Verses Used:

Takeaways:

Scene 1: Pentecost

God has been telling one story all along. These feast weren’t random holidays- they were signposts pointing to Jesus.
At Sinai, the Law was written on stone - 3,000 people died because of sin.
At Pentecost, the Spirit writes the Law on hearts - 3,000 people are made alive.
We are now God’s temple and the Spirit dwells inside you. This matters because the Christian life is impossible without the Spirit. We don’t advance the kingdom by effort alone, but by dependence, and the same Spirit who empowered Peter lives in us.

Scene 2: Cornelius

Keeping the law didn’t make you right with God. Trusting that Jesus fulfilled the law for you makes you right with God. Faith.
God shows no favoritism; he loves all people and we all have access to God. The gospel breaks every boundary - ethnic, cultural, religious.

Scene 3: Paul

Paul becomes the primary missionary that traveled across the Roman Empire (modern-day Turkey, Greece, and beyond)
Paul proclaimed Jesus as Lord in cities, synagogues, marketplaces, and homes; he planted churches, not buildings, but communities of disciples; appointed leaders and moved on , trusting the Spirit to grow the church; suffered beatings, imprisonment, rejection, and hardship - but never stopped.
Paul didn’t just make converts, he started movements.
Every church is called to make disciples, and some if not most do.
Not all churches multiply gospel expressions to reach those that don’t yet know Jesus. Not all plant churches.

Discussion Questions:

How does the church sometimes send a different message? A message that God does have favorites?
Why would God challenge His people to be uncomfortable with who gets into the kingdom?
Why do some churches seem to really embrace church planting while others do not?
How does the idea of helping start a new expression of the gospel in a new place make you feel? Why?