Last week left us in the home of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, who, while in prayer, received a message from God to send some men to bring back Simon Peter. Peter along this same time had also received a message from God while in prayer to go with these men. Cornelius tells Peter in verse 33 READ.
Our passage tonight is 34-43. This passage gives the first message ever preached to the Gentiles by one of the apostles. It’s the message that opened the door of salvation to all the people of the world. There are several points in this message that I want to emphasize tonight—9 points in fact. So let’s get into the message that Peter preached. READ 34-35.
Point #1 is that God shows no favoritism—He accepts anyone who fears Him and does what is right. God shows in this chapter of Acts that He has no favorites and no prejudice against anyone. He shows no partiality or discrimination. He doesn’t accept a person because of nationality, race, social standing, or class.
Sometimes this is hard for us to understand. God doesn’t face a person because of who he is, what he does, or what he has. “But surely,” someone says, “Surely after all I have been doing for God, surely He will lean my way if it becomes a matter of Him choosing me over someone else.” WRONG! That kind of thing doesn’t make a person acceptable to God.
Peter states in these two verses that God is no respecter of persons and God is not respecter of nations. Two things make a person acceptable to God and Peter covers both of them.
1. Fearing God.
2. Doing what is right. In the Bible, righteousness means two things: to BE right and to DO right.
There are those who stress being righteous and neglect doing righteousness. This can lead to two serious errors.
1. It can lead to false security. It causes a person to stress that he is saved and acceptable to God because he has believed in Jesus Christ. But he neglects doing good and living as he should. He neglects obeying God and serving man.
2. It can also lead to loose living. It allows a person to go out and do pretty much whatever he wants. He feels secures and comfortable in his faith in Christ. He knows that what he does may affect his fellowship with God and other believers, but he thinks his behavior will not affect his salvation. He thinks that no matter what he does he is still acceptable to God.
The problem with this is that it is false righteousness. Righteousness in the Bible means being righteous and doing righteousness. Then you have those who stress DOING righteousness and neglect BEING righteous. This also leads to two serious errors:
1. It can lead to self-righteousness and legalism. This is the person that stresses that he is saved because he does good. He works and behaves morally and keeps certain rules and regulations. He does the things a Christian should do by obeying the main laws of God but he neglects the basic law: the law of love and acceptance—that God loves him and accepts him not because he does good, but because he loves and trusts the righteousness of Christ.
2. This type of thinking can also lead to being judgmental. A person who stresses that he is righteous because he keeps certain laws often judges others.
Again, the problem with this is that it is false righteousness. So righteousness in the Bible is both being righteous and DOING righteousness.
READ 36-37. The 2nd point in this passage is that God sent His Word to Israel; He sent Jesus preaching peace. Peter says it plainly. God sent His Word to Israel and He sent it through Jesus Christ. But God’s Word wasn’t meant for Israel alone. Jesus didn’t come just for Israel’s salvation. Again, God is not respecter of persons or nations. Peter declares three facts in these 2 verses.
1. Jesus is Lord of all. Not just the Jews, or the privileged, or the poor, or religious, or the Gentiles, or the heathen.
2. He declared that Jesus had been talked about throughout all Judea. Peter told Cornelius, “You know. You have heard the Word—the message God sent.” Cornelius and the ones sitting there had just paid little or no attention to it. I wonder how many sit through church services and pay little if any attention to the message.
3. Peter said that Jesus began to preach God’s Word in Galilee right after John’s ministry of baptism.
So in preaching all this, Peter was saying that no one had an excuse for rejecting the gospel of God’s kingdom. Jesus had traveled and preached the gospel everywhere. And so it is today with those who have heard the gospel. They have no excuse.
READ 38-39. The 3rd point is that Jesus is God’s anointed Savior. “Christ” literally means “the anointed One of God.” Jesus was anointed with the HS in a way that no other person has ever been anointed. He received an unlimited measure of the Spirit, and it was once for all. It was through this anointing that Jesus gained His miraculous power of healing and ministry.
The believer today still receives the HS so that he can have the power to be a witness to the world. Notice that Jesus didn’t come nor was He anointed to debate theories and theology with the ministers and priests of His day. He was anointed to go about doing good and helping people by delivering them from the power of the devil.
And there is proof that Jesus did these things because Peter tells them that he, Peter, and the earliest believers saw and knew Him. Jesus is still working in lives today, delivering from the power of the devil. The proof can be seen in the lives and witness of genuine believers.
The 4th point that was preached in Peter’s sermon is also found in verse 39 and that is that Jesus was crucified, slain, and hung on the cross.
READ 40. The 5th point of Peter’s sermon is that Jesus was raised up by God.
READ v. 41. The 6th point of the sermon was the fact that Jesus appeared after His resurrection to some people who were chosen and appointed to be witnesses. There are 3 things I want to mention about Jesus’ resurrection appearances.
1. God showed Jesus openly, which means God set Jesus before people so that He could be visibly, openly, and publicly seen.
2. Jesus appeared to chosen witnesses. The words “already chosen” means to be pointed out, to be designated, to be appointed. Before Christ ever arose, God chose some people to be witnesses of His Son’s resurrection. They were chosen for the very purpose of proclaiming the resurrection to a world of dying people.
3. The witnesses ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. They had close fellowship with Him. Why would Peter stress this in his sermon?
2 reasons: To stress that he and the other witnesses had real contact with the risen Lord. They not only saw Him, they ate and drank and fellowshipped with Him. He also said this to stress that Jesus actually arose from the dead. His body was real. It was really Him; His body had been resurrected.
READ 42. The 7th point of Peter’s sermon was that Jesus will judge the living and the dead of all nations. God had ordained Jesus to judge all men, no matter who they are or where they are, alive or dead. He and He alone shall judge every soul who has ever appeared on earth. He’s the one who determines the conditions of salvation: what a person has to do to be saved; how a person is saved; who is and is not saved. He determines the condition of eternity: what eternal life shall be like; what eternal death shall be like; the state, the environment, the reward and the punishment of both heaven and hell.
READ 43. The 8th and 9th points of Peter’s sermon are found in this verse. The 8th point is that Jesus is the prophesied Messiah.
And the last point is that Jesus brings forgiveness of sins.
So in this short, 10 verse sermon, Peter lays out the message that God had sent him to preach to the Gentiles. Those points again are:
1. God shows no favoritism
2. God sent His Word to Israel through Jesus Christ,
3. Jesus is God’s anointed Savior.
4. Jesus was crucified.
5. Jesus was raised up by God.
6. Jesus appeared to some who were chosen to be witnesses.
7. Jesus shall judge the living and the dead.
8. Jesus is the prophesied Messiah
9. Believing in Jesus brings forgiveness of sin.
This was the message. And look at the results. READ 44-48. Peter was still speaking when the HS came upon the Gentiles. The Gentile believers spoke in tongues and praised God. They broke out in ecstatic praise of God leaving no doubt that they were saved.
Now we see why God sent other Jews to go to Cornelius’ house with Peter—so they could be witnesses of this event. Peter asks them the question, “Can anyone keep these from being baptized?” Apparently he was challenging the Jewish believers that were with him. No one present could deny it, the Gentiles had been saved and the HS had been poured out on them. It appears as though Peter ordered the Jewish believers to perform the baptisms.
The door to the Gentiles was opened. If there was any prejudice before, it was surely gone from that group on that day.
