Salvation For All People

If you’re a Gospel City kid and you’re in the room, say, “Woo-hoo!” You can be louder than that. C’mon, give me a “Woo-hoo!” There it is. There it is. All right. Hey, everyone open your Bibles to Acts chapter 10 this morning. Gospel City Kids, thank you so much for leading us in worship today. There is a lot of joy in the house of the Lord and you guys are just so encouraging to my heart. May worship be like that every single week. And the Spirit is moving.

As you open to Acts chapter 10, you may realize that we skipped the second half of chapter 9. So let me just really quickly bring you up to speed what happened in Acts chapter 9. So last week we left off with there was peace. The church is enjoying peace. It’s multiplying. They’re walking in the fear of the Lord by the Spirit of the Lord. And Saul- the story kind of shifts off of Paul who’s back in Tarsus and onto our friend Peter the apostle. And he is up northwest of Jerusalem kind of going city to city and he’s sharing the gospel of Christ, going into new territory.

And so he first finds himself in Leda and there’s a man by the name of Aeneas who’s a paralytic. He’s in bed and has been in bed for eight years. And Peter goes in and he says, Aeneas, Christ heals you. Rise and make your bed. And the man who has been a paralytic for eight years gets out of bed and rises. And it was just an amazing supernatural moment where Peter, through the power of the Spirit, heals this paralytic.

And this town next door, Joppa, which is along the sea, hears about Peter in town and they come to him because there is a woman by the name of Tabitha, known as Dorcas. Great name, Dorcas. Anybody know a Dorcas? And so they come to Peter, they take him to Joppa, and she had died, breathing no more, in bed. And he goes into the room and they’re, Hey, here are some ritualistic things. Do you want any of these?

And he’s like, No, don’t want any of that. Walks in just like Jesus, says, Hey, rise and walk, and she raises from the dead. Amazing moment! And the bigger kind of picture that’s happening, we see these signs and wonders, these miracles, these healings, happening all throughout the book of Acts. And the greater phenomena is what happens in verse 35 after Aeneas is healed. It says that they turned to the Lord. All the people who saw that healing, they turned to the Lord to receive Jesus as their Lord.

And in verse 42 it says many believed the Lord. As Peter raises Dorcas from the dead everybody is like, I want what you have, Peter. And Peter gives them the gospel because what’s so much more better than physical healing is spiritual healing. And that’s why in the book of Acts we’re seeing these signs and wonders take place.

As the apostles go into different territories, they didn’t have the Bible so they didn’t know the gospel. They didn’t have it all written down what they needed for life and godliness. So God is authenticating the ministry of the apostles when they went into new territory, did a sign and wonder, and then they give them the real hoep, the gospel message.

I have yet to meet somebody who could heal like Peter could heal. I have yet to meet that person who walks into a room and says, Hey, get up and walk. But I pray for God to do supernatural healings all the time.

Pastor Brent did a great job when we talked about the healing of the lame beggar. He said there’s no formula for how God heals. I pray for healing. I was talking to a guy Tom in the first service. He said last week he was praying for someone over the phone who was going into the hospital. And they went in and they did some surgery. But they found out there was no cancer. The doctors were shocked. It was a big tumor. I mean, isn’t that awesome? God answers prayers and God heals, but there’s no formula.

And we know that this side of heaven there is going to be sickness. There is going to be death. There is going to be heartache. But our hope is in heaven. And so the gospel is spreading. God is using these signs and wonders in different places.

And then we come to Acts chapter 10. And today we’re going to see a big stretching moment for our friend Peter. So Peter, he has kind of been the spokesperson thus far since Acts 1:8 for the apostles. And Saul is back in Tarsus. Peace is among the believers. In Acts chapter 13 we’ll see Saul’s first missionary journey.

So Luke is giving us kind of like a fast timeline now of what’s happening in these ten years where Saul is away and Peter is kind of traveling to different areas. And today we’re going to see God do a new thing. God has been doing a new thing since time began, and anything that God says where there’s obedience, it’s always good.

And so I want you to think about what we’ve seen salvation do thus far in the book of Acts. We’ve seen salvation come to 3,000+ people on the day of Pentecost. So Peter preaches; everybody is getting saved. It was like the first Billy Graham crusade. Everyone was coming forward to receive Jesus as their Lord.

And then we’ve seen salvation come to a lame beggar, the weak, people that they would have walked over and overlooked. Salvation came to the lame beggar. Salvation came to the Hellenistic Jews. Salvation came to widows and men and women and joined them to a family.

Salvation came to Samaria and Samaritans. That’s a big deal. There were differences between them and the Jews. Salvation, interesting, came to the Ethiopian eunuch, who was passing by. Salvation even came to a hypocritical Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, on the way to Damascus. Salvation comes.

We’ve seen salvation come to so much in the book of Acts, but it’s mostly been within the Jewish world, ok? There have been a few exceptions, but there’s still this big looming question happening among the apostles. How is this thing going to get to the ends of the earth? And what about these Gentiles? They would have been like, Agh! God surely doesn’t want us to speak the good news to the Gentiles. Like they’re different than us. They dress different. They’re entertained differently. They listen to different music. They’re not like us. We’re the Jews. we’re set apart. We’re holy. We eat hummus and they eat meat. And God is like, Agh. Surely we’re not going to the Jews. I don’t know.

But you want to talk about racism and bigotry? You’d better believe it was full on between the Jews and the Gentiles. And Peter is confronted by the Lord today and shown a different day. If there was a big idea that we could take from Acts chapter 10, it would be this: Salvation is bigger than our prejudices. Salvation is bigger than our prejudices.

One of the kids in the first service wrote, “Salvation is bigger than our president.” That’s true, but I’m talking about prejudices, ok? Kids, prejudice is like you don’t like someone because they’re different than you. They belong to a different group or they look different and so you just assume that you have reason to not like them. Salvation is bigger than that.

But the truth is while this was happening among even the apostles, it’s happened all throughout history. We have prejudice. We have reason. We don’t like certain people because we’re sinful, and it’s been a problem even in the church. We’re all prone as sinners to exclude those that we deem as undesirable or those who fail to flatter us or support our opinions or boost our pride or feed our egos.

And in Acts 10 today, we see this defining moment in history when God shows us that He has no partiality, that in the church with salvation, there’s no place for segregation, prejudices, racism when it comes to the salvation and the advancement of the church. We see in God’s Word that salvation is so much bigger than us and that God is a God of every tribe, every tongue, and every nation, every race and skin color, every income level, every social status, every educational group.

Kids, God is a God of the kids. There’s no age limit of when you come to Him. God wants you to come to Him as a child. God wants older people to come to Him and draw near to Him. Acts 10 shows us today that God is more interested in souls than He is in the customs, differences and food laws and separations that once were. Salvation belongs to the Lord and not the Jews. That’s what Peter is about to find out in our text today.

So we’re going to read a lot of Scripture. I hope that’s ok. So hopefully you have your Bibles and you can follow along in this narrative. Acts chapter 10. I’ll give you like a simple outline just so you can hang things on. The first point is this: The gospel removes barriers. The gospel removes barriers. Let’s pick it up in Acts chapter 10 starting in 1-8.
At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.” And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.”
When I meet Simon the tanner someday I’m going to ask him if he used SPF 50 or baby oil. I think that’s interesting.
Verse 7. When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him, and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. (Acts 10:1-8)
So as God is about to show the Jews that the news of the gospel removes barriers. We see that He has to prepare some people. God is going to go ahead and prepare two people. And we’re first introduced to Cornelius. So it said that he was a centurion of the Italian cohort. So a centurion is like the backbone of the Roman army. The Roman army at full strength 6,000 men broken up into cohorts of 600. And then a centurion would have been in charge of 100 of those men.
So Cornelius is like a strong leader, a trusted guy, a bold leader leading lots and lots of men. But more interesting than that is what it says about him. He was a devout man, one who feared God with all his household, and he gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed continually.
So this is like an interesting situation in the book of Acts. Here you have this Gentile centurion. He would have pledged allegiance to the Roman army. Yet he encountered enough of God to abandon his pagan religion and the false gods of his people to worship the God of the Jews. The God of the Jews is Jehovah. They would have been monotheistic. He didn’t know everything, but he begins to worship the God of the Jews based on what he knows. He has limited understanding. He had not yet been saved, but God was plurising him and he was seeking God and his heart was soft and ripe for salvation.
I mean it’s great moment in showing like the divine election of God. God’s heart and hand was on Cornelius. His heart was being softened and shaped. And yet you see human responsibility that everyone should seek the Lord. And when the Spirit of God begins to mold your heart so that you might seek the Lord, if you seek you shall find. We’re seeing these things take place. It’s hard for us in our small brains to reconcile how God works through salvation. But I think we see it so clearly in Cornelius.
But it says that he feared God in his house. He worshiped Jehovah. He led his household to pray to Jehovah. He gave his money generously to the Jews because they were God’s chosen people. Probably like if I take care of the Jews, maybe God will have mercy on me and take care of me. He was doing everything he possibly could to gain salvation from the Jews except be circumcised. He was known as a Proselyte of the gate, so he didn’t go that far. But he did every other thing. He’s trying to be a Jew. He didn’t convert fully to Judaism.
Now there are two things I want to point out. You can do all of those things and still not be saved. You can worship God, you can give generously, you can pray to God. you can come to a Christian church and sing the right songs and say the right words and not actually be saved. Cornelius is doing all those things and yet he’s yet to be saved because he’s yet to hear the message of salvation. We only are saved by the precious blood of the Lamb, receiving Jesus as Lord and repenting of our sins, realizing that it’s all been taken care of at the cross.
But we also see in Cornelius the grace of God in revealing Himself to a sinner and a sinner’s heart prepared to seek and to find. And so what happens the ninth hour (that’s 3:00) he goes, a big hour for the Jews. so Cornelius gets on his knees to pray at 3:00 and something happens that never happened in his prayer time. He starts to pray, and bam, an angel shows up. That’ll freak you out. And he’s kind of terrified.
And he says, “What is it, Lord?” And he comes to find out it’s not the Lord. But the angel says, Hey, you’ve got to send some guys to Joppa thirty-five miles away. Look for a guy named Peter and have your men tell him to bring him to your household. Ok? You send him to Joppa and bring him back here.
So we’ll see what happens as he wakes up from this moment with the angel. Let’s look in Acts chapter 10:9-16. The next day as they were on their journey. So he’s obedient. He calls men together. They go to sleep. The next day he sends those men to Joppa.
Now let’s move our attention to what Peter is doing in Joppa. The next day as they were on their journey and approaching the icty, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. And he became hungry and wanted something to eat. But while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance.
So we’ve seen God preparing Cornelius with this angelic vision. Now we see God preparing Peter for something that’s going to stretch even his understanding of the gospel and the limitlessness of salvation in Christ. It says that he went up on the housetop at the noon hour to pray. Sounds like a great place to pray when you’re by the sea the noon hour. So he goes up to pray.
At lunch time he starts to get hungry so he tells his friends, Hey, come up here and make some food. And the smells and the aromas of the food start to swell as they’re going up. And Peter gets deep in prayer. And the Lord is about to take him into like a Golden Corral level trance. His deepest food dreams are about to be blown, ok? Some of y’all go into this trance every week during the sermon. You’re just sitting there like, Oh, I can’t wait to eat after this message is over. You’re texting your spouse like emojis of all the food. Sometimes my wife does that to me. It’s awesome. She’s going to kill me for that maybe.
Verse 11. So he goes into the trance. Check it out. Saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. And in it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord. for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”
And the voice came to him a second time. “What God has made clean, do not call common.” This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once into the heavens.
Now before I explain exactly what’s going on there, let me just challenge you with something. If Jesus is truly your Lord, you do not tell Him “no.” Somebody has got to write that down this morning. If Jesus is truly your Lord, you do not tell Him “no.”
Did you notice Peter’s response as the Lord shows up in a trance and says, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat”?
He says, “By no means Lord.” I mean, it’s crazy. And think about the times the Lord has shown up already to people. He showed up to Saul on the road to Damascus. Saul hit the dirt and he’s like, “What shall I do Lord?” And in obedience he begins to walk with Him.
The Lord shows up to Annanias. Annanias softly and obediently says, “Here I am, Lord.” Great response. An angel shows up to Cornelius, who doesn’t even know the Lord. And he’s freaked out but he realizes it’s not the Lord; it’s an angel. But he’s obedient immediately.
And then the Lord shows up to His old pal Peter and tells him to do something. And Peter is like, “By no means Lord!” And then he starts to justify himself before God. I’m holy. I’ve never eaten such things. I’ve done all the right things.
And God is like, Peter, c’mon dude. C’mon bro. Like you told me “no” when I told you to cast your nets to the other side of the boat. And you’re like, “Jesus, just let the fishermen take care of the fish. You take care of the ministry.” You saw how that worked out.
You told me “no” when I was going to wash your feet, and we saw how that worked out. “You’ll never wash my feet.” I came to serve you, Peter. You told me you wouldn’t deny me, Peter, but you denied me three times.
And then I asked you three times, “Peter, do you love me?”
You said, “Absolutely.” And what did I say?
“If you love me, keep my commandments.”
And here he is, telling him to rise, kill and eat. Peter, I love you so much. I’m compassionate towards you. I have mercy on you. You are a stubborn son of a gun. But man, I’m going to have some compassion on you and I’ll do it three times. Rise, Peter, kill and eat. Rise Peter. Kill and eat. Rise Peter. Kill and eat.
And He says, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”
I don’t know about you, but I can for sure be stubborn like Peter sometimes. I can for sure be obstinate toward the Lord, who is truly my God. But I have never won a wrestling match with the Lord.
Kids, have you ever, Gospel City Kids, have you ever like felt like the Lord was leading you to do something? You know what’s right. You know what you should do, but you’re like, “I don’t want to do that; my way is better”?
We can’t tell the Lord “no.” Sometimes I try, but the Lord always gets me to the place where He wants me to go. And it’s so much better if we be like Cornelius and be obedient. It’s so much better if we be like Annanias and say, “Here am I Lord.”
We have to stop acting like we know better than the Lord. Stop being high and mighty telling the Lord “no.” Trust the Lord. Follow the Lord. Obey the Lord. Ask Him for a submissive will, not a stubborn will.
Now Peter certainly had those things, but God always seems to get him to the right place. What God is showing Peter right in this moment is that slavion is bigger than his dietary restrictions, but salvation. Salvation is bigger than your dietary restrictions, but salvation is bigger than your biggest prejudices. He’s about to find out that this is a lot more to do with souls than it is to do with food.
Now there were dietary restrictions set forth in the Old Testament in Leviticus. The Jews were a chosen, holy nation. And a part of separating themselves from the Gentiles and the rest of the world was only eating kosher foods, things that were clean. While the rest of the world is eating bacon and pulled pork and ribs, they were not eating those things. They were separating themselves eating things that were clean.
So there was like this division that the Lord put in place as an act of His mercy. And all of that was paid for by the blood of Jesus. All of that was kind of washed away because it was just a kind of temporary way of God showing mercy to a people who continually did what was right in their own eyes. But God in His mercy preserves them.
And so God is doing away with the dietary restrictions of the Jews in this moment. Peter is having a hard time with it. I saw something pop up on my phone this week. McDonalds is not having a hard time. God in Acts 10: “Rise Peter. Kill and eat.” McDonalds is like, Hold my Coke. And apparently they got all those animals on one sandwich that some of you are about to go get after this message. I think the actual reference is 2 Hesitations 10. Rise Ronald. Kill and eat. Spend the rest of the day in the bathroom.
But God is not going to judge people any more by what they eat but by who they know. A man’s cleanliness and holiness is no longer a matter of law but of law. And the good news of the gospel is removing the barrier of law by the precious blood of Jesus.
You understand what is happening? Let’s keep reading what happens in Acts chapter 10. Verse 17. Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed. He had to unlearn a lot in this moment. As he’s inwardly perplexed, as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon’s house stood at the gate and called out whether they knew Simon who was called Peter was lodging there.
So just think about like the divine supernatural workings of the Lord. He shows up to Cornelius thirty-five miles away, sends these men thirty-five miles on a journey. They probably walked. And Peter is up praying the next day at the noon hour. Right as he comes out of the trance, the men show up. He’s inwardly perplexed. The men show up. I mean, God’s providence, the fine details. It’s amazing.
Look at it in verse 19. And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.”
Verse 21. And Peter went down to the men and said, (good obedience) “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?”
And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man who is well-spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.”
So he invited them to be his guests. The next day he rose and went away with them and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called togher his relatives and close friends. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him.
But Peter lifted him up saying, “I too am a man.”
That’s an awesome moment for Peter. Never let somebody think more of you than you actually are. The only One we bow to is Jesus Christ. Peter is like, “I’m just a sinful man. I wrestle with the Lord all the time. I even was trying to tell Him “no” just yesterday when He was giving me a vision. And so don’t bow to me. Let’s bow to the Lord together. We’re sinners saved by grace.”
Good job Peter. And let’s keep going in verse 27. And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of 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. I ask then why you sent for me.”
And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’
Verse 33. 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 all that you have been commanded by the Lord.” (Acts 10:27-33)
And just like that, in supernatural, God-ordained timing, a massive varrier was removed as Peter walked in obedience, carrying the only message of reconciliation. Peter steps across the threshold of a Gentile home, somewhere that a Jew should not be, somewhere that a Jew would never go, somewhere that a Jew would despise. And Peter in obedience steps into Cornelius’ house and the gospel begins to break down barriers.
That’s what the gospel does, doesn’t it? The gospel is the good news of Jesus that truly unites human beings. It’s the reason to go where you would not likely go. The gospel is a reason to love everyone as we love ourselves, even our enemies.
And if you want to talk about separation, you want to talk about a reason for a prejudice, Jesus never should have left His perfect and high and holy throne to come to our sinful and messed up and broken world. And yet Jesus, because of His love, came to our imperfection and befriended us when we were His enemies. That’s an amazing moment.
And the world right now in society is fighting desperately to counterfeit this unity that can only be made possible by the gospel. You realize that the world is trying. Unity is a big word irgt now, and they’re trying to unify. They’re counterfeiting what can only be made possible by the gospel.
The world right now tries to unify around socially acceptable sins. That’s fake unity. You can’t get unity from brokenness. If we accept one another’s sin issues and say you can be whatever you want to be and you can do that and be like that and just come here and we’ll all love each other, that’s going to lead to more brokenness. That’s going to lead to more desperation. That’s going to lead to more depression. It’s never going to solve the problem.
And there’s organization after organization after organization popping up right now in our culture trying to disguise it as unity. And what it is is truly brokenness and fragmentation apart from Jesus Christ. The gospel is the only thing that unites sinners to a perfect Savior. And as the barriers and prejudices come down, the presence of God is what unifies us. And you see that happen as Peter steps into the house of Cornelius. Did you see what Cornelius said in verse 33?
Now therefore, we are all here in the presence of God to hear that all that you have been commended by the Lord. As the prejudices came down, the presence of God filled the room among the Jews and the Gentiles.
And Jesus, He came to break these kinds of barriers. Jesus was considered an outcast because He hung out with all types of people that no one would want to hang out with. He hung out with the morally impaired people. He hung out with prostitutes, with cheating tax collectors, with drunkards, gluttons, thieves.
Gospel City Kids, have you ever gone like to a playground at school or maybe the first time you came to Gospel City Kids. Was there ever a time when you just felt like you didn’t have a group of friends? Like you look at some kids hanging out and you’re like, Man, I wish I had friends like that. And no one came and talked to you. That hurts, right?
Or maybe you see people all the time who, you know, they’re not in your friend group. You know, one of the best things that you can do as a disciple of Jesus, one of the best things you can do as a Gospel City kid, is go out of your circle of friends and go to somebody who has no friends and say, Hey, can I invite you into my group? Can I introduce you to some people? And that’s a beautiful thing. That’s you being like Jesus whenever the rest of the world doesn’t really care.
Jesus loved all the people who had no friends. And Jesus went to them and Jesus died for all of those people and the like so that they could be unified to a perfect body, a perfect Savior who is Christ. And the blood of Jesus and the Spirit of God get to decide who belongs to Him and not our judgment.
And I fear that that’s the problem often in the church is we want to judge this person’s a child of God and this person is not. We want to be the judge of who can be God’s child. And the Spirit is responsible for that. The blood of Jesus is responsible for that. All we have been called to do is love as Jesus Christ has loved us.
And how will they know if they do not hear? And how will they hear if we do not go? And thank God that Peter went in obedience. Amen?
Let’s look at number two. The gospel requires proclamation. The gospel requires proclamation.
Acts 10:34-43. So Peter opened his mouth (that’s a great start) and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, (Amen) but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all). That’s the gospel.
37: You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.
And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Notice that Peter’s message is much different than some of the other times that we’ve heard him speak, right? He’s speaking a little differently than he would have before the synagogue or the Sanhedrin. He’s softer. He’s much less exhaustive. He’s not as apologetic. He’s not trying to prove the existence of Christ in this moment. He speaks of the main pieces of the gospel, but he speaks of no partiality. Jews to Gentiles. He speaks of everyone who believes can receive forgiveness of sins. He speaks of Jesus dying on the cross and rising again. Gotta have that in the gospel.
He didn’t try to change their lifestyle. He didn’t try to convert them from bacon eaters to vegetarians. He preached the saving elements of the gospel and left the rest in the Lord’s hands. And that’s what we’re called to do. Faithfulness to the gospel always requires proclamation, but we should be sensitive to the Spirit to temper our message for the audience at hand.
Sometimes the gospel needs to be confrontational. You notice that when he was before the Sanhedrin or befor the synagogue he says, “Jesus whom you crucified and hung to a cross,” and this time he is a lot softer. He says, “They hung Jesus on a cross and He rose again from the dead.”
At times, sharing the gospel may only take the truths that God loves you and you’re a sinner in need of grace and Jesus died and rose again so that you can trust and repent and obey Him. And as we proclaim the gospel we trust the Spirit to give us the words, and we trust the Spirit with the results. That’s what Peter is doing.
This is a beautiful moment of obedience. And Cornelius was soft and the Spirit had already been working on his heart. He just needed to hear. And so Peter in obedience opened his mouth. The gospel is meant to be proclaimed. It requires proclamation.
Have you thought, Why didn’t the angel just share the gospel with Cornelius? Have you thought about that? Not only was God allowing the gospel to break down racial barriers, not only was God showing Peter that salvation is bigger than his prejudices, but God was showing us the privilege and the necessity of human obedience to proclaim the gospel.
Angels in the Bible don’t proclaim the gospel. That’s not a privilege that they’ve been given. There’s only one instance in Scripture where an angel will share the gospel. In Revelation 14, God in His mercy is going to set, there’s going to be a ton of people still on the earth rejecting Christ, rejecting the message of Jesus, trying to have unity around broken things. And God is going to, in His mercy, as a final act of His grace, He’s going to set lose an angel over the airways, and the angel is going to proclaim the message of Jesus. Some may repent and believe. Many will say, I don’t want anything to do with Christ. And at that point it will be too late.
But anywhere else in Scripture, angels don’t share the gospel. Could God save all that He needs to save by Himself? Absolutely. Could God get all that He needs to get done through His angel armies? Yes. but does God include us in His plan, in His mission for salvation? He does. That’s an amazing thing to me.
Kids, God is calling. God lets you be a part of His missions and His plan. You have something that even the angels don’t get to do. God has entrusted you with telling your friends about Jesus. I think that’s awesome. I think that’s a reason we should share the gospel every single day because not even the angels have been entrusted with that. We have been included in God’s plan of redemption.
And so the gift of gospel proclamation has been given and entrusted to us as human beings. And the gospel breaks down barriers when we are obedient to proclaim it to all kinds of people and love them as Chrst has loved us.
Gandhi was, you know, a religious leader in Hinduism. And he was reading. I read a story this week that he was reading the gospels at one point. And he was really intrigued by Jesus and the life of Jesus and how Jesus loved people. And at one point he was kind of fed up with the caste system in India. And he decided one day that he was going to go to a church in Calcutta, a Christain church, because he was so intrigued by the gospels that he had read. And so he decided to go to church one day.
And as he approached the doors of the church, he was met by the usher, and comes to find out that this was a high caste Indian church and it was for whites only. You either had to be high caste Indian or white only. And so rather than the usher extending hands to Gandhi, the usher said, Hey, you’re not welcome here. Why don’t you go and worship with people of your own color?
And Gandhi left that church that day and we find later in some of his writings he wrote, “I guess even the Christians have a caste system, and I would be a Christian if it wasn’t for a Christian.” And that’s heartbreaking. I mean the Spirit of God was doing something as he opened the Word of God, which is always faithful. And he was intrigued by Jesus.
But the human responsibility part, it was missed that day. And Gandhi- God is bigger than all of that for sure- but Gandhi walked away and hardened his heart toward Christianity because a Christian failed to act like Jesus did. A Christian failed to be obedient like Peter and show in grace and in love that God has no partiality. May it be true and so in our lives and in our church.
The gospel breaks down barriers. The gospel requires proclamation. And number three is this: The gospel redeems sinners.
Verse 44-48. While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And 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. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God.
Then Peter declared, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days. (Acts 10:44-48)
When we are faithful to proclaim the gospel, we can trust the Spirit with the results. We’ve seen Peter proclaiming the gospel in several different scenarios. Sometimes it resulted in salvation. Sometimes it resulted in rejection. Sometimes people gave their life to Christ and worshiped Christ. Sometimes Peter was beaten and flogged. But he continued to open his mouth because that’s what the gospel requires. He continued to open his mouth, and he was faithful to do his part and he trusted the Spirit to do what only the Spirit can do.
And do you notice in the text the instantaneous miracle of salvation that takes place in this God-ordained meeting between the Jews and the Gentiles? While Peter was still saying these things. Sometimes God doesn’t even need you to finish your sermon! Sometimes He doesn’t even need you to finish your final point. Perhaps He’s just waiting for our obedience in some circumstances.
Imagine if Peter would have got there and would’ve stopped talking or would’ve said, I don’t know how they’re going to receive this message, so I’ll just try to live like I’m a Christian and we’ll talk about football or something. I’ve done that. We can do those things when we get in settings, right?
And yet if God in the Spirit is leading us, again, if Jesus is truly Lord of our life we don’t tell Him “no.” And if He is providing an opportunity for us to proclaim that Jesus is Lord, that He is Lord of all, then we have to do it in obedience.
And as Peter spoke, the power of the gospel, the Holy Spirit, fell on all who heard the Word. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. How will people hear the words of God if we do not speak it? How do we speak it if we do not go with boldness? And the regenerating Spirit of God, the promise of the Father, once again comes from heaven and brings yet another layer to the fulfillment of the Great Commission. He brings a room full of Gentiles from death to life, and this should never ever get old.
We keep seeing people get saved by the grace of God in the book of Acts. Peter is seeing it over and over again, but this time salvation goes far beyond his greatest prejudices. He sees his obedience to the gospel break down barriers that he never would have dreamed would come down, and the Spirit included Him in the process because He’s just that good. He’s just that kind. He’s just that gracious.
And the gospel, it doesn’t only redeem sinners. But man, the gospel turns sinners into worshippers of Jesus Christ. People who would be content to go to their death worshiping themselves, worshiping the things of this world, the gospel changes sinners into worshippers of Jesus. The Jews were just as shocked in this moment as the Gentiles. It’s a beautiful moment.
The Jews stand and they said, “The Lord has come upon these Gentiles, these enemies. The Lord has saved them. The Lord has made us brothers. The Spirit has regenerated them.
It says in verse 36 that they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. This group of Gentiles who were enemies the day before. And Peter’s obedience as he steps over the threshold of their door, he speaks the good news of the gospel and they become worshippers of the same God. It says that they began to speak in tongues.
The word there is glossa. It’s real languages. Same word that was happening in Pentecost. God’s authenticating what He’s doing on earth by the power of the Spirit. He did it at Pentecost in the Jews. He did it in Acts 8 among the Samaritans.
He’s doing it now to another group of people as the Gentiles begin to extol God in their own tongues and in their own languages. They weren’t “flibber flabbering” and “jibber jabbbering”. No one taught them what to say in this moment. The Spirit of God shows up and they all begin to praise God, a God of every tribe, every tongue, every nation in their own language. And the Jews could hear it and understand it. The Greek and the Gentiles could hear it and understand it.
And God was doing a miraculous thing to put His sign and His seal on a people as Christ continued to build His church and the gates of hell could not prevail against it. It was an amazing way that God shows us in the early church that salvation is bigger than our greatest prejudices and our barriers.
Speaking in tongues- it’s not the normal thing that happens right when you get saved. You don’t need to get saved and speak in tongues. You haven’t seen that in Acts so far. Saul didn’t do that. The Ethiopian eunuch didn’t do that. It was a supernatural sign that came to a group of people so that they could extol God, not build themselves up in this moment. It was a remarkable thing, a sign, a wonder, a seal of the Spirit of God.
But what is right and obedient and what does seem to follow salvation and receiving of Christ in the Spirit in the book of Acts is baptism. That’s what Peter says. He’s like Somebody has to hold up their bathtub for a minute. We’re about to have a baptism service and lots of Gentiles are going to get in the water and proclaim that Jesus is Lord of their life. And they’re going to go under the water symbolizing what Christ has done inside of them and they’re going to be raised to walk in newness of life.
It’s amazing. And we’re working on a baptism day because there are people who have said I’ve got to get baptized on the right side of my salvation. The Spirit of God has been placed inside my soul and I want to proclaim it. And because the gospel requires proclamation, I’m going to do my part since God has saved me.
And the last thing that we see in the text, they ask him to say because salvation proved to be bigger than their prejudices. The gospel breaks down the most unlikely of barriers. And if we’re obedient to proclaim it, we will see the fruit of sinners redeemed. They asked him to stay because in Christ just like Annanias said “Brother Saul,” enemies become family. Enemies are united to the Body of Jesus. Only the gospel can do that. Nothing else, no other desire, no other thing, can create that kind of unity. Only the blood of Jesus.
And I’ve been just praying for you, praying for our church this week. This message is heavy on my heart that we would continually be being obedient to proclaim the gospel as a people, that we wouldn’t grow tired, that we wouldn’t grow comfortable in the nice things, the nice church, the nice place, that God has provided for us.
We say often that we’re a city within a city, a city sent to a city, a city logging for a better city. That sounds great, but man, we’ve got to live that. God has created a city here, a city of people. And it’s within the city of South Bend and there’s unity in this place today that the world knows nothing about. But we could stay here and we could sit on it and we could sing the songs and we could feel really good. But we’re a city sent to a city.
And so we gather here and we scatter out there. And man, can I encourage all of us to get outside of our comfort zones? Can I encourage all of us to find tables to sit at where we don’t know people, where we are at tables with people who look different than us, who act different, who maybe even believe differently than us. And would we have enough humility to just sit down and listen from time to time?
We’re all human beings. We all have a lot of opinions. But I bet we agree on more things than we disagree on. And if we could just sit down and listen to one another and allow the gospel, the Word of God, to guide our conversations, and if we could allow Jesus to shape our actions and our love for others, I believe that God can tear down massive barriers that the world is in an uproar about. And I believe that God can unite us just like he did Peter and Cornelius and that house full of Jews and Gentiles that day if we’re willing to be humble and to go and to be obedient and to listen and to love.
I challenge you with that. God is stirring. God is moving. His Word is powerful. And so we put our trust in the Spirit and we do our part by loving Christ as Christ has loved the church. Let me invite you to stand. I’m going to pray and we’re going to go out singing.
Lord God, we praise you and we thank you for the gift of salvation.