Jesus 4 Everybody: A Movement of Power

It's a rainy morning, so I'm feeling casual today. It's a blessing to be here with you guys this morning. We're gonna turn our attention to God's word. And as is our tradition, we're gonna read together from the book of Acts. We're gonna look at chapter two, verses one through 21, and we're gonna read that together. So please join with me in reading from God's word.

When the day of Pentecost had arrived, they were all together in one place. Suddenly, a sound like that of a violent rushing wind came from heaven, and it filled the whole house where they were staying. They saw tongues like flames of fire that separated and rested on each one of them. Then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues as the spirit enabled them. Now there were Jews staying in Jerusalem, devout people from every nation under heaven. When this sound occurred, a crowd came together and was confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were astounded and amazed, saying, "Look. Aren't all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it that each of us can hear them in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, those who live in Mesopotamia, in Judea, in Cappadocia, Pontus in Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya near Cyrene, visitors of Rome, both Jews and converts, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them declaring the magnificent acts of God in our own tongues." They were all astounded and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But some sneered, said they were drunk on new wine. Peter stood up with the 11, raised his voice, and proclaimed to them, "Fellow Jews and all you residents of Jerusalem, let me explain this to you and pay attention to my words for these people are not drunk as you suppose since it's only nine in the morning. On the contrary, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel, and it will be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my spirit on all people. Then your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. I will even pour out my spirit on my servants in those days, both men and women, and they will prophesy. I will display wonders in the heavens above and the signs on the earth below, blood and fire and a cloud of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and glorious day the Lord comes. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." — Acts 2:1-21

This is the word of God. You guys did a great job with that.

Let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, we pray that you'd send your spirit to meet with us this morning. Your word promises you will. Would you open our hearts to hear the words that you've prepared for us? May we be a people that are drawn closer to you, Lord. May we be a people that are changed to be more like you, Jesus. May we be transformed to love the place that you have brought us. We pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.

Pentecost: The Birthday of the Church

We at CTK don't pay too close attention to the liturgical calendar that marks some of the big patterns and events throughout the church year. But if you do and you've noticed, this morning, today is Pentecost Sunday. And I actually think it should be right up there for us with Christmas and Easter as one of the big celebration times for those of us who put our faith in Jesus. Today is a pretty big deal.

If you ask an average Christian what they think Pentecost is, they'd say, "Well, it's the day the Holy Spirit came." And I think it's far more than that. I think today is really a lot more like a birthday. This is the birthday party for the church. Today is the day that marks the birth of God's plan to move into the rest of the world and use us, use the church as his agent for change. And how cool is that?

If you think about what's going on today, right now in some cases later throughout the day because of time zones, fellow Christians, fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who have put their faith in Jesus are gathering today. Many of them are reading these same words that we read. They're reading them in different tongues, in different languages, spoken in almost every nation. This is being celebrated in churches all around the world today because today's a big deal. Because God has done a magnificent thing and it's worth celebrating.

So birthdays are on my mind right now. Yesterday marked my daughter's eleventh birthday. She gave me permission to share that news with you, so I'm not embarrassing her without her permission. We had a house full of 11-year-old girls partying all afternoon. It was a great celebration.

You know, if you're a kid, birthday day is like the day of the year that you look forward to. It's the one day that you don't have to share. It's the day that's all about you. It's all about getting presents. It's all about you get to pick the dinner, the cake, everything like that. It is a fun, fun day to be a kid. But I challenge that it might be more fun as a parent. I think birthdays are more fun for the parents of those kids because we've got a long view. Not only is it a fun day of celebrating, but we've gotten to watch this person who's so special to us change. To go from a little baby and grow and grow and grow, year after year after year.

And so every year there's a birthday, and every year there's events that are the same. You know, there's a feast, there's cake, there's presents. But every year those things are a little different because the person that we're celebrating has changed. They've grown up a little bit. I like to look back at time hop—the app—and look at photos that happened on this date in history in my family. And so it's really fun to look back and remember my kids as they're growing and they're bigger and they get things like a sandbox and they get things like the first bike and all that stuff. And you see them grow up and it's like, oh, look at that cake. That was so great.

But it would be weird if I look back at those pictures and I bought her presents based on my memories, if I said, oh my goodness, I remember when she was really into Peppa Pig and we're going to get her some rain boots because she loves jumping in muddy puddles. And I gave them to her as an 11 year old, she'd be like, thanks. And the reason is when we give gifts on a birthday, we're not thinking about the past and where this person has been. We're thinking about where they're going. We give them a gift that's something that they need, something that they want that's exciting for the next step in their life.

I mean, think about some of the momentous birthday gifts you may have gotten as a kid or are thinking about giving a kid like first bike. How about a car? Those are some big things, right? Those are some big milestones that we gift our beloved ones with as we're watching them and we're sending them and we're enjoying who they are growing up.

The Gift of the Holy Spirit

Now today, we're going to talk about the gift that we get. We're going to talk about the gift that we get as a church. And today, we're starting a new series. We're concluding in one hand a series that we've been talking about mission. As you may have heard, we've adopted a new mission statement, which is kind of an old mission statement that says CTK exists to develop disciples who delight in Jesus in worship, discover Jesus in community, and display Jesus's kingdom in our lives.

And today, we're moving into what the Bible records is the beginning of the fulfillment of that mission. We're opening up the book of Acts for the summer. We're going to be looking at stories from Acts to see how the church came from this tiny little insignificant movement in the ancient Near East and has gone global. It's expanded to this massive collection of people who've been changed by Jesus and celebrate what he's doing in their lives.

Now for centuries, the book of Acts has been referred to as the acts of the apostles. And for sure, in this series, we'll take some time to look at some of those acts, those actions, the things that the apostles did in faith to advance the gospel and to share Jesus's love with the watching world. But the real hero of this story isn't the apostles. The real hero of the story is Jesus. And the gift that he sends to empower this movement, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So at Pentecost, God is showing us something really important. He's showing us that he is willing to partner with his people to bring about restoration in a broken world. Now in a sense, he's always done that. He drew a really small nation and planted them at the crossroads of the ancient world. So everybody had to pass through and meet these people that were changed by God. But at Pentecost, he does something different. He puts his spirit in us and sends us out. He sends us into the world.

And so as we jump into the text today, as we jump into the story, I want to say we need to understand that there's a problem. There's a problem that we're facing. And it tells us that as the day of Pentecost arrived, they—the disciples—they're gathered together in one place. And I need to stop right there.

Before we can get into the story and the amazing things that happened, we need to understand the context of the situation that they are in. See, these men, they had just spent the last three years of their life walking with Jesus in his earthly ministry.

They had walked away from jobs, fishing boats and nets, tax collecting, and family members to follow Jesus when he said, "Come follow me." And they said okay, and they did. They're watching him do all this ministry, and the thing that he was teaching them the whole time—the central point of all of Jesus' teaching, the thing that Jesus talks about the most if you read the gospels—is the kingdom. What his kingdom's gonna be like.

See, everything that flows out of this teaching—things that we love to talk about, things like grace and forgiveness, loving one another like we love ourselves, the golden rule, respect, justice, loving God, loving neighbor—all of this fits under the big umbrella, the big cloud of teaching on Jesus's kingdom. He's telling us, this is what my world is gonna be like. These things matter to me. My kingdom matters to me and I want to make the world like this. Jesus' kingdom is going to be like no other. It's going to offer the great restoration of all things.

After his death and his resurrection, Jesus spends forty days with his disciples. It says he taught them everything about the kingdom. Forty days with Jesus, and he gives them the full crash course. This is everything you need to know about the kingdom. But before he ascends into heaven to claim his throne, as he's departing, he gives them final instructions.

Now for most of us, we're more familiar with the passage in Matthew 28, which is called the Great Commission. And spoiler alert, it's the blueprint for the words on the walls. We didn't make up this stuff. This came from Jesus.

Jesus came near them and he said, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always to the very end of the age." — Matthew 28

Can you feel the weight of this? The Great Commission is really hopeful. It's really beautiful. And if I'm honest, it's really impossible. It's great like the Grand Canyon is grand. It's not great because it was a nice idea. It's great because apart from his work, this task is massive. Apart from his work, this is impossible. We can't achieve this.

Jesus had just charged these eleven men to tell the whole world about the gospel. Their mission was to be the most effective group of evangelists of all time. But can we remember who we're talking about? The disciples were not always the sharpest knives in the drawer, if I can be blunt here. A hallmark of their interactions with Jesus is him teaching things and them blowing it. They don't get it very often.

Just look at Peter, the man we just read who just preaches the most amazing sermon ever—3,000 people get saved. Peter is the king of open mouth insert foot when he's walking with Jesus. Jesus is like, "Peter, I gotta die. I'm gonna lay down my life." And what's Peter's response? He's like, "No way. They're gonna kill me to get to you Jesus. That's right. I'm going first. They're not gonna touch you." But where's Peter on the night that Jesus is betrayed? Where's Peter when Jesus is facing trial and is being condemned to death on a cross? He's hiding in the shadows, his hood on around a fire, hoping no one notices him, denying he even knows this man.

It's these guys. These are the guys that Jesus says, "You're going to be my greatest witnesses. You're going to be my ambassadors of this great kingdom. You're going to go and share all the glorious things that I've done." I mean, why pick these guys? It's clearly not because of their skill as orators or their influence, not how many followers they had or how nice they dress, not how much money they have. I think Jesus chooses them because they do get one thing right. He chooses them because they had faith.

No matter how big these guys screwed up in their efforts to follow Jesus, they did one thing right. They believed him. They trusted him at his word. They believe that he's the son of God and that when he speaks, he keeps his promises. And the fact that they're all still together, gathered in this house after everything that they've witnessed is a huge testament to their faith.

So they believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. They believe that God is at work undoing all the broken things in this world. They believe that Jesus has established his kingdom, and he's not gonna rest until every corner of this earth, every broken spot has been transformed by the gospel. They believe that he's gonna use them to be a central part of his plan. And Jesus says, don't worry about the plan. I'm going to send you a gift. I'm going to give you the power of my spirit.

And I think they get it. I think they understood the assignment. For all the exuberance these guys felt about their zeal for sharing what was witnessed in the world, they had no more ability than you or I to change anyone's hearts apart from the help of the Holy Spirit. And I don't think I'm reaching too far this morning to say that we in this room understand the way these guys feel maybe.

Now, have you ever felt the tug on your heart? The call to share the gospel, the truth that's changed you with the people in your life, with your friends, your family, coworker, people you sit next to at school, your neighbor on the other side of the fence, your roommates? And does it ever feel like that task is just too big?

If you would close your eyes for a second and picture with me the person that you would most like to see come to know Jesus. What's stopping you from telling them the good news that you have? When I do this, it's my own small faith that holds me back. I listen to the doubts that whisper in my ear, things that say, well, they'll never believe. Do you even believe? They're just going to laugh at you. Your relationship's fine as it is. This is going to change everything. You don't need to do that. Not them. They're not your target. They're not the ones who need to hear this.

And more often than not, I don't just shut that out and go charge ahead. I listen. Out of fear and shame and doubt, out of a lack of hope that I have, maybe it's a lack of actual love, I don't say anything. I just carry on.

But here's the thing: I believe that it's up to me to change their heart. But it's not. My job is to share the glorious things that I've witnessed, the way Jesus has changed me, what I've seen God do in my own life. I don't need to give that to them. I just need to tell them what Jesus is doing and allow the Holy Spirit—this gift that we're sent this day—to do the work of changing their hearts.

Functional Atheism

Now, maybe on the flip side of that, maybe you've been sitting here in this church and you've grown a little cold. Your faith feels a little cold, a little dry. I think a lot of us have been hanging around a church for a long time and thought, you know what, I got a pretty good idea about how we run this thing. You can't throw a rock in Raleigh and not hit a church. There's a lot of people in this city that do church, that know how to do church really well.

But how many of us, when it comes time to make decisions to go to church or get involved in a church, serve in a church, go on a missions trip with a church, trust the church with your money and your tithes and your offerings—how about standing up for injustice with a church? How about feeding and caring for the poor with your church? How about just being counted with the people in this room and being recognized as someone who goes to this church? How many of us earnestly ask the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide our decisions in that?

An author and pastor in our denomination's name is Paul David Tripp. He says the modern church in America has got a huge problem with what he calls functional atheism. We all know the right theology, but we function out of our own set of skills. We believe the Bible to be accurate, that faith in Jesus nets us eternal life, that sin is wrong. But our day-to-day actions play out as if we believe that there is no God. Tripp says we worry too much. We control too much. We demand too much. We regret too much. We run after God replacements too much. We do all these things because we have forgotten God's presence, power, and glory.

So what might it look like if we remembered God's presence, power, and glory? What would it look like if we waited on the Lord in prayerful anticipation that he just might act? He just might keep his promises.

I think one of the common misconceptions about this passage and about the disciples at this moment is that when the Holy Spirit comes the disciples are hiding, cowering in fear behind locked doors, waiting for an angry mob to seize them and end their movement before anything else begins. But I don't think that's true.

I don't believe that I'm reading too much into this text to say that their first act of fulfilling the great commission was to join together with their brothers and sisters and pray earnestly to receive the promised Holy Spirit that Jesus said he was gonna send, the power for their mission. I think their waiting is a huge sign of their faith. See, in faith, these followers of Jesus are together in community with one another. They're praying and they're asking that Jesus will come and be the power to this impossible mission. They need the tool for the job.

Now, when I was 16, I earned my beloved driver's license. So like everybody else, I went to driver's ed, I did my hours and practiced driving the car. I scared my parents. I think there's still finger grips in the little arm above the passenger side window. I told my dad that is not going to save his life. I passed my written test. I took my driver's test and I did not pass the first time. Turns out parallel parking is hard. Passed it the second time, got my keys, was ready to take the road, and then two months later, Christmas time, I got the gift of all gifts: a 1987 Volvo 240 DL station wagon in the most gorgeous shade of dented navy blue that you could ever imagine. It was a beautiful hunk of steel on wheels.

My parents had given me this ultimate gift. They'd given me not just a car—this was freedom. I had all the knowledge of how to drive. I knew the rules of the road. I had the license. I had permission and I had the wheels. I could go anywhere. I could do anything. Nothing could stop me, or so I thought.

So I'm out driving one night and I'd gotten accustomed to holding the steering wheel right here with my left hand. I'm driving down the road and I feel a lurch, a shimmy, a flicker of lights, a lurch, a sputter. And I moved my hand and realized I had been covering my line of sight on my gas gauge. I did not see that little orange dot that told me I was dangerously low on fuel. If I did not stop and get gas, I was going to no longer be able to drive this awesome piece of machinery.

So thankfully, I was only about 100 yards from a gas station and after a very fun push down the road, I made it to the gas station. I got my car to coast down the little ramp into the pump. You should see me running to jump in the door as it started to roll. It was fun. I pulled there and scrounged to find 79¢, which was surprisingly enough to get a lot of gas in your car in 1998. And so I got what I could get and I learned a valuable lesson that day: cars don't run on know how. Cars run on gas. And I haven't made that mistake since then. I haven't run out of gas since that day. But without it, I was gonna go nowhere.

Now, friends, this is the same for us. Unless the Holy Spirit is powering us, our mission is not going to go anywhere. The things we want to see and do and achieve for Jesus is not going to go anywhere without the power of the Holy Spirit. In order for this movement to come to life, in order for the great commission to be completed, the Holy Spirit, the helper, would need to arrive.

The Arrival of the Holy Spirit

As the disciples are gathered, they're waiting to launch. They hear, as the text says, a sound like a mighty rushing wind and fire appears in their midst and divides to rest on each of them like a tongue of fire. And they all begin to testify about the magnificent works of God in other language. The very presence of God, this Holy Spirit, comes and through his power, he turns the impossible into the possible.

Now remember, all this is occurring during Pentecost—the celebration. Like I said, it's way more than just the day the Holy Spirit showed up. Pentecost was God's idea some fifteen hundred years before this. If you read about it in the book of Leviticus, it was one of the major traveling festivals for God's people that they were instructed to keep.

Now this festival is also known as the Festival of Weeks, and I've heard that term for years and I never really understood it until I learned that Pentecost means fiftieth day. Festival of Weeks was a festival that was a week of weeks. So a festival is seven days in a week, seven weeks long. That's fifty days. It's kind of cool.

So what was that fiftieth day marking? Well, it's fifty days after the Passover—fifty days after the celebration of God delivering his people from slavery in Egypt. And fifty days after that is the day that they marked the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, the day that through Moses, God turned this nation into a covenant nation, a people of his own blessing, a people that he was gonna use on mission.

And so when the Holy Spirit comes, Jerusalem is bursting full of faithful Jews from every nation under heaven.

You guys did an awesome job reading that list of weird towns and languages, but do you see how this is playing out? Jesus instructed his disciples to go and make disciples of every nation. How are they going to do that? How are these little guys with so little means going to pull this one off? They don't even have travelocity or credit cards with points. There's no planes or trains or automobiles. There's no TV, no radio, no social media. There's no chance of these guys trending on Twitter.

I suppose they could have started a grassroots movement where they loved their neighbor and the gospel started very small and local and grew out and grew out in Jerusalem and Judea and then to Samaria and then to the ends of the earth. We're actually going to see that play out through this book. But God says, "I don't need it to be that way." And this is a huge mic drop—what God does.

God's start of this movement called the church—instead of sending his disciples out on this day and saying, "Okay, go ahead and go out to these hard places that you don't know and they don't know you"—what does he do? He brings all the far reaching corners of the earth right here, right to their backyard. He makes such a scene through these men that it draws the watching world to these guys to say, "What is happening? These guys from Galilee—it's like Uncle Si from Duck Dynasty is all of a sudden speaking French and eloquently and saying these amazing things. What happened?"

His representatives from all over the ancient known world—from Egypt—they're here at Pentecost. They've gathered to celebrate the way that God provided. They'd hear this. They'd be transformed by this. But they wouldn't stay. Think about it. We sometimes think that the movement of the church started in Jerusalem and it stayed and it grew and it grew. There's a lot of it—the next couple verses say their number was added daily. But these people go home. Changed people. They go home. They go back to their jobs and their families. They go back to their communities and their towns and they say, "Listen to this thing that happened. This thing that we've been waiting for. It happened. This Jesus is the real deal."

The missionary journeys that we're going to read about Paul later this summer—those things don't happen for like ten years. Can you imagine? He rolls out to a town, some of these towns in modern day Turkey, and there's already a community of people that are like, "Oh yes, yes, that. We know about this. We've heard about this. Our soil has already been planted to receive the good news of the gospel." God does this for them.

God's Personal Care for Every Nation

Not only does God bring the nations to Jerusalem so that they hear the good news, but he also cares personally for them. The Holy Spirit empowers the disciples to speak in new languages. When it says tongues, sometimes we think about things we may have seen on TV or different things about Pentecostal churches speaking in uninterpretable sounds. That's not what this word is in this passage. When it says tongues, it means languages. They're saying, "I hear this in the way I speak at home." God is showing how much he values their culture. Language is one of the most important components of culture.

I mean, if you meet somebody who doesn't speak the same language as you, we try to communicate with our hands really big and essentially all we're saying is "hi." That doesn't really work.

A few years back, I had the opportunity to take a group of high school guys on a missions trip to Nicaragua. I'd traveled a good bit in my life and I was prepared for some culture shock. I'd never been to Nicaragua before, but I did take three semesters of Spanish in college about fifteen years before that. I felt like I knew enough words and phrases. I could at least be winsome and try to speak.

I was so wrong. It turns out that just like in English, Spanish has many different dialects and there are many different slang phrases. The way culture interprets language and uses it in different spaces—I didn't understand a thing. I remember getting off the plane onto our missions bus in Managua and sitting there just hearing people make sounds. It might as well have been R2D2. They're going "beep beep beep," and I'm like, "Yes, what?" I had no clue. It was bewildering.

And to make matters worse, when we got into the communities that we were there to serve, it was really clear that myself and the team that we brought had nothing to offer. We had no way of communicating why we were there. We didn't even have the most basic understanding of language to communicate our names, let alone the gospel.

But it wasn't for my friend Seth, who agreed to come on this trip and had served as a missionary in Nicaragua and spoke the language fluently. And the hosts from the team that took care of us were able to teach us popular words and expressions. Were we fluent in Spanish by the time we left? Not at all. But we learned to say things like cool and hey, what's up, and popular phrases.

And what was amazing is when we began to use the language of a culture, what changed was facial expressions. No longer was it that blank stare of "don't know who you are, don't know why you're here," but they recognized we were trying to learn who they were. We were not just a bunch of goofy Americans—I mean, we wish we still were that—but we were seeking relationship. They weren't a project for us. They were people. And we had stepped onto their turf, into their world, and we shared our lives with them.

The places where we saw the gospel flourish on that trip weren't any of the things that we had prepared for or the programs that we had thought would make a difference. It was through common shared experiences. It was through good meals. It was through inside jokes. It was through working side by side on a construction project, mixing concrete by hand, hiking in the jungle, playing Uno by candlelight. These are the places that we saw God at work. These are the places where we hope our friends' lives are changed, but we know our lives were changed.

God cares about culture, and because language and culture are the foundation of relationships. So if you in this room call yourself a believer, can I ask you something? How'd you become a Christian? Was it through a program that you participated in, or was it through a person? I dare say, even if it was at a programmed event where you gave your life to Christ, you were probably only there because someone who knew Jesus loved you enough to bring you along.

For me, that person was my mom. I had been a part of many things growing up. I grew up in the church. I did not like it at all. I went to Young Life because I was expected to. I did not like it at all. I didn't go to youth group, and that's really ironic, considering my job now. I made a lot of bad choices. I didn't want anything to do with God.

Until one day, I woke up and I realized, oh my goodness, I believe in Jesus and I need him. And you know who I realized it was? It was the person along the way. It was my mom who had been trusting the Holy Spirit and had been waiting patiently in faith, praying with a community of her friends at church, lifting me up before the Lord so that my heart might be changed. The fact that I'm here this morning is the fruit of her faithfulness.

And what about you guys? Who's in your life? Who has God brought near to you that needs to hear the gospel? How has he made you the perfect person to speak the truth to them?

Truth Matters

Guys, CTK, the truth matters. God cares about the truth. Now we are living in a cultural age where the truth actually matters again. In this post-post-modern era, people are hungry for truth. Cancel culture exists because people are hungry for truth. You don't cancel somebody if you don't believe that what they said is wrong. Truth matters.

Now every religion, every faith tradition, every spirituality, every movement out there to be spiritual but not religious—every single person has to answer this question: Who is Jesus?

And here's the truth. Jesus Christ is more than a good teacher. He's more than a good man. He's more than a wise leader or a prophet. He's more than a spiritual guru or a religious sect leader. Jesus Christ is God himself. And he would come to us, to our culture, on our turf, and he would lay down his life for our sins so that we could once and for all be restored to God.

If we call on the name of Jesus as this passage says, if we repent and need him, then salvation is ours today. And the same Holy Spirit that filled these men, friends, it'll fill you and it'll fill me. And he invites us into partnering with him to go about his work of restoring the kingdom.

So friends, here's my challenge for us as a church. As we're entering into this series, we're calling the series "Jesus for Everybody" because really that's what Acts is about. Jesus not just for a few, but for everyone. Who is God calling you to go share him with? Who are you going to go tell the good news of the gospel?

I'll wrap up with this. There's this quote that gets used a lot. It's attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi, a twelfth century monk, and we love this quote.

A lot of people love to use this quote. It goes something like this: "Preach the gospel always and if necessary, use words." Friends, that's a load of junk. I don't buy that at all.

See, we love this because we want to let our actions communicate the way we see and serve and love our neighbor. But I want to push against this today because if our actions in loving our neighbor are bridling our willingness to use words to tell them the truth about who Jesus is and how he's transformed our lives and offered us hope and an eternal life with him and blessing, then friends, are we really loving our neighbors? Are we really showing the love that Jesus has for the world?

God gave the disciples the gift of language to speak the truth to a culture that he had put them right outside the door. And he's dropped you guys into a culture too. Right outside this room, every single one of us has been given the gift of speaking the language of a different culture. We all have a sense in which we belong to something and someone else that exists outside this room.

Now I'm not talking about being fluent in Spanish or French or Chinese or Portuguese, whatever. Like if you are those things, great. Use those gifts that God has given you to share the gospel with the watching world. But what about the culture of your school? What about the culture of your office? What about the culture of your family? What about the culture of your dorm, your college campus?

The good news of Jesus is the only thing that can heal and restore the places in your culture where there are cracks. And will you allow him to partner with you in fixing these broken places?

There's some risk in this, friends. You heard it in the text. They might think you're drunk. But on the other hand, you might get to stand back and watch as God brings salvation to someone that you love. I mean, what a gift wouldn't that be?

Jesus, your words bring life. Your gospel takes us from death to life and brings in us a new hope of all the work you are doing—the work of restoration to fix what's broken. Lord, would we be people that are filled by your Spirit? And would these things be true for us today? I pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.