Gospel Realities Facing a Spirit-Filled Army

all of our brave campuses who are worshiping with us. So good to be with you today. Two quick announcements today. The first is this, our Warrior Summit men on February 28th, today is the last day to sign up with Early Bird Pricing. So sign up today. We now have over 1,000 guys signed up. You want to be there. If you're 16 years or older, come. I promise you, you will not be disappointed. Second announcement I have is this. Next week, say that with me. No, say it again. Next week, not today. We have a lot of people after first service asking, where is it at? Next week, okay? Next week, we are partnering with Protect Kids Colorado to gather signatures for three ballot initiatives, okay? Now let me tell you what those ballot initiatives are. They're on the screen behind you. These are trying to get on the ballot so that we can vote on them. One is protecting children from sex trafficking. One is protecting children from irreversible sex change procedures. And one is protecting girls' single sex sports and locker rooms. Those are the three initiatives. Now, it's unfortunate.

Those initiatives are nonpartisan. Those initiatives are just biblical. That's it. So we're partnering with them. We've already vetted all the people that are going to be holding petitions. Here in Englewood, those will be in the gym. If you see somebody carrying a petition and comes up to you, they're not with us. If you see somebody in the parking lot, they're not with us. If you have petitions for this initiative but we didn't vet you, don't bring them, okay? Last time we tried something like this, it went awful. So we're taking a step of faith. We're taking a risk on both campuses to do this. And I believe that we're gonna have great success. It also means this, don't bring all of your other petitions. Don't send me the 19 we need to sign the week after. All those different things. We're doing these three right now to see how we do. And it's important that we get these things on the ballot and vote for them to protect our kids in Colorado, amen? So that group will be here with us next week. I'll say this, nobody's gonna force you to sign anything. We are a church. We're not a political rally. We're a church, right? One of the reasons that it's hard as a pastor

because people, why don't we sign this petition? Now, do you know there's things that we all believe in like that abortion's wrong all the time and that we want that to be on the ballot. We want to vote for that. But we also have to realize when people come to church, there can be a woman that walks into the door of our church who's just had an abortion. And the last thing she wants is somebody shoving a petition in her face when she's coming to hear from the Lord. Does that make sense? And so what we're trying to do is use wisdom, but we're also trying to do what is right in the sight of God and of man. So next week, if you want to sign those petitions, those people will have brave lanyards on. They'll have Protect Kids Colorado emblems on. They've all been vetted. If it's in the gym here or in the designated area in Westminster, you'll know exactly who they are. There's a ton of people, so it's gonna be really easy to sign if you want to participate. And I think we can make an impact as a church doing that. Amen? All right. With that, let's continue our worship as we go before the Lord

and get ready to hear his living and active word among us. Father in heaven, we do give you all the glory, honor, and praise for who you are. And Lord, I just thank you again. Lord, it has been incredible in these services to look out and see so many people pray. It's been so great to see the participation we've had all week of people that pray. Lord, I remember when we started instituting prayer in our church and half the people just stood there with their hands in their pockets and then left and told me they never wanted to come back because I made them pray in church. Lord, thank you for changing the culture here and making it a group of people that desire to seek your face. Lord, we love you and we love your word because we believe, Lord, every time your word is faithfully and accurately proclaimed it is you, Jesus, who is speaking and we get to hear you today. So our prayer collectively is speak, Lord, for we are ready to hear. And so now for all those who have gathered who desire to hear the Lord Jesus Christ speak directly to your heart, who will believe what he tells you and who will by faith put into practice what he shows you, will you agree with me very loudly today by saying the word, amen.

Amen. All of us in our lives have been wounded by unmet expectations. Every single one of us has been frustrated by unmet expectations. It starts very early in life when we come out of the womb and we think things are supposed to be a certain way and they don't go our way and we start crying because this is what I thought it was gonna be like and it's not like that. And it just continues on in life. It happens in school, it happens in athletic teams, it happens in the business world, it happens in marriage, it happens in families. When we think this is what I thought it was gonna be and this is what I expected and it's something completely different and if I had known this, I wouldn't have signed up. And then we've all been scammed. Not where we just had unmet expectations but somebody told us this is the way it's gonna be and it actually turned out just the opposite of what they said. And because of our experiences with unmet expectations, sometimes when we come to church and sometimes we hear the word of God. We have a skepticism about us before we even hear the word, like, I'm not gonna believe that. I'm not gonna believe what that guy says. I can't believe that.

And God wants us to be faithful in the word. He wants us to be like the Bereans. It is good that you look in the word to see, hey, is this really true? That's not skepticism, that's healthy discipleship. But when we get to a place that even if it's in the word, we start saying, well, I wonder if that's really the way it is, that's when we have a problem. Now, the word makes it very clear that Jesus gave us a commission. He said that all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore go and do what? Make disciples of all nations. Then baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you and I'll be with you always till the end of the age. So he promises his authority and he promises his presence to go reach the world with the gospel and when people get saved, baptize them and teach them to obey everything the book has. How long will that take to make a disciple? Till we meet Jesus, we're still in process, amen? Because I'm still learning how to obey the word, you're still learning how to obey the word. But oftentimes when we read the book of Acts or we hear pastors stand up and talk about the gospel and how the gospel grows us as Christians and how the gospel sets us on mission to the lost and all the different stories we read about in Acts,

sometimes we say, well, my experience is different than what I'm reading. My experience is different than what you're saying. So it's important that we go back to the word so that we understand what God is really saying, that we understand gospel realities. Now, the way we say the Great Commission at Brave is to assemble a spirit-filled army to fight for the fulfillment of the Great Commission. That's just our nomenclature of what we do. But every church should be about Matthew 28, 18 to 20, amen? And what I wanna talk to you about today are gospel realities facing a spirit-filled army. The gospel realities that are facing us as God's people as a spirit-filled army. So that when you hear about the gospel and you hear about the lost coming to Christ, you hear about the gospel, how it's growing up saints in the Lord, what are the expectations that you can have? What are the true realities of the gospel? And to do that today, we're gonna be in Acts chapter 11. Acts chapter 11, I invite you to turn there. We're gonna do our best to get through all 30 verses this morning, but I'm gonna start reading just the first three and set this up so you can understand how we're building this story. Hear the word of the Lord. He says, now the apostles and the brethren

who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him, you went to uncircumcised men and ate with them. Now just pause there for a second, because if you'll remember, this is picking up from Acts chapter 10, where Peter had an incredible vision of a sheet that had descended from the sky with animals on it. And he heard the voice, arise, Peter, kill and eat. And he saw it three times and then it went back up. Peter listened to the Lord who told him to follow these men. They went to the house of Cornelius. And when he got there, all these people got saved as they were ready to hear the word of the Lord. That was where the story left off. Now, this is where the story picks up. The apostles and the brethren who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also received the word. So they've been hearing this. They've seen their Jewish cohorts accept Christ. They've seen people who were Jewish now believe that Jesus is the Messiah. That's what they've seen. And they saw during Jesus' ministry, he went only to the people of Israel.

Now, Jesus did say he had people in other folds that were out there. He was talking about the Gentiles, but their ministry was focused on Jews and on Israel. They'd seen all that. They hadn't seen the gospel go to the Gentiles yet. And now the apostles are hearing about it and the brethren are hearing about it. They're like, wait a second, non-Jews are coming to Christ now? And so when Peter gets back and he came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised, that's the Jewish men, took issue with him. Now think about that for a second. I mean, God gave Peter a vision three different times while he was in a trance. Peter's obedient to God, follows the men God tells him to go to. Peter shares the exact word God tells him to share. The Holy Spirit falls on the men and saves them. It's incredible. Now, he comes back to Jerusalem to tell them what's going on and what do they do? They took issue with him. And they said this, you went to uncircumcised men and ate with them. Now, why is that a big deal? Because here God's done something miraculous in bringing the Gentiles to faith. And what are the people inside the church concerned with?

Their boundaries. I can't believe you went and hung out with people like that. You know better than that, you know better. Because for those inside the church, there's always a boundary in our mind if we don't let the Lord Jesus Christ get ahold of us. And here's the first. reality facing a spirit-filled army. The first gospel reality is this, resistance does not restrain God's grace. Resistance does not restrain God's grace. Now, where's this resistance coming from? Outside the church or inside the church? It's inside. Every single time that God tries to move the gospel outward, there's always resistance on the inside. You say, well, what are you talking about? Think about this for a second, just take a quiz. Think about the group of people in your life that you would say, those people are a fool's errand. Those people are a lost cause. Those people are gonna get what they deserve. Those people are so far from God. And then ask yourself this question, when's the last time you intentionally tried to get to know one of them for the sake of Christ? Convicting, isn't it? It's easy to lob grenades and say all these things. It's easy to talk about the LGTBQ community. It's easy to talk about people on the political aisle

other than ours. It's easy to talk about corruption in our culture. It's easy to talk about politics. It's easy to talk about church. Okay, when's the last time that before the Lord, you said, Lord, because I feel this way, let me show them your love. Put me in touch with people just like that. And the reality is for many church people, they don't want to. Because if we really search our hearts, we not only don't care, but if those people actually came to Christ, we wouldn't want them to come to our church and sit next to us. See, that's the problem. And I wish I could tell you, that's a first century problem. It's been a problem in the church since the inception of the church. The gospel is not for a certain sector of society. The gospel is for the world. Amen? So if you're wondering, if you've never been to Brave, you're like, well, what unites you guys? It's not our activities and what we like. It's not our beliefs. It's not how we spend our spare time. It's not the color of our skin. It's not our ethnicity.

It's this. We were once dead. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead. We've repented of our sins and trusted him. We were once dead and now we're alive and we want to give him all of the glory, honor, and praise that he deserves. That's what unites us. And so what unites us is what takes us out. And the challenge sometimes of going out and the challenge sometimes of hanging with non-believers, not so that they're your peer group, but so that you can share the gospel with them, is that sometimes it's other Christians that will say, what are you hanging out with them for? Now, there can be good accountability if by hanging out with them, you're sinning like them. That's good accountability. Stop doing that. But if you're hanging out with them for the purpose of sharing Christ with them, good for you. Even your Lord and Savior was pejoratively dubbed a friend of sinners. If he was really God, he would know who he's hanging out with. He would know the kind of woman she was. He would know what these kind of people are. He knew exactly who they were and he had grace for them. And so what's beautiful about this story

is when resistance is coming, it's coming from inside the church. These are coming from Peter's friends. These are coming from people that he knows, right? Which is even more painful than people that you don't know. And even after God uses Peter to do something incredible, it's all his friends are like, what are you doing? Why'd you go do that? You know better than to go to the house of a Gentile. You know better than to eat their food. They're like, what are you thinking? So the beautiful thing about Peter is Peter does not respond with opinions. He responds with his testimony. He just shares with them what happens. Notice verse four, but Peter began speaking and proceeded to explaining to them in orderly sequence saying, and he's gonna repeat what happened in Acts 11. I was in the city of Joppa praying and in a trance, I saw a vision, an object coming down like a great sheet lowered by four corners from the sky and it came right down to me. And when I had fixed my gaze on it and was observing it, I saw the four footed animals of the earth and the wild beasts and the crawling creatures and the birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, get up, Peter, kill and eat. But I said, by no means, Lord,

for nothing unholy or unclean has ever entered my mouth. But a voice from heaven answered a second time, what God has cleansed no longer consider unholy. This happened three times and everything was drawn back up into the sky. And behold, at that moment, three men appeared at the house in which we're staying, in which we were staying, having been sent to me from Caesarea. And if you remember Acts chapter 10, Cornelius dispatched one of the soldiers and two of his servants, and now those three men are at the door. And Peter said this, and he reported to us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, send to Joppa and have Simon, who is also called Peter brought here. And he will speak words to you by which you will be saved, you and your whole household. So what's Peter say? He doesn't argue with them. He doesn't say, don't get mad at me, I know what I'm doing. He said, I'll just tell you what happened. Like, this is the vision I got. I didn't want the vision, I didn't understand the vision, but God was telling me to do this, and it played out just like he said. The three men showed up at my door, so I took the other six men with me, the seven of us went up, 10 of us entered the house,

and the reason we went is because Cornelius had a vision to send for me, he knew me by name, that I was Simon, who was also called Peter, and so I just followed him into the house. That's all that's happened. Now watch what he tells him, it's beautiful. So now they're in the house, verse 15, and as I begin to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as he did upon us at the beginning. So what's Peter say? Remember Pentecost? Remember how we were waiting for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? Remember how the Holy Spirit indwelled us, came into us, changed us, let us speak the gospel in different languages? I'm telling you, as I spoke the word of the Lord, the exact same thing happened. Friends, the Holy Spirit does not need an invitation. The Holy Spirit will use the word of God to save whoever he wants, whenever he wants to do it. Peter was saying, you know how we were saved? They're saved. They're just as saved as us. Don't tell me, don't go to that house. That house, those are now our brothers and sisters in Christ. It was amazing. I would have never believed it had I not seen it, but I saw it and I was obedient and God is doing that

and he's taking the gospel out to all the nations. I mean, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And we see this all throughout scripture. We're called to take the word out, why? Because the word never fails. In the parable of the sower that goes out to sow seed, there's nothing wrong with the word. There's a wrongness with the receptivity of the heart, but there's never anything wrong with the word. Isaiah 55 says the word goes forth and it never comes back void. It always accomplishes everything it was sent out to do. Amen? I mean, it's a beautiful picture of what God wants. John 6, 37, all the father gives to me will come to me. I mean, here's what we see in the church. We see that God wants to expand his reach. Now, when we talk about that in church, say, do you wanna see more people reach with the gospel? Everybody's like, yes. But it's been interesting since we planted the church. When we first moved here, we got questions like this. Why do you wanna plant another church? Aren't there enough churches? And then when we had a church, why do you wanna buy a building? Isn't the school good enough? And then we had a building like, well, why would you wanna plant another campus if you already have a campus?

And then, well, why would you wanna start a school if you already have church? And then, well, why would you wanna go into the prisons if you already have? Because we wanna reach as many people for Jesus as we possibly can. That's right. And so what you see is there's always gonna be resistance. If I tell you that we're going down to Douglas County and putting a campus, some people, oh, that's great. And other people are like, why there? Why do we have to fund that? Couldn't we just be content? There's always resistance on the inside when people don't understand the purpose of what God is doing, which is to reach as many people as he possibly can with the good news of Jesus and to grow them up in the faith. That's what he wants to do. He wants to grow us and he wants to make us aware of our mental and spiritual boundaries where we would say, I'm not hanging out with that group of people. I'm never talking to that group of people. I'm never going to that group of people. There should never be a Christian that ever says that to anybody. We're conduits of God's grace to the world. And if not us, then who? Amen?

That's what he wants us to do. And resistance does not restrain God's work. I mean, God does not wait for doors to open. God bursts doors open. That's just what our God does. Amen? There's good people in the church that often try to limit what God wants to accomplish. And it usually comes from a good heart. Like, why would we do that? You know, why are we doing that? And there's good reason to ask good questions in the church. That's fine. But it's interesting when you study the scriptures, when Jesus had a woman come pour an alabaster jar of perfume all over his feet, which was worth about an entire year's saving. It was extravagant generosity. The disciples were like, what a waste. What a waste. And there was one disciple that said specifically, that could have been given away. We could have sold that money and given it all to the poor. Sounds spiritual, doesn't it? You know who said that? Judas Iscariot said that. And he said that because the Bible says he was robbing people of all their money. He didn't have a heart for people. He's had a mouth, right?

And so we gotta be careful in our own lives where we're resisting the work of God. Where God wants to go, but we're like, I don't like that it's going there. We want it to go everywhere. Amen. We want it to reach as many people and grow as many people in Christ as we possibly can. Resistance, just know it, it does not restrain God's grace. God goes beyond it. And notice this in verse 16, as he was speaking, he says this, I love this verse. And I remember the word of the Lord, how he used to say, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. We've seen that in our scriptures. Jesus said that, John baptized with water, but a few days from now, you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit. But it's almost like Peter, as Jesus' friend, who's been discipled by him for three years, is saying, yeah, I remember when Jesus used to say this. He used to say this all the time. John baptized you with water, but you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Here's what I want you to see. When you share the gospel of Jesus Christ, the words of Christ from his word become more clear. It's when you're sharing the gospel with people that the word of God becomes more real.

It's when you're sharing the gospel with people and you're praying, like, I don't know what I'm gonna say next, and all of a sudden, a scripture comes to your mind, or a word comes out of your heart, and like, that was a good answer, right? It's the word of God coming through you. And Peter, as he's preaching the word, and he's seeing the Holy Spirit following these people, he's like, I totally remember, Jesus used to say this all the time. This is what he's talking about. He's like, you were baptized with water, I'm telling you, my spirit is gonna baptize people and bring them into the family. They're gonna be your brothers and sisters, and you're witnessing everything I was talking about. And Peter's overwhelmed, like, it's amazing. It's amazing, and it's exactly what Jesus wanted. Here's what Peter says. Here's how he sums it all up. Therefore, if God gave them, these Gentiles, the same gift as he gave to us, also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way? I mean, he's not even defending himself. He's like, here's what happened, here's what I watched. It reminded me of Jesus' words, and when I saw they had the same Jesus as me, who was I to say no?

Like, that's not what I'm gonna say. Now, notice what happens. It says, when they heard this, I love this, they quieted down, they had nothing else to say. I mean, there's something about the testimony of a person who comes to Christ that zips people's mouth. Like, when you see a genuine conversion, it doesn't matter what their past was, but when they talk about it with repentance, and you see the new life in Christ, it zips the mouth, and for the believer, it makes us, like, I can't believe it. That's what God did for me. That's what he's still doing. He's still alive. He's taking people that were dead and making them alive. Don't you love our God? That's why we love doing baptisms publicly. That's why we like sharing testimonies publicly, so we can see and hear what God is still doing, because he's still saving people in 2026, the same way he was saving people in the first century, amen, and it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. So I want you to know this. When the gospel gets expanded, resistance does not restrain God's grace. It says, they quieted down, saying, well then, God has granted the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.

Here's what they're saying. When they heard this, they were like, okay. Well then, they're in. That's good for us. That's good news. I mean, they had nothing to argue about, because Peter didn't defend his behavior. Peter wasn't saying, well, you don't understand it. I'm more spiritual. He's like, let me just tell you what happened, and let me tell you what God's doing. And when he told them what God was doing, he gave them a testimony of what God had done, they're like, okay, well then, they're in. Thank you, Peter, for telling us what happened. We would have never believed that. That's awesome. Resistance does not restrain God's grace. Let me give you a second one. Persecution does not stop proclamation. When it comes to the gospel realities, persecution does not stop proclamation. Verse 19, so then those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except the Jews alone. So if you go back to chapter eight in your Bible, and we've gone through this text, when the day that Stephen was stoned and was killed,

Acts chapter one opens and says, Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death. At the time, he was a young man. At the time, as he's watching Stephen get stoned and bludgeoned and bleed out, he's like, that's good. Saul now is born again. Saul now has been converted, but he wasn't then. And it says this, and on that day that Stephen was martyred, a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except for the apostles. So when persecution struck, it looked really bad. Stephen's getting martyred. Everybody is running for their lives. The apostles are hunkering down in Jerusalem, and everybody else is scattering. And now here's what the text is telling you. As they scattered, guess what they were doing? They were going telling people about Jesus and people were getting saved. Now, who were they going to? onto the Jews because that's who they knew to go to. So they're just doing what God told them to do. And here's what I want you to see. Persecution not only doesn't stop proclamation, oftentimes it advances it. Like the greater the pressure, the greater the persecution, you cannot stop the work of God, you can't. People have tried it for centuries, you can't, right? It's like if you have a little fire and you're like,

I'm gonna blow that thing out, you're only gonna make it bigger and you're gonna turn it into a brush fire. You don't add oxygen to it and what happens is we're gonna kill Stephen. As soon as we kill him, we're gonna put an end to these people and they kill Stephen and it multiplies rapidly and God continues to add to the number. You cannot stop the proclamation of the gospel. You cannot stop the word of God. In every generation, there's always people that will say, your view of God is fundamentalist, your view of God is old fashioned, your view of God doesn't work. The Bible's not true, the Bible's not what it says and it's still the best selling book of all time and God is still bringing people to faith in Christ because God's word never fails, amen? Never. So persecution and pressure does not stop the proclamation of the Lord. So they're still preaching, many Jews are getting saved, but notice verse 20. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and they began speaking to the Greeks also preaching the Lord Jesus. So they're not just going to the Jews, they're gonna go to the Gentiles, they're just gonna say, this gospel's for everybody,

we're gonna preach it and notice this. And the hand of the Lord was with them and a large number who believed turned to the Lord. So what'd they do? They're like, this gospel is for all people, we're taking the gospel out and guess what? They're seeing the same thing happen. Gentiles are coming to faith in Christ, God is adding to their number those that are coming. And here's what we see. We see that God's presence explains the results. The message is explicitly Christ-centered, they're not trying to win people to their way of thinking, they're not trying to draw people into their thing, all they're doing is proclaiming Jesus and they're watching the Holy Spirit do a work. It's amazing. And here's what you see in 2 Timothy 2.9, it says that the word of God is not imprisoned. I quote this frequently, the word of God is like a lion, if you let it out of its cage, it will fend for itself. I love that statement, there's nothing wrong with the word of God. When you share the gospel with somebody else, even if you only know one verse, just share the word, it will always accomplish what it was sent forth to do. It's the word, it's the word, it's the word. Even when they tried to imprison Paul, here's what Paul said, you know what? Because of my imprisonment, it's become known

throughout the whole Praetorian guard and to everybody else that my chains are in Christ and many of the brethren are even stronger and other people are coming to faith. You cannot stop the gospel by persecuting people, you only advance it. Now listen, I'm all for just fair governments, I'm all for us living in a society where we can live in peace, I'm all for us doing church in that way, I'm all for voting in the right way so we can do that, but I can tell you this, God is no respecter of governments in order to get his work done, his kingdom works everywhere. His kingdom will work under totalitarian regime, his kingdom will advance no matter what. If the gospel remains first and foremost, it's the gospel that we're concerned with more than anything else, amen? So don't worry about what can happen. I mean, growing up in the Midwest, I think about it a lot like dandelions, I don't know if any other Midwestern people in here, but dandelions, you might go cut the dandelions, get the dandelions out, the more you cut them, the more they spread. I mean, even if you shoot those things with weed killer and everything, they still spread, I don't know how they spread, but they just spread, they're everywhere and the more you try to kill them,

the more they go, that's what the gospel's like. People cannot be stopped when they have the spirit of God on the inside. And here's what the, amen? We can give God praise for that. But this is the reminder because we still carry our flesh with us on this side of heaven and our flesh craves comfort and our flesh craves peace and our flesh craves to not get involved and our flesh says, yeah, I don't wanna be persecuted. I mean, that's our flesh. The spirit man or spirit women inside of us is like, no, I gotta be bold for Christ no matter what the outcome. And when the church of Jesus Christ stays true to the spirit of God, nothing stops that. The church is unstoppable by the glory of Christ, amen? And so understand that, you know, Stephen's death didn't stop it, nothing's going to stop it. And you see that the hand of the Lord was with him. You see how God adds his power where pressure exists. I mean, I think of other nations today like Sudan or China or Iran or certain places of Africa where it's very, very difficult to be a Christian. We support a work, Issachar Ministries, and you know, they have some of their pastors that are in Pakistan. Some of those Pakistani pastors have dealt with more things than you and I may ever see in our lifetime. One of the pastors has watched his uncle and his dad

got beat to death with a hammer right in front of him for this, for being a Christian that preached the gospel. And what are these guys doing? They're multiplying churches for the Lord because they know where their dad and their uncle are. They're in the presence of Jesus. That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. We don't see that here. Hopefully we don't see that here in our lifetime. That's what I pray. But I'm just telling you, if that happens, nothing will stop the word of God and his work if we remain true to what he wants us to do, amen? So if resistance doesn't restrain God's grace and persecution doesn't stop proclamation, let me give you a third one. When it comes to gospel readiness, you need to understand this. Momentum does not bypass maturity. Momentum does not bypass the need to grow in Christ and be mature. Because notice what happens next. The news got about them, they sent to Antioch. So the news about them reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch. Here's what I love about this text. The church responded with discernment, not control. The church responded by saying, okay, we're hearing people are coming to Christ.

We're hearing this stuff. You know what? Let's send Barnabas. Barnabas loves the Lord. Barnabas is filled with the Holy Spirit. Let's get some discernment on what's happening. And then in verse 23, when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord. So notice two things that he does. When he gets there and he sees the Spirit of God has been poured out on these men and women in a way that he did the same way for him and the way he's been doing for the Jews, two things he does. Number one, he rejoices. He starts praising God that these people have come to Christ. When people come to Christ, it should move you. It should stir you. I mean, sometimes I see old Billy Graham crusades from like the 1960s and guys wearing leisure suits with thick ties like this and all that kind of stuff. But I'm telling you, same gospel message. And when they're walking down the aisle, I mean, even though that was like some 60 years ago or something like, I still get tears in my eyes, like the same gospel that saved me, right? So he rejoices, which is what we should do

every time a person comes to Christ. But then what's he telling them to do? He encourages them or exhorts them. He tells them, remain steadfast now. Let's keep growing in this. Let's stay rooted. And both are equally true. It's exciting to have a newborn. It's thrilling when you're in the hospital and friends and family are coming. Oh, this is great, this is great. But you don't just leave your baby at the hospital and say, we did it, right? I mean, there's this period of time where we're gonna bring him home and we're gonna help him stay rooted and we're gonna train him and grow him and we got only a certain amount of time to do it. And that's just as important, right? And in church, sometimes all we do is celebrate new birth and we forget that it's about growth as well. We have to continue to grow in Christ. It's imperative. And you need to understand just by definition, church is the called out ones. Church is saints. When you say church, you're saying believers. That's what you're saying. So the church is not an evangelistic station just to get lost people to come.

The church is a place for saints to gather so we can worship God, pray, grow in his word so that the Holy Spirit can prompt us to go out into the world and be an influence for Jesus and win people to Christ who change their allegiance, who wanna worship God and then come join us here and do that. That's the church. And so it's just as important as we grow as it is when we first came to Christ. And this is what you're gonna see here. It says that he arrived. He told them to remain resolute with their heart. And it says in verse 24, why? For he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith and considerable numbers were brought to the Lord. So the Lord is still saving people. And notice what he did next. And he left for Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year, they met with the church and taught considerable numbers. And the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. So after he rejoices with them, tells them to remain resolute, he's like, I'm gonna go get Saul because we need to teach these people. And he's been learning and he's a young disciple, but he can watch me teach

so that he'll be able to teach others too. And how long did they spend there? A year. Doing what? Teaching the word, teaching the gospel. What does it tell me? If you're a believer, what do you need? You need to be under the word of God, being taught the word of God, responding to it, practicing it, living obediently to it, yielding to it, memorizing it. That's what we have to do. So it's important when you gather in a church, if you don't go to brave church, it's important that you find a church where the word of God is preached. It's imperative. It frustrates me to death. I'm not as bothered by somebody that's just a terrible speaker, but they're doing their best to present the word in a way that's clear. Doesn't bother me. But when somebody who's an... credible communicator, communicates and tells stories and is supposedly telling you about God, but there's no word and there's no reference, it bothers me. Like, if you go to a church and they ask you,

what did he talk about today? And you start talking about stories and you don't start talking about, it was Acts 11. It was how to be resolute in our faith. It was what we can expect when we share the gospel. If you can't find it in the word, what that man is saying, go somewhere where you can. Right? It angers God even more. God doesn't care about our stories. I could tell you stories up here all day long. I like to talk. None of them will change your life. Jesus will change your life. Amen? And I'll say one more thing about that. I'll say one more thing about that. It is so important that we understand this. As I'm going through this fast, you know, I'm on day seven. Every day, the Lord just keeps showing me over and over. What I already know is it's my word, it's my word, it's my word, it's my word, it's my word. It's all that matters, it's my word. It's eternal, it's going to last forever. It's my word. And here's the truth. If you're in a church or you've been in a church for a season where the word of God is being taught, you will never be able to go to a church that doesn't

because it will bother you bad because you'll get done and you'll be like, what the heck was that? That was just a bunch of fluff, right? Go somewhere where you're getting meat, where you're getting spiritual food, amen? Because that's what God has for your life. I mean, in the Great Commission, teach them to obey or observe all I've commanded. Paul said, I want to present every man complete in Christ. Ephesians 4 says, no longer be infants, tossed to and fro by different doctrines, but mature up in the Lord. Second Timothy tells us to entrust the gospel to faithful men who will be able to teach others. Or one of my favorites in the book of Hebrews 5, verses 13 and 14, it says, for everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature who believe, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Here's what it's saying. It's okay to give a baby a bottle. If you're a freshman in high school and you pull out your lunchbox and have that, that's a problem, right? It's okay if you're new to the faith and the things being talked about today,

I don't understand them all, but I want to grow. That's okay. But if you've been coming to a church for 20 or 30 years and you're not seasoned or trained in the word, you've been going to the wrong place. Go somewhere where the word of God is being faithfully taught and can take grip in your heart. Barnabas isn't chasing numbers, he's building people. And let me tell you why this is so important. Let me tell you why this is so important. Because I mean, at this time of year, I mean, think about it. It's always exciting to start something new, right? I mean, just beginning something, there's always an excitement to it. It's the sustenance of it, the sustaining of it that's hard. I mean, those of you that work out at a gym on a regular basis, you're like dying for February to come so you can get your machine back. You know what I'm saying? Because all the excited people come for the first four to six weeks and then they start peeling off. But it was super exciting in December to set that goal, but it's the ongoing part that's hard. We spend a lot of our time in our culture preparing for the wedding day, but we don't prepare for the marriage. And on the wedding day, everybody's like, oh my gosh, best thing, God's all over this, it's the most awesome thing.

Five weeks later, I don't even know why we did this, we married wrong. It's the journey. And that's why the church is so important, because we need other people that know us and love us that we can walk in community with, that can say, hey, it's hard for you right now, isn't it? Yeah, it's really, really hard. Hey, it's been hard for me too, let's do this together. You know, it's like when you go to the gym and you're trying to work out, you're by yourself and you're gonna quit, but you know, I got my friend here, there's no way they're gonna let me quit and I'm not letting them quit. And in synergy together, you get it done. That's what the church is. That's what the body of Christ is. It's to help us continue what we're doing. Let me highlight one more thing from this verse, because it's packed. It says, it was here that the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. They were called Christians. It doesn't say they called themselves Christians. They were called Christians. Likely a pejorative term by the Romans, referring to them as the Christ people or the Christ party or the Christ faction. You know, the Messiah complex people, the Christians, right? That's what they were called.

And they were called what they were because of the way they pursued their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. They were known by their love for the Lord. And even though they were mocked. because of it, that's what they were known for. And that's why I love what Peter writes later in 1 Peter 4, 16. But if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed. People make fun of you because you serve the Lord. If people make fun of you because you attend a Bible-believing church, people make fun of you because you depend upon the Lord, that's a really, really good testimony. That's a really, really good thing, right? If you're suffering because of doing good, that's a good thing, right? And so don't be afraid if people speak evil of you, say all kinds of wickedness about you, rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great. Amen? But this momentum, it doesn't bypass maturity. I mean, as much as we wanna reach the world, it doesn't change the way that we reach the world. It's not by just expansion, expansion, expansion. It's by growing up saints that are part of the mission, that love the mission, that love the Lord, that wanna be a part of the facilitating of the propagation of what goes on, amen?

And that's the way God has it for us. Their lives reflected Christ, our life needs to reflect Christ. And I love that, they took one year of teaching. I mean, sometimes we think we can get a drive-by, a podcast, a quick sermon, give me a TED Talk, I'm ready to go. I mean, intentionally, it doesn't mean they met every Sunday or every Saturday or every Friday, it means for a year there was ongoing teaching, they were living together in community and doing this thing. Momentum does not bypass your need to mature. And let me give you a final one here, this final spiritual reality or gospel reality, and that's this, that the need does not outpace the mission. Need will never outpace the mission. Notice what happens next, verse 27. It says, at this time, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them named Agabus stood up and began to indicate by the spirit that there would certainly be a great famine all over the world. Now, was it true or not? It was because it says in the very next sentence, and this took place in the reign of Claudius. So God is using prophets to speak truth about what's going to happen. It's not the first time God has ever done that.

In the Old Testament, there was a guy named Joseph that told the Pharaoh, hey, seven years of harvest is gonna be really good, but then you're gonna have seven years of famine and you may wanna prepare. Sometimes in the body of Christ, God gives people a word of knowledge or a word of wisdom to speak out, to be, hey, you should probably pay attention to this. We as New Testament believers do not have to believe when anybody says because nobody has authority except God, okay? But we can take what is being said, we can run it through the word of God, we can pray about it and say, you know, that sounds right. And that's what they did. They said, okay, this sounds right. There's gonna be a famine. And so notice what they did. And in the proportion that any of the disciples had means, each of them determined to send a contribution for the relief of the brethren living in Judea. And this they did, sending it in charge of Barnabas and Saul and the elders. Now, there's not a lot known about people's bank statements in the first century, but if you read through the Bible clearly, it's pretty obvious there weren't a lot of wealthy people. It's pretty obvious that most of the first century Christians were poor.

And what you see all throughout the New Testament scriptures, what they're being celebrated for is not the amount of their gift. Do you know why? Because God doesn't need anybody's money. What they're praised for is their generosity, that out of what they have, they gave. It wasn't, oh, I got some leftover, you can have that. It's like, this is all we have, but we wanna contribute so that the brethren have what they need, we wanna give generously. And generous giving is how God continues to advance his mission, right? Because there are people, I know they're not here, but there are people that are like, why does the church continue to grow? That costs more money. Why are we spending money on that? Why do we wanna get the gospel out on the radio? Why do we wanna start in a prison? I mean, wouldn't it be easier if we just didn't spend any money? Yeah, it'd be easier because there'd be nobody there. Do you understand what I'm saying? The need is always met by God's people. The need is always met by God's people. When God opens doors, God's arranged all the parts of the body just the way they are so that we can all participate.

That's why when we do fundraising at Brave or we ask you to give generously at Brave, we're not telling you what to give. We're not telling you what generosity looks like for you. We're saying this, would you spend some time before the Lord and you say, Lord, everything I have is yours. Everything belongs to you. Lord, is there any way that you would like me to participate in this? And since it all belongs to you, here's what I wanna do. Can I just tell you something? It doesn't matter what I think you should give. I mean, when you leave this earth and go to be with Jesus, we're not gonna have an exit interview. I'm not gonna meet with you and say, well, you should have done this. I mean, that's never gonna happen. I don't even look at your giving. I don't care. It's between you and Jesus. Just be generous to him. But what you will see is when you arrive in heaven, you'll give an account for everything because every little penny that you've ever had belongs to the Lord. He's like, here's what I gave you. How did you do in advancing my gospel and my kingdom while you were on the earth?

That you will answer for. And so the reason that we invite you to be generous is so you can be part of the work of God. So on that day, you're ready to stand before the Lord and say, hey, here, Lord, I've tried. I've been generous to you. I think it's such a sign of spiritual maturity to tithe that we have all of our staff, we tell them before we ever bring them on staff, we expect you to tithe. And if you're not gonna tithe, you don't have the spiritual muscle and maturity to be on our staff, right? So they know that before they get here. It's not a mandate, it's like something you should already be doing. When we look at elders, we're not looking at people like, well, if you make me an elder, I'll start to tithe. No, we'll never even look at you as an elder if you're not tithing. Like, why would we do that? Like, spiritual maturity means, and why is this such a big deal in our culture? Because money is such a God in our culture. And I'm not talking about people that make a lot of money. I'm talking teenagers. It's a God in your life. I mean, you think you need more, no matter who you are in this room, be like, be nice to have a little more.

I mean, that's a God, right? Contentment says, I got enough. I got everything God wants me to have. I just wanna be good with it. I'm content, and I'm gonna be generous to the Lord, and when you live like that, it doesn't matter how much you have, because the money doesn't have you, amen? And so, all throughout the New Testament scriptures, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, tells you just be generous, and be faithful, and be a regular giver. I mean, Old Testament, try me in this. I dare you to try me. You cannot out-give who I am. We see in Philippians 4, 19 that God supplies all of our needs according to his glorious riches in Christ. We see in Proverbs 11, the generous man will be prosperous. And here's the reality. You know what, it's just trust. It's just trust. So as this need is coming up, these people are trusting God with their resources, like here's what we're able to contribute, but we wanna help the saints. We wanna see God's mission furthered, and so that's what we're gonna do. And notice who they gave it to. And they did this, sending it in charge of Barnabas and Saul, to whom? The elders.

They put it in charge of faithful men, right? And here's what I would say about that. I think it's worthy of saying. We're trying to do everything we can to be as transparent as possible as a church, so that you can see, like, how's the money being spent? What are you doing? One of the reasons you haven't seen that is not because we've been trying to hide anything. It's because our website is so awful that we can't put things up on it. When you see our new website in about a month, you're gonna be like, that is a massive improvement. But what we're putting out, you can look tomorrow. It'll be there. We're putting our Kingdom Impact Report of all the ways we've spent money and what we're doing. We also will put our financials.