Unhindered: Through It All, I Will Sing of the Goodness of God

Speaker: Justin Gingrich

Date: August 23, 2026

Scripture: Acts 2:1–21

Series: Unhindered

Sermon summary

The Unhindered series begins in Acts 2, where the Holy Spirit meets a waiting community at Pentecost. Justin Gingrich introduces the series as life shaped by God’s goodness, including seasons of uncertainty, disappointment, and suffering.

He describes two ways people seek safety. An exile mindset expects loss and watches for threats. An empire mindset tries to secure life by controlling it. Both can shape our relationships and make it difficult to trust that we’re loved. Against these patterns, the coming of the Spirit shows God’s active care for people who feel limited or afraid.

The Pentecost story also turns people toward one another. As the gathered crowd hears the wonders of God in their own languages, Justin reflects on the closeness that comes from understanding another person’s world. The Spirit’s work creates friendship and belonging, calling people beyond the boundaries they’ve built around themselves.

This message invites us to bring our burdens to God and begin with small acts of trust, obedience, surrender, or patient waiting. The road may unfold differently than we expect, but God’s goodness remains the ground beneath it.

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Sermon transcript

Lightly edited from automatic captions for readability. Some transcription errors may remain; the recording is the authoritative version. Select a timestamp to open that moment on YouTube.

0:01 — When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly, a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of a fire that separated and came to rest on them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem, God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.

0:40 — When they heard the sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment because each one had heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked, "Aren't all these who are speaking Galileans?" Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues. Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"

1:46 — Some, however, made fun of them and said, "They have had too much wine." Peter addresses the crowd. Then Peter stood up with the 11, raised his voice, and addressed the crowd. Fellow Jews and all of you who have lived in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you. Listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk as you suppose. It's only 9 in the morning. No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. In the last days, God says, "I will pour unto you my spirit on all people.

2:30 — Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women. I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below. Blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

3:10 — This is the word of the Lord. You can be seated. Let me pray for us. Father, we ask for your mercy this morning on us as a church. We ask that your spirit would be here. Father, for those of us who are here this morning who are searching or wondering where you are, Father, would you reignite in us a desire for love and affection and goodness that you so freely offer us in Jesus? Father, we need this.

3:53 — Sometimes we get complacent. We get defensive. We get scared. We get unsure. Father, would you show us your kindness towards us this morning? Spirit, would you be with us? We pray all these things in your name. Amen. Well, good morning. again, if you haven't met me before, my name is Justin. I'm one of the pastors here. And as we begin this new series in the book of Acts, what what I want us to do over the next couple of weeks is I want us to take a journey on the road of God's goodness. And I was very intentional with the way that I worded this. This isn't a journey to God's goodness. This isn't a journey to earn God's goodness. This is a journey on the road of God's goodness. And so what we're going to see all throughout the book of Acts is people who who navigate massive uncertainties in their lives and they navigate massive disappointments and loss. They will encounter real suffering. the kind of suffering that I would describe as as either soul shattering or even like innocence-stealing kind of suffering.

5:05 — And yet through it all, they will continue to cling to God's goodness. They will continue to sing it. They will continue to proclaim it. They will continue to declare it to the people around them. And so, friends, what I want for us this morning as a church, what I've been praying about as we prayed about what do we want to do in this fall series, what I am praying for is that our hearts would not settle for anything less than the goodness of God that is freely offered to us in Jesus. Because I'm afraid for so many of us, if you're like me, we've become sort of used to life just being like, "This is just as good as it gets. This is the world. The world is just the way that it is. the loss that I've experienced, this drama that I live with, this is just who I am, right? The struggles that I have, the addictions that battle for control over my soul. Maybe this is just as good as it gets. And friends, what I want to do with this series is I do not want to settle, do not settle for anything less than the goodness and the kindness of God that he longs to show you. And this is what we're going to see in the book of Acts is that God's goodness towards us is just it's it's brimming at the surface just waiting to be released.

6:24 — Even when Luke, who writes the book of Acts, describes this moment and when the spirit comes on people, he describes it as a violent wind. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. Why did Luke use that word violent wind? Like if you're talking about, hey, I want you to experience God. Would you say, oh, he's like a violent wind? But I think Luke is intentional with those words. And so we'll talk a little bit of more about this. But what I want to do this morning is I want to set up the book. I want to set up the journey that they are on because I think if we'll look closely at it, many of us will find parts of their journey that are very similar to our own stories.

7:02 — So when Peter gets up, if you the words that Janelle read, if we were listening, when Peter gets up, he addresses the other Jews in the area that are listening to him. And why this is important. Luke makes a point to make sure that we understand that Peter is addressing his fellow countrymen and women. And he's addressing them in a world in which they are caught between two very difficult realities. And the truth is I think every single one of us is caught somewhere in between these two realities. And the realities that they are caught in between, the realities that they are living with and living around as they await God to do something are this. They are caught between exile and empire. Okay. So this these themes will show up all throughout the book.

7:51 — Let me talk about what I mean by that because I think most of us will find ourselves somewhere between exile or empire as well. So, so as the Jewish people return to their homeland, they find themselves controlled or ruled by Rome. Some of you know the crucifixion story of Jesus. Jesus is nailed to what? A Roman cross. And yet God's people have for generations they've been told by God that he loves them, that they belong to him, that they are his. And yet they've experienced exile after exile after exile.

8:29 — And in a very real sense, they experienced another exile. They are not in control. Rome rules over their hearts and over their souls and over their lives. And so as these people are wrestling with where is God? Does God have a plan for my life? Does God orchestrate any of this? They are wrestling between two realities. The exile and the empire and exile exile if if you have an exile mindset. So I want to argue that everyone here this morning has one of these two mindsets. We either we either feel exiled or or or we feel the pull of empire. And I'll I'll explain what I mean by that. But for those of us who have an exile mindset, an exile mindset says I I might lose everything.

9:19 — If I don't protect what I have, then it could get taken from me. This is the reality and the and the mindset that most of the people that are here in Acts had as they were waiting for God to do something. The Romans are in control. their customs, their way of life, the things that they value, the values that they want to teach their children are all being dictated and managed and influences influenced by forces outside of their control. And so to live in exile, here's how I would describe to live in exile for some of us. It is to be shaped by trauma. It is to be shaped by trauma that has conditioned us to prepare for loss.

10:06 — Let me say that again because some of us our trauma has shaped us. But it to live in exile is to be conditioned to expect the worst to protect to understand that you are not safe that people are not safe that I have to protect myself because if I don't protect myself I can lose everything. And so an exile mindset means we protect ourselves. We protect our people. We we do everything we can to keep ourselves safe from the world around us. We watch for threats constantly.

10:44 — Right? This is something I see as a pastor, especially for those of you those of us who grew up in abusive homes or or maybe we had real neglect from our parents where oftentimes we carry that into adulthood. I was spending time with someone a couple weeks ago that grew up in a very, very abusive household. And as I spent time listening to them, they're an adult now. They don't live there anymore. But the way that they viewed the world, this person was particularly politically invested. I'm not going to share more details other than that, but they they see their their political party is safe and anybody else is different is a threat. And as I listen to them and I understand there's convictions, but what I heard behind that was a heart that was that has carried an unsafe home into the way that they view the world. Everyone else is an enemy unless they look exactly like me, vote exactly like me, and think exactly like me. This is an exile mentality.

11:47 — And so for those of us who live in exile with a strange sense that our soul is not safe, that we are not home. I know some of us are like, I never really felt like I had home. For us, we live in a world that we just we just distrust. We are constantly looking over our shoulders, waiting for the next knife, waiting for the next betrayal, waiting for the next person to come along a and and mistreat us. And and the challenge with this exile mindset is that we live on the edge. We are constantly awaiting the next threat. And so what we see in the book of acts is a people who have lived this way.

12:27 — They have lived in exile. They have watched the people that are hearing this message that God loves them have watched empire after empire after empire come in and collapse their reality. They are very well aware that while God has loved them and called them out and given them their own identity, not the world has never stopped trying to impose its own identity on them. And for some of us that are here, I know this is your story. Your whole life has had been somebody else imposing their will, their identity, their their views on to you. Some of us who those of us who are people pleasers, this is this is you, right? This is this is if I don't if I don't give everything I got, if I don't keep everybody happy, I'm not safe, right? If I don't give everything that I can to make myself secure and to feel home and to feel loved, then well, I don't have like I am not safe.

13:26 — Right? Sometimes we do this with I see this in men's site all the time in social media. We curate, right? We filter. I do it. I do it. Every picture I post, I'm like, which filter do I want? Right? But but we're so we're so aware that our our identity is not safe if we show others that we spend enormous amounts of time presenting certain pictures to the world. This is an exile mentality. And so many of the people that are hearing this message are waiting for God to do something. Maybe they've seen Jesus ascend to the father. Like this is their world. This is their reality.

14:04 — They're waiting and going, "This has been my life. Can God do something here? Could God bring me home? Home." I know for some of you, your soul is the home. What you've been longing for. And so what we're going to see in the book of Acts is God's spirit in and intervene and orchestrate and care and guide and lead on his road through his goodness these people home. A home where they are loved and accepted in Jesus.

14:40 — The other side of this is empire. So empire is what Rome is right. So they are living under Rome and so empire mentality is often I'm not safe and secure until I control everything right and some of us we're controllers and we know with the we even despite the fact of what it does sometimes to our relationships how isolating or alone it makes us feel we control everything we know we are not safe until we're in control and that mindset underneath empire is if I don't control the world it will control me I literally had somebody two weeks ago tell me that if it doesn't control you if you don't control it, it'll control you.

15:23 — And so we spend our lives relentlessly trying to become invincible, right? And when I use the word intentionally, relentlessly because there is this relentless pressure in empire to appear invincible. So much of our Christianity in America, if I can be so bold just for a second to say, has bought into this I I want boldness. I want impressiveness. I want to be invincible. I want control. However I have to do that politically, however I have to do like whoever I like I want to maintain a world in which I am safe because I am in control. This is empire.

16:02 — And and for some of us, we have really we like we pull back. We pull back in our relationships. We pull back in our families. We hold back in our marriages because we know unless I'm in control I don't want to participate or I cannot participate fully. And so those of us with empire mentalities like we have spent our whole lives some of us have spent our whole lives like leveraging ourselves working in our careers even if that means burning ourselves out so that we don't face the vulnerability that we feel inside. And I know if you're wondering like I very much fall into that empire mentality like I spend so much of my life cur kind of showings presenting in certain ways and I remember man I remember when I started a church like all of us I remember how exposed I felt do you know why because that empire that success that I had always built right I had prided myself on always getting like per perfect performance reviews like that was my thing if I got like a 4.9 out of five and be like why did you take the point you know I have the point off, right? Like I could have a whole conversation about it and then I got into this and it's like and all of a sudden I realized like I can't control any of like what other people think or see of me and there was this relentless pressure to perform and to meet every expectation and to to see everything that's getting posted online and like there was just this relentless need to control this is empire and instead of spending time focusing on the goodness of God, understanding how God was caring for me, and caring for the church. All I could focus on is all the things that were out of my control. And it drove me relentlessly exhaust. It made me relentlessly exhausted. I lost sleep.

17:45 — I'm going to eat. I'd get stressed. I wouldn't be present with my kids. I wouldn't be present in my marriage. The need to control and not feeling safe until I had it literally was running my life and destroying it. This is what Rome's do to us. This is what Rome does. Rome says,"I will control everything. Only then am I safe." And so you have people in Acts who are both Roman and Jewish. You have people that are caught between these two worlds. You have people that are going, "Can God really bring me home?" And you have people going, "Can I really let go?"

18:23 — And what I want to contend this morning is some we all of us here find ourselves somewhere between these two. Can I let go and surrender? Can I trust that he'll hold me? And this is precisely where we see the spirit of God show up most powerfully in the book of Acts. So there's a phrase that gets peppered all throughout the book of Acts and it's the plan of God or God's plan or some version of this. we read in Acts 2 23. This is right after the text that Janelle just read for us. We read that even Jesus when he is crucified it was according to God's plan. This is a this is something that over and over and over again through the book of acts we will hear Luke tell us that God's plan despite being the fact that we are in exile or we are under Rome God's plan is weaving and orchestrating.

19:19 — And this is precisely where these people are waiting for God to show up for God to do something. for God to to present in a way that they didn't see coming. They had an idea probably of what it means for God to show up. And this is precisely where Luke tells us that the spirit comes on them and it appears as a violent wind. And this imagery of God's spirit coming as this violent sort of earthquaking force will be used through the book. But what I want to point out this morning is that Luke when he describes the moment when we are waiting for home or we are trying to surrender.

20:00 — This is the moment when God shows up his love and his care and his plan. Show up for us not as something delicate but as this thing that takes over our reality and that we can trust. Okay. Okay. So, I remember the last hurricane we had, I don't know if youall remember, was Beryl that rolled through here and I have two young kids at home. Our home was fine when it was when the storm was coming through. we they're young. and they were like, "Let's open the door." and we we opened the door at one point when it was windy and I remember kind of opening that door and like that hurricane level wind kind of being expos like you could feel it through the house. There was nothing in the house that got untouched by that wind as like it gusted through the house and we shut the door. But this is how Luke describes God's love and care for us.

20:54 — And what I want us to see this morning, what I want some of us to see this morning is that often we think of God's care, God's plan, God's love for us more like a skittish deer than a hurricane force wind. We we see God's love for us as this thing that we can scare off that it's so timid that the wrong step and it's gone. My kids love My kids go to the grandparents house. There's deer everywhere. They live out in the country, right? And my little one, we like to go if they get close enough to the house sometimes we'll go look. I have a 2-year-old. He does not know how to whisper, right? And so like as we try to sneak up on these deer, like it's one little step on a twig, it's one little comment he makes and they're skittish and they're gone.

21:41 — And what what the book of Acts does for us is it says God's love for you, his plan for you, the way he orchestrates your life is like a it's a hurricane wind, not a skittish animal. You can't scare it away. And the reality is, I think some of us, we live with this mindset that if we don't step in just the right way or we misstep some, we struggle too much. like that's when the thing takes off. And yet Luke's portrayal of the spirit of God ascending on these people is one of a violent wind. And what I want us to hear this morning, what I want you to hear this morning is that as this happens, and we'll talk about what this means as they start speaking other language languages, as God's spirit shows up and it prepare, it's prepared to take them to these new heights that they I think viewed themselves as too limited to reach.

22:39 — Let me say that again. God's spirit shows up in a way that he's going to take and do something powerfully and beautifully through them. But for most of them, if not all of them, like they see themselves as too limited to reach that point. And so God's spirit is going to show up as a hurricane force wind and it's going to revolutionize or change the way that they view the world. Right? So if if you are an exile mentality, you have adopted certain ways of living and operating that keep you safe, that keep you protected, that keep you from from ever feeling real vulnerability and exposure, as those of us do who have an empire mindset. And what the book of Acts will do over these next nine weeks, what we'll do is we'll see that constantly God is pushing those people out of the boundaries that they had established for themselves. He He's pushing them past the expectations that they would have even had for themselves because of his love and his care and his goodness for them.

23:44 — And I think I think of Robert Bly, he's a he's a poet but but he talks a little bit about what this is like. he he talks about how most of us through our life he says we have a bag and as as we go through life as we cope with life what happens is we place certain parts of ourselves that have existed in this imperfect world into this bag. Right? We get we have a comment we have a comment from a parent that digs us deep. So, we take that part that they rejected or that they criticized or condemned or condescended towards and we put it in the bag and we get in elementary school. We find ourselves made fun of not fitting in.

24:27 — So, we do what we can to mold ourselves. We take those parts, we put it in the bag. The parts that are unlovable, rejectable, we put it in the bag. And what he goes on to say is that most of us by the time we're adults, by the time we've hit our midlife, the bag is very heavy. a couple weeks ago, I took my kids to the beach for one last summer vacation. and my little guy, have a 2-year-old, and of course in his older sister, she likes to pack herself. So, of course, he's like, "I want to pack myself." and so he gets his backpack and he's like, "I'm gonna go pack myself." And I hear him run up the stairs. I'm getting, you know, I'm loading the car, putting the stuff in the cooler, whatever. And I just like I I didn't see it, but I imagine he goes to his toy shelf and he just does this and like all the toys on the floor like I can hear him just clear it. he does the same thing when we take him to like Banana Republic. we were shopping the other day. He's like, "These clothes are way too folded." He just he does this like one arm sweep. but like so he he swe I could hear him like throwing the toys on the on the floor and then he's putting them in the bag and packing his stuff and I was like, "We're not going to need all of that. We're just gone for two days." and then I hear him, "Daddy, I can't lift the bag.

25:40 — Put too many toys in the bag." But what does this father who loves him do? Let me help you with the bag. It's too heavy for you. Let me help you. Let me carry this for you. And friends, this is what our our good father does for us. He looks at the bag that you're carrying, all the parts of you that you've tucked away. It's too heavy for you. Let me help you with this. And this is what he's going to do to the people all throughout the book of Acts. He's going to call on them to build churches.

26:19 — He's going to call on them to declare his good news in prisons and to officials and all throughout the world. people who are uneducated, people who have no cultural awareness of what they're doing, and God's going to use them. And I imagine for so many of those folks, their bag was heavy. But because this hurricane force wind comes in and lifts it for them, all of a sudden, God is going to do something through them. And this is where I want us to land this morning in the book of Acts as we get ready to close and take communion as I invite the band back up on the stage is the old rules and the old protections that they all had, they don't apply anymore.

27:07 — Look, the limitations that you've imposed on yourself, the fears in this wake of God's goodness, they don't apply anymore. And so what you'll see is as people begin to let go and as they begin to speak these different languages, there's all this confusion. And I know I'm sorry I made you all read those those words. I don't even know how to pronounce I don't even know how to pronounce them all. that's the truth. and look here look if you're at Restore and you're like I don't know how to pronounce this. We love you. Like stay here. Like I I told I told people like people get nervous when they have them read and they're like I don't know how to pronounce it. It's like good.

27:46 — that because nobody else does either. like I don't I don't want us to be a church that gets so theologically snobby you're like, "Well, that's not how you say that." We're like, "Who cares?" but as they begin to speak, there was a commentator I'm reading, Willie Jennings. I love him. Like his best commentary I think I've read on on a book in a long time. But he says, "What's happening here is a revolution of intimacy." So as God pulls them down this road either out of exile or under empire down this road of his goodness, he is calling them to intimacy. So as they begin to speak languages here, what's happening? Okay, I live in a bilingual household. A lot I know a lot of you do too. When when you have to speak someone else's language, you actually in some way submit yourself to them. You have to you have to understand them, right? To learn someone else's language is to understand their cultures idioms, their cultures tragedies and pain, their cultures jokes, things that like you have to learn the language, right? So to give you an example, if I if I were to tell you in English, if I were to say two two numbers 911, you would instantly know what that means. I'm not I'm not saying there's a number nine and there's a number 11. I say 911, you know, you know the weight and the pain and the loss. Some of you remember that day, right? So to learn someone's language is to understand what's formed them, what's break, what's broken them, what's hurt them, what their dreams are, what their expectations are.

29:17 — And so as they begin to speak each other's languages, here's what here's what I think is happening is they are beginning to manifest the goodness of God who desires to know us and bring us in. This is the miracle of this happening here. As they began to speak these languages, that's where the people go, "What does this mean? Could these guys care about me this much that they're speaking in a way that I understand? They're relating to me in a way that makes sense to me. And this is what the spirit is calling them to do. This is this great life that the spirit is saying, "Put down the bag. Trust me on this road on my goodness." Whether you're searching for home, whether you're trying to control everything in your home, would you trust me?

30:07 — Because I'm preparing you for a revolution of intimacy. I I think that none of them probably pictured God showing up this way. This is also a theme that the writer of Acts will make over and over again that when God's spirits shows up, it's generally not in the way that they expected. Even spiritual giants like Paul, Paul will say, "I I want to go to Rome." And then we'll find out that Paul eventually does get to Rome, but not on the road he thought. He gets there through incarceration. He literally shows up to Rome in custody. But he does get there. This is how the book ends. He declares the goodness of God, the gospel of God, bold and unhindered. And so the road rarely looks what what it is that they thought it would look like. And nevertheless, God is calling them into this great revolution of love and intimacy and connection.

30:51 — And that's the very next thing we read is as this community comes together, it will use this language of friendship as one of our values. This is why our value is friendship here at Restore comes from passages like this. Luke will tell us they did everything together, right? That word together in the ancient culture was signifying friendship. They now belong to one another. They spoke each other's languages. They began to understand each other at this deep level. Their desire was for one another just like God's desire was for them. And all of a sudden, this thing begins to take off as this goodness of God that's not not timid and not scared of you.

31:35 — It's it's waiting. And one of the things that I think we see all throughout the book of Acts is that this the spirit of God is waiting even for just the smallest little steps of faithfulness or obedience or trust or surrender or even patient waiting. I I think a lot of times we want or we think that God expects these big altar moments where we come and swear off every bad habit we have and then he'll accept us. But the book of Acts shows us that it's even just these small little moments of obedience. Small little moments of trust, little pin pricks into the into the big water balloon. It burst and and there goes God's love for them all over.

32:19 — And this is what the book of Acts says. And so what I want to I want some of you to hear this morning is is God's waiting for you not to not to swear off everything you think you need to swear off or improve yourself in all the ways. This is what we say in our welcome video. You are not God's self-improvement project. That's not what he's waiting for. He's waiting for just a little bit of trust, little bit of obedience, little bit of waiting, and then like opening that door. I remember when our kid opened the door just a little bit and in comes the spirit of God's goodness into your life. Let me pray for us as we take our offering this morning and then move into

The recording ends here.