Accepted!
Acts 10:1-23
Intro: Have you ever been part of a group where you had a sense that your acceptance was tentative at best? In some ways, my memories of Jr. high and high school are like that. I was accepted because I was considered a good athlete, a nice guy, one of the cool kids. However, as my faith grew and I dared to take a stand for what was right, my acceptance became less certain. I can only remember one time that I was called a Bible Thumper, and I thought about thumping the kid who said it. But I sensed that it might not be the best way to handle things.
-God wants people to know that He loves them and accepts them just the way they are. They don’t have to do anything to earn His love anymore than a newborn baby has to do anything to earn his or her parents’ love. God loves people because He made them in His image and He wants to show people how great His love really is. That leads us to the main point of the message today:
Prop: Every believer is a living telegram of God’s love and acceptance. [We are living text messages sent from God to people who need to know they are accepted.]
Interrogative: How does God use our lives to accomplish this?
TS: There are a number of ways, but I’d like to make 4 observations that will help us understand how God meets the deepest needs of a person’s life.
I. Even Good People Need Jesus (2)
A. Cornelius was devout and God-fearing- He was reverent. He was righteous. He had embraced the Jewish religion, with the exception of being circumcised. He worshipped the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He respected and honored God by living a holy life and doing what was morally right. What a profound difference it would make in our world if people were more careful to do right because they had a healthy respect and reverence for God. But is it enough to do good?
B. Cornelius was generous- He gave generously to those in need. Wow! No strings attached benevolence. He did not require repayment with or without interest. No, he likely considered his gifts as offerings to God. He cared about helping people who were in need. Proverbs 19:17 says, “Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will repay him for his deed.” What a kind, loving man Cornelius must have been! But is it enough to be kind and generous? Is it enough to be a nice guy?
C. Cornelius was a man of prayer- He prayed to God regularly. Twice a day (9AM & 3PM), devout Jews prayed publicly to God. These times coincided with the morning and evening sacrifices that were given to God. In addition, they prayed in private at least 3 times a day: morning, noon, and night. That is why we find the God-fearing Gentile, Cornelius, praying at 3:00 in the afternoon, and Peter the Jew praying at noontime. Cornelius called out to the God who hears from heaven and rewards those who diligently seek Him.
-To sum it up, Cornelius was a really good man. However, he did not yet know Jesus. One would think that praying, giving, and being good would be enough. Why didn’t God just say, “Son, Cornelius really loves Me and is doing a lot of good on earth. What do you say we go ahead and let him into heaven, even though He doesn’t believe that You were the Messiah who died to pay for his sins?”
-Why did God go to the trouble of sending an angel to speak to Cornelius about sending for Peter? Why did the Lord bother Peter with the vision of eating gross, unclean animals and tell him to go see Cornelius?
-The answer is this: Even good people need Jesus! Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
-Cornelius had been seeking the Father, obeying the Father, talking to the Father, but he would never be able to go to the Father except through Jesus. Every living person on this planet needs Jesus. It does not matter how intelligent they are, how kind they are, or how moral they are. Nobody gets into heaven without putting their faith in the Son of God who died in their place and rose again. That is why God went to great lengths to get the message of Jesus Christ to Cornelius. However, it wasn’t all that easy for Peter to understand what was going on.
-TS: That brings us to the 2nd point.
II. Even Godly Leaders Need to Adjust their Thinking
-God cleanses all who put their trust in Jesus, not just those we approve of.
-Why did God use the vision of clean and unclean animals as an illustration for Peter? We know from v.28 that Peter understood the vision to mean that he needed to share the gospel with Gentiles and welcome them into the Kingdom of God. So the main point of the vision was not that it was okay to eat unclean animals, but that Jews were no longer to disassociate themselves from Gentiles. Nevertheless, here is the question so many cannot find a satisfactory solution for: Did the vision mean that Jews might need to break some of their dietary restrictions in order to share the gospel with Gentiles? One thing they did need to do was change their view on what made them clean and unclean. Jewish belief prevented them from entering the house of a Gentile, and it prevented them from receiving a Gentile into their home. Why? Because Gentiles were considered unclean. They were considered unclean because they ate unclean food, and because they were uncircumcised – external criteria.
-So, what did the vision mean? It meant that things like diet and circumcision were not the criteria by which God accepted people. Jesus made it quite clear in Matthew 15:11: “What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ’unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ’unclean.” With God it is a heart issue, and Peter had to make a major adjustment in his thinking.
-In fact, what was Peter’s first response when God told him to kill and eat unclean animals? He refused on the basis of the OT. Ezekiel was told to eat unclean food as an example of Israel’s coming judgment, and Peter’s response sounds similar. In Ezekiel 4:14 Ezekiel replies, "Not so, Sovereign LORD! I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No unclean meat has ever entered my mouth.”
-In Peter’s case, the Lord’s response was that Peter must not call something unclean if God has made it clean. Peter had to hear this word 3 times before he began to realize that God really was doing something new. Now I don’t believe that Peter started eating bacon for breakfast and ham for lunch. In fact, we find that Peter struggled with this lesson later on. Paul writes about a confrontation he had with Peter in Galatians 2:12: “Before certain men came from James, he [Peter] used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.”
-Peter was a pillar in the early church. He was one of the closest disciples to Jesus, yet he had to continually be willing to be corrected by the Lord and by other Godly men.
-As far as the issue of eating only kosher foods goes, here is my opinion, based on what I have studied in the Bible: I believe it is okay for Jewish believers to keep a kosher diet if they want to – as long as it does not keep them from having fellowship with the rest of the body of Christ, and as long as they do not view kosher as a means of grace. Kosher food does not bring anyone any closer to God, nor does it make them any more worthy of salvation! The same applies for Gentiles. If they believe that a kosher diet is better for their health, no problem. However, if any believer (Jew or Gentile) refuses to associate with others in the body of Christ because of food concerns or cultural customs, they are being anti-Biblical. Furthermore, if a believer refuses to associate with others because of racial prejudice, they too are missing God’s plan for His people. We can also apply this to other concerns that wrongly divide the body of Christ.
-Should our Sabbath be on Saturday or Sunday? In Colossians 2:16, Paul says, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.” It is not a question of outward conformity, but a question of the heart. Before we get overly concerned with the “how” of worship, we need to ask the Lord to give us a heart of worship. Sometimes those who argue the loudest about how we should or should not worship spend very little personal time or effort actually worshipping God.
-So, Godly leaders and indeed all believers sometimes need to adjust their thinking, and let God use them to accomplish His agenda. We need to lay aside our own agendas and let God be God in and through our lives! "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."
-TS: Our next point is closely related to this.
III. God Wants Believers to Accept Others the Way He Does
-In some ways, this point is redundant, but I wanted to zero in on this truth, since I believe it reflects one of the core values of the NT. I also believe it is a core value of Christian Life Center. That doesn’t mean we have arrived in this area, but I think it is one area where we want to excel. We want to be long on grace and short on anything that makes people feel unwanted or unloved.
-We’ve already read how the Lord wanted Peter to respond to Cornelius and his men. First, God did not want Peter to consider these Gentiles unclean. He wanted Peter to love and accept them just as they were. It probably helped that Cornelius was a God-fearer. In the book of Acts, the term God-fearer generally describes a Gentile who embraces the Jewish religion and worships Yahweh, but does not become a full proselyte through circumcision. Cornelius had obtained the favor of the Jews already, so it wasn’t such a huge leap for Peter to accept him. However, the big problem had to do with inviting Gentiles into the same house and eating with them. As Peter mentions down in v. 28, it was contrary to Jewish law for Jews to enter a Gentile’s house, or to allow a Gentile to enter a Jew’s house – especially if it meant eating a meal with them.
-So, it was a big deal for Peter to invite those from Cornelius’ house in for food and lodging. See, it was quite a walk from Caesarea to Joppa. They spent one night on the road and arrived around noon the next day. They spent one night with Peter in Joppa, and Peter headed back with them the next day. They apparently spent another night somewhere along the way and arrived in Caesarea the day after that. Peter lodged with these Gentiles and ate a number of meals with them. Then Peter goes against everything he had been taught as a Jew and enters the house of an uncircumcised Gentile. He speaks these words to Cornelius in Acts 10:28: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean.” In other words, Peter was saying, “I accept you because God has accepted you.”
-There is a story about a man who visited a church. The church was fairly full so he walked right up the aisle to the front of the church and plopped down on the floor. He had long scraggly hair and his clothes were a far cry from the Sunday best that most of the people were wearing. The place grew quiet as people just stared at this intruder. Who does he think he is, coming in here like this? Doesn’t he know this is the house of God? Well, an elderly gentleman with white hair slowly got up from his seat and began shuffling his way down the aisle. Some of the people thought, “Good, old brother Dan will take care of this.” But when the old man finally reached the young misfit, he touched his shoulder and said, “Is this seat taken?” The young man said, “No.” So the elderly man painfully eased himself down on the floor beside him so he wouldn’t be alone throughout the service. People hung their heads in shame as they realized how unloving and unaccepting they had been in their hearts toward this stranger. Through the unconditional acceptance and love of a white-haired old man, someone’s life was changed. Brother Dan became a living telegram of God’s love and acceptance.
-What if we were the only means God had to let people know that He loves them and accepts them? Now let me rephrase that. We are the means God has chosen to let people know He loves and accepts them! 2 Corinthians 5:20 says, “We are Christ’s representatives or ambassadors, and God is using us to speak to you. We urge you, as though Christ himself were here pleading with you, "Be reconciled to God!"
-Folks, we must put any sense of superiority aside and realize that we are no better than the worst sinner who might wander into this building. We are better off because of God’s grace, but in ourselves we are no better. The ground at the foot of the cross is level. We cannot judge someone else to be impure or unclean based on things like race, background, or appearance. Obviously, many people are impure, but it is because they have chosen a path of disobedience to God and His ways. Can they become pure and clean? Yes! If they will trust Jesus to forgive them and to lead their lives, they can become clean! However, they will have no desire to do so unless we show them how awesome and accepting the love of God is. The Holy Spirit wants to use us, but if we do not have love, 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that gifts and power will not help us or anybody else. What does this kind of love look like? 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 tells us: 4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. 6 It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
-This is the way the Lord wants us to love each other, and those who do not know Him yet.
-TS: Finally, even though we are to love and accept others regardless of their response to the gospel, there is a specific response that is necessary in order for the good news to truly be “good news.”
IV. Obedience Is the Appropriate Response to the Good News
A. From those who share it – Even though Peter initially resisted God’s voice to eat something unclean, he was quite willing to obey God when God told him to go to Cornelius’ house. In v.29 Peter tells Cornelius, “I came without raising any objection.”
-What if Peter had refused to go? Maybe God would have sent someone else. Maybe Philip or Barnabas or Paul could have eventually ministered to him. Maybe Peter’s relationship with the Lord would have suffered until he repented of his disobedience. He knew he had heard from the Lord, and so the appropriate response pre-dates whatever the Nike Corporation came up with: Just do it!
-When God speaks to us about going to see someone and sharing His love and acceptance with them, we need to purpose ahead of time that we will just do it! Everything may not come out perfect, but if God is in it, things will work out. Just do it!
B. From those who receive it – What if Cornelius had not obeyed the angel and sent for Peter? What if he had not responded with faith to the message about Jesus being the Messiah? What if he decided that he was doing good enough already and said, “I’ll just do the best I can and hope for the best. I’m a good person. A loving God wouldn’t send me to hell. Think of all the poor people I’ve helped! I don’t need to be baptized in the name of someone who died a few years ago!”
-Cornelius did not say or think any of this. In fact, as we will see perhaps next week, Peter did not even get to finish his sermon before the Holy Spirit found hearts that were open and willing to embrace Jesus as their forgiver, leader, and Messiah.
-Willing obedience is the proper response to a holy God who loves us in such a way that He gave His one and only Son to die in our place. What does this loving God ask us to do when we come to Him? He tells us to repent of our sins, confess Jesus as the leader of our lives, and believe that His death and resurrection took care of our sin problem. If we will obey those words, the Bible says we become a new person.
-How about you? Have you obeyed God’s command to repent of the bad things you’ve said and done over the course of your life? Are you trusting Jesus for your forgiveness and allowing Him to lead your life? If you are, that is wonderful. Keep obeying the Lord by sharing His love with others, being a living telegram of His acceptance and grace.
-If you have not made this crucial decision to commit your life to Jesus Christ, I am praying that you will do it today! We aren’t promised tomorrow, but God is here speaking to us today.
-I hope you are able to sense how much God loves you and accepts you today. If you don’t remember a word of my sermon, that is okay – as long as you know that Jesus accepts you unconditionally! You can’t do enough good things to make Him love you any more than He already does. You can’t do anything that will make Him love you any less. His love for you is unchanging. We are the ones who must change, and we can! We can be changed by the power of His love!
-If something I’ve said today has stuck with you, I hope you will act on it. If you need to talk about it, please come and talk to me. If you need someone to pray with you, find an accepting Christian and ask them, or come ask me. You are accepted! God loves you. The people of this church love you. And your life is worth more than the world can give you in exchange for it.
-[Pray]
