Jeffrey Heine: Good evening. I think it's evening. It's like 9 o'clock now, right? Well, I hope that, you have been having a good day and that you are ready to jump into the book of Acts where we've been in a sermon series for some time now. We're finding ourselves in Acts chapter 10.
Acts chapter 10. In your worship guide, there's a paragraph, first 18 verses from chapter 11, in which Peter summarizes what happens in chapter 10. So as you're making your way in your Bibles, if you've got one with you, to Acts chapter 10, we're gonna hear these words from Acts chapter 11, and then we'll spend most of our time in Acts 10 together tonight. So Acts chapter 10. Reading from Acts 11, beginning with verse 1, and let us listen carefully, for this is God's word.
Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, you went to uncircumcised men and ate with them. But Peter began and explained it to them in order. I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance, I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to me. Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air, And I heard a voice saying to me, 'Rise, Peter.
Kill and eat.' But I said, by no means, Lord, for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth. But the voice answered a second time from heaven, what God has made clean, do not call common. This happened 3 times, and all was drawn up again into heaven. And behold, at that very moment, 3 men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea. And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction.
These 6 brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man's house. And he told us how he had seen the angels stand in his house and say, send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter. He will declare declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household. And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
If then God gave the same gift to them as He gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way? When they heard these things, they fell silent, and they glorified God, saying, then to the Gentiles also, God has granted repentance that leads to life. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's pray.
Lord, you alone are God, and we are not. You alone are worthy of praise. You are worthy of our sincere affection and attention. And so we come now with the desperate need to hear from you. And so we come, and we ask in all confidence and in all humility that you would speak to us by your Spirit.
So speak, Lord, for your servants are listening. We pray these things in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. A few weeks ago, I fell off my roof. And you can laugh, I'm okay.
I did. There were some storms that were coming through. There was a little break between the storms, and I wanted to get on the roof to blow off the leaves, because I knew that if these rains came through as they were expected to, then water would get into the attic, then it would get into the ceiling, and I would spend yet another Saturday patching and painting the ceiling. So I decided that this was the best time to make break for it, when it had just rained and I was home by myself. So as I am walking up the ladder, carrying a leaf blower, I get to the top and I'm about to step onto the roof.
It's at that moment that the base of the ladder slips out. The ladder then crashes through the kitchen window. And I fall and grab on to the gutter like Clark Griswold. I had enough time to think about that, like, to think of the movie. Some people, in those situations, their life flashes before their eyes.
I couldn't hold on for long. It was wet. I'm not strong, and I slipped, and I I fell onto the ladder. And then as I was starting to assess my injuries, I remembered that there was a leaf blower still on the roof. And as it made its way down, it fell and hit me on the head.
All of these things actually happened. It was a comedy of errors. It was it was like a cartoon. Like, it was, it was like Home Alone, where like one terrible thing is just followed up by another ridiculous, terrible thing. It was a bumbling comedy of confusion.
I was confused at every stage and then something else would happen. And you know, the the narrative stories of the Bible, they can all kind of unfold like a play. And we looked at that not all that long ago when we were reading through Esther. And that kind of showed us a drama. It showed us a tragedy of sorts.
And Acts chapter 10 reads more like a comedy. Not in the in the, jokes and humor kind of way, but in the classical way of a stage play that's a comedy. 1 that ends in joy. It often ends in singing. There's a vision in one city with 1 man, A vision in another city, another man.
They don't know each other. And this one man finds out about this man over here. They send people over here, he meets with them, they all travel back over here, and by the end of it, still no one knows why. Not a lot of information is really passed around here. God just happens to be on the move.
It's fast paced movements, an irony of these two characters, Peter and Cornelius, having no idea what's happening until the end, which is full of joy. Tonight, I want us to follow this story as it unfolds, and then I want us to look the entire time about what what God is doing in these scenes. I want us to think about what it meant for these first followers of Jesus, these disciples of Jesus. And then I want us to think about what it means for us, the disciples of Jesus, today. The story opens up in Caesarea, where Cornelius the centurion is praying.
Right around the time that Mary, Mary the mother of Jesus, right around the time that she was born, the Roman king of Judea, Herod the Great, built a port city in north central Israel called Caesarea. Today it has a population of about 5,000 people, but 2000 years ago, it served as the administrative center for the Roman Empire in Judea. That's where the headquarters were for the Roman governor. So the city was home to many Roman officials, including one military captain named Cornelius. He was an Italian captain, stationed in Caesarea to oversee 100 Roman soldiers.
That's how he came to have the title centurion. The writer of the book of Acts, Luke, goes into a lot of detail about the personal character of this Cornelius, how he was a good and upright man. But Luke also goes out of his way to distinguish that Cornelius is a gentile, meaning he's a non Jewish person. He's outside of the people Israel. That he's not a part of the people of God.
So far, in Acts, as we've been making our way through, we've seen the message about Jesus, the message that Jesus is the Son of God, that He was put to death and raised to life for righteousness and forgiveness. That message so far has been preached to Jewish people, to people who converted to Judaism, to Jewish, sex like the Samaritans. So far, no gentiles. Luke says that though Cornelius was not a Jewish convert, he was a devout man who feared Yahweh, and he led his household to fear Yahweh. And that that fear, what Luke's describing there, is a reverence for God.
And out of that reverence, Cornelius generously gave of his money to the Jewish people that were poor and in need in Caesarea. And he also prayed regularly to Yahweh during the daily hours of prayer. And he did all of this, but he had not converted to become a part of the people of God. Luke wants you to know these things, that Cornelius gave generously, he prayed continuously, 2 important acts of an upright person. But it wasn't enough.
It was gonna take a lot more than just good deeds. This would require some major transformations, changes that would require divine action, and the Lord was on the move. So what are these big changes? While Peter truly believed Jesus when he gave the Great Commission, Peter believed when Jesus said, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, when he said, go into all the world and preach the gospel. Peter believed it when Jesus said, repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed to all nations beginning in Jerusalem.
He believed Jesus when he said, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. He believed it, but he had no idea how this was going to be possible. If the disciples were supposed to be Jesus' witnesses to the ends of the earth, if they were to proclaim Him to all the nations, and that means that Gentiles would hear the gospel, and maybe they too would follow Jesus. Peter believed that that was the plan, but he didn't know how it could happen, and that's because Gentiles were unclean. Gentile homes were unclean.
Their food was unclean. Many of their vocations were unclean. In short, their lives were unclean. Peter and the disciples could not have anything to do with these Gentiles, these clean people. They couldn't even step into the Gentiles' home.
How could the gospel be proclaimed to these unclean Gentiles? How could they receive this gospel and the Holy Spirit? It was unfathomable to Peter. How could God welcome the Gentile as a child? If you've ever done a Bible reading plan before or ever started a Bible reading plan before, you might have found yourself at some point in the Old Testament, where there are lengthy descriptions about the law, concerning various sacrifices and offerings, about purification rituals, the structures for worship in the Tabernacle, later in the temple.
These rules and these sacrifices, it was to atone for sin, so that the worshipers could approach a holy God. Along with this sacrificial system, the law contained complex rules for cleanliness and ceremonial purity. See, it was out of grace that God gave the gift of the law through Moses to the people Israel. The law regulated their lives, their day to day lives, their sociopolitical structures, their worship of God. The law taught the Israelites the great difference between their god and themselves.
The law is about food, clothing, vocations, worship, sacrificial system. It all emphasized that God alone was holy and pure, and that He was making provisions for a relationship with Israel. These ordinances were were binding only within this relationship with Israel to set them apart, to cleanse a people for Himself. He had to qualify them for this relationship. The people had to be cleansed to be in this relationship.
All of these rituals for purification, all these systems for sacrifices, they were instructional in nature, not effectual in nature. So what does that mean? In other words, the the blood of bulls and goats would never effectually take away sin forever. It could cover it, but it couldn't take it away. See, washing the body would never effectually cleanse the soul.
These things instructed, though. It instructed it taught the people about their spiritual and inner need for being clean. It taught them the difference between their god and themselves. The gentiles who did not have the law that God had given to Israel, they were far off. They were cut off from the people of God.
They were unclean. So the disciples who could not associate or even visit these Gentiles, how could they preach the gospel to them? How could these people believe and the spirit dwell in an unclean person? Have you ever thought that someone was unredeemable, unforgivable? Someone with so much baggage or has caused so much damage that you've considered them unforgivable?
Or better yet, have you have you ever thought of yourself like that? Unforgivable, unredeemable, too far off. Well, in Acts chapter 10, our story opens in the far off pagan Roman city of Caesarea, where a gentile named Cornelius is praying. God sends an angel to meet with Cornelius in a vision. The angel of God comes to him and says, Cornelius.
Cornelius stared at him in terror and said, what is it, Lord? And the angel said to Cornelius, 'Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.' He's saying that Yahweh has seen and received this worship. He has taken note of what Cornelius is doing. Then the angel says, And now send men to Joppa, another city, and bring one Simon who is called Peter. He's lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.
That's all the information. Those are all the coordinates that they are given. The angel is gone. The vision is over, and Cornelius immediately calls 2 servants and 1 devout soldier. And he tells them everything that happened, and he sends them to Joppa at once.
As I've made my way through this text this week, I went from kind of this, this Greek or Roman stage play to it kind of looking like a Charlie Brown Junior High School play, where most of the costumes are made out of cardboard and the set pieces are spray painted cardboard. And there would be, you know, these 3 teenage boys that say, We will now go to Joppa. And then they just exit stage right to Joppa. So that's it. We will now journey to the city of Joppa.
The lights dim. The lights come back up to reveal Peter in the city of Joppa. The next day, as Cornelius' men are making their way, traveling to Joppa, Peter goes on top of Simon's house to pray. He falls into a trance, a waking dream. And he sees the heavens open up, and something like a great sheet starts coming down to earth.
And on that sheet, there are all kinds of animals, animals that Peter recognizes as unclean. Peter hears a voice. If you've been following along in your Bible, you might take note that these words are written in red because he hears the Lord say, rise, Peter. Kill and eat. But Peter has seen these animals.
He takes this closer look, and he says, these are unclean animals, forbidden to even be touched by the law of Moses. And so Peter responds, no, Lord. I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And the voice speaks again and says, what God has made clean, do not call common. The scene fades out and then happens again.
The heavens open up. This sheet begins to make its way down. It's covered with these animals. Peter looks at them. He sees that they are unclean animals.
The voice says, Peter, rise, kill and eat. And he says, no. I've never eaten anything unclean before. I'm not going to do it. And then God says, what God has made clean, do not call common.
And the scene ends, and it happens again. There's something with Peter and things happening 3 times that someone should surely write a book about. Three times, he denies the lord. Three times, the lord asks him if he loves him. And three times, he's given this vision of of food, animals coming down, and God's saying, what God has made clean, do not call common.
And the vision ends. Peter has no idea what this means. And as he is still in shock and trying to process this vision, the men sent by Cornelius in Caesarea have made the few days' journey to Joppa, and they are now at the gate of Simon the Tanner's house. They are asking for this Simon who is called Peter. Remember, they don't know who this Peter is, or really why they're asking for him.
They just know that they are supposed to bring him to Cornelius, who also doesn't really know why they are bringing Peter to Caesarea. Caesarea. And as they make their way to Peter, Peter is trying to figure out what this vision meant, and then all of a sudden, in this confusion, the Spirit speaks to Peter and says, Behold, 3 men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them. Think about this.
A Roman soldier, 2 servants of a centurion, the power of the empire, They are asking for Peter. We find out that these men weren't simply sent by Cornelius. They were sent by God. The spirit says, I have sent them. I have a plan.
And that's enough for Peter. He calls out, I am the one you are looking for. The men tell Peter about Cornelius and his vision, and Peter invites them to be his guests for the night, and he says that they will travel in the morning. And the next morning, the Romans, Peter, and 6 Christian brothers from Joppa set out for Caesarea. The lights go down.
The lights come up at Cornelius's house. Meanwhile, back in Caesarea, Cornelius calls all of his family and his close friends to his home. Remember, there was something that happened in the way that Peter will later recount this, where there was something that the angels said to Cornelius about a message. There's gonna be a message, and this message is gonna be a way that you and your household will be saved. And the bright idea of Cornelius is, well, let's get as many people in this house as we can.
And so it's packed with family and friends. Peter and the rest of the travelers arrive in Caesarea, and Peter walks into Cornelius's house. Cornelius rushes up to Peter, falls down at his feet, and begins to worship him. Peter lifts him up and says, stand up. I too am a man.
I don't want us to miss all all that's wrapped up in that phrase. We we don't have time for all the things that are packed in there, but I do want to quickly mention 2. These words, I too am a man. 1, it displays humility. You see, Peter, the great apostle, the rock upon which the church is being built, this apostle who has much role and responsibility and authority in in Jerusalem, this Peter recognizes that he is just a man in need of Jesus.
And secondly, it displays humanity. Peter doesn't just see an unclean gentile when he looks at Cornelius. Peter sees a man, a man in need of Jesus. They go inside. The house is full of these people.
None of them really understanding why why they are all there or what is going on. They're probably worried about what was happening. They just know that Cornelius is very excited about something. Maybe it's a pyramid scheme, and he's gonna do a little get rich, if they buy 20 calling cards kind of a situation. Calling card.
I don't even I can't I'm not sure if I have the vernacular to even explain what a calling card did. Peter says to the crowd he looks at these friends and family members of Cornelius, and he says, you yourselves know how unlawful it is for an Israelite to associate with or even visit anyone from another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. Peter is saying that God has shown him that he should not call any person common or unclean.
What does this mean? It means Peter is realizing an even deeper meaning to this vision that God has given him. Yes. It is about food being clean, but even more significant, God is the one who calls people clean. How does God make a person clean?
He makes the unclean clean through the perfect cleanliness of Jesus. The writer to the Hebrews says this. We have a high priest who is tempted in every way to every point like we are, yet he was without sin. You see, Jesus, in His obedience to the Father, His love for the Father, His obedience to the Father, His obedience to the law that was given through Moses to Israel, that obedience, Jesus fulfilled the law. He is both our perfect sacrifice and our perfect obedience, both fulfilling the law for me and for you.
It's not that the law doesn't matter. It's that Jesus fulfilled the law. It is Jesus who makes the unclean clean, not for just a passing moment until you sin again, which was what the blood of bulls and goats could do, could cover over for a brief time. No. Jesus came and secured your cleanliness forever.
Peter sees that God was not forgetting the law or pushing it aside. Jesus fulfilled it. And the words of Christ in the Great Commission to go and preach the gospel to Gentile nations too was made possible because of Jesus. They could proclaim Jesus to the nations because Jesus made it possible. Peter says, I came without objection, without hesitation.
And he looks to Cornelius and says, I ask then, why have you sent for me? Cornelius tells Peter and the crowd about his vision of the angel. And then he says, so I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore, we are all here in the presence of God to hear what you have been commanded by Jesus. Peter then preaches the good news.
The good news of peace through Jesus Christ, Lord of all. That everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. And before Peter was even finished, before he was really even warmed up with this message, the Spirit fell on everyone who could hear the words of Peter. The Spirit poured out on Gentiles. The unclean, the uncircumcised, the unholy, the unrighteous, the unqualified, God made them clean.
He circumcised their hearts. He made them holy and righteous. He qualified them in Jesus. Paul wrote to the Colossians telling them, we give thanks to the father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins.
No one is a citizen of the kingdom of the Son by their own right or merit. Every citizen of the kingdom of God is an immigrant transferred in by the power of God. This household of Cornelius, these gentile men and women, they didn't attain the grace of God. They didn't work their way to it. They were obtained by the grace of God.
They were taken up into it, and the grace was poured out by the Spirit. 2nd, Pentecost is breaking out with these Gentiles, the unclean Gentiles, whom the very best and brightest among them was moments ago worshiping Peter. They are now full of the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues and praising God. Here in Acts 10, while the gospel word is being declared, before we hear confession, before anyone is baptized in water, the spirit falls. Because salvation belongs to the Lord.
The apostle John writes of this in the beginning of his gospel saying, to all who did receive Jesus, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become the children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And since Pentecost, as we've been journeying through the book of Acts, every evangelistic story that we have seen where people are coming to faith in Jesus, they've kind of followed this formula, this progression of gospel declared, gospel believed, this repentance, confession, baptism, and then the laying on of hands by the apostles when the spirit comes to dwell in a new believer. But here in Acts 10, the Spirit falls before any confession, before any water baptism, anything like that. The Spirit evidences a true conversion of these Gentiles. Peter and the brothers from Joppa see all of this happening.
They had received that gift from God, the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. That same gift was now being given to the Gentiles. This authenticated evidence to Peter that God was making these men and women, Cornelius' friends and his family, God was making them clean in Jesus. God was bringing them into the family of God in Christ. And Peter was amazed, and he turned to these brothers from Joppa.
And he says, Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. And Luke says the whole household was baptized that day. It ends with rejoicing, and the lights go down. Now this story of Cornelius and Peter, the the central message I want us to hold in front of us tonight is this. No one is beyond the transformative power of God.
We see this truth play out in Cornelius. Cornelius was the guy who didn't simply sit in the back pew at church, he stood next to the door for a quick exit. He would leave the service early, so he didn't have to sing anymore or talk to anyone after the service. He didn't want to stick around when group prayer started happening all over the place. He was just heading to the parking lot.
You see, he had a reverence for God. He had a restlessness about this Yahweh. But he didn't want to get too close. Saint Augustine once said, Our hearts are restless until they rest in God. Cornelius was restless, but Cornelius knew he was considered unclean.
He knew he wouldn't have been welcomed. He knew that those believers wouldn't even come into his home. He didn't wear the right clothing. He didn't do the right rituals. He didn't eat the right foods.
He knew he was an outsider. And all those things would have been obstacles for Peter. But none of those things were obstacles for god. No one is beyond the transformative power of God. We also see this truth played out in Peter.
In all the rush of what happens, it's easy to forget how significant all of this is for Peter. He's having his own sense of a conversion here. As we see in Acts 11, verses 1 through 18, Peter will have to defend his visit to the Gentiles because of the Hebrew Christians in Jerusalem. You see, did you catch what they were so mad about? They were mad that he ate with the Gentiles.
They start hearing that the Gentiles have received the word of God, and the first thing on their mind is he ate with them. And he has to defend this, just going into Cornelius's home and eating with him. It goes against everything that these Christians have known about God and about themselves, and this will continue to be a problem for the early He's transforming his heart and his mind. He's deepening what Peter knew Jesus came to do. God was still transforming Peter.
At first, Peter refused it, three times. He couldn't believe it. But this isn't a story just about food. It's about the family of God. And God was and God is calling men and women from every tribe, tongue, and nation.
And that might be hard, even for some of you in this room today. But we serve an untamable God, whose spirit will never be domesticated and whose grace will never be curtailed by our prejudices. And Peter had to realize that refusing to take the gospel to the Gentiles was wrong. And he could go on being wrong, or he could learn the liberating power of finding out that you're wrong. Finding out that you're wrong is a grace, because only then can you be right.
But that can be a difficult grace to receive. The French comedic playwright Moliere said, it infuriates me to be wrong when I know I am right. The Christians in Jerusalem were infuriated, but they were wrong. And in God's kindness, God is showing them that they were wrong. It's kindness because only then they can be right.
I found out in my own life and in ministry that much of the Christian life is about finding out that you are wrong. Finding out how wrong you are, and how right God is. Because of that, because how often we find out that we're wrong, As a community, as a family, we have to grow in grace and patience with one another, as the Spirit shows us individually and corporately our wrongs, our blind spots, our errors. Because the Spirit leads us to the truth, and it's not always easy. But it is grace.
No one is beyond the transformative power of God. You are not beyond the transformative power of God. Not one of us in this room. You might feel like you are, and someone might have even told you that you are, but you aren't. You're wrong.
Wonderfully wrong. No matter how unworthy or unforgivable or unlovable you might think you are, God says you're wrong. And when you think that someone is unforgivable, too far gone to be redeemed, or when you think of yourself as unforgivable and too far gone to be redeemed, remember Cornelius. You remember that it is God who crosses the great chasm of our uncleanliness and unrighteousness and washes us in the blood of the lamb. There is nowhere that you can go to escape the grasp of God's grace.
In your sin, in your foolishness, you may be very fast, but God is faster. He will pursue you with his grace, and he's doing it even now. The apostle Paul tells the gentile Corinthians, you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
He has washed you, not just for a moment, but forever. Cornelius can be an unclean gentile in Caesarea. Peter can be a reluctant saint in Joppa. But God is on the move. He pursues His children with His transformative power and grace.
God is making clean what could never have been made clean on its own. God is making a holy people for Himself, a holy nation, a royal priesthood. God is on the move today, in your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength. Where can you go from his spirit? Where can you flee from his presence?
By the grace of God, the answer is nowhere. May your soul find rest in Jesus today. And in the chaos of life, may you find that He is more than enough for you, not just for a moment, but forever. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your word and the chance to come together as a church family.
And, Lord, I ask that in these moments, you would help us in the quiet of these times to be honest with you and with ourselves. Spirit, for the men or the women who are in this room, who have believed the lie that they are unforgivable, unlovable, unredeemable, Spirit, would you tell them the truth? Would you speak tenderly words of comfort? And, Lord, would you help us to grow in our trust and our love and our obedience to Jesus? Be with us even in this moment, to open our eyes, to turn our hearts, to show us where we're wrong, that we might be right in Christ.
We pray these things in His name. Amen.