00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
you you If you're able, please stand
with me and let's hear the Word of God. It comes to us today
from the Book of Acts, Chapter 10. This is the Word of God. Now
there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what
was called the Italian cohort, a devout man. and one who feared
God with all his household and gave many alms to the Jewish
people and prayed to God continually. About the ninth hour of the day,
he clearly saw in a vision an angel of God who had just come
in and said to him, Cornelius, and fixing his gaze on him and
being much alarmed, he said, what is it, Lord? And he said
to him, your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before
God. Now dispatch some men to Joppa
and send for a man named Simon, who is also called Peter. He
is staying with a tanner named Simon, whose house is by the
sea. When the angel who was speaking
to him had left, he summoned two of his servants and a devout
soldier of those who were his personal attendants. And after
he had explained everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. On the next day, as they were
on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the
housetop about the sixth hour to pray. But he became hungry
and was desiring to eat. But while they were making preparations,
he fell into a trance. And he saw the sky opened up
and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four
corners to the ground. And there were in it all kinds
of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds
of the air. A voice came to him. Get up,
Peter. Kill and eat. But Peter said,
by no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and
unclean. Again, a voice came to him a
second time. What God has cleansed, no longer
consider unholy. This happened three times, and
immediately the object was taken up into the sky. Now, while Peter
was greatly perplexed in mind as to what the vision which he
had seen might be, behold, the men who had been sent by Cornelius,
having asked directions for Simon's house, appeared at the gate. And calling out, they were asking
whether Simon, who was also called Peter, was staying there. While
Peter was reflecting on the vision, the spirit said to him, behold,
three men are looking for you. But get up, go downstairs, and
accompany them without misgivings, for I have sent them myself.
Peter went down to the men and said, behold, I am the one you
are looking for. What is the reason for which
you have come? They said, Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous and
God-fearing man, well spoken of by the entire nation of the
Jews, was divinely directed by a holy angel to send for you
to come to his house and hear a message from you. So he invited
them in and gave them lodging. And on the next day, he got up
and went away with them. And some of the brethren from
Joppa accompanied them. accompanied him. On the following
day, he entered Caesarea. Now Cornelius was waiting for
them and had called together his relatives and close friends.
When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet
and worshipped him. But Peter raised him up, saying,
stand up. I, too, am just a man. As he
talked with him, he entered and found many people assembled.
And he said to them, You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a
man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit
him. And yet, God has shown me that
I should not call any man unholy or unclean. That is why I came
without even raising any objection when I was sent forth. So I ask
for what reason you have sent for me." Cornelius said, Four
days ago, to this hour, I was praying in my house during the
ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in shining garments,
and he said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your
alms have been remembered before God. Therefore, send to Joppa
and invite Simon, who is also called Peter, to come to you.
He is staying at the house of Simon the Tanner by the sea.
So I sent for you immediately, and you have been kind enough
to come. Now then, We're all here present before God to hear
all that you have been commanded by the Lord. Opening his mouth,
Peter said, I most certainly understand now that God is not
one to show partiality. But in every nation, the man
who fears him and does what is right is welcome to him. the
word which he sent to the sons of israel preaching peace through
jesus christ he is lord of all you yourselves know the thing
which took place throughout all judea starting from galilee after
the baptism which john proclaimed you know of jesus of nazareth
how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and
how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed
by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses of all
the things he did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put him to death by
hanging him on a cross. God raised him up on the third
day and granted that he become visible, not to all the people,
but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God. That is, to
us who ate and drank with him after he arose from the dead.
And he ordered us to preach to the people and solemnly to testify
that this is the one who has been appointed by God as judge
of the living and the dead. of him all the prophets bear
witness that through his name everyone who believes in him
receives forgiveness of sins." While Peter was still speaking
these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were
listening to the message. All the circumcised believers
who came with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy
Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. for they were
hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God. Then Peter
answered, surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized
who have received the Holy Spirit, just as we did, can he? And he ordered them to be baptized
in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay on
for a few days. Now the apostles and the brethren
who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received
the word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem,
those who were circumcised took issue with him, saying, you went
to the uncircumcised men and ate with them. But Peter began
speaking and proceeded to explain to them an orderly sequence,
saying, I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance
I saw a vision, an object coming down like a great sheet lowered
by four corners from the sky, and it came right down to me,
and when I had fixed my gaze on it and was observing it, I
saw the four-footed animals of the earth, and the wild beasts,
and the crawling creatures, and the birds of the air. I also
heard a voice saying to me, get up, Peter, kill and eat. But
I said, by no means, Lord, for nothing unholy or unclean has
ever entered my mouth. But a voice from heaven answered
a second time, what God has cleansed no longer consider unholy. This
happened three times, and everything was drawn back up into the sky. And behold, at that moment, three
men appeared at the house in which we were staying, having
been sent to me from Caesarea. The Spirit told me to go with
them without misgivings. These six brethren also went
with me, and we entered the man's house. And he reported to us
how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, send
to Joppa and have Simon, who is also called Peter, brought
here. And he will speak words to you by which you will be saved,
you and all your household. And as I began to speak, the
Holy Spirit fell upon them. just as he did upon us at the
beginning. And I remembered the word of
the Lord, how we used to say, John baptized with water, but
you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Therefore, if God
gave to them the same gift as he gave to us, also after believing
in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's
way? When they heard this, they quieted
down and glorified God, saying, well, then, God has granted to
the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life. This is the
word of the Lord. All men are like grass, and all
their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers
and the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Amen. Paul gets the award for longest
passage read this year. I'm glad he loves me. That's
a long one to give him, but he does so well. Well, if you have
your Bible, I would invite you to take it and turn with me to
the 10th chapter of the book of Acts. Acts chapter 10. Let's have a word of prayer as
we come to the Scripture today. Father, how grateful we are for
your Word. Paul instructed Timothy that
he should give himself to the public reading of Scripture,
to exhortation, and to teaching. We pray, O God, as the Scripture
has been read, that you would indeed instruct us, that you
would, by your Spirit, exhort us to conform to what we find
in the text. We ask, O God, your blessing
on your word read and your word preached for the praise of Christ
and the good of our souls. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, we continue today our look
through several chapters in the book of Acts, considering this
broad title of the restoration of Israel and the Gentile mission. We have, up to this particular
point, only been dealing with the restoration of Israel. Today,
we encounter the beginnings of the Gentile mission. Before we
look in Acts chapter 10, I want to take you back to Acts chapter
9 for just a moment in verse 31. We have been in Acts chapter
1 and 2 seeing the day of Pentecost. the reestablishing of the 12
leaders of this new people of God. We've seen the Spirit of
God poured out upon these believers in the last days according to
the prophecy, the fulfillment of Joel's prophecy in Joel chapter
2, along with the prophecy of others such as Isaiah and Ezekiel. We've seen the Lord Jesus Christ
as the reigning King of David, the Son of David, David's greater
son, his greater Lord. installed on Zion, the holy hill,
ruling from the heavenly Jerusalem over his people. We've seen these
glorious realities of this restoration of this people. We've seen the
gospel spread in that southern kingdom region of Judea. We've
seen the gospel spread into Samaria, that region that in the Old Testament
days was the picture of the northern kingdom that had been dispersed.
And I want you to notice something in Acts chapter 9 in verse 31. It says, so the church throughout
all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up
and going on in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy
Spirit. It continued to increase. This putting together of Judea
and Samaria in the Bible in such close proximity is unique to
the author of the book of Acts, Luke. Judea and Samaria are referred
to in such close proximity back in Acts chapter 1 in verse 8
where he says that you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and
Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost part of the earth.
We see this joining together of Judea and Samaria back over
in chapter 8 in the first few verses where it speaks about
Saul, who later becomes Paul, who is overseeing the death of
Stephen. It says that on that day a great
persecution began against the church in Jerusalem and they
were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. And we see here again the gospel
going out from that original circle that Jesus points them
to out into that next phase or the next circle of Samaria. And
we see again Judea and Samaria kind of being used together.
And then we find again here in chapter 9 in verse 31, we find Judea and Samaria grouped together
along with Galilee, that region just to the north of Samaria
around the Sea of Galilee. And notice we find as the gospel
has spread throughout these various regions, as we've gone through
that first phase and that second phase of restoring the southern
and northern kingdoms back together, we find that they now enjoy peace. Don't move past that too quickly
because If you were an Old Testament believer, if you were an Old
Testament Jew, if you lived in the southern kingdom of Judea
or the northern kingdom of Israel in the days of the Old Covenant
after Rehoboam, after the time when the northern kings followed
Jeroboam and the southern kings followed Rehoboam, you would
not characterize the relationship between the northern kingdom
and the southern kingdom as a relationship of peace. It was anything but
peace. It was constant animosity. I was describing this to my kids
yesterday, or I guess it was the kids. Maybe I was talking
to somebody else. I was talking about the days in America in the 19th
century. If you lived in the North or lived in the South,
you wouldn't talk about the relationship between the North and the South
as a relationship of peace. Isn't it wonderful? We're living
together in such peace. Let's have a war. That peace
was not there. And in the days of Israel, in
the days of the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom
of Israel, there was no peace. I mean, occasionally, occasionally
you'd get like, you know, the king of Assyria or whatever,
pressing down upon the northern kingdom. And he'd make an appeal
to the southern king or whatever and say, Hey, come join with
me and let's get into battle here. And that was always kind
of a bad idea that never really worked very well. Every now and
then they would say something like, well, of course we're brothers,
we'll fight together. But you know what brothers do?
When I say fight together, I mean we'll join together and fight
against an enemy. But you know our brothers do. They often fight
together, like against each other, that kind of together. Peace was not the way to describe
the relationship between Judea and Samaria, even when we come
to the time of the New Testament. We mentioned last week the deep
animosity that existed in the hearts of the Jews in the south
with the Samaritans in the north. They had, as Jesus says in John
chapter 4, they had no what? They had no dealings with Samaritans. But here we see in John chapter
9 verse 31, Judea, Galilee, Samaria enjoying peace. The church is
being built up. they're going on in the fear
of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit and it continues
to increase. I read that because that's the
picture of the relationship between Judea and Samaria and Galilee
and the church in that region before we move into Acts chapter
10. There's peace, there's joy, there's
comfort in the Holy Spirit, there's an increase, there's growth.
I mean, in many ways, if we were to back up to chapter 8, verse
1, where this great persecution began against the church, one
would think in Acts chapter 8, verse 1, everything's over. But
in fact, by the time we get almost to the end of chapter 9, what
have we seen? We've seen growth. We've seen
the spread of the gospel. We've seen the unifying of the
North and the South back together. But that's not enough, because
Jesus said, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria
and what? To the uttermost part of the
earth. Sometimes when we're reading
the book of Acts, if we were asked the question, where is
the Gentile mission in the book of Acts? Many of us would probably
just respond with, well, that's Paul. That's what Paul did. He
was the apostle to the Gentiles, right? He has the first and second
and third and different missionary journeys where he brings the
gospel all the way into Europe and ultimately he goes to Rome. But the Gentile mission does
not begin in the book of Acts with the apostle Paul. The Gentile
mission in the book of Acts begins with Peter. And that's just a
little different way of thinking about the book of Acts. In fact,
in chapter 9, in chapter 9, verse 32, it says, now as Peter was
traveling through all those regions, he came down, et cetera. Chapter
9, verse 32, all the way through chapter 12, verse 19, these are
the journeys of Peter. Right in the middle of his journeys
is a long section, 66 verses. You just experienced it as Paul
read it and thought, Oh man, you know, why did he have a stand
today? We could have sat for that. Now let's stand. You know,
in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, they stood for like six hours
and listened to the law being read. All right. So, you know,
whenever you feel like complaining about a long time, just think
about Ezra. Think about all those guys, six hours. And maybe it
was raining, who knows, you know? Our little comfort American world
we have. But 66 verses of Luke's attention are
given to recounting this missionary journey of Peter. It's no insignificant
amount of space. in a book of 28 chapters to give
almost two chapters to this first movement of the gospel into Gentile
territory. Well, being established in peace,
the restored Israel is now poised for its mission to the nations. And this indeed has always been
God's plan, to restore his people Israel and then through them
to carry the light of the gospel to the nations of the world.
We see this here initially in Acts chapter 10 and 11. Now, we've had the whole text
read, and we are not going to go through the text verse by
verse and line by line. But let me take your attention
to the end of the section. I want you to turn, if you would,
to Acts chapter 11, verses 17 through 18. Acts 11, 17. and 18. This is, we might say,
the conclusion of the matter. You know that wonderful therefore?
All right, we've said a lot of stuff, and now therefore, light
of all the things that we've said, here's the conclusion. I want to use these two verses
to kind of cover the whole of the 66 verses. Let's see if we
can do that. I think in this small portion
of the text, we have four thoughts that I think will help us pull
together all the other sections that we've seen. And if you're
taking some notes, there are, in the back of the bulletin,
a little outline for you, and we'll talk about that in a moment.
Let's just take our attention to verse 17. If God gave to them the same
gift as he gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ,
who was I that I could stand in God's way? When they heard
this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, well then, God has
granted the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life. In this brief text, I find four
things that I want to bring out about Israel's mission in the
New Covenant to the Gentiles. We notice first, now if you're
writing these four things down, you're going to kind of get them
out of order, so you might look at the outline in the back because
the way they appear in the text is in the order I'm going to
give. but then we're going to rearrange them just a little
bit, but I want you to see them coming from the text. Peter first
concludes or makes a concluding statement about the provision
of God. Therefore, if God gave to them
the same gift he gave to us also after believing. Peter refers
to a provision that God has made. He has granted something to Cornelius
and to his household that he also had given to Peter and other
believers. Therefore, if God gave to them
the same gift as he gave to us also after believing, that is
about the provision of God. The second thing we're going
to note in here is something about the preaching of Christ.
After believing what? After believing in the Lord Jesus
Christ, who was I to stand in God's way? We see something here
that the preaching of Christ, the preaching of the Lord Jesus
Christ, is preaching of Christ that they might believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the third point I have that
I see as the text is unfolding here, is something in regard
to the preparation of the preacher. And I kind of gave it away when
I read that last statement by Peter, when he asked the question,
who was I that I could stand in God's way? Now, in fact, early
in the narrative in Acts chapter 10, Peter is doing just that. He is standing in God's way. Remember when God says, rise,
Peter, kill and eat? Peter says what? Of course. No. Peter says what? No. All right. Well, we're going
to talk about that. Well, Peter needs some work done on him before
he's ready to go on the mission. All right. So the provision of
God, the preaching of Christ, the preparation of the preacher,
and finally, and fourth, what I would call the praise of the
church. When they heard this, they quieted
down. They glorified God, saying, well, then God has granted the
Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life. Now, what
I'd like to do briefly is take these four things, and I want
to rearrange them in the order that you have them on your note
sheets there at the back of the bulletin. So I'm going to begin
on your bulletin page 10, all right? Page 10. Because the first
thing that I think is important that we note is the preparation
of the preacher. And the reason I'm rearranging
this is because this is the way the text begins if we go back
to chapter 10. Chapter 10 verses 1 to 33 address
the issue of the preparation of the preacher. Peter has to
get out of the way. This is not the first time that
we've seen Peter kind of, you know, opening mouth inserting
foot, right? Peter has a way of doing this
all the time. Well, Peter is a Jew. Peter may
have, at this particular point in time, as the others in the
church seem to have done, he has overcome the problem with
the Samaritans. Think back to chapter 8. Remember
chapter 8 in verse 14, the apostles, they hear in Jerusalem that Samaria
has received the word of God, and they send who? They send
Peter, and they send John. And there's no problem with this.
This is just fine. They seem to overcome the obstacle
between Jew and Samaritan with relative ease. It's not a huge
problem. But the disconnect between the
Jew and the Gentile, this is a higher hurdle to jump. In fact,
in Acts chapter 10 and 11, when Peter does seem to initially
overcome the problem, we find Peter later on, don't we? In
the book of galatians in galatians chapter 2 peter says there was
a time when when or paul says there was a time when peter came
to antioch or peter was an antioch eating with the the believers
and men from jerusalem from the circumcision party come up And
what does peter do when he's sitting there eating with the
gentiles? peter squirms peter gets up peter moves So Peter
still hasn't quite overcome all of his problems with the idea
of Gentiles being included within the people of God. But here,
initially, Peter has to have some issues addressed. He has
to have some things overcome. This happens through a series
of events, namely, a vision that he is given. A vision he has
given of a sheep falling down out of the heavens, containing
various animals that would have been unclean for a Jewish man
to eat. You can go back into Leviticus
and Deuteronomy and see these various regulations that a Jew
would have had to eat certain things and only certain things,
and he couldn't eat these other things. And when this sheep comes
down out of heaven, and there are four-footed animals, there
are crawling creatures of the earth, birds of the air, Peter
says, hmm, I don't think so. But God tells him what? Get up,
Peter, kill, and eat. And Peter says, by no means. You almost hear Paul there, can't
you? All right, I don't know if it's Megenotah, the text that
Paul often brings out when he says by no means. But here he
says, by no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy
or unclean. Again, a voice came to him a
second time. But God is cleansed, no longer
consider unholy. And this happens three times. Peter seems to be one of those
kind of guys that needs at least three knocks on the head to get
his attention, all right? You know, he denies Jesus three
times, has to be kind of reinstalled three times with feed my sheep.
And here again, it takes Peter three times to get the point. Well, Peter eventually does get
the point and he is called to Cornelius's house and he obediently
goes. Now, it may seem at first glance
when we read in verse 28 that this is a rather rude way to
go into somebody's house. You understand and know it's
against the law for me to be here. I'm not really supposed
to be here. You're not the kind of people
I'm supposed to associate with. Well, he's not trying to be rude
in verse 28. He said to them, you yourselves know how unlawful
it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner
or to visit him. He's not trying to be rude. He's
simply trying to be matter of fact. He's trying to be clear.
He's trying to let them know, look, I am here by no small amount
of preparation by God. God has done what? Look what
he says in verse 28. God has shown me. that I should not call any man
unholy or unclean." Peter somehow, in the midst of all this, he's
made the connection between the sheet and the animals, and he's
made the connection between the lesson that he needs to learn
and the people that he's supposed to go and see. This is why I
came. He says, without raising any
objection when I was sent for, so I ask for what reason you
have sent for me. Now you might hear that and go,
That doesn't sound quite honest, Peter. I mean, because you did
some pretty bold objecting earlier. No, he says, I didn't object
when I was sent for. Because by the time the men got
to the house and knocked on the door, God had already knocked
on his head, I suppose. God had already convinced him
that he was supposed to go. When they go, don't raise any
kind of an objection. Go with them. So we see here
that Peter, And in some sense, Peter is somewhat representative
of the church as a whole. Peter has to learn something
new. Peter has to learn a new way to relate to the Gentile. Peter has to see that God is
not a God who is partial. God is not a God who takes sides,
if you will. God is not one, he says in verse
34, to show partiality. This is something about the preparation
of the preacher. Let me mention something about
the preaching, the preaching of Peter, the preaching of Christ
in verses 34 through 43. This is a Perhaps it's a summation by Luke.
We don't know exactly how long the sermon was. But even if it's
an exact replication of the sermon, the sermon seems to have all
the essential characteristics that it needs to have to be a
gospel sermon that proclaims the Lord Jesus Christ and his
death and his resurrection. It proclaims his lordship. It
proclaims his life. It proclaims his death. Proclaims
his resurrection. Proclaims that he is the one
appointed by God to judge the living and the dead. It proclaims
that he is the one that all the prophets pointed to, that men
were to believe in. The preaching of Christ, and
we're going to come back to this in just a moment when we make
some points of application, the preaching of Christ in Acts chapter
10 is very similar to the preaching of Christ in Acts chapter 2,
which is a much longer sermon by Peter, but it seems to have
all those essential elements of the proclamation of the gospel. So we move from the preparation
of the preacher and the preaching of Christ to the provision of
God. Notice in chapter 10 in verse 44. Verses 44 to 48, I
give the picture of what is happening by God. When Peter is preaching,
when Peter is speaking, the Holy Spirit does what? The Holy Spirit
falls upon the hearers. falls upon these new believers.
It's like a little Pentecost for the Gentiles. And what's
interesting about that is you have this Pentecost moment in
Acts chapter 2, but you have another Pentecost-type moment
in Acts chapter 8, when the Spirit of God falls upon the Samaritans.
And here we have a Pentecost-type moment again in Acts chapter
10, when the gospel goes to the Gentiles. Luke wants to highlight here
that this is the work of God. The Holy Spirit fell upon all
those who were listening. All the circumcised believers
who came with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Spirit
had been poured out on the Gentiles also. Again, this emphasis on
what God has done. For they were hearing them speaking
with tongues exalting God. Peter said, surely no one can
refuse water for these to be baptized who have received. Another
kind of an expression that points to what they've obtained from
God. They received the Holy Spirit
just as we have as well, and he orders them to be baptized. So here we have the provision
of God. Lastly, we have what I would call the praise of the
church. Now the praise of the church doesn't come to the end
of this section in chapter 18 or chapter 11 in verse 18. It's
prefaced by Peter kind of rehearsing again what's happened. He tells
the story, it's a little briefer this time, but he tells again
the story of what's happened, how he saw this vision, how Cornelius
calls him, he goes to Cornelius' house, and while I'm speaking,
the Spirit of God falls upon the church. Now, I hurriedly
ran through that, all right? And there's a reason, because
what I want us to do is I want us to see something about these
four aspects of this gospel advance, if you will, into the Gentile
realm. Looking at the preparation of
the preacher, the preaching of Christ, the provision of God,
and the praise of the church. I want us to see these almost
two chapters not just as a historical event, I mean it happened, it
is a historical event, but this is a historical event with abiding
significance for the church in every age. We're crossing now
from that idea of the restoration of Israel, the southern and northern
kingdoms, Judea and Samaria, into this idea, this realm, if
you will, of the Gentile mission that is really going to occupy
the remainder of the Book of Acts. And it continues to occupy
the Church's attention even today in this age. Preachers need to be prepared.
Christ must be preached, God must continue to provide, and
the church must continue to praise. I want you to think about these
four things as it relates to the church and her ministry today. The first two of these deal more
with the preacher and the second more with the church, but in
all, they all do address the church as well. First, the preacher
of the gospel must ever guard against the likely possibility
that he himself may be a hindrance to God in the communication of
the gospel of truth. Let me say that again. These
are each rather kind of wordy statements, and I just want to
make sure you at least hear them. You don't have to write them
down, but just kind of listen with me. The preacher of the gospel
must ever guard against the likely possibility that he himself may
be a hindrance to God in the communication of the truth. This is exactly what Peter was
addressing or confessing, we might say, here in Acts chapter
10 and Acts chapter 11. Peter says, when he objects to God, by no
means, Lord, I've never eaten anything unholy or unclean. Peter is addressed back in Matthew
chapter 16 for the idea of being a hindrance. And I want you to
look there, if you will, turn to Matthew chapter 16 for a moment.
Matthew 16. Matthew 16 verse 21 Now we all
remember peter and his wonderful statements that he has made earlier
in matthew chapter 16 Uh where he confesses that jesus is the
christ the son of the living god jesus says in johns matthew
16 17 blessed are you simon barjona because flesh and blood did not
reveal this to you but my father who is in heaven I also say to
you that you're Peter upon this rock. I'll build my church."
It's a glorious statement about Peter. People love to focus on
that particular aspect of Peter's confession. But in verse 21,
this great Peter, this Peter who makes this amazing statement
earlier, has these wonderful promises made to him. In verse
21, Peter begins to blow it. From that time, Jesus began to
show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many
things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed
and be raised up on the third day. Peter took him aside and
began to rebuke him, saying, God forbid it, Lord. This shall
never happen to you. But he, Jesus, turned and said
to Peter, get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to
me, for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but
man's." Just let that sink in for just a moment. Jesus, the
Lord Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, looks at Peter and says,
you are a stumbling block to me. We can quickly kind of move
past that. And we can say, oh, God has his
way. God is sovereign. God rules. All God's will will be completed.
God will accomplish all of his holy purposes. God works out
all things after the counsel of his will. All these things
are true. But on a human level, just looking
at things on this horizontal plane, Peter is addressed as
a what? He's addressed as a stumbling
block and a hindrance to the lord jesus christ to complicate
a mission To go to jerusalem and to die and to be buried and
be raised again Now obviously peter doesn't accomplish his
plan and peter is stopped short and jesus reproves him And the
rebuke that peter gave to jesus, you know when it comes to jesus's
rebuke of peter Jesus's review computer obviously wins that
would be like the trump card if you're like a dominoes player
All right, you know somebody plays that that great double
six down But you know, it doesn't matter because somebody else
has trumps and they just take you out You really have to assess
your audience when you preach and i'm thinking right now. There
are zero domino players in our congregation domino players ever
Oh It might be the bingo hall i'm not sure but uh Oh, that's
the Catholic church. All right. Well, so you get the
idea. Maybe spades. Maybe that's what
we should talk about. Kids play spades sometimes. But
here on a human level, on a human level, Peter is assessed as being
a hindrance, a stumbling block. Notice what it says back again
in Acts chapter 11. Peter finally did come to realize
who was I in verse 17, that I could stand in God's way. There is
an implicit confession here that Peter is saying, I thought I
could. I thought I could stand in God's
way. Peter has this problem with pride,
doesn't he? Peter has this problem with thinking
far too highly of himself. And I am a preacher. And I know
many preachers, and pride is a problem with preachers. And
we must be ever cautious. We must be ever cautious and
guard against the likely possibility that we might ever seek to be
a hindrance in the communication of the truth of God to his people,
because we think sometimes we just know better. This is something that preacher
and church must ever guard against. Peter needed to remember God's
impartiality. God does not judge on the basis
of what men judge other people on. God doesn't judge on the
basis of economics, or race, or gender, or culture, social
status. But we judge on all those things,
don't we? God does not see what as man sees. Remember, remember
Samuel. when he goes to Jesse, and he's
got to pick the new king. It wasn't just a problem with
Samuel. It was a problem with Jesse, too. And it was also a
problem with his brothers. They all had pride. They all
judged on the basis of externals. Samuel said, do you have some
sons? Yes, here are my sons, my strapping boys. And the strapping
boys line up, and the strapping boys, you know, they line up
with one another. None of them sits there and says,
but dad, what about Davey? None of them say that. Why? Because
none of them think David should be considered either. And Jesse
doesn't say to Samuel, oh, wait, we got to get the other kid.
Why? Because he doesn't think Samuel
would be interested in David either. And after God makes clear
all six of those boys are not the boy, Samuel knows it's supposed
to be the son of Jesse. So he says, do you have another
boy? Somewhere. Can you imagine the disappointment
on all the other boys' faces? It's like the 11 sons of Jacob,
you know, Joseph. Peter has to remember God's impartiality. Every preacher must remember
that God is impartial with the gospel of grace. It's not based
upon any kind of human estimation. Peter needs to remember God's
generosity. God hasn't just been generous
with Peter, and he hasn't been generous with Peter because Peter
was Peter. He was generous with Peter in
spite of Peter. He forgot. He forgot the age-old
declarations of the prophets. It was not because you were more
righteous than any other nation in Israel that I chose you, but
to make a name for myself. Ezekiel 16 says when I found
you I found you like an abandoned baby with an umbilical cord not
even cut still in your blood and I said to you live a Preacher needs to remember
God's impartiality and God's generosity. He needs to remember
God's forbearance. I God has been forbearing and
patient with the nations of the world. But now, Genesis 17, Acts
17, Paul at the Areopagus, he says to what? Now he commands
all men everywhere to what? To repent. God is forbearing,
so must the preacher be. And God is gracious. And Peter
forgot. You know, we might say poor Peter.
We might feel bad for Peter. We can understand Peter. He forgot. He forgot about the grace of
God. You know, it's so amazing, is
it not, that you can be lavish with the grace of God yourself
and forget to give the grace of God to someone else. You can
just forget. A preacher can't forget. The preacher of the gospel must
ever guard against the likely possibility that he himself may
be a hindrance to God in the communication of his truth."
In other words, the preacher needs to be what? Prepared. He
needs to be worked on. I take comfort from Peter blowing
it when I blow it, but I take more comfort from
the fact that my God is generous and gracious and forbearing with
me when I blow it. There's a second thing here that
we need to remember in every age, not just that the preacher
has to be prepared. It is that in the preaching of
Christ, men must labor tirelessly to keep the main things the main
thing and promote its freeness to all who hear. Peter reminds
us in his sermons, and the sermons of Peter are good sermons to
study. Acts chapter 2, you can look
at Acts 4 or whatever, you know, Peter goes in and talks, I think
that's before the Sanhedrin, but then maybe that's 5, I think
it's 4. But here again, in Acts chapter
11 or 10, we see this wonderful sermon by Peter. And in it, every
time we see Peter preaching, every time we see Paul preaching,
Every time we see the apostles opening their mouths and declaring
Christ, they are so clear. They keep the main things of
Christ, the main things. Peter or Paul said in 1 Corinthians
15, I delivered to you as of first importance that Christ
died according to the scriptures and that he was buried, that
Christ was raised according to the scriptures and that he appeared.
Those two great central truths to the gospel the death and the
resurrection of christ Now when paul says in first corinthians
15 verse 3 that I delivered to you as of first importance He's
not speaking in terms of chronology He's speaking in terms of principles
or first things or first principles. This is the, this is what's the
most important. It's not that Paul never talked
about anything else. You know, every sermon was two
points in a poem. You know, he wasn't a Baptist,
so I don't guess he wasn't a Baptist. Baptists are three points in
a poem. I have four points. I don't know what that says about
me today, but it wasn't that every sermon just had two points.
Okay. Your point one, Jesus died. Point two, Jesus was raised and
now we'll go home. It's not just that's all they
ever said. But when you could sum up the message of what this
man preached about, it was a message that focused on those essential
matters of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's just make our way through
the sermon. Look what happens here in Acts chapter 10. Peter
preaches Christ. And what does he preach about
Christ? Notice in verse 38. You know of Jesus of Nazareth,
how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and
how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed
by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses of all
these things he did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. We might sum this up and say
that Peter preached a faithful representation of the active
obedience of Christ. He is one who went about doing
good. Whenever you saw Jesus, he was
just doing good. He was healing people. He was
caring for people. He was teaching people. He was
being faithful to the Father, obeying the Father at every point,
always keeping the law. From the very beginning of his
initiation into his public ministry, when he told John, it is necessary
for us to do this, that we might fulfill all righteousness, to
the last moment on his cross, when he said, into thy hands
I commit my spirit, Jesus always was doing good. Jesus was always
doing righteousness. Why? For him? He could have done
that in heaven. He could have done that with
the Father. He could have done that and never left the Father's
side. But he comes into this world and humbles himself and
becomes obedient. Why? For you. For me. We speak of it as the active
obedience of Christ. You might remember that story
by J. Gresham Machen who telegraphed John Murray right before he died
and said, I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful for the active
obedience of Christ. There is no hope without it. Do you realize that if Jesus
had not come to this earth to do good, the good that you could
not do, then you could never have everlasting life. Jesus just doesn't come as an
exemplar. Jesus just doesn't come as someone to do some good
stuff so you can see what it looks like when people do good
stuff. Jesus comes to do the good stuff for you who could
not do the good stuff that God required. Secondly, if we look
at this brief representation of the preaching of Peter, it
says, they also put him to death by hanging him on a cross. Here's emphasis in Peter's preaching
of the passive obedience of Christ. He receives in the incarnate
state, he receives the suffering that we were due. He does the
obedience that we could not do. He dies the death that we could
never bear. Peter also preaches in verses
40 to 42 about the resurrection and the lordship of Christ. Notice
what it says in verse 41, verse 40, excuse me, God raised him
up on the third day and granted that he become visible, not to
all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by
God. That is to us who ate and drank with him after he arose
from the dead. And he ordered us to preach to the people and
solemnly to testify that this is the one who has been appointed
by God as judge of the living and the dead. Peter preaches
about the act of impassive obedience of Christ. Peter preaches about
the resurrection and the lordship of Christ. And notice, he says
here in verse 42, that he is the one appointed by God as judge
of the living and the dead. He says something similar to
this, but in a different way. Earlier in the text, back up
in verse 36, he says that we are preaching peace through Jesus
Christ. And then parenthesis, at least
it has a numeric and standard. He is what? He is Lord of all. I think those ideas, he is Lord
of all. He is the one appointed to be the judge of the living
and the dead. They go, they go together. Peter here preaches
on the obedience, active and passive of Christ. He preaches
on Christ's resurrection and his Lordship. There's one final
thing about Christ, the preaching of Christ in Peter's preaching. Notice what it says in verse
43. What is this? Peter, in the preaching of Christ, preaches
that Christ's work is available to all who hear its message.
This is what we often call the free offer of the gospel. When Peter preaches Christ, he
doesn't preach a Christ that will only save some. Now, we
know in the glorious elective providence of God, God chooses
his people from before the foundation of the world. And the number
of the elect cannot be increased nor diminished. But this does
not mean that when we preach Christ, that we should say something
like, if you're elect, you can come. If you're not, stay away. We just don't say things like
that. Who the elect are in an assembly such as this, that is
something God alone knows. That is part of what we call
the secret will of God or the decretive will of God. We cannot
see it. It is the revealed will of God
that is our determiner for action. And Peter here says, of him all
the prophets bear witness that through his name everyone who
believes in him receives the forgiveness of sins. And I would
say to you today that if you will believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, you will be saved. And you receive in being saved
the forgiveness of your sins. I don't have to argue about election.
Election is just true. I don't have to argue about God's
sovereignty. It's just true. What I have to
do, though, to be a faithful preacher is to plead with all
people who hear the gospel to come to Him, believing on Him
for redemption. Believing on Him for the forgiveness
of sins. Number three. Not only must the
preacher be prepared, not only must the preacher preach Christ,
the church, number three, And this is longer still, so if you're
taking notes and you're writing this down, I'm sorry. But anyway,
it's just long. But I'll encourage you to try. Just stay with me.
The Church must ever remember that in the provision of God,
in the granting of His Spirit to every believer, He manifests
clearly to them all that He is no respecter of persons, And
there is never to be allowed in her midst, in the church's
midst, in any way a spirit of partiality that would permit
distinctions where God has said there are to be none. Now, I
want to read that again. I want you to kind of follow that, and
then we're going to say a few things about it. The church must ever
remember that in the provision of God, in the granting of his
spirit to every believer, He manifests clearly to them all
that he is no respecter of persons. And there is never to be allowed
in her midst in any way a spirit of partiality that would permit
distinctions where God has said there are to be none." The church
must believe that God is without partiality. But that's only one
part of that. The church has to actually practice
impartiality. Do you see the difference there?
It is one thing, if I was to say to a church, do you believe
God is impartial? Oh yeah. Do you practice impartiality? So the church that James writes
to in James chapter two would probably agree that God is impartial. And then when a rich man walks
in, he'll be a good tither. If we could just get that one,
10% of his income, that would be really nice. Even if he was
just one of those grace givers, an offering would be nice from
him. When the rich man walks in and we say to the poor man,
you sit on the floor by my feet, and we say to the rich man here,
you sit here in this place of prominence, we have become what?
We've become judges. We have become partial. when it happens with money, when
it happens with race, when it happens with gender, when it
happens with anything. All people are welcome to come
and what? Worship. They may not feel comfortable,
they may not really want to stay, but we are not to be what? Partial. Notice what happens. in this
section here. In chapter 11 verse 17a, therefore
if God gave to them the same gift he gave to us also after
believing. God gives the same gift of the
Holy Spirit in this narrative to who? Everybody. Everybody
that believes. He gives it to Peter, he gives
it to Cornelius, He's already given it to the one in Peter's
entourage. Peter has six other people with
him. There's seven that are gonna bear witness later when they
go back to Jerusalem. There's seven men that have already
received the Spirit of God. And Cornelius and his household
and his slaves and whoever he's got, they're what? They're all
right there. And they all receive the same
gift. Not only that, God gives it,
look back up in chapter 11 and verse 15. God gives it to them
in the same way. And as I begin to speak the holy
spirit fell upon them Just as he did upon us at the beginning
to mark that word just as Turn back to chapter 10 verse 47 Chapter
10 verse 47 it says Surely no one can refuse water for these
to be baptized to receive the holy spirit. Just as we did jump
ahead to chapter 15 Acts chapter 15 verse 8. And God, who knows
the heart, testified to them, giving them the Holy Spirit,
just as he did to us. Very interesting little phrase,
just as. And it occurs three times, all
with reference to the same event of the Spirit of God falling
upon Cornelius and his household, just as he gave it to the Jews. God gives the same gift to all.
God gives it in the same way to all. God's character is considered
impartial in the narrative. Acts chapter 10, verse 34, this
is where we find the actual statement, God is not one to show partiality. I don't have time to do this,
but you can look up Romans chapter 2, verse 11, Galatians 2, verse
6, Ephesians 6, verse 9, all of these texts point out the
truth that God is not partial Thus chapter 11 verse 12 We are
not to what we are not to make distinctions notice what it says
in chapter 11 verse 12 The Spirit told me to go with them. This
is this is Peter recounting what the Spirit of God told him earlier
about these men from Cornelius and The Spirit told me to go
with them without misgivings. Now, I know I made that switch
to the New American Standard a year ago, and I've really been
happy with my switch to the New American Standard. And if you've
switched to the New American Standard, breathe easy, I'm not
switching again. But I don't like what they did here. Because
it's just wrong. Without misgivings. What is that?
Who is misgivings? I've never met her. Without misgivings. means literally without distinctions,
without making distinctions. Now what's interesting about
this, turn over to Acts 15 verse 9. Acts chapter 15 verse 9, let's
get a running head start, verse 8. And God who knows the heart
testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit just as he also
did to us and he made No misgivings. It doesn't do that here. No.
It says what? He made no distinction between us and them cleansing
their hearts by faith. Here it translates the same text
as no distinction. I don't know why it does that.
Misgivings in one text, no distinctions in another text. Just translate
it. No distinctions. In other words, God made no distinctions. We are not to make what? Any
distinctions. Maybe you sit here and you think,
well, do we do that? I don't have any particular thing
in my mind where I'm thinking we do this. Is it possible for
us to do this? Absolutely. Do churches do this? Absolutely. Number four. We've seen the preparation
of the preacher, preaching of Christ, the provision of God.
One final thing, the praise of the church. When preaching is
done in such a manner that it works with God and not against
God, when the first principles of Christ are kept in the chief
place in the preacher's proclamation, and when the church's Delight
and support for the free unhindered impartial manifestation of god's
spirit giving generosity is in their midst Then the response
of the church will be that found in acts at the end of acts chapter
11 and verse 18 The response regarding the inclusion of the
gentiles notice what it said Verse 18 they quieted down and
they glorified god Literally here, quieted down means they
became silent. Now, in the context, the ones
that became silent most likely were the objectors, because you
might recall back up in chapter 11, around verse, I think two,
there were some of the circumcision party that took issue with him
saying. Remember, because a Gentile could
not be saved, in the minds of some Jews, a Gentile could not
be saved as a Gentile. A Gentile had to be circumcised
and become what they call a proselyte and become technically a Jew.
Then they could be saved. They didn't have this problem
with the Samaritans. We were circumcised. But they
did have this problem with the Gentiles, because the Gentiles
were not circumcised. The Samaritans were circumcised,
and Samaritans were fairly concerned with legal matters. But the Gentiles
were not. What do you do about the Gentiles?
We've got to make them Jews. No. Peter comes and says, look,
God is impartial. God does not judge on externals.
God has given them the same spirit we had in the same way to all
of them. He is not partial. And when they
finally realized that, and they finally heard that, they became
silent. They quieted down. and they gloried in God. God,
that is, who poured out his Spirit on all flesh. God it is, and
she will praise God for the sending of that very Spirit, and she
will praise the Spirit for his coming. Israel in the New Covenant
receives a paradigm shift when it comes to preaching. Israel
in the new covenant recovers the free and unhindered preaching
of Christ and she's going to need this She's going to need
this this unhindered aspect of the preaching of Christ as we
make progress in the gentile mission Or the gentile mission
will go nowhere I looked at my kids last night at supper. I
said and you're a what? And bethy said i'm a gentile
That's right If they hadn't figured this out We wouldn't have been
sitting there having devotions around the table It would have
been kept. It would have died. Now, obviously,
again, we're talking on a human level. God has his plan. But Israel in the New Covenant
here receives this shift, this paradigm shift regarding preaching,
recovers the free, unhindered preaching of Christ, and embraces
an old, but now a new vision of God as being impartial. The
idea that God is impartial is as old as the Bible. God has
never been partial. But it's now given new clarity
in the New Covenant. And finally, Israel in the New
Covenant here remains silent. Silence is all objections and
glories in a God of grace. We need this. We need to embody
a kind of preaching that will guard against being a hindrance
to the furtherance of the kingdom. We need a picture of the preaching
of Christ where we are very clear with men about what it is they
need to know about Christ. We need to understand and know
that God himself is the one that pours out the Spirit of God on
all flesh, on us even today. Now, we don't have the same types
of manifestations that happen, and this is a whole other study,
a whole other discussion of things like speaking in tongues and
all these kinds of things, laying on of apostolic hands, and we
don't have that like they had that in the days of Scripture.
But if you don't have the Spirit of Christ, Paul says you're what?
You're not of Christ. The Spirit of God falls upon
every believer in every age. The manifestations may be somewhat
different from age to age, But every age, every believer possesses
the spirit of Christ. And the church needs to also
adopt the idea and the understanding that when the spirit of God does
come and he does fall upon men for their redemption in an impartial
way, all glory, all praise, all honor here at the end of our
text is to be given to God. They glorified God. this needs
to be the response of the church today as well. Let's pray together. Father, we pause and ask that you would help us to
not simply see the historic reality of such a text. It's a wonderful
narrative about Peter and how he goes to the home of a Gentile
and brings the gospel. I pray that we would see in such
a passage great importance and pressing truths for us in every
age that we would ever guard as preachers of the gospel against
any hint that we might be a hindrance to your work. We would pray,
God, that you would help us as we preach, and as maybe for those
who aren't preachers, but those who hear preaching and want preaching
and love preaching, that we would demand a clear presentation of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and that when we preach Christ, that we
should make sure that we preach a Christ who has come and lived
for us and died for us, and been raised for us, and is exalted
and enthroned for us, and is one day coming again as the judge
of the living and the dead. Help us not to lose sight of
his obedience and his suffering on our behalf. We pray God that
you would help us to keep in mind that not only are you a
God who is impartial in your provision of your spirit, but
that that same spirit of impartiality should pervade the way we do
ministry in our church. And Father, we pray that as we
contemplate the glories of the gospel spreading to the Gentiles, that our hearts would be filled
with praise, that we would be a thankful people, that we will
be a people who seek to glory in God. Bless you for this Text
and we bless you for the progress of the gospel to the Gentiles
and we stand here and confess today That we indeed are the
product of that great progress of the gospel We're so grateful
the gospel reached us We pray Oh God that you would by your
grace and for your glory that you would cause it to reach even
more use us for that use us for that purpose of the kingdom and
to spread the knowledge of the glory of God for all peoples
to see and to savor. We bless you for the day you've
given to us, the time here together. We pray, God, that as we come
to partake of the Lord's table, that the gospel itself would
be to us sweet and precious, and we would taste and see of
your goodness and your impartiality, let us hold the bread and hold
the cup and just ponder what it would be like if we had a
God who was partial. For there would be no cup and
there would be no bread. There would have been no Christ
given for us. But God, because you have a heart and a longing
for men from every tribe and tongue and language and nation
to surround your throne, We have a cup to take. We have bread
to hold, a cup to drink, bread to eat. Father, help us contemplate
the Lord Jesus Christ and how he, being very God of very God,
is also impartial. He has come to us. He has rescued
us. He's had mercy on us. He has
gone about doing good for us. He has been crucified for us.
He has been raised for us. He is seated for us, and he is
one day coming again for us. I pray, O Lord God, that you
would help us as we partake of the cup and partake of the bread
this day. Help us to remember Christ, our
Savior, our Lord, our King. In his name we pray. Amen.
Israel in the New Covenant Part 12
Series Israel in the New Covenant
| Sermon ID | 21522215188102 |
| Duration | 1:14:44 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Acts 10 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.