it works. We communicate what we believe about Christ with a neighbor. As I said in morning prayer time, I'm not going to go to Mexico and do some type of ministry if I don't know the name of my neighbor who lives next door. It's hypocrisy. So if I can't invest the gospel in him, why in the world should I go tell somebody in Mexico about Christ? We have to share the word, communicate. Oral tradition still works. No excuse for us today not to make Christ known. I would say we should seek to have the reputation of the church of Thessalonica. I know that I referred to them last week and I refer to them again. In verse 8 of Thessalonians it says, for not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere. Dispensers of the gospel message. Every day, normal people just like you, who believe Christ in your heart, got baptized by immersion, who live in a fallen world, you open your mouth and communicate things about Christ. Whether you're 80, whether you're 7, whether you're 16, whether you're 25, it's communication of what's the reality in our heart. Word spreads. If you want it from the Old Testament, maybe we'll take it from Solomon, and he says what? In Ecclesiastes, some chapter and some verse, he says, cast your bread on the waters. See whether or not it'll come back. Do something. Make the gospel known. Yeah. So, the word spreads. That's point number one. It's short. We're moving on. Point number two, that's my transitional statement. We're now moving to number two. Verse two and verse three. Look at the text. Prideful religion. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, so we're back at the home church. The circumcision party, Jews, criticize him. And they say, you went to uncircumcised men and you ate with them. How dare you? Now, I didn't do this before in Acts 10. We're going to do it now because I want you to understand just how tense the situation is. Now, you can quibble with me if you like about dates. That's fine. I'm not going to lose my hair about dates. I'm making the assumption that Peter goes back to Jerusalem in the year A.D. 39 to A.D. 41. It's close. If you want to quibble, that's fine. I'm not going to fight for you long about it. I think it's in that era. Why is that important? Just hang on, it's going to make really good sense in a moment. But during that time, there's a guy, I'll give you his full name, Gaius Caesar Augustus Hermannicus. He ruled in that time. Roman emperor. His nickname is Caligula. Caligula means little boot. I have no idea why that's his nickname. But the man's insane. And he caused a lot of havoc, a lot of turmoil, a lot of death. And he thought that he was a god. So get in your mind a Roman emperor, and he thinks he's a god. And he has this meeting with some Jews. They have this conflict with these Jews, and the Jews are trying to explain why there is no statue in Egypt, why there's no statue of him over here. And he gets mad at them, and he says, I'm going to take my statue, and I'm going to have it erected in the temple of Jerusalem. Pretty bold, I'm going to come and we're going to put my statue in your Jerusalem temple. Well, he says, how's he going to pull this off? So he hires this guy, Plenteus, and so he's going to have him, this governor of Syria, he's going to take all of these troops and he's going to go down there and he's going to take his statue and he's going to put it up in Jerusalem, right, in their own synagogue, right? And so here goes Plenteus and he's going down there and Caesar tells him, look, You go down there and you do this, and if they let you, fine. If they don't, force your way in and make it happen. So there they go, going down there to set up the statue, and when they get down there, they're met with like 10,000 plus Jews that say, hey dude, this is a bad idea. We're going to beat you up and send you back home, so you probably ought not do this. Well then Plenteous contacts back over to Caesar and he says, could you rescind the order because this thing's going bad, right? So there's all this tension and then lo and behold what happens? Well, I mean Caesar's walking down the hall and there's tight spaces there and they assassinate him and he's dead. There's a lot of tension here and his statue doesn't get set up. You say, why in the world are you telling me all this? Okay, you're a Jew and you're in Jerusalem. You know all this story, you know all this happening, and now your leading apostle is over here in Joppa, and who comes to get him? Two dudes from back east, my wife knows, two dudes from back east, and a Roman soldier. You went with a Roman soldier? And you went back over here to this man's house, Acts 10 verse 1, who is a centurion of the Italian cohort. I mean, he commands Roman soldiers, like a hundred under him, and this is a Roman Gentile environment. And you went over there, these people whose leader wanted to set their statue up in our synagogue, and you sat down in their house and ate with them. What were you thinking? Are you getting it yet? Let me help you more. Can you imagine that the Democratic Party, you want to switch? I don't care. I ain't fighting over either one. You want to imagine the Romans? Hello. You want to imagine the, who's the other party? Republicans. Starts with an R. And they come and they want to set up a statue of their candidate in, by the word, Baptist Church. So you're going to put up a statue of Kamala. They're going to put up a statue of Donald Trump in your church, right? And they want us to bow down and kiss them when we come in and give tributes to the statue. Anybody mad yet? Getting worked up? You ain't bringing that statue in here. And then you hear that your leading elder is up there in Washington, and he's at the dinner table with Kamala Harris, and he's sitting around with all the Democrat party that's around her, and your pastor is offering them grace. and asking them to repent and believe upon Christ. And he comes back and he says, Kamala Harris has been raised from the dead, forgiven of her sins, and she's a full member of the church. Have a business meeting, fire the preacher. Right? Not only is she Democrat, she's black. Right? You can say what you want, it'd be a problem. gets tense that's what's going on here when you read that little verse they criticized him that's what's happening it's that intense for them but here's Peter he's in an odd position with that type of anger that both look I've seen tension like this you you haven't seen it I remember when there was that much tension with everybody going to kill me because I wouldn't let Freemasons join the church They lost their mind trying to vote me out of the church. You can't take a position. People get mad. These people are mad. But what is Peter supposed to do? God showed him. Criticize, firm opposition against Peter because of what he's done. So I'd say you'd hear a pin drop in that room that day in Jerusalem. Let's take it from a different angle. Like a friend of mine went to school with John O. Sims and Paul Washer. They went to seminary at the same time. He's a member of a church. And this brother had a passion and a love for the gospel and evangelism. And you know what he did? He went out in the Fort Worth area and he started preaching the gospel to homeless people. He started feeding homeless people. And you know what his church did? They said, man, that's great. God bless you, brother. Here's 20 bucks. Here's 10 bucks. Here's $30. And God bless you for your work. You're doing a great work. We're so proud of you. That's what happened. Until that one day. What day? The day he got a bus and he put all the homeless people on the bus and he brought them to church. That ain't working. You take your bus and all your homeless people and go find your own building because we can't have homeless people in here with the white middle class people because that won't work. Or you want my other friend? You know, when they try to start reaching the Spanish congregation around them, the area starts turning into Mexicanville, and so we've got to reach these people, and they start reaching them, and that one little day, when little Johnny marks on the wall with his crayon, and they go, oh, little Johnny, he's always doing something goofy. But the day that one used the same crayon to mark on the wall, those people got to go. These are the type of tensions. This is what's going on here. That's why I think Luke, who uses short stories, takes a chapter and a half to tell this two or three times because this issue is very real. My challenge to you in those tensions is what? that you build gospel relationships with people you normally would not associate with, whatever or whoever they may be. They could be co-workers. They could be your next door neighbors. They could be people that you do hobbies with, some other activity you're involved in. You would sit with and invest in people not like you. Would you do that? At the beginning of the sermon, you believe. You say, yeah, we're all one in Christ. Great. Do you believe it? Will you, this week, intentionally go out of your comfort zone to spend more than 30 seconds with somebody not like you? It could be a different color, a different type of pay income, a different type of intelligence, a different type of hobby, would you invest in someone that you have nothing in common with except to say, these are the things about Christ? Would you do that? Would you go outside in some fashion like that and believe the gospel that those people would actually be these people if they believed in Christ? Then we get to 4 through 18, and here's Peter's reason after the fires burn and people yell. I think verse 3 is extremely too short, and I think there's a whole lot of other things that happened. That's just my opinion, but when people get mad, and they get mad over racial issues, there's a whole lot of things come out of people's mouths. There's a whole lot of stuff come out of some mouths there. And so Peter now, with all this pressure and with all this backlash, he has to give an answer. And so he does. I'm going to read the text. I'm not preaching every verse or anything, but it is a recounting of the story. But just read through it, and we'll make some observations. But Peter began, and he explained it to them, and he did so in order. Here's how it happened. I was in the city of Joppa praying. I was in a trance. The whole world faded out, just me and God. I saw a vision, something like a great sheep descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners. It came down to me. Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts and prey, reptiles and birds of the air. I heard a voice saying to me, rise, feed or kill and eat. But I said, by no means, Lord, for nothing common or unclean has ever entered into 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 my 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. 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." Just for a note, let's throw this in for the Presbyterians. Everybody in his house was 18 years old. Well, the Presbyterians say that they baptize babies here. I got just as much proof that they were 18, so anyways. Moving on, verse 15. As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. 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, who was I? Who am I? to stand in God's way. When they heard these things, they fell silent. They glorified God, saying, then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life. The precise reason why Gentiles and Jews ought to be gathered into unity in one church, and we'll just call it church, this is the reason, and I'm doing very, very briefly. Peter's answer is thorough, it's logical, and it's God-honoring. Number one is, verses 4 through 10, it's very clear. I'm an apostle and God gave me a vision. This is where I was. He showed me this sheet. He showed me these animals. He explained to me what was going on there. I understood. The sheet came down from heaven. It went back up. This happened three times. The vision is from heaven. It came down to me. It went back up to heaven. This is a divinely orchestrated event. He explains to them that he heard this voice. He had this voice from heaven, what God has made clean, do not call common. What am I supposed to do here? When God speaks, I'm bound. What he showed me is this, that whomever God saves through his Son is clean. Well, at least receive that word in the sermon this morning. You receive Christ by faith, you're clean. You're washed. You're white as snow. You receive the righteousness of Christ. Whatever color, whatever background, whatever, if you had a dad, you had a mom, you was raised as an orphan, whatever your life was, if you're in Christ, you have been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. Whomever God saves is no longer common. I'm not common. I'm not run-of-the-mill. I am one of the elect of God. I am a saint. I've been redeemed by grace. When I die, I'm going home to glory because He saved me. It changed me. I'm special. My last name's not Ed. I'm special. Why? Because God's favor, not you, Ed. God's favor has been bestowed upon you. So they had a vision, but he also had a voice. Verses seven through nine, verse 11, he says this is what happened. The voice said, rise, Peter, kill and eat. The voice said, whom God made clean, do not call common. Then, after he says voice twice, then he says, the spirit said. Voice, voice, spirit in verse 12. The spirit said, Go with them. Why did you go with a Roman soldier? Because the third person of the Godhead told me to go, and I'm not arguing with him. God told me to go, and he told me this, do not make a distinction. Now here, this is interesting. Don't make a distinction, see it there in verse 12, the last word of verse 12, no, the last of that first sentence, no distinction. That word is the exact same word as in verse two as translated criticize. So it's a word that can mean to criticize, but it's also a word that can mean to make no difference, make no distinction, make no difference between things. Embrace the Roman soldier, embrace the Italian cohort, go to this house and act with them just like you act with your Jewish brothers. The same way. When you eat amongst those like you, You get around your table, you're in your setting, and everybody's like you, and they're all your friends, and you're laughing, you're talking about this, you talk about that, and you encourage one another, have a good time, slap each other on the back. You're like, man, I love hanging out with these people. Just like that, then act that same way with these people that are the opposite of you. Like they're created in the image of God or something, and they have a soul, and that in Christ we're one, and treat them the same way. We have that same attitude. That's what the Spirit tells Peter to do. I note that the law, and Peter knows the law well, so do these Jews, in order to establish the truth, what do you need? You've got to have three witnesses. Peter says, I've got six. And six Jews with me, they helped baptize these people. So I've got six witnesses of what happened when we preached the gospel to the Gentiles. So this is solidifying his position. Then there's the victory in verses 13 through 16. Peter entered the man's house. He goes into Cornelius' house. And the man told Peter and the brothers what the angel had to say. This is what the angel told us. He told me to go send to Joppa and to bring you here. And this is what the angel said. Peter's going to come and he's going to speak words. Peter's going to come to your house and he's going to say something, but there's something in this. The ESV says declare, the Greek says speak words. He's going to speak some words, and what's going to happen when he speaks these words? It's going to produce salvation. for him and all of his household. What a great encouragement. I'm going to go to my neighbor's house, and I'm going to speak some words. I'm going to go to my co-worker, and I'm going to speak some words. I'm going to go to my friend over here that we do this hobby together, and we fish together, and we get in the boat. I'm going to speak some words. And rather than spend all my time talking about the weather, and college football, and college basketball, and the NFL, and whatever else you want to talk about, I'm going to speak some words about Christ. And I believe that as I speak about Christ, that the Spirit of God will work through the words of God to raise somebody from the dead and they can have full inclusion in the local church and worship Christ for all of eternity. Peter recounts how the miracle took place, and I note again, I know I said it last week, but the Holy Spirit says it twice, I'm saying it twice, it's in all caps in my notes, and so I'll say it one more time. The Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us. American middle class people of, by the word, Baptist church, you are not on a different level because you're white middle class. The Spirit of God, if the Spirit of God saves a homeless person or a person in the ivory tower, it makes them equal and standing with you. Vice versa, however you want to switch those scenarios around, the unity is in Christ no matter what your skin color, no matter what your bank account, no matter what it is that you're a part of, in Christ is absolute unity. Get over it. Let it sink in. If you want to imagine that there's going to be different colors in heaven, if you will, there's going to be black people in heaven. It's not going to be like when Dr. Moodley, our priest here that day, and somebody told me, I listened because I was interested, but he's no more than the beast of the field. Not that. It's not that. In heaven, there's going to be a variety of colors and a variety of languages, but they're all going to be so unified, and there's going to be no sin, and there's going to be perfect harmony in Christ for all of eternity. It's not going to be heaven for white people, and then heaven for the cowboy church, and heaven for the Indian church, and heaven for the Mexican church, and heaven for the black church. That doesn't exist. That's what these chapters are about. There's one church with one Savior, and we're in Him unified. And Peter remembers. He says those things, but he also remembers. What does he remember? He remembers these words from Mark 1.8. I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. It's said early on in the Gospels. And then Jesus took that thought, and this is what Jesus said in John 14, verse 26. Jesus said this, But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he's going to teach you all things, and he's going to bring to remembrance all that I said to you. Think, a baptism of the Holy Spirit, preached to the Gentiles, the Spirit falls, there's a manifestation of signs, it's evident that they've received the Spirit of God, and now the Spirit in Peter is saying, remember Jesus told you, Remember he said, this is what's going to happen. And he's like, he's seeing it, he's experiencing it, he's embracing it, and his entire Jewish historical framework is being shattered in the light of the power of the gospel. Peter experiences great victory. He sees the outside of the commonwealth of Israel come to full salvation by means of the gospel. He sees those who are dead in sin come to full forgiveness and receive eternal life. In verses 17 and 18 we get, lastly, a verification. If you were keeping up with V's, I mean I had so many V's I got lost. There's a vision, there's a voice, there's a victory, and now there's a verification. And these are the last two verses. And if you look there in verse 17, if then God gave the, and you'll notice in the ESV, same, gave the same gift. God gave the same gift to the Gentiles as he gave to us. This is a little four-letter Greek word, isos. It means the same, equal. And so let me give you a context for that. Again, the parable, you remember the parable of the laborers. These people start early in the morning, these people start later in the day, and then these slackers come like at the end of the day and they'll have to work one hour. You remember that story? And then it comes time for pay, and they take the guys that work one hour and he pays them. And then the guys that worked all day saw what they were paid and they're like, man, we're going to get a lot, right? And then they find out they just get paid what they were promised. That's why, because he says, you have made them equal with us. How dare the thief on the cross get to go to heaven? He didn't have to do all that I had to do. He didn't have to work as long as I had to work. He's a Christian for like two seconds. It's not fair. The gospel makes us equal. Yeah, but I did it. Look, forget the I. Christ, by the gospel, erases and makes one new, and if he does it on the cross, or right before you die, or when you're seven and you've got to live to 120, walking a narrow road of suffering, it's not your call. We're equal in Christ. Why do I have to go through so much? Hey, Calvary don't have to go through nothing. Look, we're equal in Christ. Whatever he wants for that guy, that's that guy. Whatever he wants for you, that's for you. But equal in our position in Christ. By the way, Jesus uses the same word, does he not? He accused of breaking the Sabbath. He was even calling God his own father in John 5, 18, making himself equal with God. All right. The gift given to the Jews was the Holy Spirit. Peter's question here in this text put the Jews in a position of having to deal with the reality that what's going on here is orchestrated and accomplished by God. You don't like homeless people getting saved. You don't like black people getting saved. You don't like rednecks getting saved. You don't like rich people getting saved. You don't like Democrats getting saved. You don't like Republicans getting saved. Here's your problem. God's saving them. You're going to have to take your issue to God and say, God, you've got no right to save Republicans. You've got no right to save liberals. That's what Peter does, he puts it in this position, is God has orchestrated this. Peter simply could not stand in God's way. You see it there in the text. At the end of verse 17, who is I that I should stand in God's way? I know you don't know, but it's my job to point things out like this to you. There's a common word used all the time for the word stand in the Greek language. He doesn't use that word here. It's a different Greek word for stand. This word means to keep something from happening, hinder something, forbid something. Who am I to forbid God from doing something? Who am I to stand in God's way and say, God, you can't work in this country. God, you can't work with these people on this side of the tracks. God, you surely can't work over there. Those people live in mobile homes. You can't do that. Right? We don't want no trailer trash in here. We do stuff like that. Who are we to say God can't do this? That's what Peter says. It's the word, they use it in Luke 9, 49, when the disciples tried to hinder those who were casting out demons in the Lord's name. It says, we tried to stop him. Or as Jesus told his disciples, let the little children come unto me, don't hinder them. That's the word. Who am I to hinder or try to thwart God? Now, Peter's main points of the day. Wrap it all together. Push it all together. We're almost done. Here's what. The criticizing happens. Gentiles are supposed to come in and be equal members. We're all one in Christ. Everybody agrees. We say amen. Peter gives his thing and he says, I saw a vision. I heard a voice. I have six witnesses to testify. The angel told me to speak and people would be saved and it happened. Observable signs of the Holy Spirit came upon them just like upon us. How in the world could I stand in God's way? This is God's deal and God is making a church. It's unified in Christ. Now, these ones that were criticizing in the synagogue. First response, silence. What are you going to say? If I open my mouth, I might be shown to be fighting with God, so the first response is good, silence. Second response, glorify God. God's great. God can save anybody. He can even save me. That's a good response. Last response, we agree. Peter, you're right, we agree with you. Gentiles, they receive the Spirit and we're one in Christ. It's a good word, right? Repentance, the Gentiles, God has granted repentance that leads to life. Praise God. How long does it take to get from Acts 11 to Acts 15? About 10 years. And so we're not going to put this in writing, and we're not going to have counsel and meet about it, and we're not going to put it as a position of our church for 10 years before we say, okay, if they do this, this, and this, then they are one with us. You confessed you agreed and you waited 10 years to do something with it? Is that not so like us? We come into church, amen, amen, amen. Yeah, that's true, that's true. And it's 10 years before you actually receive it? It took a long time for them to finally embrace a different culture, different people. It took a long time to work through that. I just encourage this morning that as you hear a text, as you believe a text, if you really believe it, don't wait 10 years to act on it. Like if I said something like this, it's right for you to spread the word about Jesus. Amen. Okay, is it amen? Or will it be 10 years before you actually go over to your neighbor's house with the sole intent of talking to them about Christ? Spread the word, pastor. I love how you preach. You're so evangelistic. That's not the issue. We, as Christian people, spread the word. How do I make an inroad to my neighbor? A new neighbor moving in. What do you do? Drive across the street. What's your name? What's my name? You begin, you do something. Spread the word. What do you do at work? Are you going to wait 10 years before you talk to your co-worker and tell them that you go to By the Word Baptist Church and you'd love for them to come because if they come they can hear about Christ? You're going to wait 10 years before you put it down in writing and say, yeah, I'm finally going to do something? How long, I'm not talking about Mary, but how long have you been going to your beautician and you've never even talked about Christ? You're going to get your hair cut until it falls out like John Speed's before you tell them about Jesus? But in church, amen. Spread the word. Amen, everybody ought to come. But if so and so come in the room, would you embrace? Would you welcome? Would you receive? Would you treat them like you treat the people you like? God's shown in His Word the gospel is for every nation, tongue, and tribe, and people. God's spoken this in His Word. The angels stooped down to watch this happen. The Spirit of God is working in all manner of people. Who are we? By the word Baptist Church, who are we? to stand in the way of what God is doing. In conclusion, the author of Acts, Luke, is usually brief in his accounts. A lot of accounts are very short snapshots. but he usually just gives a couple of highlights and moves on. But when it comes to this issue, you do have to notice it takes him a chapter and a half to say it, and he says it three times. There's a lot of ink spilt on this section that Jews and Gentiles are to be one. We must understand this section is extremely important. If the Gentiles are not received into the church, Then you go back to Acts 1 and what the Lord commanded them to do and for the gospel to spread out would never happen. If that doesn't happen, guess what? There's no church in Briar. There's no Gentiles in the kingdom. The plan of God to take the gospel around the world is thwarted. It's a very serious issue. I'm glad that they took this much time to say it in order that the gospel would spread. In Acts 1.8, I remind you of what it says. Jesus said this, you will receive power when, when? When are we going to receive power? When the Holy Spirit has come upon you. I like that part. I want the Holy Spirit to come upon me. I want this spiritual power. Praise the Lord. And you will be my witnesses. Witnesses verbally testifies to something. Where are we going to do that at? Next door. in Jerusalem, right here where we live, with the people that we eat with and fellowship with and work with. We're going to share Christ right here in Jerusalem. And then Philip's going to go to Samaria, and then Peter's going to go to Caesarea, and it's just going to keep on going to Judea and Samaria. You know what? It's going to go all the way to the end of the earth. The end of the earth? Where's that? I think it's in Tabasca with Juan Carlos. Every tribe, every language, every people, every nation, the end of the earth is your neighbor. That's the end of the earth. Your co-worker, your friends, your son, your daughter, your grandchild, that's the end of the earth. The end of the earth is you. It's you. I want the gospel to come all the way to you, to me. That's the end of the earth. Just keep taking it as long as people are there. Today under the preaching of the gospel, you can repent of your sins and believe upon Christ for salvation. Those who demonstrate repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, will be received into full membership to His church for His glory and for your good. And it will be evidenced and made known by your baptism and immersion in these waters as a testimony that you have believed Christ. And dear beloved members of By the Word Baptist Church, spread the gospel far and wide. Make no distinction, show no favoritism, invite the world to repent and believe. Brother Jeff, you come, we'll sing together.