00:00: I've been a pastor for nearly 25 years now, and I keep doing this thing that I expect to get me in trouble, and it hasn't happened yet.
00:11: I keep telling people, including kids, read your Bible.
00:17: And I haven't had a parent yet yell at me for that, which makes me wonder if they've read their Bibles, because there is some weird stuff in there.
00:26: There are some odd stories in the Bible when you slow down and pay attention to what you're actually reading.
00:34: I love that about God's Word.
00:37: In this morning's passage, we've got a sick guy being made healthy, a dead girl coming alive, an apostle having a weird vision with a meat buffet on a sheet, and he argues with God three times, and then he goes for a 40-mile walk and leads a bunch of people to Jesus.
01:04: That's weird.
01:05: But it's not weird for the sake of weirdness.
01:08: It's weird because there's extraordinary, unusual stuff going on, and we're meant to see that.
01:16: In the beginning of our passage, we have Peter.
01:20: We're told in verse 32, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda.
01:25: All right, so when it says he came down, we're not talking south, right?
01:29: We might say, well, I went down to Texas, or I went down to Florida.
01:34: And when we say down, we mean south.
01:36: But in their context, they mean geographically downhill, because he's in Jerusalem, which is up in a mountainous area, and so when he goes down, he's literally going downhill.
01:48: And he heads down to Lydda, which is basically northwest of Jerusalem, towards but not on the coast.
01:55: So he heads down, he goes over to Lydda, and he comes to the saints who live there.
02:00: So there's already people who have believed in Jesus living in this town.
02:07: He heals a guy, Aeneas, which I think is a bigger deal than we often think about.
02:15: We often have illnesses.
02:17: We often have significant health issues, and we pray for those things, and we pray for each other's health issues, which we should.
02:25: That's right.
02:26: It's biblical.
02:28: But the bigger deal here is that the reason that we get sick, the reason that we have cancer and heart attacks and strokes and all these other ailments is because this world and our bodies are tainted and broken by sin.
02:45: We live in a world that is in rebellion against God and is bearing the consequences of that rebellion.
02:53: And sickness and death are part of that.
02:56: And here, Peter, emulating Jesus, continuing the ministry of Jesus, comes along and brings healing in a way that defies any normal methodology.
03:08: Then he goes onward to Joppa, verse 36.
03:13: Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which translated means Dorcas.
03:17: So he continues further northwest, all the way out to the coast.
03:21: He's on a coast city now.
03:23: And this lady has passed away.
03:26: And so God uses Peter to raise her from the dead.
03:31: Again, Peter is continuing in the ministry of Jesus, right?
03:35: There's healings.
03:36: There's even resurrections happening.
03:39: And again, this is not just, whoo-hoo, they got more time with their loved one.
03:42: This is a picture of what the gospel of Jesus Christ is about.
03:49: The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a worldview to make people behave themselves and to create an orderly society.
03:57: Rather, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the core heartbeat of Christianity, is God restoring the creation that he has made to what he intends it to be.
04:08: He's fixing what humanity has broken by our rebellion against him.
04:13: Sickness and disease is getting fixed in Jesus and will ultimately be totally eradicated.
04:19: I will have a new body.
04:20: You, as a believer in Jesus, will have a new body completely free of ailments, sickness, limitations related to health problems, and so on.
04:30: And death itself will be no more.
04:33: I'm not going to stay dead.
04:34: I know my death is coming, but it's going to be a blip in the course of my life because I will live again.
04:43: I will be resurrected.
04:44: Just as Peter was used by God to resurrect Tabitha, God will resurrect all who believe in Jesus Christ.
04:55: That's what's going on here.
04:57: So he resurrects Tabitha, and then he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon of Tanner.
05:02: That's verse 43.
05:03: And we're told that while he's there in Joppa, verse 42, many believed in the Lord.
05:09: I don't doubt that there were folks that were just amazed by the amazingness of a resurrection.
05:16: But I think even more, with Peter testifying, they were able to see this is an example of what's available to me.
05:24: Now, it doesn't mean we don't physically die.
05:26: We do.
05:27: But that's not the end of the story for those who trust in Jesus.
05:30: We too can have the ultimate resurrection that is living forever with God.
05:36: And one day, our physical, dead, decayed, falling apart in the ground bodies will be restored and transformed.
05:46: Our souls reunited with them, and we will be forever with God in joy.
05:50: That is the intro to our passage.
05:55: That's the first couple of chunks of it.
05:58: And then we get into this whole Cornelius-Peter story.
06:01: And God is preparing every step of the way for how this is going to play out.
06:06: We're introduced to Cornelius.
06:08: This is a Gentile.
06:10: If you don't know your Bible terminology, that means he's not ethnically Jewish.
06:14: This is a completely not ethnically Jewish guy.
06:17: If you're Italian, if you're Greek, if you're Chinese, if you're American, you're a Gentile.
06:25: If you're anything but ethnically Jewish, you're a Gentile.
06:28: This guy's a Gentile.
06:29: But we're told this is a good dude, right?
06:31: He's described as devout, upright.
06:35: He feared God.
06:36: He prayed continually.
06:37: He was generous.
06:39: He was spiritual.
06:40: This guy is a great guy.
06:42: And God gives him this angelic vision.
06:48: And he's supposed to send for Peter.
06:50: God even gives him the address, so to speak, in their terms.
06:55: Oh, he's down by the sea in this town.
06:56: He's staying with a guy, Simon, who does the tanning.
06:59: You didn't go to, you know, 1521 Main Street.
07:02: They didn't have addresses in that way.
07:03: So God gives him the directions that he's going to need for his sermons to actually find Peter.
07:08: This is the town.
07:09: This is where you're going to look, et cetera.
07:10: And so right away, Cornelius, a very wealthy man, he's got a big household.
07:16: He's got servants and soldiers under him and so on.
07:19: He sends three folks over to Joppa.
07:23: Now, you've got to get your geography in mind here.
07:27: Depending on where he was in Caesarea and where precisely in Joppa Peter was, we're talking about a 40-mile walk.
07:36: Push in 40.
07:37: Upper 30 is 40 miles.
07:39: Okay?
07:40: This is not a minor journey.
07:42: If you don't have a car or a Segway or an electric scooter or a moped or what have you.
07:48: This is a long walk.
07:50: It's a two-day walk each direction.
07:52: And that's a long walk.
07:53: I don't know about you, but if I walk 20 miles today, I'm going to sleep hard tonight.
07:58: And if I walk 20 miles the next day, I'm going to be whiny.
08:03: And that's just me.
08:04: You might be a little more in shape than I am.
08:06: But then they've got to walk two days back.
08:08: And they do.
08:09: It's four days of walking round trip for these messengers.
08:12: So they go up there.
08:16: And Peter comes.
08:19: Why?
08:21: Because Cornelius and family are being given gospel witness by God through Peter.
08:31: They need gospel witness.
08:33: I'm going to pause in Acts 10 here and switch to the very next book in the Bible for a minute, Romans, Romans 10, which describes what's going on here.
08:43: Romans 10 verses 11 through 15 says, the scripture says, everyone who believes in him, that is Jesus, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.
08:53: For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.
08:56: For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
09:02: For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
09:05: How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?
09:10: And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?
09:14: And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
09:17: And how are they to preach unless they are sent?
09:20: As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.
09:25: And so there, the apostle Paul is explaining the absolute necessity of bringing the gospel to people.
09:31: Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
09:35: But it's going to do you no good to try to call on Jesus if you don't know about Jesus, right?
09:42: You've got to believe in Jesus to want to call on him.
09:44: You're not going to believe in him if you haven't heard about him.
09:47: You're not going to have heard about him unless somebody tells you.
09:51: And nobody's going to tell you unless they're sent out with the message.
09:54: That's the core way that God works to bring people into his kingdom.
10:00: That's how people get saved.
10:02: Christians must go into the whole world bringing the gospel, sharing the gospel.
10:08: People hear it.
10:09: By God's grace, they believe it.
10:10: And they turn their lives over to Jesus.
10:12: That's how this works.
10:15: Cornelius in Acts 10 is already religious.
10:19: He's a God-fearer, which in context means something like he's already embraced Judaism as much as he's able to as a non-Jew.
10:30: He's generous, financially generous.
10:32: He's prayerful constantly and so on.
10:34: He's devout.
10:35: He's not going through the motions.
10:37: Catch this.
10:38: It's not enough.
10:41: None of those things which are true of Cornelius, not even all of them combined, is enough to get him right with God.
10:49: We dare not look at the people around us who are religious, spiritual, heartfelt, sincere, generous, prayerful, and say, Well, because you've got those things, you must be right with God.
11:02: Without hearing about Jesus and believing in Jesus, it's not enough.
11:08: Which is why God has him send for Peter to get the gospel message told to him.
11:15: Now, it's implied in our passage here in chapter 10, but it's a little bit more explicit in chapter 11.
11:21: So I'm going to fast forward.
11:22: I'm going to cheat for a moment and take you to chapter 11, verses 13 and 14.
11:26: Peter, in this chapter 11 passage, is describing his encounter with Cornelius.
11:33: And he says, He, Cornelius, told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter.
11:41: He will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.
11:48: So it's very explicit there.
11:49: The angel told Cornelius, You send for Peter.
11:53: Peter's going to come tell you the message of how you get right with God, how you get saved, how you get forgiven by God so that you're acceptable to God.
12:00: That's the heartbeat of what's going on.
12:03: So, Cornelius does this.
12:06: He sends for Simon, poor God's message.
12:08: And all the things that are necessary begin to happen.
12:12: Peter comes.
12:14: He shares the gospel.
12:15: Cornelius and family hear it.
12:17: They believe.
12:18: They call on Jesus and so on.
12:21: That's neat to see it happen then.
12:23: It's neat to say, Oh, Peter got this great opportunity and he walked boldly and faithfully into it.
12:29: And God was at work.
12:31: That's awesome.
12:32: I love that it's in here.
12:33: But I'm not okay with that being a one and done thing.
12:36: I want to see it happen over and over in Green Bay.
12:39: You are sent.
12:42: I am sent.
12:43: Maybe some of you are sent long distance like Brad and Kendra.
12:48: But all of us are sent where we live in the circles in which God has placed us.
12:53: You are a sent one to bring the gospel to the people around you.
12:59: Being religious, devout, generous, spiritual is not enough.
13:03: The people around you need the good news message of Jesus, which we're going to see laid out very specifically in our passage.
13:10: The people around you need to hear that.
13:13: And you have been commanded by God to share it with the people around you.
13:18: You can either evangelize or disobey God.
13:21: I don't know how to put it more simple than that.
13:24: Share Jesus or disobey God.
13:26: Those are our options as believers.
13:28: Romans chapter 10.
13:33: Back to that Romans passage.
13:35: At the beginning, it said, There is no distinction between Jew and Greek.
13:41: Greek here is another New Testament way of saying not Jew.
13:45: Greek and Gentile are pretty much synonymous in the New Testament.
13:48: There is no distinction between Jew and Greek.
13:51: For the same Lord, Jesus, is Lord of all.
13:55: Bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
13:57: So in Romans, Paul is explaining, It doesn't matter who you are.
14:01: You call on Jesus, you're in.
14:04: You put your faith in Jesus and call on him to be your Lord, you're in.
14:08: Period.
14:09: Which is exactly where our story in Acts chapter 10 proceeds to go.
14:14: So God's prepared the way of Cornelius, given the vision, sent for Peter.
14:17: He sends for Peter.
14:18: He's waiting.
14:20: Four days later, which is the minimum turnaround time, Peter comes.
14:25: Well, why does Peter come?
14:26: Well, Peter is having a little prayer time midday.
14:30: He's hungry because it's lunchtime.
14:32: And then he has this vision.
14:34: I've tried to imagine what this looked like based on the description.
14:37: I don't know.
14:38: I don't know if this was live animals fluttering around in a sheet.
14:41: Birds and, you know, cows walking around chewing their cuck, whatever.
14:45: I don't know if the animals were already prepared in dinner format because God tells them to take up and eat.
14:51: So I don't know if it's like a meat buffet smorgasbord on a sheet.
14:55: I particularly like that image in my own head.
14:58: But whatever form it took, he has this vision of a sheet being lowered from heaven, full of every kind of animal that you can imagine, right?
15:08: And God says to him, take up and eat.
15:10: That sounds like a great dream to me.
15:13: I like dreams like that.
15:14: But his response to God is, uh-uh, no way, God.
15:19: And basically he says, I've never lived that way.
15:22: That's not an appropriate religious way to live, eating just whatever.
15:26: Now you remember, Peter is Jewish background.
15:29: He's used to having to obey the Old Testament rules about food stuff.
15:34: And there were animals you could eat and animals you couldn't eat.
15:37: And sadly, they could not eat bacon.
15:40: No pigs, for example.
15:41: It's not the only one, but it's the one that breaks my heart the most.
15:45: Okay?
15:45: And so he's like, no, no, I can't do that.
15:47: And God's like, well, let's try this again.
15:49: And three times in a row, God gives him this vision.
15:51: Peter resists.
15:53: And God finally says, knock it off, Peter.
15:55: If I'm telling you this, you need to accept it.
15:58: Don't call unclean what I've called clean.
16:04: Every time you argue with God, you're in the wrong.
16:08: You can't argue with God and come out victorious.
16:11: It just doesn't work.
16:11: Now this clean, unclean thing.
16:15: The key idea is stated this way.
16:17: What God has made clean, do not call unclean.
16:20: That's Old Testament language.
16:22: Okay?
16:22: We're not talking about Jewish people use ivory soap and Gentiles don't.
16:27: That's not the kind of clean, unclean we're talking about.
16:29: This is Old Testament language for have you been ritually, religiously made acceptable to God.
16:36: This is about religious ceremony.
16:40: And there was all these different rules about what you had to do and be in order to be clean.
16:45: And even the Jewish people were constantly doing things, sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose, sometimes just because that's how a human body works.
16:53: They're doing things that would make themselves unclean.
16:55: And they were constantly having to offer sacrifices and go out of town and take a bath and all these different things to get clean.
17:02: In the Old Testament framework, clean equals acceptable to God.
17:06: Unclean means God does not accept you.
17:09: That's the basic concept here.
17:11: Peter has this whole thing about clean and unclean and animals and God telling him, you be okay with me calling everything clean.
17:20: And verse 17, I love this.
17:23: I'm going to pause for a minute.
17:24: Peter is like chairman of the apostles.
17:27: He's their primary spokesman leader within the apostles.
17:31: This is the guy that's walked on water with Jesus.
17:34: He's seen the resurrected Jesus.
17:36: Jesus has affirmed him in ministry after his denial of Jesus.
17:40: He got to see Jesus rise up into heaven.
17:44: And verse 17 here says, while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what this vision he had seen might mean, he's like, I don't get it.
17:53: I have this idea in my head that Peter spoke in that voice all the time.
17:57: There's all these instances where he's like, what was that about?
18:01: I don't know.
18:02: Even in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you see all these times when the disciples are like, I know Jesus is the right thing.
18:09: That much I get, but I don't even know what he's talking about.
18:12: You ask him.
18:12: No, you ask him.
18:13: I'm not asking him again.
18:14: Last time I started looking like a fool or whatever.
18:16: There's times where it literally says nobody would ask him because they were embarrassed to ask him.
18:20: Like, this is not new territory for Peter, which let that be an encouragement to you.
18:25: If you're reading your Bible sometimes, you're like, what is that?
18:29: You're not alone.
18:29: So, he's having the vision.
18:34: He's like, what was that about?
18:36: What does that mean?
18:37: What's the significance of it?
18:38: And in perfect God timing, these three men sent by Cornelius show up, and the Holy Spirit tells Peter, chapter 10, verses 19 and 20, Behold, three men are looking for you.
18:49: Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.
18:56: Hey, three guys are at the door.
18:57: Go with them.
18:58: Don't even think twice about it.
19:01: I sent them.
19:02: You're going to go with them.
19:04: He goes down.
19:05: Whoa, these are not Jewish people.
19:08: I'm supposed to go with these guys?
19:09: Okay.
19:11: So, he realizes this has to do with what God's up to.
19:16: God just gave me the vision.
19:17: He times it perfectly.
19:18: Now, I've got to talk with these guys.
19:19: They're telling me I'm supposed to go with them.
19:21: I'm going to a Gentile's house.
19:24: Now, y'all don't get how big a deal that is.
19:29: That doesn't happen.
19:33: Centuries of bigotry and alienation and separateness between the Jews and the non-Jews.
19:41: Now, to some degree, that separation was appropriate.
19:46: Right?
19:46: God didn't want his people who were supposed to be dedicated to him marrying people that didn't believe in him.
19:52: They were supposed to only stick with those who had faith in God.
19:56: But a lot of it was cultural.
20:00: A lot of it, like, there's no command in the Old Testament that says a Jew can't have dinner with a Gentile.
20:06: And yet, the Jewish people kind of made that up as a requirement.
20:09: And everyone lived that way amongst the Jews.
20:11: Like, you don't.
20:12: You don't hang out with those people.
20:13: So, when Peter gets to Cornelius in Caesarea, he says, verse 28, You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation.
20:27: But God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.
20:32: Like, you guys know we don't hang out with you guys at all, ever.
20:37: Like, none of us do it.
20:39: But God said I'm not allowed to do that no more.
20:42: I'm here.
20:43: This is not just about food, which he sees in the vision, but it's about people.
20:52: All the different foods that were off limits under the Old Testament rules are inbounds.
20:58: That's not only true from this passage, but Mark 7.19 makes that explicit.
21:02: We get this little parenthetical explanation of something in Mark 7.19 where it says, Thus he, Jesus, declared all foods clean.
21:11: So, while Jesus was still on earth, he said, Have a ham sandwich.
21:15: Now, I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it, right?
21:18: Have shrimp cocktail.
21:19: Go for it.
21:20: All food is inbounds now.
21:22: Peter has this vision that seems to be about food, but the bigger issue is not food.
21:28: Eat ham, don't eat ham.
21:30: The bigger issue is everybody is welcome in God's house.
21:35: Everyone is welcome to come to God, to have relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
21:42: So, Peter is on board.
21:44: He says to the visitors, Stay the night.
21:46: The next day, they hit the road two days back.
21:49: And then verse 25 begins, When Peter entered.
21:53: That's just functional language to me.
21:58: But culturally, that was shocking.
22:00: In fact, next week when we get to chapter 11, Peter is going to face opposition to him from the Christian community just for doing that.
22:09: You went in and hung out with Gentiles?
22:12: It doesn't even matter what he did.
22:14: Just spending time with them was taboo.
22:16: I can't believe you did that, Peter.
22:19: Right?
22:19: When he entered is earth shattering.
22:24: He's going to get in trouble with this initially by some folks in chapter 11.
22:29: And to give you an idea of just how big a deal this was, Peter, who's followed Jesus for three and a half years, who gets this amazing vision, who goes to Cornelius' house.
22:39: And as we're going to see, there's amazing response.
22:42: Later on, he's going to back off from this out of peer pressure.
22:47: Galatians chapter 2, the apostle Paul describes how he had to rebuke Peter because Peter had been hanging out with the Gentiles, eating meals with them and such.
22:57: And then these other Jewish people came along and was like, oh, you can't be doing that.
23:01: He's like, yeah, yeah, I won't do that.
23:02: I won't do that anymore.
23:04: Galatians 2.12.
23:05: Before certain men came from James, he, Peter, was eating with the Gentiles.
23:11: But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.
23:17: The circumcision party is the group that wants you to follow the Old Testament rules.
23:21: And then Paul explains how he had to confront Peter on that, Galatians 2.14.
23:26: I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel.
23:30: In other words, Peter chickened out of what he learned in this vision thing and contradicted the core message of Christianity for a little while because he wasn't hanging out with the Gentiles again.
23:47: That's a big deal.
23:49: That's huge.
23:50: And Paul goes on in Galatians 2.13 to say, even Barnabas was led astray.
23:56: That's cool.
23:57: Remember back last week, Acts 9, Barnabas is the fella who is brave enough to reach out to the newly converted Saul slash Paul and welcome him into the Christian community in Jerusalem.
24:10: Everyone else is like, nope, I don't trust him.
24:12: It's got to be fake.
24:13: It's not the real deal.
24:13: This guy has got to be tricking us to get us.
24:17: Barnabas is the early person who first welcomes Paul into the Christian community.
24:27: And he gets led astray by this whole thing.
24:31: This is mind-blowingly hard for them to let go of.
24:37: Go back to Acts 10, verse 34.
24:40: Peter opened his mouth and said, truly I understand that God shows no partiality.
24:46: But in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
24:51: From there, Peter goes on to present the gospel.
24:54: He talks about the historical happenings of what Jesus did and the significance of his death and so on.
24:59: Rose from the dead.
25:00: There's witnesses.
25:01: And then he concludes with this key concept that is at the heart of all the Bible.
25:09: Verse 43.
25:11: Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
25:18: Everyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
25:23: That's the key.
25:24: That's the gospel message in a nutshell.
25:27: Will you believe in Jesus?
25:29: Now, I don't mean believe in like I've got head knowledge that this works.
25:32: Okay?
25:32: There are things that I know scientifically to be true.
25:37: And I can trust them at a scientific level.
25:41: But I'm not sure I want to do it.
25:43: You ever seen those things where they have a pendulum and they take like a bowling ball on a rope and the guy holds it up to his nose and then just releases it and it swings out and it swings back and it comes almost up to him but doesn't quite touch him, right?
25:57: Because that's how physics works and right?
25:59: I'm not doing that.
26:01: I'm not doing that.
26:01: Like I know it'll work but I'm afraid I'm going to mess it up.
26:05: Like what if I lean forward a little bit?
26:08: What if I actually pushed it a little bit when I let go?
26:11: Like I don't want a bowling ball to the face.
26:13: That's just me.
26:14: Your mileage may vary.
26:16: Maybe you do want the ball.
26:17: But for me, I don't want to go there.
26:19: But when it talks about believing in Jesus, it means actually relying upon.
26:24: Actually putting your money where your mouth is.
26:27: Do you trust and rely on Jesus?
26:30: Does your life demonstrate that you're living differently because your faith in Jesus?
26:34: And if Jesus is fake, if Jesus is not the real deal, your life's screwed up.
26:41: That's the kind of faith that we're talking about.
26:44: So Cornelius and his family are here.
26:47: He's gathered them all together.
26:48: Peter shows up.
26:49: He presents his whole spiel.
26:51: We get the Cliff Notes version.
26:53: They're completely primed for it.
26:55: And how do they respond?
26:57: Luke doesn't even bother to tell us.
27:00: He doesn't even say, oh, they believed.
27:02: They were so happy that they believed.
27:04: Rather, he jumps straight to the result.
27:08: Holy Spirit falls on him.
27:10: While Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.
27:15: You know what that is?
27:17: That's the sequel.
27:18: That's Pentecost Part 2.
27:20: Acts 2 was Pentecost where the Holy Spirit first came on the early believers who were Jewish background and appeared over each one of them in like a flame of fire kind of thing.
27:30: And now we get the sequel, Pentecost Part 2, Gentile edition, where the non-Jewish people are getting to have this same sort of experience.
27:40: And yet it doesn't happen again in the Bible.
27:45: Why is there this unusual coming of the Holy Spirit described for us here that doesn't seem to be normal or normative?
27:53: It doesn't consistently happen.
27:55: And it certainly isn't presented as this is what you should expect.
28:00: And I think the reason is quite simple.
28:02: Something major is taking place.
28:07: This earth-shifting kind of reality.
28:11: The Holy Spirit doesn't just live in Jewish converts to Christianity.
28:17: He lives in anybody who trusts in Jesus.
28:23: God is doing exactly the same thing for non-Jewish people that he'd already done for Jewish people.
28:29: And that is unbelievable to the people who are witnessing it.
28:34: Look at verse 45.
28:35: And the believers from among the circumcised, that is the Christians from Jewish background, the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles.
28:55: I love that even.
28:56: Even on those guys?
28:58: Like, I mean, God's doing some amazing stuff, but really?
29:02: He's going to include those people?
29:03: I love that it's not just Peter.
29:07: Peter takes some of the Jewish Christians with him who are already with him.
29:11: He takes them on this journey.
29:12: So they got multiple eyewitnesses.
29:14: In fact, in chapter 11, they're going to need to have some eyewitnesses because what they're doing is so unheard of.
29:20: Those people are included.
29:24: Who are those people?
29:28: Who are the people that seem too far away from God, too unlikely to respond to Jesus?
29:35: I think one of the greatest examples in all of history is Saul, or Paul as we call him.
29:43: This anti-Christian extremist who personally directly helped put Christians to death before God converted them.
29:52: This guy's an extremist.
29:53: I mean, you could even to a degree call him a religious terrorist.
29:57: Christ, kicking down doors, throwing people in jail, voting for the death penalty for them simply for believing in Jesus.
30:06: That is the kind of person who seems impossible to come to Christ, and we're told God brought him.
30:13: In fact, he wrote about half the books of the New Testament.
30:17: I tried to think, what would the equivalent today be?
30:19: Who would somebody in a church like ours look at today and say, that person ain't never coming to Jesus?
30:27: What about a very liberal, secular kind of person?
30:33: Like a university professor at a secular university.
30:37: Somebody who's skeptical and even very anti-Christianity.
30:43: A professor who's homosexual in a committed lesbian relationship.
30:49: Somebody whose specialty as a professor is queer theory, which is sort of a post-modern form of gay and lesbian studies.
31:00: Could a person like that come to Jesus?
31:04: She did.
31:06: Her name is Rosaria Butterfield, and God led her to Jesus about 25 years ago.
31:12: That's how she describes herself.
31:16: What do you make of that?
31:17: God makes outsiders insiders.
31:22: God takes people that have no interest in God, that are anti-God, that are anti-Jesus, and says, I love you anyway, and I'm going to change your heart and bring you to the place where you believe in Jesus, because I want you to.
31:37: Peter looks at this insane situation unfolding that he gets to be a part of, where these Gentiles are there, and they're believing, and the Holy Spirit falls on them.
31:48: He's like, all right, any objections to a baptism right now?
31:51: Any basis that we can say no to baptizing these folks?
31:54: The Holy Spirit just fell on them.
31:56: If God says yes, we better say yes, right?
31:58: And so they baptize him.
32:00: That's verses 47 and 48.
32:02: Who are the people in your life who seem like impossible outsiders that would never have interest in Jesus, that would never possibly turn their lives around and surrender to Jesus Christ?
32:19: People who seem too unlikely to believe, too anti-Christian, too anti-God, too different, whose lives are too defined by contemporary culture, contemporary values.
32:28: Those people that maybe just seem icky to you for whatever reason, those people are the ones that Jesus is welcoming with open arms, and he wants us to make them welcome.
32:44: God makes outsiders insiders through faith in Jesus Christ.
32:51: You're proof of that.
32:53: If you are here today as a Christian, and you're not ethnically Jewish, somebody only bothered to share the gospel with you because of what happened in Acts 10.
33:03: That's where the message goes out to the non-Jewish world in a clear, fully acceptable way.
33:14: What God did, as recorded in Acts 10, is the reason that Christianity swept Europe and Western culture, why it has pervaded the whole world in the ways that it has.
33:27: It's not an ethnic religion just for Jews.
33:31: This is for all peoples, all tribes, all tongues, all nations.
33:35: It's not for no reason that Matthew 24, 14 says, this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
33:49: God wants all people included.
33:50: He proved that by causing you to hear the gospel and believe.
33:58: God didn't show favoritism and turn his back on you, and so you and I have no business showing favoritism to the people around us.
34:07: We show favoritism when we keep our mouths shut around those people, whoever those are in your thinking.
34:21: We do what God does when we, in love, share the gospel with everyone.
34:25: May God help us to take seriously his intent to rescue people from every tribe and tongue and language and people, and may we joyfully participate in the work that God is doing by sharing our faith, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, here in Green Bay and the heavens of the earth.
34:48: God help us to take seriously, soberly, joyfully the truth that no one is unclean or unacceptable to you, but that all are welcome through Jesus Christ.
35:04: May the sheet vision of what you were teaching, Peter, ring true for us today, that we recognize there is no outsider that you don't want to make an insider through faith in Jesus Christ.
35:17: But rid us of the false idea that religiosity, spirituality, going through the motions even of Christianity is enough.
35:26: Help us to know, to believe, to be convinced of the truth that every individual needs to place their faith in Jesus.
35:35: Make us bold ambassadors who share the gospel so that none are excluded from the opportunity to be saved, to receive the Holy Spirit, and to be welcomed into your family for eternity.
35:50: We pray these things in Jesus' name.
35:53: Amen.