All right, good morning everyone. Glad to see that our communication process is working and nobody showed up to Sunday school this morning. Yes, of course, we're online again due to COVID going through particularly the leadership's homes. And so, Suzanne and I are doing fine. If you could keep the Jabers in your prayers, they would appreciate that as they're dealing with this with the kids. And we will hopefully be back on a normal schedule next week, the 16th. That's the plan, anyway, to have a normal schedule. Suzanne and I are actually going to be gone on the 16th, though, to Texas. I'll be teaching at the DM2 school for the week of the 16th through Friday of that week. We will give you some more information on that in the coming days as to what exactly our schedule will be for church and Sunday school as far as online or here in the building. uh... with that we can let's get into the word this morning will try to get as much of this accomplished as possible you get a little preview of one of the classes i'll be teaching this week coming up in texas uh... so this material is from uh... brett nasworth in his panorama of the new testament we will be in acts chapter ten primarily so if you have your Bible you can go to Acts chapter 10 and I might want to find Romans 14 and 1st Corinthians 10 also we may if we have time turn to those places also but we'll primarily be in Acts chapter 10 and we'll be talking about some of these food regulations that came about in the discussion in Acts chapter 10, kind of the reason for those and whether or not we are bound by those today as far as what is mentioned there in Acts chapter 10 and in Acts 15 as well, and we'll get into that. But what are kind of the food regulations for a New Testament believer in Jesus Christ? But before that, let's just have a quick word of prayer, and then we'll get into the Word this morning. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time to gather around your Word this morning. We could be disgruntled or kind of depressed about not having a normal schedule, not being able to gather together as a body of believers as we would like to, but at the same time, we should rejoice with the ability and the technology that we have to be able to still gather at least virtually. worship you through learning more about you through your word, through this medium. And I thank you for that. I thank you for the generosity of the people of our church that allow us to have these tools available to us. And I just pray that you would bless them, encourage their hearts, and guide us in our study of your word this morning. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so with that, we will go to Acts chapter 10, and it's a little bit difficult to just jump right into the middle of a book, particularly a book like Acts. I remember when I was a brand new Christian, went to a Bible study and the teacher told us to, we were studying the book of Acts and he made the statement, can you imagine the Bible without the book of Acts? And I'm just kind of looking around like, well, yes, I think I can because I have no idea what the book of Acts is about and really even what the Bible is about in general. Now, however, yes, it would be very difficult to understand particularly the New Testament without the book of Acts, as it is oftentimes referred to as a transitional book, where the plan of God in the world is transitioning from dealing directly through and with exclusively the nation of Israel pretty much to this new man, this new entity that is the church made up of Jews and Gentiles, Jewish people, Israelites and Gentiles together in one body to serve as God's primary instrument of dealing with mankind. And the book of Acts describes that transition from Israel to the church. And that's very important for us to understand the transitory nature of the book of Acts, that it is a descriptive book rather than exclusively a prescriptive book. So what do I mean by that? What I mean is that it is describing what God was doing through the Holy Spirit and through the apostles and the various historical events that took place, rather than it being like a book of the law for the nation of Israel, thou shalt do this, this, this, and this. That's where some people get into problems in the book of Acts and start making legalistic standards about the gospel, about how to be saved, about what Christians do and these kinds of things based on what they read in Acts rather than applying kind of the epistles written by Paul to the Church Age that are exclusively written to the Church. we could spend the entire time talking about that, but instead of the topic at hand, which is Peter in Acts chapter 10, and what is going on here with what I remember one Sunday school teacher calling the vision of the pigs in the blanket. He was from Texas, so that's why, that's something that Texans eat, pigs in a blanket, and that's what he described this vision that Peter had of clean and unclean animals in the eyes of a Jewish person being let down on this kind of sheet, if you will, that he sees in a vision, and then the Lord telling him to go ahead and eat from these animals. Now, why in the world is this even taking place. And again, it goes back to the division that there was between Jewish people and Gentile people. And that that revolved very much around the food laws that were given to the nation of Israel. But now again, in the church age, after the ascension of Christ, when the church is beginning, The body of the church is made up very much of Jewish people in the beginning, and then it transitions more to a Gentile body of people, where the Gentiles begin to make up the majority of the church. But nevertheless, in the beginning of the church, there were Jewish and Gentile people together in the local church, living together, having church together, fellowshipping with one another. And this is something that is unique in this time period, something that is very different, particularly for the Jewish people to deal with, having close fellowship with Gentiles. And that, again, revolved primarily around these food regulations. The Jewish people had actually added to the food regulations wherein they're wanting to separate from Gentile people because the Gentiles consumed these foods that they considered to be unclean. And that, in fact, the law had told them were unclean. Now the idea of separating from the Gentiles, you will struggle to find that in the law, which is another issue that we may get into. So Peter, if you'll remember, Matthew chapter 16, when he was still with the Lord, he was given the charge, essentially, of bringing the gospel to Jewish people and to Gentile people. That's kind of wrapped up in that idea of Peter and the statement that he makes that Jesus is the Christ and Jesus says to him, Peter, you the rock of the church is going to be built upon this statement that you just made, that Jesus is the Christ. And he was kind of given the keys of the kingdom at that point by the Lord, and that is descriptive of him. having the charge of bringing the gospel, the good news of salvation through faith in Christ, to Jewish people first, which he did in Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost, and to Gentile people first. And this is what we're seeing in Acts chapter 10. that Peter is going to do. And this vision that he has in Acts chapter 10 is preparatory work for that, to get Peter to go beyond the food regulations and to see that the Lord has declared that these foods are clean. And so, therefore, you don't have to have this barrier in your mind about going to Gentile people, spending time with them, fellowshipping with them, living life together with them in the church community. You need to erase that barrier that you have in your mind and go to these people and give them the good news. This man, Cornelius, you see in the first nine verses there, or first eight verses or so, is descriptive of Cornelius and that he was a God-fearer. He was a person, again, keep in mind this is Cornelius. He's a Roman soldier, an officer in the Roman army. And he is, so obviously he's an adult. He's lived his entire life before Christ, if you will. And he was a person who worshiped the God of Israel. fervently, you can see from those first few verses in Acts chapter 10. He was dedicated to the God of Israel, the God of the universe, this same one who is Jesus Christ in human flesh. Now, Cornelius may not have even known Jesus Christ in his life. We don't really get a whole lot his life previous to Peter coming to him. at any rate we don't have a lot of information there but we do know he's dedicated to the God of Israel and he worshipped the God of Israel who is the God of the Bible of course and so Peter we find in Acts 10 in verse 9 through verse 23 we're going to see that there is this vision that Peter has, and that Cornelius, at the same time that Peter is going to have this vision and essentially be taught that he needs to go to the Gentile people, he can freely do that, Cornelius has a vision that says, send your people to where Peter is and get him and bring him back to Caesarea where Cornelius is so that we can have this meeting. So at the same time that those men are traveling from Cornelius to find Peter. Peter is having this vision at the very same time that they are showing up to see him. He went to the rooftop to pray. The Holy Spirit was kind of bringing all of these events together to be a witness to Peter primarily that, yes, you should go with these men. And it says in Acts 10.10 that he fell into this kind of trance as he was praying. And he sees the vision. in verses 11 and 12 of all, it says in verse 12, all kinds of four-footed animals, crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air, very much like what Noah took on to the ark in Genesis chapter six. And so then in verses 13 and 14, verse 13, it says, get up, Peter, kill and eat. And Peter. doesn't like the idea of that, because he's seeing these animals that had been prohibited by the dietary laws, and Peter, although he's a believer in Jesus Christ, he's Jewish, he's still a Jewish person, and a lot of these ideas hadn't completely sunk into their mind about particularly the dietary laws, of course, Deuteronomy 14, Leviticus 11, and these this would be something that would be very difficult for him to overcome. And this is what is causing the barrier between the Jews and the Gentiles. He said, you know, I'm not going to, Peter says, I'm not going to, I'm not going to do that. I can't do that as a good Jewish person. I just can't do that. In Acts 10.15, It says, God says, what God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy. And Jesus had already declared all things clean, as we'll see, and we can read about that in Mark chapter 7. And so he's instructed here to go ahead and do it. And if we look down in verse 28, there we see kind of a translational issue. It says, Peter, this is speaking of Peter, and he said to them, you yourselves know how it is unlawful, how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner. And this is a translational issue that unlawful isn't, It brings to mind that, in our thinking anyway, that we could go back to Deuteronomy or Leviticus somewhere, and we can find chapter and verse where it says, you Jewish people don't associate with Gentiles, and you won't find that. And so that term, unlawful there, really what it's speaking to is kind of their tradition. Tradition told them, their quote-unquote oral law would tell them, don't associate with the Gentiles because they eat this food, they prepare this food, they touch these unclean animals. And so as a kind of barrier around the law, the Pharisees and Jewish authorities made a legalistic standard that said, don't associate with the Gentiles because they handle these things. And it wasn't really a matter of the law. God here is removing that barrier for the Jewish people, Peter in particular. this vision is repeated three times, or this command to go and eat is repeated three times, kind of reminiscent of the Lord, when Peter saw the resurrected Lord on the beach there in John chapter 21, that he repeated to Him three times to feed his sheep. When Jesus asked Peter, do you love me? Well, of course I love you, Lord. Okay, feed my sheep. Shepherd my sheep. Feed my sheep again, the Lord tells him three times. three different times and we see that kind of idea here being repeated three times for Peter to go ahead and consider these animals to be clean or don't consider them to be unclean so that you can go to the Gentile people and give them the gospel. And Jesus kind of did the preparatory work for this, like, again, in the book of Mark, Mark 7, verses 15 through 20, I want to say that it is, that Jesus is teaching the disciples that primarily what comes out of a person is what defiles them. Their thinking, their actions, their words is what defiles a person more than what they take into themselves, the food that they're eating. So Jesus kind of introducing this idea, okay, we need to understand that these Gentile people are people that I'm going to die for, at that point, Jesus is teaching them. I'm going to die for the sins of the world, Jews and Gentiles. Oh, by the way, the next institution that I'm going to use is made up of Jews and Gentiles. So you need to get beyond these dietary laws. So now that's going to bring up the question, however, for us. Okay, there are some items or some scriptures that we can find that are in the New Testament that have to do with food, and how exactly do these apply to us? Again, here's Mark 7, 15 through 20. Jesus declared all food clean for eating. Again, getting to that preparatory work. of what was going to take place in the future with Jews and Gentiles in the church. Paul repeated the same thing, Romans 14, 14. He says, I know and am convinced in the Lord that nothing is unclean in itself. But to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. And we see the same idea there in Acts, this vision that Peter is having in Acts chapter 10, pointing to the fact that the food is clean. These animals are clean to eat. So there's one basic New Testament principle is that animals, food, all food has been declared as clean for eating. You can be a vegetarian. A lot of vegetarians kind of get a bad rap in the world today by, you know, good red-blooded meat-eating Americans, but that is not something that that is disallowed by the Bible. In fact, it's expressly allowed. It's interesting that you can go to chapter and verse and find a verse that says, it's fine to not eat meat. Romans 14.2. Paul says, one person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. And he goes on to say that that's fine. And by weak, he means weak in their faith and that they kind of think this is the more spiritual thing to do is to be a vegetarian. But he doesn't deny that they can do that. Another principle is that a believer can eat meat. Romans 14.3, the one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and by that he means meat. And the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. You want to be a vegetarian? Fine. You want to eat meat? Fine. The two of you should not be thinking that I'm more spiritual because I eat meat or I'm more spiritual because I don't eat meat. And there were some clarifications given on this idea of whether or not we can eat meat or clarifications given on the eating of meat in the New Testament, however, We will find these in the Book of Acts, and at least two of the three are found in the Book of... Three of them are found in Acts. Two of them are not found, discussed. later in the epistles. And so this is kind of a matter of conscience. I think humans in general are kind of legalistic as our default position, whether we want to admit it or not. Our default position is to like to have rules to follow. And so, and some of us may like to have rules to break. But regardless, we like to have rules. We like to know the groundwork. And okay, I can do this. I can't do that. And we like to apply those standards to the Bible, and think that every issue is covered in the Bible, chapter and verse. Oh, I can do this because of this verse. I can't do that because of that verse. And every situation doesn't always work out that way. The Bible isn't crystal clear, laying down chapter and verse for every situation that is going to enter into our lives. And so we need to use discernment. We need to to be in fellowship with the Lord and make our own best determination based on Scripture and how we think the Lord is directing us in our life to make these kinds of decisions. And I believe, I agree with what Brett has here, that this issue of a couple of these things here comes down to a matter of conscience and how you feel about these issues. Not necessarily chapter and verse, thus says the Lord, applies to every single person. So, these kind of three exceptions or three clarifications about eating meat, one of them, we find this in Acts chapter 15, Later, now they will have what came to be known as the Jerusalem Council, where the primary issue is whether or not Gentile people have to be circumcised in order to be considered Christians. Do they have to follow this part of the law? Really, the most important part of being a Jewish person, or being identified as a Jewish male in particular, is being circumcised. That is the sign that shows I am dedicated to the God of the universe. as a Jewish person. So, do Gentiles have to do this most important thing under the law? Gentile males, obviously, have to do this most important thing under the law. And the answer was, of course, no. No, they don't. We are not as Gentile believers, today, we are not under the law of Moses in any way, shape, or form, including the most important aspect of the Jewish law for a male, circumcision. Unequivocally, no. Peter says, how in the world are we going to put these Gentile people under this yoke that we couldn't sustain, our ancestors couldn't sustain? Nobody can follow this law. in a way that makes them right with God, why would we put the Gentile people under this same yoke of slavery? So the answer is unequivocally no. But then they do come up with some ideas here in this Jerusalem Council, though, to make it so that Gentile people will not be a stumbling block to the Jews that they come in contact with in the church and in their communities. They don't want to be such a stumbling block to Jewish people that they won't come and hear the gospel and these kinds of These kinds of things, circumcision, obviously, that's a pretty private matter that isn't obvious to people walking around. However, eating meat sacrificed to idols, on the other hand, is going to be something that's out in the open, obvious for all to see. And so, they came up with this first provision here that, that the Gentile people should not be eating meat sacrificed to idols. And as the text here says on the slide, this is not a common problem in most Western cultures today. We don't want to add more to what is being said here. Don't eat meat sacrificed to idols. Personally, I've never seen in Beaky's or any other grocery store that meat sacrificed to idols. There's not a meat sacrificed to idols shelf in our grocery stores today, like there were in the first century in these various cities, particularly in cities like Antioch, where this letter was going to be taken. They were composing here in Acts chapter 15 a very Gentile pagan city that had literal temples for idol worship, where they sacrificed meat to the idols and then made it available In first century pagan world, kind of the first authorities of the church, if you will, in Acts chapter 15 says, don't eat that meat. in this particular circumstance that we are writing to you about. Now, as it says here also, Paul clarified this issue in 1 Corinthians and in his letter to the Roman church, that under some circumstances, believers can actually eat this meat that has been sacrificed to idols. The clarification being, you don't want to participate in the pagan sacrifices, the pagan worship, like we read about that in Revelation chapter 2 to one of the churches. They were participating in these festivals, and they're kind of condemned by the Lord. Because of that, you shouldn't be doing that. But, Paul says, if you don't ask questions, and you just purchase the meat, you can eat that, because there really is no such thing as these false gods. There's one God of the universe. And so, again, another circumstance, if you go to an unbeliever's house, for example, and they put this meat before you, just go ahead and eat it. Don't ask questions. But if they say, hey, you know, I got this from the festival last week where we sacrificed this to Zeus, and here you go. Here's your filet mignon sacrificed to Zeus. Well, then, as a believer, okay, I don't want to eat that, I don't want to offend you, but my conscience tells me I can't eat that meat that's sacrificed to an idol. And they were also, in Acts 15, Verse 29, we can see where this is, Acts 15, 29, part of this concluding remarks of this letter that they composed to be taken to the primarily Gentile areas. Verse 28 of Acts 15, it says, for it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials. that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication. If you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. So the second part, and here on the slide it kind of sums it up that they weren't to eat meat from animals that was improperly slaughtered. strangled and that kind of thing. This is one of the concepts that was not repeated in the epistles. This idea kind of comes from Genesis 9. That's where this eating of the blood and these kinds of concepts that were later introduced into the law come from Genesis chapter 9, Noahic covenant. If you'll remember before the flood, Adam and Eve basically were vegetarians. They didn't eat meat at all. Sorry, Noah and his people. And then after the flood, Noah, is instructed that okay yes you can now eat meat as long as it doesn't have its life blood in it because the blood is essentially representative of their life. And once you drain the blood out of a living being, it's not living anymore. And there is a lot to this concept of the blood and why God is instructing them to not eat the blood of living animals. And you can go to, I read this morning, Targum, that is kind of a commentary on the Old Testament for Jewish people. And in reference to Genesis 9, it is specifically teaching to not essentially eat the flesh off of an animal that has been killed while it's still living, is the intent. Or to kill an animal and drink its blood as it's dying, which is something that is very, that pagans were very much involved in. You think of Native Americans in America back when they were living in the country freely and kind of doing their things. That's something that they would do. They would kill an animal and then drink its blood or eat its flesh, essentially cut it right off of the animal and eat its flesh to kind of be, they thought, imbued with the power of this buffalo or whatever the animal is that they had killed. A very pagan, kind of concept, a very pagan way of thinking. And even in South America, they would do the same thing with the prisoners that they killed. They were cannibalistic in this way, that they would eat the bodies of their enemies, trying to take their strength. This is what God is prohibiting here. This kind of spiritual eating of almost live animals and drinking their blood. And the idea being that this is pointing to the importance of the blood. Sin is what ultimately causes death. Blood, very representative of the penalty of sin. Without our blood, we die. Somebody is going to come in the future and pay the penalty for our sins by shedding his blood. And so blood was something from a living animal that's something that we ought to be avoiding. And here you see again the raw blood. Another concept that isn't specifically mentioned in the epistles as being something that is prohibited, but here it is in a letter that is being sent to a literal pagan city, setting out restrictions for the Gentile people there so that they are not a stumbling block to the Jewish people. Keeping in mind, again, the primary concept here is that they don't need to be circumcised, the Gentile people do not need to be under the law, but don't be offensive to the Jewish people. who you're going to come in contact with. And so another concept that it comes to food that we find in the New Testament is to not be divisive about these issues. And again, this is something that applied very much in the first century. Perhaps not so much to us today in our modern day church, but there are plenty of issues that we could insert into this to not be divisive over. Don't divide a church over these kind of, these food issues or insert your particular, issue. Your preferences, here it says dietary preferences, but your preferences in general are not something that we need to be dividing the church over. Believers are to abstain from certain foods under the following circumstances. Romans 14, 22-23, we're not to eat any food that would offend our consciences. So if you have in your mind some kind of thing, let's say blood sausage comes to mind, personally, I don't think that the New Testament is teaching that you can't consume blood sausage or steak tartare. Or if you want to be completely legalistic about eating any blood, that means that if you eat meat, and you are a person who considers blood to be off limits, can't touch blood, can't eat blood in any circumstance, well then you better make sure that your steak is completely well done and there's not a single drop of blood in it if you want to make some kind of legalistic standard out of it. Personally, I don't hold to that. I think you could eat a rare steak. I don't think the Bible, for example, specifically prohibits steak tartare, which is literal raw meat. I think you're going to have a hard time justifying shooting your deer in the woods, cutting off the back strap, or ripping the heart out of it and eating it right as it's laying on the ground. That, oh man, that seems like it might be... getting into kind of pagan areas there that you might want to avoid. But having steak tartare, a raw piece of meat after the animal is dead and killed, that's a different matter. Blood sausage, if you're not familiar, you can look that up later. Personally, I don't think that's something that's being violated by the scriptures. But if you come to a different conclusion, then don't eat blood sausage because it violates your conscience. And this is a good example of something that we don't want to divide the church over. We've got our blood sausage people over here and our non-blood sausage people over here, and they don't associate with one another. And boy, when it comes time to find new elders, you know, I'm gonna make sure my guy is a blood sausage one, and this group's gonna make sure there's, and you cause this huge division in the church, not something that we need to do. Paul is saying there, you know, kind of in Romans 14, have your concept in your mind and have that between you and God and the way that you operate in your life. And at the same time, we don't want to do anything, let alone eat food, that is going to offend the conscience of someone else. And this is something that can apply to a broad scope of actions in our lives. If you're a person who thinks that you can eat steak tartare, you don't want to invite someone to your house who you know doesn't eat it or that it will violate their conscience and then put that before them and try to make them violate their conscience. That's something that we need to avoid, obviously, at all times. Doing anything that will kind of lead another person to violate their conscience. And a very important concept, 1 Corinthians 8, 8, Paul says, food will not commend us to God. We are neither the worse if we do not eat nor the better if we do eat. This is a very important concept to keep in mind, that food does not make you more spiritual. Whatever your outlook is on these various matters, what you eat or what you don't eat does not make you more spiritual, does not make you closer to God in any way, shape, or form. Another concept from the New Testament, kind of eat whatever is put before you without asking questions. That's going to affect your conscience, either your conscience or that of your host. Again, this is something that doesn't directly always apply to us in our Western culture, but if you put yourself in that position of having a meat sacrifice to idols put before you. You're at a person's house. Just don't ask. Don't ask them, well, is this sacrifice to idols? Because you're serving this, and I can't eat this. And you're just creating conflict when there doesn't need to be any. Just consume the food without asking. And essentially, don't worry about it. Don't follow the rules of others about eating. something that can get us into trouble, again, in a lot of areas. But you need to be basing what you are doing in a lot of areas of life on your understanding of God's Word between you and God alone. And don't try to push that onto others. Always be thankful for your food. That is a very good idea and a great testimony to people. When you go out to eat in restaurants, pray before you eat. And, you know, a lot of times people will have in our lives come up to us and said, you know, oh, I saw you pray, and that's fantastic. You're encouraging other Christians around you, whether you know it or not. I remember a pastor that we had before, he also had a job outside of the church and told a story about a woman who came to him, he prayed before he ate his lunch, and she was an unbeliever, came to him and asked, you know, why do you do that? What a wonderful, What a wonderful opportunity that is. And whatever you do, do unto the Lord, whether you eat or drink, do it all by faith and do it for the Lord. If you can, with a clear conscience, do whatever you're doing as unto the Lord, have at it, essentially, is the concept there. One thing that isn't allowed is gluttony. That falls under the category of self-control, which is a fruit of the spirit. We don't need to be gluttonous with food. We should not be, as a matter of fact. So there's one prohibition for us. And as we make our way through this, kind of what is the so what of all of this? Why does any of this matter? Well, one good concept is to not put yourself back under the law. Jesus Christ lived his life and died to fulfill the law. Why would we put ourselves back under the law that Jesus essentially has fulfilled? Another kind of concept of why does it matter? You know, if you want to follow the Jewish dietary rules because you think they're more healthy, that's wonderful. Go ahead and do that. That's a good thing. It's good to eat healthy foods and that sort of thing. And the case can be made that that may be one of the reasons why. I think the main reason why God gave them those rules is to differentiate them. from the Gentiles at that point in time. But this is not making you holier and is not something that you ought to be forcing on others with your kind of standards, your own personal standards. Don't force those on other people. Don't fall into the world's philosophies concerning foods. This is a big one. The Daniel Plan, if you're familiar with that from The guy in California, Rick Warren, came up with his own diet plan for the church, and that ought to be setting off some alarm bells. Let's just read real quickly here, and we'll wrap this up. 1 Timothy chapter 4. Let's see, 1 Timothy 4.1, "...but the Spirit explicitly says that in latter times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars, seared in their own conscience, as with a branding iron, Notice verse three, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. When you see a church advocating a particular diet, excluding some foods, saying others are good, boy, uh, The Spirit explicitly says that in latter times, some will fall away from the faith, teaching us about what foods we should and should not eat. That ought to raise the hairs on the back of our neck. Number four, watch out for churches or sects that seek to control you by what you can and cannot eat. I don't think that's a problem here, but it can be. in other areas, and don't allow yourself to be judged about what you eat or your family eats or doesn't eat. And on the flip side, don't judge others by what they are. they are doing, and don't offend weak believers by your food liberties, and you can insert all sorts of issues into that beyond just food. Don't purposefully go around trying to offend people because you're so much more into grace than someone else, if you will. And so Peter The main issue for Peter there in Acts chapter 10 is that God is removing this barrier from him, from his thinking, so that he can freely interact with these Gentile people and give them the good news of salvation. through faith in Jesus Christ. And the Holy Spirit there in Acts chapter 10 is bringing all of these events together at just exactly the right time so that Peter will go and give Cornelius the good news of faith in Jesus Christ and in the rest of Acts chapter 10, that's exactly what we see happening. So with that, we will have a quick word of prayer, and then we'll be back with the service again at the top of the hour. Let's close with a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time to look into your word. I thank you for the faithfulness of the people at Flushing Bible Church, and I just pray that you would be with us in these days. Give us discernment in our thinking and help us to live lives that bring glory to you and help us to do all that we do by faith in you and for your glory. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.