Some Bible stories we love… until we realize we’re the character we don’t like.

This week on Table Talk, Dr. Bill Stewart walks through Acts 15:6–21 and the Jerusalem Council—the moment the early church had to decide whether Gentiles needed to become like “the people of God” in order to belong to God. Circumcision. Food laws. A whole religious lifestyle. Why didn’t God just make the outsiders follow the insiders’ rules?

Along the way Pastor Bill names the stories we love and hate: the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), the vineyard workers (Matthew 20), and this council in Jerusalem. We love the grace in them. We hate that we sound like the older brother and the workers hired at dawn—“I want credit for doing it the right way. It’s not fair.”

The way out is not better performance. It’s remembering we are recipients of undeserved grace, welcoming the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and recognizing that works are not the prerequisite for faith—they are the result of it.

We are prodigals who keep acting like older brothers.

Pull up a chair.

Scripture: Acts 15:6–21

Does God need us?

William Carey, the father of modern missions, pressed a question the church still has to answer: if God can do whatever He wants, why does He still put us in the equation?

In Acts 14:8–20, Paul and Barnabas arrive in Lystra and God uses extraordinary means to open a door for the gospel. A lame man walks. The crowd, shaped by a local legend about Zeus and Hermes, tries to worship the messengers instead of the Message. Paul and Barnabas refuse the pedestal and point the power away from themselves. Then the mood turns, Paul is left for dead—and he gets up. God is gracious even before the message is fully understood, and He works the extraordinary through the ordinary.

This week we also remember that God has always used unexpected means for His purposes: a talking donkey, an orphan girl who saved her people, and His own Son born of a virgin. He can use whatever He wants to reach people. He has chosen us.

The Great Commission gives us the mission.
The Great Commandment gives us the motive.
The Gospel is the message.

That calling is not a detour from God’s design. It goes back to the creation mandate: we were made to represent Him and rule on His behalf. One of the most extraordinary things God is doing today is not a spectacle on a stage. It is that He is still using ordinary people to carry the good news to a specific face—someone He has placed in your life.

Who has God called you to reach?

To the Ends of the Earth | Acts 13:42-52

The Table Community Church · Fort Worth, TX · thetablecc.com

September 6, 2026

This week we go back to Sunday’s message, look behind the sermon, and build it into the week.

“Ask not what your country can do for you…” Kennedy’s line still lands. The gospel starts with what God has done for us—but as we grow, we start asking a harder question: What can we do for God? In Acts 13, Paul and Barnabas preach in Pisidian Antioch. Some Jews receive the word with joy. Others push back. Then the Gentiles lean in, and the message that began in Israel starts moving outward.

That was always the plan. God called Abraham so that the nations would be blessed. Rahab is welcomed in. The Law made room for the foreigner. Israel was meant to be a light that drew people in. Too often they built walls instead. After the resurrection the method changes: Jesus sends His people out. The church first stayed clustered together. Persecution scattered them. Then God called people like Paul to carry salvation to the Gentiles—still through Jewish streets at first, then farther.

God is still doing that work. We often talk as if “the ends of the earth” is somewhere we have to fly. In many ways, we are the ends of the earth. The center of gravity of global Christianity has shifted south. Mission trips still matter. Staying put and reaching the people already around your table, street, and city also matters. You do not have to leave home to be part of what God is doing.

Come back to the sermon. Look behind it. Then build it into Monday through Saturday.

Listen to the Sunday message, then use this episode to press it into your week. Join us at The Table—Sundays at 9:00 and 10:30 a.m. More at thetablecc.com.