Welcome! We want to extend a special thanks to all our guests who have come to celebrate the worship of our Lord. God’s family is international. We have several Spanish speakers with us today along with all our other friends and family. We want everyone to be able to participate in the worship so would you join me in singing “Te Amo Re, (I love you Lord), sheets should be there in your pews.”
Open your Bibles to Acts chapter 10. Here we see how Cornelius was the first Gentile to be welcomed into God’s Great Family. God actually set it all up. Cornelius received a heavenly invitation. And Peter receives a heavenly preparation. And it all culminates in a great salvation! (Read 1-20)
Picture this: Two ocean front properties on the Mediterranean, about 32 miles apart, two men pause to pray and God sets up an appointment for them to meet. One of the men is a Christian, the other is not. But listen to the description of this unsaved non-Christian man: he was (verse 2) a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always.
Wow! That sounds a lot like a good Christian man, doesn’t it? But in fact, he’s not… yet. Jim Newsome was a murderer serving time in the State Penitentiary of Florida. After his arrest and conviction he started seriously searching for God. He said, “At one time, I thought I was saved, I felt I was saved, I even looked kind of like I was saved! The only problem was… I didn’t know Jesus Christ, and I had never obeyed the gospel. So in reality I was still lost.” But I’ll tell you something. It wasn’t long till God led someone to Jim Newsome to share with him the good news of Jesus and teach him how to receive the saving grace of Christ. And Jim Newsome is a Christian today who reaches out to share the Good News with others. God prepared him and God prepared someone to share with him.
Do you know people like Cornelius? Good, even spiritual people who don’t yet know Jesus Christ as their Lord? God is always looking for people like that! His eyes search throughout the earth for those whose hearts are fully devoted to him. He is seeking worshippers who will worship him in Spirit and in truth. He is sending messengers to call those he seeks by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with them so that they can be saved. You see, God wants those that want him! But He seeks after lost sheep, not lost wolves. Some people’s hearts are inclined toward God and God finds a way to bring them into his wonderful family!
Acts shows us that God has a way of getting the message before those that he knows have a desire to be in His Great Family. God sent Jesus, his only begotten Son to seek and save the lost and to pay for our sins on the cross. He sent the apostles everywhere to make disciples of everyone so that all who believe and obey could come home to heaven. He sent the sound of the rushing wind on Pentecost that called the crowds together, and he sent the Holy Spirit upon the apostles to proclaim the kingdom, repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus. He sent power to heal the lame man at the temple gate where thousands more heard the word and were saved. He sent an angel to rescue the apostles from jail and then sent them back to preach in the temple. He sent Philip to Samaria where a great many came to Christ. He sent Philip to meet the Ethiopian who would take the message of Jesus to the far reaches of the upper Nile. He sent Saul of Tarsus to Damascus to be told what to do (after he softened him up a bit). He prepared Saul by blinding him and overhauling his world view with a personal appearance of Jesus! Then he sent Ananias to meet Saul and share the saving gospel with him. God is in the seeking, sending, sharing and saving business! Here in Acts 10 God sends an angel to Cornelius and sends a vision and a message to Peter. He sent to Cornelius to send for Peter to bring the saving message. Notice once again that God prepared both seeker (Cornelius) and speaker (Peter) for this meeting. God prepares both the deliverer and the receiver of the message. He did then. He still does today.
Now let me stop here and ask some questions.
For all who are in God’s Family as Christians today, do you remember how you were drawn to God? Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father draws him.” John 6:44 Do you remember how you were prepared to receive the saving message of Jesus Christ? There is something attractive and compelling about our God that draws us to him. The Bible tells us plainly that we are made in God’s image and after his likeness. Since the fall, men have all sinned and come short of God’s glory. We have all needed God to send help. Send hope. Send life, forgiveness, and salvation.
God’s description of our condition is not very attractive. Sin hasn’t just made us all sick. It has killed us! Last Sunday I was sick with Montezuma’s Revenge. It was bad. By Tuesday I told somebody, “I believe in the resurrection.” I heard about a guy that was so sick he was afraid he might die. Then later he was afraid he might not! Well, sin is so bad, the Bible describes us as dead in trespasses and sins. It is lethal. Yet among those dead in sin are some who are ready to receive the word of God and be raised up to life in Christ. God draws us as he calls us, even out of the tomb of a sinful life. The call of God was heard even in Judaism. Cornelius was drawn to God and responded to God, even as a Gentile outsider… even before he knew Jesus. God was drawing Cornelius through what he saw in the Jewish religion.
There is still a wide gap between the Jews and Gentiles at this time and Cornelius is pure Gentile. Worse, Cornelius is a Roman Centurion occupying the land of Israel for Rome. Just imagine the huge barrier that has to be overcome for this man to be welcomed into God’s family even by a good Christian Jew like Peter. God has to do some preparing on both sides.
To help understand, you might compare Cornelius situation to an American Army Captain in Iraq. Doesn’t that draw a mental picture? If Christianity were like Islam, Peter would have visited Cornelius with a bomb strapped around himself. Can you see it? In walks Peter and says, “Welcome to the family!” as he detonates. That is so foreign to what Jesus Christ stands for. Aren’t you thankful for the wonderful character and nature of the Family of God!? Aren’t you glad to know that God is love and that he has poured out his love into our hearts in grace and forgiveness through Jesus Christ?
As Peter and Cornelius sit on two sides of the fence we see God tearing down the dividing wall. Then he opens the way and welcomes Cornelius into the family!
You’ve got to love Peter here too. He’s stretching his comfort zone already by staying in the house of a tanner. Those guys and their dead animals were considered unclean. The reason Simon the tanner lived by the shore is because that is a good place to dispose of some of the animal waste involved in making the leather. It’s hardly a wonder that Peter’s vision was of all kinds of animals. At Simon the tanner’s house by the sea Peter probably smelled the animals up there on the roof. And notice Peter’s reaction to being told to get up and kill and eat some of these: “No way, Lord, that’s… illegal!” As Peter ponders, God prepares Peter to present the gospel to Gentiles. Finally, the Spirit directly says to Peter, “Get up and go with the men who have come to get you without hesitation, I, myself have sent them!” Peter is beginning to get the point. Note also that God is still drawing Peter closer, and still showing him more of his will.
Look at what happens next: (read 21-29)
How would you like to have an assignment to go to Afghanistan and preach the gospel to a Muslim community? What would God have to do to prepare them for your coming and what would God have to do to you to prepare you to go?
Why do you suppose America is in those places today? I believe God is up to something! Did you know that after World War 2 there was a huge explosion of missionary activity in the very lands where our military men went to fight? It looks like God is preparing the church in America to be sent to open hearts in Islamic nations. I sure hope so. There is surely a desperate need. My mom sent me an email that said there were literally thousands of people seeking Bible studies from (I can’t publish this for the sake of those in harms way) and hundreds had already converted to Christianity. They still had to be very careful and secret about their where-abouts.
Look at Peter here. It’s one thing to go around Judea and preach the gospel to Jews and bring them to Jesus as Lord and Christ, but it’s another thing entirely to evangelize an Italian Roman Centurian Gentile. If it weren’t for the visions, the direct message from the Holy Spirit, and the angel’s instruction to Cornelius, Peter would never have made this visit. But here he is! Ready or not! Peter says, “So why did you send for me?”
(read 30-33)
Don’t you just love this! God has prepared this meeting! Peter and the six friends with him stand here in Cornelius’ house filled with friends and family just waiting to hear the Word of God! And you’ve got to love Cornelius’ last sentence there…
“Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”
It doesn’t get any easier than that. What will Peter preach? As we have seen before, Peter only has one sermon and it’s all about Jesus. It’s hard to improve on an inspired, perfect sermon! (read 34-43)
I’m not sure we can fully appreciate Peter’s words here. Luke obviously abbreviated this sermon into an outline form. But it is all about Jesus’ coming, his ministry, his death, his resurrection, his appearances, his commission and his appointment as judge. The apostles’ eyewitness accounts and the Old Testament prophetic witnesses are Peter’s evidences. An unbeliever might read this and say, “Is that all there is? Is this it?” And the answer is, “Yes!”
Don’t you see? God has interrupted time and space, he has put his handprints into our history. Jesus, the Lord of all, has come. He preached good news of peace. He went about doing good. He showed his power over the devil. Think about it. Isn’t this the kind of character that would attract you? Isn’t this the kind of God that makes sense?
Jesus lived in actual history. This is no mythical religious figure conjured up in the creative mind of someone out of touch with reality. Jesus is flesh and blood real. When they saw him, they saw human flesh. When they heard him, they heard a human voice speaking God’s will and God’s word. And when they killed him by nailing him to that cross, Jesus experienced real death. But more than meets the eye was among us in Jesus the Christ. The prophet Isaiah said that God put all our sins upon him. Jesus, God’s perfect and only begotten Son, took all our sins upon himself on that cross. He took the punishment. He took the curse of God against sin. He carried our sorrows and bore our grief. Jesus, the one anointed with the Holy Spirit as the Christ, the Lamb of God. He died for us and because of us. But he didn’t stay dead! Jesus the King of kings and Lord of lords rose victorious over sin and death! He did! And he showed himself alive to witnesses who spent the rest of their lives declaring it to be true.
And that’s not all… Jesus is coming again. He is! Jesus will return as judge of all the living and the dead! This is the message! Do you believe this?
This message ought to do something to you! Hearing this with ears that hear and hearts that believe ought to stir something in you! It sure did for Cornelius and his friends and family.
They heard this message with faith! And God did a most unusual thing. He poured out the Holy Spirit on them in a baptism that was like Pentecost for the Gentiles. It blew Peter and his friends away! This was not what they expected. So Peter did the only thing he knew to do. Seeing God had already accepted them he ordered them to be baptized in water in the name of Jesus Christ.
Where do you stand today? Which one are you? One being prepared to hear or being prepared to share...
God’s Great Home for us is a place prepared for those who are prepared. Can you hear him calling?
