Let's open our Bibles now in the book of Acts chapter 10. We will begin our reading verse 23, and we will go through the end of this chapter, verse 48. Acts 10, beginning verse 23. This is the word of the living God, and he speaks to his church by saying. So he invited them in 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 together his relatives and close friends. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshipped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, Stand up, I too am a man. 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 asked them, why you sent for me? And Cornelius said, Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying my house at the nine hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing and said, Cornelius, your prayers 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 logging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea. 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. So Peter opened his mouth and said, truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 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, his Lord of all, you yourselves know what happened through all Judea, beginning from Galilee, after the baptism that John proclaimed. how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power and went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. And we are witness 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 have 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. 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 from baptized people who can receive the Holy Spirit just as we have? and He command them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, then they ask Him to remain for some days." Let's close our eyes and pray again. Our Heavenly Father, we read Your Scripture, and now, God, we trust in the works of the Holy Spirit among us. Please, God, fill us with the Holy Spirit and help us to see the greatness of Your Word. Speak with us through these verses and help us to identify whatever we need to change in order to follow You and to praise Your name with our lives. Convert our hearts to You, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. We are again walking through the book of Acts and now in chapter 10 a lot of things already happen that maybe you even don't remember. We saw a church who was completely sad receive the Son of God alive again in the middle of them. And because of this, they stayed for a long time waiting for the works of the Holy Spirit, for the one that Jesus said He will send to them. They received the Holy Spirit, they experienced many signs and wonders. Many people spoke in many different tongues and people from every kind of region of the world, they listened to them speaking in tongues and they trust in the name of Jesus Christ. filled with the Holy Spirit, we saw the apostles and the disciples going through many different regions. Persecutions start and many believers were being killed, they were being murdered, and many were experiencing different signs in their lives. Some of them, they saw Jesus Christ healing blind men. Others, they saw Jesus Christ making people who never walked before rising up and walking. We saw the power of the Holy Spirit converting so many hearts that right now we don't know exactly the size of the church. We cannot even understand where the church was in this time because the disciples, they spread in every region of the world and they were preaching the gospel in every city. The gospel was growing while persecution was growing, but the gospel was growing much more and many people were coming to God. We saw the persecutor, the biggest persecutor of the church falling down before Jesus Christ. We saw Paul, which was Saul before, confessing the name of Jesus and preaching about this name. We saw the result of these things through the preaching of Philip and Stephen when they were presenting the gospel for synagogues and for the Jews in different places. And all of this was new for the people of God. But nothing was so different than what we are seeing today. Until now, all these names and all these people, they came from the same people which was the Jews. The gospel was being presented for Jews, they were preaching in synagogues, they were reaching the people of God until this time they were the Jews. But now, through Peter and not through Paul, and this is very interesting too because Paul will be the apostle for the Gentiles, but the first one who converted Gentiles, it was not Paul, but Peter as we saw here. And a huge situation happened to make this happen among them at that day. Peter was not happy with the situation. He was very concerned about what he was trying to do here. We can see that in the first verses because the first thing he said when he spoke with Cornelius, it was, hey, you know, I'm not supposed to be here. Like, you are not a Jew. I should not eat with you. I should not go into your house because this is very strange. I don't want to be part of this. So, let me know what is happening. I just want to finish what I need to do and go back home. He was expecting maybe a question or a healing or something like this, but God was preparing something much bigger than that, and it will change completely the way the gospel would be presented after that. So, here we are. Dreams happened, angels, they came, visions happened, and eventually Peter went to Caesarea to meet with Cornelius. Last time we talked about the first verses of chapter 10, and I spoke to you about Cornelius even being someone with a good testimony among the Jews. They respect him, it was what the Scripture says. They admire him because he was fulfilling the law in many ways. He was taking care of the poor. He was giving alms. a person, a godly person in vision ways. When we looked to him, we saw someone that apparently was following God. He was seeking God. But the first thing he did, once he saw Peter, revealed his heart. Besides having a good testimony, he bowed down before Peter and started to worship him. And this is something very similar to the worship in the time of the book of Acts in Jerusalem and among the Greeks especially, because if someone shows some kinds of power they were being worshipped by the Greeks. They worshipped many people, not only their gods, they worshipped the emperor and they worshipped these kind of priests because they had many signs. So, knowing that Peter had signs, Cornelius thought it was okay to fell down before him and worship him. And that reveals that Cornelius, he was not still standing for the faith in the one God. We don't know more about Cornelius, but if he worshiped Peter, he was probably worshiping other gods too. Probably he had images or even the emperor, we don't know, but it reveals idolatry in his heart. Peter, he was not happy with the situation. He lifted him up and he spoke something that reveals what it was in his heart. Stand up, I too am a man. Well, this is a verse that speaks a lot about Peter. And exactly here that the Reformation cannot agree with what the Roman church stands until today. Peter was not the first apostle and the most important bishop of the church. He's saying here, hey, I am just a man. Peter was not special, he was not bigger than the other, he didn't have more power than the others, and he didn't start a church, a church that should be the church to guide the other church. That's completely invented. That doesn't flow from the Scripture. The Scripture is showing here Peter as someone who needs to grow as the other Apostles need to grow. He needs to learn about the gospel and he was in need to understand how God was willing to offer His gospel to the Gentiles. But even so, not being prepared, Peter knows that he should not be worshiped because he was like any other Christian. He's like us. Peter also had sins. He also needs a Savior. And like every other Christian, he needs to bow down before Jesus Christ, confess His name, and believe in Him. And only through Jesus he could be saved. Actually, that is exactly what he will preach in the next verses through 34 through 44. His preaching reveals that. So we cannot stand with the Roman church. Peter was not the first pope, and there is no pope in the church. There is no guide for the church besides Jesus Christ and His Word, which stands in the Scripture that He wrote for the church. But after that, Peter showed him that he was just a man. And then he showed that he was not comfortable being there. He was considering that he was almost committing sin because he was in a Gentile house. And the only reason why he was there, he said, it's because God revealed him that he should follow those men to Joppa. from Joppa. But he says something else here, and we don't know exactly what did happen in the way to Caesarea, but something happened and something changed in Peter's mind, his understanding of the vision that he had before. Because here, he will tell to this man in verse 28, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. This is an interpretation of the vision. Do you remember the end of the vision? God called him to kill and to eat all those kinds of animals and he was concerning, he said to God, by no means, Lord, I will not kill, I will not eat because they are not allowed for the people, they are forbidden for the people. He was remembering himself about Leviticus and the promises that God gave to the people in Leviticus. There he was saying, no, I will not eat. By no means, Lord, I will not eat. And after that, he was completely lost. His heart was afflicted, his mind was afflicted, and he didn't understand the meaning of that vision. He takes the way because the Holy Spirit told him to follow those servants of Cornelius, but here, We don't know why he's revealing the interpretation of that vision. The vision was not talking about animals or about food. The vision was talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no one unclean or common, Peter was saying. No one that asked me for help or no one who calls me to receive the gospel. Well, they should not be denied. The gospel cannot be denied to anyone because the gospel is the good news of God to the whole world. There is no exception. Even those that we hate, they should receive the gospel of Jesus Christ. We must preach to all of them. And by doing this, we will fulfill what God is willing to teach Peter and the church here in Acts 10, because the gospel is not only for the church, but the gospel is for everyone in every nation, everywhere. Cornelius then once again explained to Peter about his vision. This is the third time in chapter 10 in verses 32 through 33 that he will speak about his vision. that he will say that an angel came to him and he sent him to call Peter and he did exactly what the angel said. We will not go through this again, but the meaning of this is God is preparing Cornelius' heart to receive the gospel. The angel could preach to him, but God didn't want to use an angel or a spiritual being, He used His disciples. And that's the way God chose to bring the gospel to every nation in every corner of this world. We are the ones who will hold and bring the gospel for all the nations. This is what the Scripture is showing us here, and for that we should stand. We are those who need to preach, those who need to open our mouths and speak, trusting in God and only in God. And that's what Peter did by that moment. Verses 34 through 43, we reveal His preaching. There's so much to say about His preaching, but I'm sure we don't have time for this. Here, He's offering what in theology we call parakletos. It's the gospel, the full gospel of Jesus Christ preached for those who should receive Him. There are seven specific signs in this preaching, and if we go through other preachings in Acts, we will see exactly the same pattern. It's like they're bringing the same truth all the time to show the power of the gospel. You can try to do that later, you can try to read the preachings of Peter, for example, in the book of Acts, and you will see yourself discovering what you should preach when you bring the gospel. And also, you will learn a lot with this man, of course, because he's talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ here. But here he brings the essence of the gospel. I will not go through all of these seven, but he speaks about God sending His Son to pay the price for our sins. He was showing to Cornelius that he didn't have enough to receive mercy from God by himself. This is very important in this text, and that's why I'm highlighting this. Because many people, they look to Cornelius and because of his good testimony, they say, well, it seems that God is sending Peter because Cornelius was a good man. Apparently this is a possibility, many will say. In his vision, for example, the angel, he said to Cornelius, your prayer, verse 31, has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Okay. So, it seems that if we walk in a good way, if we offer our lives to God, if we do our work in this world, we will receive mercy from God. Like, Cornelius' work brought him salvation. Is this true? Well, the gospel preached by Peter says absolutely no. There is no chance, Cornelius, for you if you don't trust in this Jesus Christ. This is the only way, he will say, to find grace from God. It doesn't matter what you did until this moment, Cornelius. You need to understand that you doesn't have anything to offer to God. Your works, they doesn't have any power to save you. You are completely lost unless you confess the name of Jesus Christ. He is the Savior. He is the Lord. He is the only way. Cornelius, Peter will say, that's the one in whom you should bow down and worship. It's not me, it's not the other man's, it's Him. Look to Christ, Cornelius, and believe in Him." That speaks a lot about salvation. And of course, this is present everywhere that we see the gospel being preached in every moment in the New Testament. Paul will go much further on that, revealing that actually, without Christ, we cannot offer anything good to God. We cannot make anything good. Because everything that flows from our heart, it's sinful and will try to bring glory only for us. That's what the Scripture reveals. We cannot offer any good to God without the Holy Spirit. We cannot offer any gifts to this world without the Holy Spirit, only through Him. it is possible to serve God. He is the guide of the church. He is the only way. But it's very interesting, too, to see that Peter is bringing the message exactly like he did for the Jews. He was not adapting His preaching even so He was preaching for a Gentile. Okay, He was trying to follow the Jews, He was trying to understand the message for the Jews, but we need to understand that the promises for the Jews, they were irrelevant for Cornelius. What does it mean for Cornelius that the promises of the Old Testament, they are being fulfilled? Well, Cornelius was not part of that. Cornelius was not circumcised. Cornelius was not offering sacrifices to God. Those promises, they doesn't mean anything to him. But even so, Peter is bringing these promises here. He is the one that God sent. Remember him in Galilee when John the Baptist baptized him. What that means for Cornelius? Completely nothing. He received the Holy Spirit and God blessed him there. I didn't saw this, Peter. I didn't see this, Peter. What are you talking about these things? Who's this Jesus Christ? I know Moses, maybe. I know David. I know many prophets, but Jesus? Who's that? Can you see? The message, it's the same even for Jews and for the Gentiles. Peter is not adapting his message to make his message fulfilled for those who doesn't know the context of the gospel. This is the problem of many Christians today who are trying to adapt the message. And instead of bringing the truth like Peter is doing here, they are creating environments where people will feel very comfort. It's so funny to see, it seems today that the gospel is not even being preached in some churches. They put everything in black, they turn off the lights, lights start to, I don't know, even flash everywhere, and a guy will go there and it will read one verse of the Scripture, and that's all. There's no gospel. There's no truth. There's no revelation there. And if the gospel is not there, that's not for God, and we need to understand that. Because sometimes we do that in our reality, too. When we need to talk about the gospel to our children, sometimes we decide to tell them good stories about the Scripture, but they don't reveal Jesus Christ. And we need to understand that. They need to find Jesus Christ in our stories to them. So when you talk about Moses and the promised land, you need to adapt that and bring Jesus Christ from some part of that story and show them, look, Moses was waiting for Jesus and the promised land, well, this is the promised people of God, is the promise of heaven. There are a lot to make in contrast there, but bring the gospel to them. It's not only bring David, or Elisha, or Moses, or Abraham, or Isaac. Bring Jesus Christ, because only Jesus Christ will bring them to God. We are not creating little Jews, you know. We are creating Christians. They need the gospel, and we need the gospel. So, no adaptation, the full message for the person, bring the whole gospel of Jesus Christ and see the power of God. What is most impressive to me here is the fact that Peter, he was still preaching. The last verse, 43, he said, to him, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him, he's talking about Jesus, receives forgiveness of sins through his name. Well, the full gospel now is presented, basically. Cornelius, do you want to know salvation? Do you want to be saved forever? Do you want to find forgiveness to your sins? This is the name, Jesus Christ. He is the only one." Well, I really believe Peter had much more to say after verse 43. But he could not say anything else. Why? Because the Holy Spirit had different plans. The preaching was stopped because the Holy Spirit felt everyone who heard the Word. We don't know how many people here. We know, though, that all of them were Gentiles. Peter called his friends, his family, and he brought all them together to listen to Peter, and all of them, they were Gentiles, and they were there listening to the gospel, and the Holy Spirit fell on all of them, and all of them received the signs, the exactly signs that the Jews receive in Acts 2. They start to speak in other tongues. And it was very interesting because apparently here, some of them at least, they start to speak in the Jewish language, which is Hebrew, because they were understanding what these Gentiles were saying. They were able to identify that they were glorifying the name of the Lord. So, some of them at least, they spoke probably in Hebrew. And here, we are seeing something completely new. I don't know if you realize that, but this is also a miracle. This here, this is a miracle much higher than look to a person who never walked before and say, stand up and go home. This is a very important sign to point to them that Jesus Christ is their Savior, but what is happening here is the most impressive moment for the church of God. When Gentiles, they were bowing down to their images, they were having a life completely apart from God. They were idolaters, they were murderers, they were people who were bearing false witness against their neighbors. They were doing all the sins that we can imagine They never heard about the promises of God, and now these people, strangers, they are being included in the body of Christ. This is a miracle, a miracle that started here, and it is still happening until today. And we are actually miracles of God. If you say, well, I never saw a miracle before, if you profess the name of Jesus Christ, you already had saw a miracle. Because you are one of those. We should never be here in a Sunday morning like today. We should never stand and confess this name. The songs that we sing today, they don't belong to us. They were never made for us. The promises, they should not be extended for us. But here we are, we have the Psalms, we have the promises, we have the scripture, we have this Lord, and do you remember what we read before in 1st John? Now we are not strangers, but we are being called the children of God. the children of God, and there John says, pay attention, you were his children, he's your father, he will take care of you, he will love you, it doesn't matter your background, it doesn't matter if you are a Dutch, a Brazilian, or whatever, you belong to Christ. That's a miracle. That's a miracle. And today, in almost every nation in this world, we have brothers and sisters. We don't know the number of tongues. Can you imagine that? How many Psalms are being seen today in so many languages in so different places in the world? And everyone is together saying, Jesus Christ is our Lord and your Savior. We are the church of Christ. That's amazing. That's amazing. And that's the result of this that happened here. Look what Peter will say then. Well, do you have water? Do you have water here? Because look to these Gentiles. Well, they don't seem like Gentiles anymore. They are not so different from us anymore. He said to them, they have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. Can you see the greatness of this? The Holy Spirit. The third person of the Trinity is abiding in the church. Do you know the privilege that it is to have the Holy Spirit, to be a house for the Holy Spirit? Do you remember the names in the Old Testament? I can quote a hundred names here. And these important people in the Old Testament, they never received the Holy Spirit. Because in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was given to kings and prophets. And sometimes, like in the case of Saul, the Holy Spirit left Saul and went to David, and we saw the result of that in Saul's life. They didn't have the privilege that we have. They didn't saw the greatness of the Holy Spirit like we can see. We are in a much better situation than the Jews were in the past. We are the people of God, and we receive the Comforter, the Holy Spirit who abides on us. That's why the Scripture says that all of us, we are ambassadors of Jesus Christ. There is no one prophet anymore, we are all prophets. There is no one priest anymore, we are all priests. There is only one King, Jesus Christ, but we are also kings through Him because of His grace and mercy. We are the ones who will receive the inheritance of God. There is no doubt about that because Jesus paid the price for our salvation. This is a comforter for the church and Peter saw that and he said, we cannot stop the progress of the church anymore. Gentiles, they receive the Holy Spirit. Take water, let's baptize them in the name of Jesus Christ." And He made that. Cornelius, his house, and all of those who were with him, they received the Holy Spirit, they were baptized, and now they were, they became the children of God. a miracle happening again. Let's apply these truths to our lives before we finish. First of all, there is no way to stop to say about the Jewish tradition here because the book of Acts will challenge all the traditions of the Jews that didn't reflect the gospel of Jesus Christ. And this is something that is relevant, very relevant in the context of the book of Acts. It's very interesting to see that, we will see that later probably, but Peter, he almost goes back to his tradition again, even sawing all of this. In the council of Jerusalem, he will stand for circumcised Gentiles who were coming to Christ. And that doesn't reflect what he saw here in Cornelius' house, and that's why Paul will stand against him and say, hey Peter, what is happening? You saw those things. Why are you going back to those old traditions that doesn't reflect what God is and what the gospel is? Traditions, good traditions, they reflect what the gospel is and not what we want. The Jews, they were being challenged here, and of course this should challenge us too. In our house, in our church, we need to see what is showing the love and the power of God. And for everything else that doesn't reflect this, we should reject. I know a story about a, it's a church among the native Indians in Brazil. They were in war with another tribal for, I don't know, for how long, and once they received the gospel, Many of them, they were very reluctant to bring the gospel for their enemies. The tradition said, well, we must hate them. We should not show love to them. We should not care about them. But now they had the gospel. And the gospel says exactly the contrary of that. And they start to be very concerned because they realize they had hope and salvation on Jesus Christ, but Jesus was telling them, love your enemies and preach to everyone. Well, that tribe, they broke every tradition they had concerning to their hate. They sent missionaries to their enemies. And now they have more churches among their enemies than among themselves because they realize the gospel is higher than anything that we believe or that we trust. The truth of God should be followed by us, and anything else must be rejected. Another important thing that we should consider here is that we must bring the gospel even it seems the gospel will not be accepted by the person. This is not in the text explicitly, but implicitly it is. Why Peter was saying those things in the beginning? Because he really believed that they should never receive the gospel of Jesus Christ because the gospel was not for Gentiles. This is something that was in Peter's mind here, and that's why at the end of this passage he was saying loudly, well, it seems we don't have anything to argue against their baptism. Peter here is completely lost. Well, they received the Holy Spirit, which means they are baptized. Christians now, well, we cannot stop the progress of the gospel. Everyone should receive, everyone needs to listen to the good news. And we need to apply that to the people today because we have people today that hate Jesus Christ and they confess that with their mouths. It's not only those who say they don't trust in God, but it's also those who stand against the church and they profess their names saying that they reject the church of God. This is happening everywhere. A few weeks ago, the president of Brazil, he said that the only thing that is stopping his party, which is a communist party, to grow in Brazil is the Christians. And they said they should make war against the Christians because they are stopping the progress of their ideas. They are not hiding this anymore. They are professing aloud and saying Christians are a problem because they don't stand for what we stand. They don't agree with or behavior in this world, they don't agree with those things that we imagine they are true, they reject homosexuality, they reject transitions, they reject all these kind of things, so let's make war against them. This is not different from what is happening in the United States right now. A few weeks ago during election, The candidate to be a president, she said that when someone spoke about Jesus' name, she said, this is not a place for that. And she was confessing something there, that Christianity and Jesus Christ should not be included in politics and in those kinds of things. But for Christians, Jesus Christ is everything. Do they need to receive the gospel? Is it something that we must do? Of course. Those around us, especially in our families maybe, who reject Jesus Christ, well, we are called to preach to them. Maybe you will have problems too, but stand with Christ is better than seeing someone that you love be lost because they don't know the name of Jesus Christ. If there is something that should separate us from those around us, it's the love for Christ, it's the message of the gospel. I will not make war against anyone for any other reason besides saying that Jesus Christ is my Savior, is the only Savior and the only way for salvation. If someone that I love doesn't want to walk with me because of this, I will still confess this and I will still preach this because I love them. Well, maybe they will not go to Christmas parties with me. Maybe they will not visit me anymore, but even so, I will bring the truth. They need to know this good news. And hopefully, like we saw here, this is the last application. God can do whatever He wants in a sinner's life. 24-25, Cornelius was bowing down before Peter and worshiping him. In verse 44 and 49, he knew the only one who receives worship. He bowed down to Christ, and we believe He never left the presence of Jesus Christ anymore. This is the power of God. This is the power of the gospel. It can change someone's life completely. So trust in the power of God and bring the message of God to everyone that should receive it. Let's pray. Close your eyes. Let's talk to our God. Our Heavenly Father, thank You once again for the book of Acts and for these teachings that we are receiving from Your mouth. Help us, God, to change our hearts and minds to be servants of the Lord at His Word. Help us to stand only with the gospel and to bring only the gospel for those who are in need to know about You. And we pray, God, that like you did with Cornelius, preparing everything for the moment that he received the gospel, we pray that may you can make the same thing in those people around us. Prepare those in our families, in our work, or our neighbors who doesn't believe in you, prepare their hearts and minds. us to receive the good news of Jesus Christ and use these people here, use this church to communicate to this world the kindness and the mercies of the God Almighty. Help us to fulfill our mission, we pray in Jesus' name.