So this morning's readings taken from Acts chapter 10 and can be
found on page 1103 in the Pew Bibles at Caesarea there was a
man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian
Regiment. He and all his family were
devout and God fearing. He gave generously to those in
need and prayed to God regularly.
One day at about 3:00 in the afternoon, he had a vision.
He distinctly saw an Angel of God who came to him and said,
Cornelius. Cornelius stared at him in fear.
What is it, Lord? He asked.
The Angel answered. Your prayers and gifts to the
poor have come up as a memorial offering before God.
Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon, who is
called Peter. He is staying with Simon the
Tanner, whose house is by the sea.
When the Angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two
of his servants and a devout soldier who was one of his
attendants. He told them everything that had
happened and sent them to Joppa about noon the following day.
As they went on their journey and approaching the city, Peter
went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted
something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell
into a trance. He saw heaven opened and
something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its
four corners. It contained all kinds of four
footed animals as well as reptiles and birds.
Then a voice told him, Get up, Peter, kill and eat.
Surely not, Lord, Peter replied. I have never eaten anything
impure or unclean. The voice spoke to him a second
time. Do not call anything impure that
God has made clean. This happened three times and
immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.
While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the
men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon's house was and
stopped at the gate. They called out asking if Simon,
who was known as Peter, was staying there.
While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the spirit
said to him, Simon, three men are looking for you, so get up
and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them,
for I have sent them. Peter went down and said to the
men, I'm the one you are looking for, why have you come?
The men replied, We have come from Cornelius the centurion.
He is a righteous and God fearing man who is respected by
all the Jewish people. A holy Angel told him to ask you
to come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say.
Then Peter invited the men into the house to be his guests.
The next day Peter started out with them and some of the
believers from Joppa went along. The following day he arrived in
Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and
had called together his relatives and close friends.
As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at
his feet in reverence, but Peter made him get up.
Stand up, he said, I am only a man myself.
While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large
gathering of people. He said to them, You're well
aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or
visit a Gentile, but God has shown me that I should not call
anyone impure or unclean. So when I said when I was sent
for, I came without raising any objection.
May I ask why you sent for me? Cornelius answered.
Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour.
At 3:00 in the afternoon, suddenly a man in shining
clothes stood before me and said, Cornelius, God has heard
your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor.
Send to Joppa for Simon, who is called Peter.
He is a guest in the home of Simon the Tanner, who lives by
the sea. So I sent for you immediately,
and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the
presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has
commanded you to tell us. Then Peter began to speak.
I now realize how true it is that God does not show
favoritism, but accepts from every nation the one who fears
Him and does what is right. You know the message God sent to
the people of Israel announcing good news of peace through Jesus
Christ, who is God, Lord of all. You know what has happened
throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee
after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus
of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how He went
around doing good and healing all who were under the power of
the devil. Because God was with him.
We are witnesses of everything He did in the country of the
Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him
in a on a cross, but God raised him from the dead on the third
day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the
people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen by us who
ate and drank with Him. After He rose in the dead, He
commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that He is
the one whom God appointed as Judge of the living in the dead.
All the prophets testify about Him, that everyone who believes
in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.
While Peter was speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on,
only heard the message. The circumcised believers who
had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the
Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles, for they heard
them speaking in tongues and praising God.
Then Peter said, surely no one can stand in the way of their
being baptized with water. They have received the Holy
Spirit just as we have. So we ordered that they be
baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and then they asked
Peter to stay with them for a few days.
It's quite good actually. When you come to a bit of
scripture like this, actually any bit of the Bible, it can be
really helpful to just ask the question, if I had to, what is
the tune or the melody I would have playing as this bit of
Scripture is read out. I didn't ask musicians to play
and choose that tune, but actually it's a, it's a useful
question to ask what's the, what's the tune, the soundtrack,
the feel of this bit of the Bible?
How are we meant to feel when we have it read out?
So is it a passage encouraging us with the love of Jesus?
Is it gently leading us to him? Is the soundtrack sort of quite,
quite warm and comforting? Is it a passage that exposes our
need of forgiveness? Is it is it quite, quite
stirring, quite quite difficult music to expose us, maybe even
sad or mournful? Is the passage calling us to
action to get up and start serving God in the world?
Is it the sort of music you've had playing in the gym?
As you can see from my physique, I go there a lot and maybe it's
things that I know the rocky theme chin I would sort of have
if I'm really want eye of the tiger or something like that.
But what is the tune or melody of this bit of scripture?
And I want to suggest that the the soundtrack to Acts chapter
10 is 1 of astounding joy and celebration.
Again, we can read bits of the Bible or maybe with the same
sort of tone of voice, but actually the the feel here is
one of just celebration like Vandal's Hallelujah course
Messiah or celebrate come on good times.
That's Rakul and the gang. I got that wrong.
Celebrate good times. Come on, let's celebrate 1980
very good song or whatever song gets you in the mood to
celebrate. But it's this is a red letter
day in the history of the early church.
It is a key moment in salvation history and look as he records
this for us just goes into all the detail lovingly telling you
it's like we have a proud parent who wants to tell you everything
about their child. And I see the detail here is
about Luke celebrating what God has done through Jesus in the
world. Because this is the moment when
the Apostle Peter and and with him the whole early church have
their eyes finally opened by the living God to his saving
purposes for the whole of humanity.
Like the message of Acts 10 is that God is bringing people from
every nation together into the church simply through faith in
Jesus. Is that God can make anyone and
everyone clean through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus
in our place. This is a huge message in the
book of Acts because up to this point we might forget it
sometimes, but the early church was made-up to chapter 10,
almost entirely of Jewish believers.
Now, these Jewish believers came from all over the Roman Empire.
They would have spoken different languages, they had different
traditions. But up to this point in the book
of Acts, if you were a follower of Jesus, you were almost
certainly a Jewish believer first.
You could either trace your ancestry back to ancient Israel,
but that's whether you were Jewish or Samaritan, or you were
a Gentile who had converted to Judaism.
You've been circumcised. You're now observing the Law of
Moses. Before this bit of Acts, Acts
chapter 10, the early church was an exclusively Jewish movement
of men, women and children following Jesus.
But from this point onwards of the conversion of this Roman
centurion Cornelius, the message of Jesus finally breaks into the
Gentile world. You no longer had to be Jewish
to belong to the early church. All that mattered was simple
faith in the saving work of Jesus.
Jewish people and non Jewish people could now be one through
their shared faith in Jesus. It's a huge moment in the
history of the church. So actually Luke spends a lot of
time in it. Actually, he actually records
this moment for us twice. We've got chapter 10.
We're looking at this week, next week.
Chapter 11 kind of goes over this event again.
He also refers to it in chapter 15.
He's determined that his readers do not miss the significance of
what is going on when Peter went into the home of the Romans,
Cornelius and shared the good news of Jesus with him.
It's even possible that Luke, the writer of Acts, was himself
a Gentile believer from a non Jewish family and background.
If that is the case, this is deeply personal for Luke.
He's saying this is the moment that people like me are fully
welcomed into the Church of Jesus.
And it's a fairly long passage. We're going to try and speed
through it before we pause at the end to think through what it
all means for us today. So First things first, we need
to meet this Gentile believer, Cornelius.
That's verses 1 to 8. And according to verse one,
Cornelius lives in Caesarea. That was the capital of 1st
century Judea, the official seat of the Roman government.
It's an important place and he is an important man.
We learned that he's a Roman centurion.
He's a high-ranking soldier, part of the Roman army that was
occupying Judea at this time. And we need to see actually
really clearly Luke wants to show us Cornelius is a real
person. If you look over verses 1 to 8,
again, there's loads of verses that have the feel of an
eyewitness account. So verse 3, the Angel appeared
to Cornelius about 3:00 in the afternoon.
Luke wants us to know the time of day this happened.
Cornelius distinctly saw the Angel.
Look, it is the number of servants sent by Cornelius to
invite Peter into his home. And see, there's actually a
strong argument that every time an actual name is used in the
Gospels or in the book of Acts, there's a strong possibility
this was someone that the writer spoke to to get their account.
This was an eyewitness Luke has spoken to.
Cornelius may have been one of those eyewitnesses.
He would have been well known to the early Christians in Luke's
day. Maybe Cornelius was still alive
when this bit of Acts was written.
He might have been well known. They might even have cheered
when Cornelius name appeared. Cornelius, it's you.
You're in Acts. This is a big deal for the early
church. And Cornelius was a member of
the early church. He joins at the end of this
passage through faith in Jesus. So he's a centurion.
He's a real person. We're told he's a God fearer
along with his whole family. So Cornelius is Roman, but he is
drawn to faith in the God of Israel.
He may be being brought up with a pantheon of gods the ancient
Rome worshiped. But when Cornelius heard about
the God of ancient Israel, he wanted to know more.
It sounds like he would have gone along to the synagogue
occasionally. He would have heard the Hebrew
scriptures taught. But crucially, Cornelius was not
a convert to Judaism. He wasn't circumcised.
He didn't observe the Law of Moses or the additional laws the
Jewish religious leaders instilled.
And so actually, at bottom, Cornelius is unclean.
He is unclean in the eyes of Jewish believers.
Without God intervening here, Peter and his fellow Jewish
Christians would never have gone into Cornelius home and shared
the gospel with him. Cornelius was unclean, an
outsider, excluded from the people of God.
Until that is, the living God breaks in to Cornelius life.
Again, we need to see here when we read over this bit of Acts,
there's little big names featuring the Apostle Peter,
Cornelius, the first fully Gentile convert in Acts.
But throughout this passage, we need to see God is taking the
lead. The living God is leading his
people on mission here. God speaks to Cornelius through
an Angel, tells him to send for Peter.
God speaks to Peter through a vision, tells him to go to
Cornelius's house. God sends his spirit on
Cornelius and his friends to confirm they are now trusting in
Jesus and part of the early church.
The living Godfather, Son and Holy Spirit is taking the lead
here. We need to see that to really
get what's going on. So first of all, God speaks to
Cornelius verses 1 to 8. He sends an Angel that's
literally a messenger from heaven to speak to Cornelius and
to tell him to send for Peter. See, the living God wants
Cornelius in his church. He wants Cornelius to hear the
good news of Jesus and find new life through faith in him.
I think it's a striking here, right?
The way through Acts and maybe here particularly, we see our
God is a missionary God. He wants people in his church.
He takes the lead. He leads his people on mission,
and that is good news. If you're a follower of Jesus
here today, God wants to lead you, lead us on mission to
people he wants in his church. And amazingly here we learned
that that the God speaks to Cunelius through the visit of an
Angel and a vision. And it's really exciting to know
that actually Fast forward to today, God still speaks through
angels and visions today. There are plenty of reports
around the world of people dreaming of angels, dreaming of
Jesus himself, and being drawn to faith in Jesus through those
dreams and visions. According to mission agencies,
many of these visions take place in countries that are closed to
the gospel. Muslim countries like Iran that
we prayed for, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, where people like
Cornelius, God fearing people, need to hear the good news of
Jesus. And as with Cornelius here,
these visions form part of a process.
They don't do the whole work. Cornelius's vision leads him to
call for Peter to hear the gospel from him.
And and similarly today, when people have these visions,
dreams of Jesus, actually further down the line, they
still need God's people to explain the gospel to them.
They need God's Word to lead them to Jesus through the power
of the Spirit. But it's a reminder God is still
reaching out to people that maybe even human believers can't
reach out to, and he's wanting them in his church.
He uses a wide variety of methods, including angelic
visions to accomplish his goal. So Cornelius calls to the
servants and a devout soldier, he sends them to Joppa to find
the man the Angel told him about.
Verse 9 again, look at the eyewitness detail here about
noon the following day. Looks like he's slowing down.
This is exactly when it happened as Cornelius his men were on
their journey and approaching the city.
So it's about a 30 to 40 mile walk from Joppa.
From Caesarea to Joppa it's about a day's journey and as
they enter Joppa, Peter decides to go up on the roof.
Peter went up on the roof to pray.
Verse 9, if you were here last week, we saw Peter in Joppa
continuing the ministry of Jesus, healing the sick, raising
the dead. Peter clearly is a messenger of
Jesus with Jesus authority on earth.
And so Peter as an apostle is able to lead the early church
into this next phase of mission. And God speaks to Peter here.
We're told Peter's hungry, waiting for lunch.
He falls into a trance and he sees a vision from God that
would transform the church and change the course of history.
Verse 11 and 12, Peter saw heaven opened and something like
a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners.
It contained all kinds of four footed animals as well as
reptiles and birds. It's such an astonishing vision,
it's really hard for us to visualize it.
This is kind of the best picture I could find online.
But actually in a sense it's just mind blowing to try and
picture what this vision is about.
A large sheep from heaven full of all kinds of four footed
animals. Some of them would have been
clean for Peter, some of them being kosher foods for him.
Others would have been unclean, forbidden for Peter to eat.
And in verse 13 a voice told him, get up Peter, kill and eat.
Surely not lowered. Peter replied.
I've never eaten anything impure or unclean.
The voice spoke to him a second time.
Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.
This happened three times and immediately the sheet was taken
back to heaven. I know there's so much that we
could say about this vision, but for our purposes this morning, I
want us to see it is vivid and memorable.
It's repeated 3 times so that even Peter cannot miss what God
is saying to him. And what is God saying?
He's saying do not call anything impure that God has made clean
and in case we think God's main concern is about clean and
unclean foods. Verse 17 the minute the vision
finishes, Cornelius's men arrive and verses 19 to 20 the Holy
Spirit speaks directly to Peter and tells him do not hesitate to
go with them for I have sent them.
This vision is primarily about people God looking for
worshippers from among the Gentiles.
The Holy Spirit speaks directly to Peter and commands Peter to
take the good news of Jesus. To this man Cornelius and his
home, how do we understand a vision like this?
Actually, I'm convinced there's a really profoundly wrong way of
understanding this vision that can lead actually to pride and
self righteousness on our part. It's possible for a Christian to
read this vision saying, going great.
Finally, through this vision, those backward early Christians
realize just how racist they'd always been, and they finally
come around to seeing things the way we see them.
That doesn't matter where you come from, that all races are
equal in God's eyes. Finally, those foolish early
Christians are thinking like 21st century Christians.
Honestly, that's a really profoundly wrong way of
understanding this vision. Because if you read it that way,
we end up looking down on Peter and the early church.
We feel smug about ourselves. We act if we wouldn't have
needed a vision like this to lead us on mission.
The truth is we need God to lead us just as much as Peter needed
God to lead him. That's your attitude presumes
that some of the values we hold dear today, values like racial
equality, are just obvious and self-evident, and we're very
clever to have come up with them.
But actually the value of racial equality is 1 we've inherited
from the Christian gospel, from the word of God.
It's the value we've inherited from passages like Acts chapter
10. And the fact that so many non
Christian people hold it dearly just reminds us how deeply
Christian western culture is. Peter needed God to break into
his assumptions, and we equally need God to break into our
assumptions. See, thanks to the saving work
of Jesus, God can now make anyone and everyone clean and
acceptable to him simply through faith in Jesus.
And that's what Paul, that's what God emphasizes to Peter.
Sorry, He says, God has made clean what was once unclean.
He doesn't say, Peter, you've been completely wrong all these
centuries, you Jewish people, there's no such thing as clean
and unclean. Everything's fine.
He says, no, don't call impure what God has made clean.
Those unclean and clean laws in the Old Testament point us to a
vital truth, that we are all of us naturally unclean in God's
eyes because of our sin and our selfishness and our refusal to
love him and love the people around us.
We are all unclean left to our own devices.
That's what those food laws pointed to.
And what this vision says is that God has made a significant
life altering change. He has made clean what was once
unclean. It took a saving work of God.
It took the Son of God becoming one of us, living the life we
could not live, dying the death we deserve to die, and rising
again to make us clean if we put our faith in him.
God has made us clean through faith in Jesus.
That's the heart of this vision, and that's the heart of the
message. Peter is then told to take to
Cornelius. And I love the patience of God
here. This vision happens three times.
Peter, have you got it yet? Have you got it yet?
We're going to hear next week
how this vision is told to the whole church in Jerusalem again,
because we need to grasp the implications of God's saving
purposes for the world through simple faith in Jesus.
So God speaks to Cornelius, God speaks to Peter, and then God
sends Peter to Cornelius and at this particular moment in this
particular home in Caesarea with this particular individual
Cornelius, that God's saving global purposes that were there
right from the beginning. Finally land in human history.
Again, Sunday Club will know this better than the rest of us.
The book of Genesis is all about the global saving purposes of
God. The God he made the whole earth
cause Abraham to follow him and he wants to bless all nations
through Abraham. But like human beings throughout
history, we we, we shrink that we twist what God says to us.
And actually, they need this moment in Peter and Cornelius's
lives to show them that the good news of Jesus is for everyone
and anyone who will trust in him.
So look at verse 25. Peter arrives at Cornelius's
house and Cornelius falls at Peter's feet in reverence.
He does what a good Roman would always do with their superiors.
Right from the outset, Cornelius has a lot to learn about the
freedom that Jesus has won for us that Peter gently corrects
Cornelius verse 26. Stand up, He said.
I'm only a man myself. Peter discovers that Cornelius
has got a large gathering of people, verse 27, to come and
hear what Peter says, and Peter introduces himself by again
looking back to that rooftop vision.
Peter said to them, You're well aware it's against our law for a
Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile.
But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or
unclean. So when I was sent for, I came
without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?
Cornelius describes his vision, he invites Peter to speak, and
Peter proclaims the good news of Jesus to the Gentiles.
And what is that message? Well, actually this is the
fourth sermon of Peters that we have recorded in Acts and it's
pretty much exactly the same as the ones he preaches to Jewish
believers. His message is all about Jesus,
his life, death and resurrection in our place.
And that's a key part of the message that Jewish people and
Gentile people are saved on the same basis.
Jesus saving work in coming, becoming one of us.
Sir Peter's message, it's about a person, Jesus Christ, who is
Lord of all verse 36, his life travelling around Judea, doing
good, healing all who are under the power of the devil.
His death 1st 39, they killed him by hanging him on a cross or
a tree. Now if you were a Roman, that
was a deeply shameful death. A Roman citizen like Cornelius
would never face that death. He wouldn't even speak of
crucifixion. It was shameful for Jewish
people. Why does Peter and the early
Christians keep banging on about this shameful death?
Because it's at the heart of how we are made clean.
Because Jesus became sin for us. He endured God's wrath for us.
He became a curse for us in our place so that we can be washed
clean. Verse 40 Peter then proclaims
Jesus resurrection. God raised him from the dead on
the third day, caused him to be seen.
Peter says I'm one of the witnesses and then he offers
Cornelius a gift. Verse 43, Everyone who believes
in Jesus receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
How do you get that gift, Cornelius?
Believe in him. Believe in him.
Cornelius didn't have to do anything else but to put his
faith in Jesus, to trust completely in what Jesus has
done for him rather than anything that Cornelius has done
for Jesus. And that's what Cornelius and
his friends choose to do. They believe in Jesus.
Actually, I love the detail. Verse 44, you get the impression
Peter hasn't finished his message yet.
He's kind of just getting going while Peter was still speaking
these words. Verse 44, like some preachers
you might know, he he likes talking at length.
But here Cornelius and his friends, they've heard enough.
They've heard enough and they put their faith in Jesus and God
responds to their faith, verse 44, by sending them the Holy
Spirit. The Gentiles are welcomed into
the church by the coming of the Spirit and through baptism.
Verse 44, while Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy
Spirit came on all who heard the message.
The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were
astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out
even on Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and
praising God again. It's, it's a celebration again,
in case there's any doubt for Peter and the Jewish believers.
God the Holy Spirit comes on Cornelius and his friends,
visibly, powerfully, unmistakably, just as he had
done on the day of Pentecost and Acts 2.
The Holy Spirit came on all. He heard the message.
Luke tells us he comes to live with them and in them in
response to their faith in Jesus.
And verse 46, they began speaking in tongues and praising
God. This is unmistakable.
God is welcoming the Gentiles into his church just in passing.
That speaking in tongues reference verse 46.
It seems to be different to the experience in Pentecost where
Peter and the other apostles were given the ability to speak
different human languages that others would hear.
This seems to be closer to the experience described in one
Corinthians speaking in a language given by the Holy
Spirit that requires the Holy Spirit to interpret it.
And it's important to note that that tongues don't always
accompany someone coming to faith in Jesus.
In Acts, only a few moments where you hear this described
and later the Apostle Paul in the 1st letter, the Corinthians
makes it clear not every believer is given the gift of
speaking in tongues. That's one Corinthians 12, verse
10 and verse 30. But the gift of tongues plays a
huge part in Acts 10 because the the Jewish believers need to see
with an Eddy shadow of a doubt. Gentile believers are now washed
clean and welcomed by God into his church on exactly the same
terms as Jewish believers. Verse 47.
Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with
water, says Peter. They have received the Holy
Spirit just as we have. So Peter order they be baptized
in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay
with them for a few days. This is a red letter day in the
history of the church and for every non Jewish believer in
this room, it's the day that without any shadow of a doubt
God demonstrated we are welcome in His church through simple
faith in Jesus. It's from this point onwards in
the book of Acts that the work of mission to the end of the
earth really begins. So as we as we prepare to leave
this passage, what difference does Act 10, Acts 10 make to us
as individuals and as a church family?
It's an amazing moment in church history.
What difference does it make to us today?
And the first thing we need to see here is that God can make
anyone and everyone clean through faith in Jesus.
It's kind of hard for us to grasp just how vast the dividing
wall was between Jew and Gentile in the 1st century.
Here's how the Apostle Paul puts it.
In Ephesians 2, he writes to merely Gentile believers.
Remember that once you were separate from Christ, excluded
from citizenship in Israel, foreigners, the covenants of the
promise, without hope and without God in the world, the
situation was hopeless, says Paul.
But Paul's writing in a post Acts 10 world and a few verses
later he says this to the Ephesians.
But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been
brought near by the blood of Christ.
It's the blood of Jesus that enables this to happen.
It's the love of Jesus that welcomes us into his church.
Like, I don't know how you feel this morning, how clean or
unclean you may feel. Maybe you're someone who feels
drawn to this Jesus, just as Cornelius was.
You're intrigued by him, drawn to him, but you've never quite
put your faith in him. Acts 10 says if you do that, you
will receive the forgiveness of sins, God the Holy Spirit living
in you, and you will be washed clean and accepted by God.
Anyone and everyone can be made clean by God through the saving
work of Jesus. And maybe you're already a
follower of Jesus here Today must be one of those weeks where
you don't feel very clean. You don't feel very welcomed by
God. Maybe you're struggling to see
what he's doing in your life or the lives of people you know.
Maybe you died. Does God really love me?
And Acts 10 is here to show us that the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus reconciles us to God and brings us into
God's people. We can rejoice in the life,
death and resurrection of Jesus for us, not on things we do, not
anything we deserve, but what Jesus has won for us.
This chapter reminds us the power of the gospel to transform
anyone who trusts in Jesus. So we need to receive that.
And we need to pray for opportunities to share that same
life changing gospel with the people around us.
I'm going to be encouraged actually in Acts 10 that God
takes the lead on mission and we need to follow His lead in every
member of the Trinity is at work.
In Acts chapter 10, do we see that God the Father makes us
clean through the saving work of God the Son, Jesus.
And God, the Holy Spirit confirms that by coming and
making His home with everyone who trusts in Jesus.
We are on mission with the risen Jesus.
The living God is with us. He wants to lead us on mission.
So the question is the invitation, the challenge?
Are we listening to God's lead? Are we asking God, show me
individually, show us corporately, who are the people
you want us to proclaim Jesus to through our lives and through
our words? Do we believe that God wants to
save people even more than we do?
And he is fully able to lead us on mission as we humble
ourselves before him, as we ask him to lead us.
Our God's a missionary God. He loves people from every
nation under heaven. And he wants to call each one of
us to play our part in making disciples for Jesus individually
in the places we're in each week, corporately, in this part
of Leicester, this Clarendon Park area.
Who are the people we are being called to proclaim Jesus to?
I think the big reason why this is a celebration passage is we
get to rejoice that we are all one in Christ.
We're not alone in living for Jesus.
God is with us and we are with each other.
Again, if this has been a challenging week for you, if
things are hard in life at the moment, if things feel uncertain
and complex, remember that God has not left you alone to walk
through this world. He has welcomed you into the
family of His people. You have Christians around you
who will pray for you. You're called to love you.
And often we don't quite know what that looks like.
But we are one in Christ. That's what Acts 10 tells us.
And because of what Jesus has done, we want to love one
another the way He first loved us.
The church is open to everyone and anyone who puts their faith
in Jesus. And when we do that, we are
united to each other, united to God.
But united to each other, God has made us clean through Jesus.
God is leading us on mission through Jesus.
And God calls us to love one another and spur one another on
in our mission for Jesus in this world.
Acts 10 is a passage full of joy.
We get to benefit from that joy not because we deserve it, but
because God has made us clean through the saving work of
Jesus. Let's pray together.
Let's, let's pray. Father God, we thank you that
you are not content to have your people without us in it.
That, Lord, your love for the world far surpasses the love we
have even for the people around us.
That, Lord, you are a missionary God, committed to calling people
into relationship with yourself through the saving work of
Jesus. Father, we thank you that
because of Jesus saving work, Your Holy Spirit comes and lives
in US and equips and empowers us to live for you, to serve you,
and to love and serve each other as we depend on you.
Thank you that one day, if we are trusting in Jesus, we will
meet Cornelius and rejoice that we've heard his story.
We will meet Peter and rejoice that he was used by you in this
moment. And we pray that in that moment,
when we are with your people in the new creation, you might
bring to mind ways you've called us to play our part in your
mission. You will bring to mind ways you
used us in all our imperfections and frailty to be witnesses for
Jesus in this world, to build your church because you love to
gather people from every nation through faith in your Son Jesus.
Show us the part you'd have us play today in the days to come.
Show us that individually. Show us that corporately.
And thank you so much that because of Jesus, we are now
welcome to call you Father and to take our place among your
people. We thank you Father, for your
deep love for us in Jesus name, Amen.