### Quotes for Outreach

1. "We are a church that does not exist for Christians. You're reached, and the deeper that you go with Jesus, it necessarily, according to the Bible, means that you will be engaged in mission. It is an oxymoron to say, I am close with Jesus, I love Jesus, but I don't care about lost people. I love the Bible, I love to worship, but I don't know my neighbor's name. I love Jesus, he's so great for me, but I don't know their story. The more that you get close to Jesus, it will theologically move you to care about the things that move Jesus's heart." [01:08:25](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip | Download vertical captioned clip)



2. "Ask God to help you see people the way he sees them. Now, I'll try not to mention the name, like where I live or the name of the store, all right? But I went to the store about a year and a half ago and there's this guy that was just, theologically, what would I say? He was a turd. He was unkind. He treated me as less than. It's amazing in service-oriented industries how people just don't care anymore. It's just amazing. And so he was just really unkind. And I very rarely do this, but I was feeling a little chafed, so I decided to do this. I called the store. You're like, man, don't cross Pastor Nate. I know how you are too. Don't cross you." [01:04:07](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip | Download vertical captioned clip)



3. "You know how people get saved? You gotta tell them about the good news. Parents, step parents, grandparents, you gotta tell your kids and your grandkids about the good news. Friends, you gotta tell your friends about the good news. Aunts, uncles, you gotta tell your nieces and nephews about the good news. We gotta speak the good news of Jesus. That's how people get saved. And from here, the gospel just expands in just a rapid fire." [01:01:33](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip | Download vertical captioned clip)



4. "God's family is bigger than we think. So red, yellow, black, and white, every color, shape, and size is made precious and is precious in God's sight and Jesus's sight. Let's be a church that embraces that song that many of us learned a long time ago and we embrace it by actually with our feet and with our lips. God's family is bigger than we think. Good ain't good enough. God calls us to have a change in attitude. And as believers in Christ, we share the good news of Jesus." [01:09:36](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip | Download vertical captioned clip)



### Quotes for Members

1. "Good ain't good enough. You can never be good enough. You can never accumulate enough meritorious actions or achievements. You can never be nice enough. You can be never loving enough. You cannot be religious enough to actually assuage the guilt that you have. You can't get rid of the guilt. A lot of you try. You try doing the right thing. You try to be moral. You try to be religious. You try to be a little more committed. The only thing that takes away the stain and the punishment that sin has brought to every man, woman, boy, or girl who's ever lived or who will ever live is the blood of Christ." [48:30](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip | Download vertical captioned clip)



2. "God's family is bigger than you think. Here in Acts chapter 10, we see Peter's worldview, his world collides with this reality that all the way back in Genesis chapter 12, in fact, Genesis chapter three, where he says it to Abraham in the Abrahamic covenant in BC 1440, Abraham, I'm gonna make your descendants as numerous as the stars of the sand of the, there's gonna be millions and millions and millions and hundreds of millions of people that are gonna follow in your lineage, your spiritual lineage, as you understand that there's this covenant that I'm making with you, then you have this Davidic covenant where God says there's never gonna be somebody on the throne from everlasting to everlasting and all these covenants find their fulfillment in the person and the work of Jesus." [41:45](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip | Download vertical captioned clip)



3. "We must speak about the good news. Peter opens his mouth, a colloquial phrase, where he's about to say something really important and he begins to share the gospel. Here's some of the details that he shares. Jesus is Lord of all and came as the Father's provision. He did many miracles, attesting to the fact that he, Jesus, was the Son of God. He was actually crucified, reality, not myth. God raised him from the dead and Christians are called to go tell people about this truth." [58:20](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip | Download vertical captioned clip)



4. "God's calling Peter to have a change in attitude. God's family is bigger than we think. It includes people of every tribe, tongue, people, group, and nation. Ethne. Ethnicity. And so, God's trying to teach Peter, listen, do not call unclean what I call clean. What is Jesus doing? In that very moment, he's kind of saying, all those ceremonial laws that kept Jews away from Gentiles, I'm breaking it down. It no longer exists. But also, I want you to understand that if those rules were still in existence, you wouldn't be able to associate and interact and engage with Gentiles. So, I'm breaking it down because I have a missionary heart. I need you to change your attitude." [53:20](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip | Download vertical captioned clip)



5. "Good ain't good enough in verses one through eight. You have Cornelius who lives in a place called Caesarea. Caesarea was built by Herod the Great. He had his amazing palace. There was a significant concentration of the Roman military. It was a very prominent, prestigious city. And Cornelius is there. He is a God-fearer, meaning that he actually adheres and worships and obeys a lot of the Jewish customs and laws. His character in verse two and verse 28, verse 22 of the Bible says that he's devout. He feared God. He reverenced God. He was generous with his money. He prayed continually. He was a righteous man. And he was well thought of by outsiders." [44:42](Download raw clip | Download cropped clip | Download vertical captioned clip)

Hey, why don't we pray real quickly as we continue to worship.

Father, I pray that as we have worshiped you in singing, we've been worshiping you as we have given what you have graciously given to us. We're even now worshiping you as we're talking to you and you're listening to us. I pray that we would worship you as we sit under the word. Not over top of it, not in judgment of it, but that we would sit under the word and that, Holy Spirit, you would give us soft, teachable, receptive hearts. We pray this with expectation in the powerful name of Jesus, our King, Savior, Friend who laid down his life. Amen, amen.

Hey, my name is Nate and I serve here as a husband, as a dad, and one of the pastors. Good to be with you. Thank you for being with us. I pray that you are encouraged and warmly received. As I regularly say, if you're a guest or this is maybe your fifth time and I've not met you, thanks for being with us. If you're a regular attender, remember this is what we do as we come together and remind ourselves that we've been bought by the blood of Christ and we recalibrate our lives to live for him.

The big idea this morning is that God's family is bigger than you think. God's family is bigger than you think. We'll stand to read Acts chapter 10, part of that passage here in just a moment, but there was a song several years ago by a country music artist named Brad Paisley. He wrote a book called "Welcome to the Future" and the song is talking about all the different technological advances that are a reality now that weren't back in the day, as well as the way that life is supposed to be given some moral landscape of where our country was and some things that we have in our life.

Now, he talks about how back in the day he had to go down to the local arcade to play Pac-Man, but you can put it on your phone. Some of you don't know what that means because you're really young. God bless you. I remember when my dad retired from the Air Force and we were in the military. We moved to Louisville. He retired from the Air Force and took a job as a UPS pilot. I had my permit and I got to drive through Montana, which at that time there was no speed limit. I was going 100 miles per hour in my dad's '91 Ford Explorer, which is probably a very unwise decision.

Nevertheless, when I wasn't driving, I was in the back and I was watching. We had this little TV that we plugged into the cigarette lighter and we put in VHS tapes like "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Power and a Hard Shell, Turtle Power." And so there were things back then—it's amazing the technological advancements that we have. He talked about how his grandfather wrote his grandmother 100 letters when he was in World War II at his base in the Philippines, and now he can pick up the phone and have a video chat with people in Tokyo.

There's amazing things that technology has afforded us and he says in the lyrics, "Welcome to the future. Welcome to the future." And then in part, the latter part of the song, he talks about what was our moral landscape in this country several decades ago. I mean, just tangible, palpable racism, segregation. Sometimes we have such short-term memories and we should be grateful for where our country is. I mean, there are some really horrific things that have taken place, that were taking place.

You say, well, that was a long time ago. Just about 30 years ago, my dad was a squadron commander, like I said, in the Air Force and he had a guy named Colonel Rice that was in the 96th Screaming Eagle Squadron there at Fairchild Air Force Base. That was a long time ago, Southeast Washington State. And he told my dad, he goes, "I never go across the state line into Idaho at nighttime." My dad's like, "Do you not like Idaho? Are you got something against potatoes? Like, why do you not do that?" He goes, "No, there's a strong concentration of skinheads." And Colonel Rice was a black man, still is a black man. And he goes, "I don't ever do that because there had been a regular occurrence of racial violence."

And there were people then, and people now, that say, "Hey, this is what it means to be part of the family and you're not gonna be part of it because of the way that you look, because of your culture, because of your language, because of your social mores." And one of the things that we need to be mindful of as Christians, and we've not always done the best job in terms of history. Our historical record at times can be horrific. One of the things that we need to understand is God's family is bigger than what we think.

God's family is bigger than what we think. Here in Acts chapter 10, just like Colonel Rice and the conversation he had with my dad, there were racist tendencies in the country, still are today. Even in Acts chapter 10, there's a little bit of prejudice, racist tendencies in the heart of Peter. You say, the apostle Peter? Yeah, Peter was a little dense. You ever read the gospels and think, "I love Peter?" You ever, I mean, anybody like solidarity with Peter? I mean, Peter is dense. Here's the reason why you probably like Peter. Because you're a lot like him. And so am I.

I mean, do you ever find yourself, you know, getting irritated with people who are just sluggish to embrace and believe some of the things of God? You ever get irritated with people like that? The reason probably why you get so irritated is because God's using them to expose what's going on in your own heart, right? And so God's family is bigger than you think. Here in Acts chapter 10, we see Peter's worldview, his world collides with this reality that all the way back in Genesis chapter 12, in fact, Genesis chapter 3, where he says it to Abraham in the Abrahamic covenant in BC 1440, "Abraham, I'm gonna make your descendants as numerous as the stars of the sand of the sea."

There's gonna be millions and millions and millions and hundreds of millions of people that are gonna follow in your lineage, your spiritual lineage, as you understand that there's this covenant that I'm making with you. Then you have this Davidic covenant where God says there's never gonna be somebody on the throne from everlasting to everlasting and all these covenants find their fulfillment in the person and the work of Jesus. All the promises God find their yes in the person of Christ.

So it's always been God's design because he has a missionary heart, that people from every tribe, tongue, people group and nation, ethnicity would come to faith in his son, Jesus. And what we see in Acts chapter 10 is God's family is bigger than you think. Let's stand to read Acts chapter 10, verses 34 through 43. Here's what the word says. And if you're new, we read this out loud together and I try to read slow and sometimes I interject a sermon within us reading, but I'll try not to do that this morning. All right, let's read this together.

So Peter opened his mouth and said, "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all. You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did, both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people, but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."

This is God's word, his voice, written down for you and for me. And we said together, thanks be to God. All right, you may be seated.

God's family is bigger than you think. That's the big idea, the main point that I want you to walk away from graciously on this morning, whether you're in the room or online, we're grateful that you are here. But there are three kind of sub points that we see in verses 1 through 48.

And the first is this: good ain't good enough. Good ain't good enough in verses 1 through 8. You have Cornelius who lives in a place called Caesarea. Caesarea was built by Herod the Great. He had his amazing palace. There was a significant concentration of the Roman military. It was a very prominent, prestigious city. And Cornelius is there. He is a God-fearer, meaning that he actually adheres and worships and obeys a lot of the Jewish customs and laws. His character in verse 2 and verse 28, verse 22 of the Bible says that he's devout. He feared God. He reverenced God. He was generous with his money. He prayed continually. He was a righteous man. And he was well thought of by outsiders. He was militarily probably the equivalent of a captain in today's military. He oversaw about 100 people in his regiment.

And yet, as we're thinking about the big idea that God's family is bigger than you think, and the sub point good ain't good enough, there is something deficient in Cornelius' life. So I want you to think externally that he's a guy that you would aspire to be like. You want Cornelius as a neighbor. He's generous with his money. He's not miserly. He helped build the synagogue. He's worshiping God. He prays continually. If anybody is gonna go to heaven, if anybody's okay, it's him. He looks the part, acts the part, believes the part. But there is something internally that was deficient.

So we gotta let our theology inform our perspective of people. Inwardly, he was a sinner that needed to be saved, that needed to be forgiven. If you noticed, there was a guy here playing the drums. His name was Emmanuel. He is a student over at Boyce Bible College in Southern Seminary. He's from India. He's helping serve here. He's an incredibly godly individual. He's incredibly humble and just kindhearted, almost to the point that it's annoying. And I said to Pastor Ryan, I am not sure that Emmanuel has a sinful nature. Like he's just so kind and so godly. He said, "Pastor Ryan," I said, "Hey, don't say that from the pulpit." I said, "No problem, I won't say that."

But listen, you gotta let your theology inform your perspective. You don't look at the outward appearance of people because there's some people in your life that are more moral than you are. There are some people that are better neighbors than you are. There are some people who are more gracious and kind. Now, as believers, we know that we're saved by the blood of Christ, and we should, Colossians 3, verse 23, and a myriad of other verses, we should in word and deed do all things unto the glory of Christ, that we should make known the character and the personhood of God with our life. Your lives matter. We have said that so many times. We wanna remind ourselves that what you do matters.

But this passage is a clarion call that actually good ain't good enough. You can never be good enough. You can never accumulate enough meritorious actions or achievements. You can never be nice enough. You can never be loving enough. You cannot be religious enough to actually assuage the guilt that you have. You can't get rid of the guilt. A lot of you try. You try doing the right thing. You try to be moral. You try to be religious. You try to be a little more committed. The only thing that takes away the stain and the punishment that sin has brought to every man, woman, boy, or girl who's ever lived or who will ever live is the blood of Christ. So good ain't good enough.

So let your theology inform your perspective, all right? Peter says in Acts chapter four, verse 12, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men, women, boys, and girls by which they must be saved." Good ain't good enough.

Secondly, God calls us to have a change in attitude. God calls us to have a change in attitude. The word that's used in the latter part, the beginning part of chapter 10 for Peter, who goes up on the rooftop, he's hungry, he's going up there to pray, and he has a trance. The word that's used for Peter's vision is different than the word that's used for Cornelius' vision. Peter's word, the word used for Peter's word, is much more visual. I think the reason is because Peter is in, just a little bit, in a couple days, he's gonna have a visual, in his face reminder that God's kingdom, God's family, is bigger than you think, Peter.

There's gonna be people that are gonna be grafted in, people that are gonna come to faith that you never thought in a million years they're gonna be in the kingdom. So he has this very visual image. He's up on the rooftop and he's hungry, he's praying. And God says, "Peter, you're gonna be a man." And God hears him, and so he's like, he's gonna provide some food. So this sheet's coming down from heaven, coming down from the sky. We were gonna do that this morning, I just thought it might be a little distracting.

And in the sheet are all sorts of unclean animals. You got ostriches, seagulls, iguanas, lobsters. You're like, "Lobsters are unclean? I like a little lobster." You're like, "Bread lobster? I like some Cheddar Bay biscuits. I like lobster, okay?" This sheet's coming down, and the voice says, "Arise and eat." Nope. "Arise and eat." Nope. And Peter should have seen a pattern here. Every time I do something dumb, Jesus has to tell me three times. I wonder if he's gonna tell me a third time. Yup, by the way, this story of Cornelius is told three times for stated emphasis that what's happening in Acts 10 is a big deal. God's family is bigger than Peter thinks.

So he says, "Arise and eat." The voice tells him, "Arise and eat." And Peter says, "Absolutely not. These lips have never had anything unclean touch them." Now, why did the Jews have these ceremonial laws and these food restrictions? One, it was for health reasons, but also, more importantly, it was actually, all the other nations did this, and God was trying to say, "You're gonna be distinct and different. You're gonna be set apart."

You say, "Well, I don't understand just the gravity, because I like lobster, maybe not seagulls, but there's some other things that were unclean in the Bible, and I like these things." I want you to kind of get the gravity of just animals and things that they deemed unclean. So, does anybody have a cat? We got a cat. Why? Why do you have cats? Okay. Anybody got a dog? Anybody got a dog? Okay, I got a miniature. We have a miniature golden doodle. It's basically like a cat. He doesn't bark. He can barely run. He's a little overweight. And in God's kindness, that's the only reason why my heart was open to a second dog. Why? Because cats are cats. They don't do anything.

Okay? And so, we have an old English sheepdog, which he's so clumsy. We call him, his name's Edison. My wife likes US presidents, so we call him Edison after president. We call him Eddie. And then we have Franklin, all right? And let's just like, to kind of understand the gravity of how despicable they thought of these animals in the sheet, I want you to go home and put your cat and put your dog on the barbecue. Like, that's disgusting. Yeah, that's kind of the emotional weight that's going on here. These lips have never tasted anything unclean.

And so, as he comes out of the trance, he hears a knocking on the door at the very moment that he is awakened from the trance, and two people were sent by Cornelius to come to Simon the Tanner's house and request Peter to come to them. God's calling Peter to have a change in attitude. God's family is bigger than we think. It includes people of every tribe, tongue, people group, and nation. Ethne. Ethnicity.

And so, God's trying to teach Peter, listen, do not call unclean what I call clean. What is Jesus doing? In that very moment, he's kind of saying, all those ceremonial laws that kept Jews away from Gentiles, I'm breaking it down. It no longer exists. But also, I want you to understand that if those rules were still in existence, you wouldn't be able to associate and interact and engage with Gentiles. So, I'm breaking it down because I have a missionary heart. I need you to change your attitude. I want you to go to people who at one time were far from God, but the gospel is for them.

And God calls Peter, and God calls us to have a change in attitude. And as he arrives at Cornelius' house, Cornelius has a reception for him. And he falls down, his family falls down and worships. And Peter says, "Well, that's right, I'm a Jew, I'm an apostle, that's right, you need to worship." No, Peter does not say that. He says, "Get up, I'm a man just like you." The word that is used to describe what Cornelius does is a word used for worshiping a deity or perhaps even an angel. Right there, that's a little sub-point, it's proved positive that we should never worship any man, woman, boy, or girl. You shouldn't worship a saint, you shouldn't pray to a saint. Men, women can't do anything for you. Only God can.

So, Peter right there is saying, "Don't worship me. Worship is reserved for God." And then he says, in verse 24, in verse 28, in verse 33, verse 34, Peter says this, and I just, I gotta laugh, okay? And here's how I think it's a little humorous. Peter is summoned by some people. At the very moment that he awakens from a trance, people come from Caesarea, come to get him. He travels to where they are. He meets Cornelius, he goes, "Don't you know that it's not lawful for Jews to associate with Gentiles?" And I understand that truly, God shows no partiality, but why am I here?

Like, doesn't that just, it just warms your heart. I mean, just because Peter just doesn't get it at times. He's so spiritually aloof at times. His worldview is colliding. A lot of the Jews thought that they were better than the Gentiles, and they thought wrongly about the relationship with God. They thought it was a proprietary relationship, meaning it doesn't matter what we did, we will always have a relationship. We're gonna be the people of God then, today, and forevermore, it doesn't matter what we do.

And they had forgotten that God chose them all the way back in Exodus, all the way back in Genesis. He chose them based upon his sovereign love. In fact, God says, "I brought you out of Egypt, not based upon your ingenuity, not based upon your wisdom, not based upon you were better, but I placed my affection upon you, I love you." And the Jews thought their relationship was a proprietary one, and that inclusion with the family of God was relegated to them. And he says, "No, no, no. I have a heart for the nations."

And he wants Peter's perspective, and perhaps yours, and perhaps mine, to change. He wants us to understand that we need to have an attitude change. Peter says, here in the Bible, those who fear God and do what is right are welcome to him.

Say, Nate, what does that mean? Because he doesn't mention Jesus, doesn't mention the gospel, doesn't mention repentance of sin and faith in Christ. I love the testimony by Chris Dargell, by the way, I love his testimony. We all out preach and all out teach what we live. We just need to be humble enough to admit it, as my friend said. And so Chris's testimony was a testimony of boldness. I thought I had it together. I thought I knew I was a Christian, but actually I've come to find out that I'm not a Christian.

Here in Acts chapter 10, Peter says, those who fear God and do what is right are acceptable or welcomed to him. What does that mean? Peter is expressing the reality that the spirit of God was at work in the heart of Cornelius. To be welcome or to be acceptable means here in Acts 10, to be marked by a favorable manifestation of divine pleasure. Did it please God the way that Cornelius was leading his life? Yes, but good ain't good enough.

And so he sends Peter to tell him about the gospel of Christ. And there is this oxymoronic understanding. As you understand your good, if you live a good life, a moral life, you understand that, if you live a good life, a moral life, in light of the purity and the righteousness and the perfection and the holiness of Jesus, we never measure up. It's not that we need to be bad, but we understand, in light of who Jesus is, a good life is an understanding that needs to be prompted to the good one, Jesus.

And so Cornelius, by way of an angel, sends for Peter and Peter comes and Peter begins to preach the gospel. Third point, we must speak about the good news. We must speak about the good news. Peter opens his mouth, a colloquial phrase, where he's about to say something really important and he begins to share the gospel. Here's some of the details that he shares. Jesus is Lord of all and came as the Father's provision. He did many miracles, attesting to the fact that he, Jesus, was the Son of God. He was actually crucified, reality, not myth. God raised him from the dead and Christians are called to go tell people about this truth.

And the fact that Jesus is there, right in the Bible we read just a moment ago, Jesus is the one who's been appointed to judge the living and the dead. You're thinking, I thought Jesus retired. Like, I thought he ascended, he's done. The Bible says the Father's given him the keys to judge the living and the dead. And anybody who believes in Jesus, Peter says to Cornelius and his household, is forgiven. He preaches the gospel of peace. The word peace is a word that refers to a state or condition that only comes about by knowing Jesus.

Every person is at war with God. We have fallen, we suppress the truth. We look to all other means and measures to alleviate the guilt. We have this stigma that all of us carry around in our hearts and the sacrificial death of Jesus ended the hostility and brought about peace between God the Father and men and women. And not only that, it broke down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile. And Peter's here preaching the good news.

And as he's preaching, Cornelius and his household believe. When did you become a Christian? I became a Christian when I was 10. I was downstairs. My Saturday routine only involved cartoons with regular Cheerios, 2% milk. Gotta dial it back and do that 1% now, I'm getting older. 2% milk with some sugar on top. You're like, why didn't you do Honey Nut? I don't know.

And so they called, my parents called my sister upstairs. About 20 minutes later, she came down crying. I thought, it's a little odd. I love my sister, but not enough to inquire. I'll go back to my cartoons. They called my brother upstairs. He came down 20 minutes later, crying. I love my brother. And my curiosity was piqued, but I had things to do. They called me upstairs. I thought, I was a 10-year-old, and I was like, man, they found out. I don't know what I did. I can't remember what I did, but I've done something, which was true.

But they shared with me the gospel. The goodness of Jesus, and told me I was a sinner. Y'all, I'd grown up in churches, and churches are military bases. But in that moment, my mind was awakened, and I saw my sin, and it grieved me, and I called out to Jesus to save me at age 10. You know how people get saved? You gotta tell them about the good news.

They don't get saved by your good life. Parents, stepparents, grandparents, you gotta tell your kids and your grandkids about the good news. Friends, you gotta tell your friends about the good news. Aunts, uncles, you gotta tell your nieces and nephews about the good news. We gotta speak the good news of Jesus. That's how people get saved.

And from here, the gospel just expands in just a rapid fire. Let me read this to you. AD 39, Gentiles come to faith, here in Acts chapter 10. AD 42, Mark goes to Egypt. AD 49, Paul goes on his first missionary journey to Turkey. AD 51, he goes to Greece. AD 52, Thomas goes to India. AD 53, Paul goes on his third missionary journey to Spain. AD 173, first Christians in Austria. By AD 350, 31.7 million people, over half of the Roman Empire, are believers in Jesus.

You're like, 31.7 million people, were all those saved? Don't be a curmudgeon. It wasn't like today. It wasn't like today. We're in the Midwest, you can say, I'm a believer, but there ain't Jack in your life that actually testifies to the fact you're a believer. Back in the day, when you said you were a believer, you'd lose your job, you'd lose your relationships, you could go to jail, you could be murdered. It was different back then.

31.7 million people, over half of the Roman Empire, believed upon Christ. AD 40, 32, Patrick goes to Ireland, and the gospel continues to move. The gospel is never meant to stay with Nate. It's never meant to stay with you. It's always moving. And God called Peter to preach the good news of Jesus. And Cornelius and his household believed upon Christ. The spirit of God drops upon them, authenticating that they were in fact included into the family of God.

God's family is bigger than we think. Let me give you three real, simple application points to this sermon. First is this, grab a passport. Say, "Gold." Well, I'm not going anywhere. Well, at least exemplify the fact that you might be ready to go. Grab a passport, go to Walgreens, go to the UPS store, get your picture and wait for nine months for the government to get your passport back, all right? We've got partnerships in Honduras and Ukraine and hopefully a burgeoning partnership in India and Newfoundland. I mean, we're gonna have trips. We've shared this at our all-campus gathering. I mean, go grab a passport. At least exemplify the readiness that I can go.

Grab a passport. Secondly, ask God to help you see people the way he sees them. Now, I'll try not to mention the name, like where I live or the name of the store, all right? But I went to the store about a year and a half ago and there's this guy that was just, theologically, what would I say? He was a turd. He was unkind. He treated me as less than. It's amazing in service-oriented industries how people just don't care anymore. It's just amazing.

And so he was just really unkind. And I very rarely do this, but I was feeling a little chafed, so I decided to do this. I called the store. You're like, man, don't cross Pastor Nate. I know how you are too. Don't cross you. So I called the store and said, "Hey, I just wanna tell you about this employee." His name is emblazoned on the front of my mind, his face. I said, "Hey, here's what happened. Here's what I said." And she's like, "I apologize. That's unacceptable." I was like, "Yeah, it is."

And I was like, "And listen, I'm not gonna be one of those people that tells a bunch of people about it, put it on social media and like, you know, be like the digital keyboard warrior. Not gonna do that. If that's you, stop it, okay?" And, but every time I go to the store, you know who I see? Every stinking time. I see him. And you know what God's teaching me? Nate, you don't love people the way I love them. You just don't. I don't see people the way I see them. I want vengeance and justice. I want it about.

I'm like, I'm so sorry, consumer of my service here at this particular restaurant. That's right. You should have, I just take offense. And I've been praying, and maybe you need to pray, God, help me to see people the way that you see them. Let's let offenses roll off. Let's let love cover multitudes. Let's move towards people because Jesus moved towards you. And he moved towards you. He said, "Well, you don't know what I did. You don't know what that person did."

Let me ask you this. If you stood up here and this is your wedding day, and you knew that your spouse was gonna cheat on you for the rest of your life, would you go with it? Would you go through with it? But Jesus does that with you. Jesus does it with me. He knew we would cheat on him all the day. We'd find different pleasures and different pursuits and different ambitions, and we come to the gathering to worship him. We come to recalibrate our mind and our affections and our hearts and say, "You're what really matters."

That's an amazing grace and mercy that is yours in Jesus. He moves towards you, so let's see people the way Jesus sees them. Thirdly, pray about God's mission. Pray about God's mission. We're one church, five locations. We've got partnerships in Ukraine, in Scotland, in Newfoundland, in India, in Honduras, and we wanna continue to take the gospel into our neighborhoods. Into the six counties that comprise southeastern Indiana. We wanna take the gospel to your neighborhoods.

Like, just pray about God's mission. Ask God to have you have a soft, teachable, aware heart. Several years ago, I was teaching kind of an experimental community group. Pastor David actually asked me, he goes, "Hey, why don't you do a community group on Wednesday night in your office, invite some people who are new to the church that have been around for maybe several months, but invite them to kind of model what a community group is and what it'll look like and how it'll feel." I said, "Yeah, that's a great idea."

So I came in with my officers, about eight people, and I had a guy named Mike. And Mike had been there, he was there for several months, he and his wife. And one of the things that we were doing in the life of our church at that particular time, and it's kind of continued, and we do this here, is we pray for people far from God. We pray for lost people. "Hey, what's the name of somebody that you're praying for?" And so we went around, and I got to Mike, and here's what Mike said to me. "I'm not gonna share the name of a lost person. I'm not gonna pray for lost people. I'm not gonna invite them to church. And I'm not gonna share with them about Jesus."

Now, there's a lot of things I was thinking. But everybody kind of like, how's Nate gonna respond? And I said, "Hey, Mike, I'm so grateful that you're here." And that might be you. "I'm not praying for lost people. I just kind of wanna live, I wanna check in Sunday, I wanna bounce, I'm not gonna wade into awkward." And I wanna let you know, I'm grateful that you're here. I mean it with all my heart. No snuff. No snark. No snark.

But I want you to know, we are a church that does not exist for Christians. You're reached, and the deeper that you go with Jesus, it necessarily, according to the Bible, means that you will be engaged in mission. It is an oxymoron to say, "I am close with Jesus, I love Jesus, but I don't care about lost people. I love the Bible, I love to worship, but I don't know my neighbor's name. I love Jesus, he's so great for me, but I don't know their story."

The more that you get close to Jesus, it will theologically move you to care about the things that move Jesus's heart. God's family is bigger than we all understand. Not only are there going to be a lot of people come to faith in Christ, but there's going to be people that are going to come into the kingdom that you thought, "Man, I never thought they'd get in." And you know what? They thought the same thing about you. God's family is bigger than we think.

So red, yellow, black, and white, every color, shape, and size is made precious and is precious in God's sight and Jesus's sight. Let's be a church that embraces that song that many of us learned a long time ago and we embrace it by actually with our feet and with our lips. God's family is bigger than we think. Good ain't good enough. God calls us to have a change in attitude. And as believers in Christ, we share the good news of Jesus with others.

Let me pray. Father, I pray. I pray and appeal and ask you to hear our prayers. And would you move men, women, boys, and girls in the room this morning and watching us online that we would be moved to confession and repentance of where we have fallen short to not love people, see people the way that you want us to. I confess. I repent of wrongful thinking. Would you help us understand that we all out preach and all out teach what we live as a dear friend of mine said, and that we would be by your grace and the work of the spirit, humble enough to admit it.

And that we would change to become more and more into the image and the conformity of Jesus. Help us. We need your help. We need your help. Father, I pray for believers in the room that this would land soft in our hearts. I pray for those that are in the room, those that are watching online that might do a little spiritual inventory and ask the question, am I part of God's family? Have I been banking on my goodness? My morality is my confidence, my hope, my trust in my spiritual resume. I pray Holy Spirit that you would convict them and move them to know, to become spiritually aware that they need to believe upon Jesus to trust him.

As we stand to sing, may this response be yours. May you find soft, teachable, open, receptive hearts and may even now, we may not think about anything else, but how we can...