Peter visits the household of Cornelius and preaches the Gospel. What happens next changes the course of history.
Transcription (automatically-generated):
God has spoken to a Roman centurion named Cornelius and told him to send for a man named Peter. This, of course, is the apostle Peter. And at the same time, Jesus has given Peter a vision of a sheet coming down from heaven full of all kinds of animals that were both clean and unclean under Hebrew food laws. God then told Peter to kill and eat whatever he wanted, telling him, do not call anything impure that God has made clean the messengers of Cornelius. Find Peter in the city of Joppa.
Jesus tells Peter to go with them. And now we continue in verses 24. The following day, he that's Peter entered Caesarea. Now, Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. Verse 14 will tell us in the next chapter that Cornelius had gathered all of his household.
That would have included his slaves, his attendants, his family, any relatives and close friends, anyone he could get to come in anticipation of the message that God was going to deliver through Peter. Seven orthodox Jews. Peter and seven of the brothers from Joppa were on their way to do something none of them had ever done before. They were going to enter the house of a Gentile, and I'm certain that none of them, even Peter, could imagine what was about to happen. It would change the course of history.
Verse 25. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him, fell at his feet, and worshiped him. Cornelius did this because he knew Peter was being sent as a messenger from God. Then we read in the next verse, but Peter lifted him up and said, stand up. I myself am also a man.
Write this down as your first filling, and then we'll unpack it. The servants of Jesus, direct worship to Jesus. The servants of Jesus, direct worship to Jesus. They do not accept worship or veneration, for to do so would be to steal it from Jesus. When we reach Acts, chapter 14, we'll see Paul and Barnabas ministering in the city of Listra, and the people will respond by shouting, the gods have come down to us in human form.
And here's how the text tells us. Paul and Barnabas responded. The apostles Barnabas and Paul tore their robes when they heard this and rushed into the crowd, shouting, people, why are you doing these things? We are people also, just like you, and we are proclaiming good news to you that you turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything in them. At the end of the Book of Revelation, the apostle John writes i, John, am the one who heard and saw these things.
When I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had shown them to me. But he said to me, don't do that. I am a fellow servant with you, your brothers, the prophets, and those who keep the words of this book worship God. The servants of Jesus, be they human or angelic, do not accept worship or veneration. They direct all praise, worship and glory to Jesus.
I want to show you a photo. It's a little hard to see because the projector is not great, but that is a statue. It's got a really sort of ornate background, but it's a bronze statue. In St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican sits this statue of Peter.
It was crafted in the over the centuries, so many pilgrims have kissed its right foot that the individual toes are now barely distinguishable. Today, most pilgrims opt for touching instead of kissing the feet. But I have a duty to point these things out when they come up in the text. Devout Catholics and the Vatican itself encourage this kind of behavior when in Scripture we have an example of a man falling at the feet of the living Peter. And what does Peter do?
He immediately corrects his behavior, telling Cornelius, don't do that. Why? Because I'm just a man like you. Beliefs that clearly go against Scripture can only survive where people are not reading the Scriptures for themselves. If you find a Protestant church that doesn't have a culture of reading and studying the Bible, I guarantee you'll find some wacky beliefs there as well.
But heretical, unbiblical beliefs are sinful. Wherever we find them, god's people need to be in God's word. The single greatest protection against heresy in this church is you reading your Bibles. That's it. As long as you're in the Word, nobody's going to be able to get up here and preach heresy, apostasy, anything like that.
Because you'll know what the Bible says. If Peter were alive on the earth today, he would be the first one to demand that statue of him be torn down. Because the apostles, including Peter, devoted their lives to directing all glory to Jesus. Verse 27. While talking with him, Cornelius he that's Peter went in and found a large gathering of people.
God was working through Cornelius's passion. If only he had been saved as a result of this, peter and the brothers would have been able to write him off as an exception to the rule, a super gentile, so to speak, just as if only one Samaritan had been saved. When Peter and John went up to visit with Philip, it could have been written off as an exception to the rule. But when a group of Samaritans or a large group of Gentiles were saved, it would mean we're no longer talking about exceptions. We're talking about a new rule.
Verse 28. Peter said to them, you know, it's forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner, but God has shown me that I must not call any person impure or unclean. That's why I came without any objection when I was sent for. As Peter enters the home, he finds this house packed with Gentiles who are just waiting for him and welcome him and the brothers from Joppa. And they're just excited to hear what he has to say to them.
And in that moment, Peter connects some of the dots between the vision he had had God's command to him to not call anything unclean, and the Lord's instruction for him to make this trip to the house of Cornelius. And he suddenly understands some of what the Lord is doing. He understands that God wants him to view the Gentiles who serve Jesus as clean, meaning he can enter their homes, eat with them, etc, if they fear God. But Peter still believes the salvation of the Gentiles is some kind of secondary, or at a minimum, different salvation. He still assumes they'll likely need to have their own churches, and the Jewish believers will continue having their own churches.
He also believes at this moment that the Holy Spirit is only given to Jewish believers, and apparently Samaritans, who are at least half Jewish. Peter says, So may I ask why you sent for me? Cornelius replied, Four days ago, at this hour, at three in the afternoon, I was praying in my house. Just then, a man in dazzling clothing stood before me and said, cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your acts of charity have been remembered in God's sight. Therefore, send someone to Joppa and invite Simon here, who is also named Peter.
He is lodging in Simon, the tanner's house by the sea. So I immediately sent for you, and it was good of you to come. So now we are all in the presence of God to hear everything you have been commanded by the Lord. Would you underline that word? Commanded?
Cornelius, the centurion says, I was given a command by the Lord to send for you. He told me that he would give you a message to share with me. So I sent for you immediately, and I've gathered my household to hear our orders from the Lord. I love the simplicity of Cornelius's faith. As a military man, he understood the concept of a chain of command.
He understood what it meant to be in submission to a higher ranking officer. For him, it was simple jesus was Lord, there was a God, and Peter had been sent by him with orders. Therefore, he had prepared as best he could and was ready to obey those orders when they arrived. There was a centurion at the cross at the moment of Jesus'death, and he declared Jesus to be the Son of God. In Mark 15 we read jesus let out a loud cry and breathed his last.
Then the curtain of the temple was torn into from top to bottom. When the centurion who was standing opposite him saw the way he breathed his last, he said, truly, this man was the Son of God. In addition to that centurion in Cornelius, there's another account in the Gospels that features a centurion and moves me to tears pretty much every time I read it. Hopefully not this time, though. It's found in Matthew chapter eight and in Luke chapter seven.
And Jesus is entering the town of Capernaum, and some of the Jewish elders from the town come up to him with a message. There's a centurion who seems to be a God fearer like Cornelius. They tell Jesus that he loves our nation and has even built us a synagogue. He's paid for it himself. Being a sincere Godfarer, this centurion cares for his servants, and one of them has become deathly ill.
In fact, he's become paralyzed from whatever is attacking his body and is in terrible agony. This centurion did not consider himself worthy to approach Jesus directly, so he asked the elders to approach him on his behalf and beseech him to heal his servant. Jesus agrees to go to the house. The centurion knows that Jews are not supposed to enter the homes of Gentiles. So when Jesus gets close to the house, he sends some of his friends to intercept Jesus with this message.
Lord, don't trouble yourself, since I'm not worthy to have you come under my roof. That is why I didn't even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed, for I too am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under my command. I say to this one, Go. And he goes, and to another, Come.
And he comes and to my servant, do this, and he does it. As a military man, this centurion understood the concept of authority, and he had recognized that Jesus had authority over sickness and death. He understood that all Jesus had to do was say the Word, and the sickness in his servant would have to leave because Jesus had authority in this centurion's mind, it was simple chain of command. Then it says hearing this, Jesus was amazed and said to those following him, truly, I tell you, I've not found anyone in Israel with so great a faith. I tell you that many will come from the east and west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the kingdom of heaven.
Then Jesus gave the friends this message for the centurion as you have believed, let it be done for you. And his servant was healed. That very moment when Jesus was on the earth as a man, he emptied himself of his omniscience. Omniscience is just a fancy word for being all-knowing, knowing everything. It's an attribute of God.
God is omniscient. But when Jesus came to the earth as a man, he gave that up and really became a man. Everything that Jesus knew, he learned or had revealed to him by his Father through the Holy Spirit. At this time, Jesus had been ministering and performing miracles. Crowds were following him.
But Scripture tells us that he knew their hearts. He knew that they didn't really believe he was the Messiah, the Son of God. He knew that his own people were not really receiving him. And then along comes this centurion. And when his friends stopped Jesus from coming all the way to the house, telling him he need only say the word I love that.
It says Jesus was amazed. Jesus was amazed. He was amazed that a gentile Roman centurion understood what Israel could not, that he had been given authority. And I imagine in my mind, Jesus actually being just speechless for a moment. He's just struck by amazement and then gets a smile on his face and raises his voice loud enough for everyone around him to hear him say, I haven't found anyone in Israel with faith like this.
And people like this centurion will be with me in heaven one day, feasting right next to the patriarchs. And then he says to the centurion's friend, it's done. And the servant is healed that very moment. I love this because it captures a moment when Jesus is blessed by the faith of someone, he's blessed by the faith of someone. He doesn't need anything from us.
But incredibly, God is able to be blessed by us. And the way that we bless Him is with our faith showing, with our words and our actions that we genuinely believe he is who he says he is. It's the heart of a father when your children treat you as though you actually are a good father, when they make assumptions about the care you will provide for them because they have confidence that you love them, that blesses the heart of a father. That's how we bless God. When we act and speak and live in such a way that shows we genuinely believe we have a Father in heaven who loves us, that blesses him.
It blesses him. Cornelius didn't just believe in God, he believed God. So when the Lord spoke to him, he obeyed and revealed his faith by gathering everyone he could to hear the message God was going to deliver through Peter. That's the way to study the scriptures, were to adopt a posture before the Word of God that says, I'm here to get my orders. I'm here to learn whatever you want me to learn.
I'm here to change whatever you want me to change. I'm ready to respond to whatever you want to say to me, because you are in authority over me, Lord. When asked what makes a great preacher, charles Spurgeon is said to have answered, a great congregation. Because where a congregation is hungry for God's word, submitted to God's Word, and eager to obey God's word, I guarantee there will be good preaching and teaching. I guarantee it.
I'm thankful for you, by the way. You are a good congregation. Verse 34, it says, Peter began to speak. Now, I truly understand that God doesn't show favoritism, but in every nation, the person who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. So Peter keeps moving closer and closer to the revelation that God is working to give him.
It bears mentioning again that much of this should not have been as radical to the apostles and the Jewish believers as it was for all the way back in the old Testament. Under the old covenant in the law, god had clearly given Israel commands to embrace foreigners who wanted to be part of Israel, who wanted to be part of the people of God. In deuteronomy ten god told them, for the Lord your god is the God of gods and Lord of lords the great, mighty and aweinspiring God. Showing no partiality and taking no bribe, he executes justice for the fatherless and the widow and loves the resident alien, giving him food and clothing. You are also to love the resident alien since you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt.
Peter, in this moment was saying, wow, this is amazing. What a revolutionary concept. God will accept everyone who responds to the revelation he's given them, even if they're a foreigner and God's like. That's always been my thing, Peter. That's always been my thing in this moment.
In Peter's mind, the Gentiles don't have to become Jewish anymore to be part of the church, but they're still in a different category. Much like foreigners who joined the nation of Israel, they would never be accepted on the same level as ethnic Hebrews, even though technically they were part of the nation. Yes, they're part of Israel. Would you let your daughter marry one of them?
Would you have them over for dinner?
But they're part of the nation. Of course. Of course, they are. We're all equal here. Of course.
But God's going to get to this too. Peter now begins preaching to the household of Cornelius. In verse 36, he that's God sent the message to the Israelites proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all, a brief opening line that is loaded with massive truths. In that opening line, Peter tells them that Jesus was sent by God to humanity to bring a message of good news.
And that good news is that a man can have peace with God through Jesus Christ. You know, the events that took place throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John preached, Jesus' impact during the three years of his earthly ministry was massive. He electrified Israel with his miracles, his teaching, and his conflict with the religious leaders of the day. Pretty much everyone in the country had heard of him and knew who he was and knew what he was doing. It's also possible that Philip the Evangelist had been preaching in Caesarea and may have even started a church there and shared some more of that knowledge with the household of Cornelius.
But the idea is you guys have all heard about Jesus. You've all heard about it he says you've heard how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how he went about doing good and healing all who were under the tyranny of the devil because God was with him. We ourselves are witnesses of everything he did in both the Judean country and in Jerusalem, and yet they killed him by hanging him on a tree. The apostle Paul would later write to the Corinthians that Jesus appeared to Peter than the rest of the twelve disciples, then to more than 500 believers at one time, then to James, then to all the apostles, and finally to Himself. The method of Jesus' death crucifixion is specifically mentioned by Peter to make two points.
Firstly, that Jesus was given a criminal's death. He's highlighting the contrast and the injustice between who Jesus was a man anointed by God, full of the Holy Spirit, who went about doing good and healing the oppressed, and how Jesus was treated. He was put to death as a criminal. Then he's also mentioning this for a second reason that both the Romans and the Gentiles participated in the murder of Jesus. The Jews arranged it, and the Gentile Romans executed it, for it was our sin that he died for.
On the Cross - verse 40 - God raised up this man on the third day and caused him to be seen, not by all the people, but by us, whom God appointed as witnesses, who ate and drank with Him after he rose from the dead. He specifically mentions that they ate and drank with him because people believed in ghosts at this time. But everyone at this time knew that a ghost can't eat or drink because they have no physical body. And so, when Peter mentions this, he's making the point that Jesus was physically alive from the dead. He was resurrected in a physical body.
They witnessed him eating and drinking, they ate and drank with him. He wanted them to know that Jesus in his resurrected form interacted with the physical world. He commanded underlying commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead. The Gospel message is incomplete if it does not include the vital piece of information that Jesus will judge every man and woman. There won't be a vote on who gets into heaven.
There won't be a jury who decides the eternal fate of every man and woman. It will just be you and Jesus. And the standard he will judge by will not be the Constitution of the United States, or the Canadian federal legal code, or a global consensus on what is good and what is bad. Jesus will not be grading on a curve. The standard Jesus will judge everyone by will be Himself, and he is completely without sin, perfect in every way, qualified to judge by that standard.
Write this down and we'll keep talking about it. Every person will be judged by Jesus according to the standard of his righteousness. The standard of his righteousness.
But since obviously nobody can meet his standard of righteousness, how is it possible that some will be found acceptable while all others will not? Please don't miss this. I'm about to share one of the single most important pieces of doctrine every person needs to understand. Every person. If none of us can meet his standard, how is it possible that some people will?
It's because those who put their faith in Jesus are not given the power to meet his standard of sinless perfection. They are given his sinless perfection. Let me explain. It wouldn't help you if God gave you the power to meet his standard of sinless perfection because you've already blown it. You don't have a time machine.
The option of you producing a complete, perfect life is long gone. Can you say amen if you have a modicum of selfawareness? Amen. Jesus took the punishment for all your sin, past, present and future at the cross. He took the punishment that you and me deserved on our behalf.
Praise Jesus for that. But that still leaves this issue of God's standard of sinless perfection that we must meet in order to be part of his family and be with Him for eternity. And that's the incredible part of what took place on the cross, the incredible second part. It's the reason it's called the divine exchange. You see, not only did Jesus take our sin on the cross, but he gave us his righteousness.
There was an exchange. Paul says it like this in two Corinthians 521, god made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. He gets our sin, we get his righteousness. It's scandalous, it's absurd, but praise God, it's true. It's true.
And the best way I can explain this is by taking you back to my childhood and early teen years, where I had some very, very suspect theology that was deposited into me by some very wellintentioned pastors and youth pastors and people in the churches that I grew up in. You see, I grew up believing that when I died, I would be brought before God who would judge my life, and we'd be in some sort of cosmic courtroom, and everyone who had ever lived and died would be in the audience. And my life would be judged by way of video evidence displayed on a giant screen for these billions of people to see. When your youth pastor tells you not to go watch that Rrated movie, it hits different when you've got this picture in your head, I'll tell you. And then what would happen in my mind is an angel would put in this VHS cassette, push Play, and there it would all be on the screen.
Everything I had ever done wrong, every impure thought, every cuss word, every wrong act, every single sin. But then at the end, Jesus would say, I've died for you and forgiven you. You may enter heaven, and then into heaven I would go. Where I would avoid contact with everyone else for the rest of eternity because they knew every sin I had ever committed. And I just walk around forever looking at the floor.
This floor is made of gold. Looks like this floor is made of gold too. And this and that's what we'd all be doing in heaven for eternity, because none of us would be able to look each other in the eyes. But with all that bad theology, imagine this. Imagine the angel puts in the VHS cassette of your life and the video evidence begins to play before the sea of humanity watching on that giant screen.
And you're puzzled because on the screen is a young boy who seems to have lived a long time ago.
And you're watching him. And he's just the best kid. He's kind and respectful to his parents and always cares about others, never tries to get revenge on anyone who wrongs him. And he's a kid and he talks to God all the time. He's just amazing.
And as the video continues playing and the boy on the screen gets older and older, you realize it's Jesus. You're watching a video of the life of Jesus and he just becomes more and more amazing and more and more wonderful and he's just perfect. And you don't say anything because you're just so captured by what you're watching on the screen. But eventually you can't take it anymore. And you say, I need to tell the court.
That's not me. I wish that was, but that's not me. That's not my life. That's clearly the life of Jesus. And God says, well, I guess we better doublecheck the evidence.
The angel ejects the VHS cassette and holds it out toward the audience so that you can see the edge that has the label on it. And you can clearly see that the label said Jesus life. But somebody's taken a Sharpie and drawn a line through the name Jesus. They've written your name on there instead. Everyone knows what's going on, but to your amazement, God, the judge, says, I think everyone here can tell what's going on.
The evidence is clear. This is obviously a video of your life. And then he says, because you've lived a perfectly righteous life and there are no outstanding warrants or charges against you, I'm delighted to welcome you to my family and into heaven for all eternity. That's what I'm talking about when I say those who put their faith in Jesus are not given the power to meet his standard of sinless perfection, they are given his sinless perfection. We are robed in the righteousness of Jesus.
Not righteousness like Jesus, the righteousness of Jesus. When God looks at us, it is as though we are as righteous as Jesus. He didn't give us a fresh start so that we could try again. Because news flash, we just messed that up too. Listen, if we could lose our salvation, we would lose our salvation.
If there's any way we could mess it up, we would mess it up. I'm sorry if you haven't realized this about yourself yet, but Jesus gave us something we could never mess up his righteousness. Jesus lived, died, and rose from the dead in our place. He lived a perfect life in our place. He died for our sins and was judged in our place.
And he rose from the dead in our place so that we could follow in his footsteps and rise as he did. If you haven't written this down yet, would you please do so? Those who put their faith in Jesus are not given the power to meet his standard of sinless perfection. They are given his sinless perfection. And now, before we go on, I just need to correct some of that atrocious theology that I just poured out for you.
In some of that illustration, you need to know that in reality, those who have placed their faith in Jesus were judged at the cross because Jesus was judged in our place. If your faith is in Jesus, you've already been judged already two thousand years ago at the cross of Calvary. The only judgment awaiting believers is for eternal rewards, for good works. Our salvation is a settled issue. Secondly, you need to know that those who reject Jesus will stand before Him and be judged.
But there will be no giant video scream and there will be no protests. And I'll tell you why. Because when we see Jesus, when we just see Him in his glory and his majesty and his beauty and his power and his greatness, nobody will dare to even say, oh, I can live up to that. Nobody will even think it. Nobody will say, yeah, I'll give it a go way my life, I think I'll hold up.
Nobody will say it. It will all become clear the second they see them in an instant. Nobody will refute the judgments rendered by Jesus, because they will know that they're all true. All of them. And then, thirdly, praise God, the sins of every believer have been paid for and will not be remembered in eternity.
That's right. We will be able to look each other in the eye in heaven forever. For we will be who we were created to be. And we will enjoy fellowship with one another on a completely different level. Because all of us will be freed from our sin, our issues, our insecurities, and our infirmities.
There is a version of every person in this room who would blow your mind with how awesome they are. You're going to meet them. You're going to meet them. We're going to hang out together for eternity. The gospel message must include the reality of sin and.
The coming judgment because it is the reason we so desperately need to be forgiven of our sins. We have an appointment with judgment apart from the mercy and grace of Jesus, and the only way to be forgiven and made righteous is through Jesus. Peter continues in verses 43, and he says all the prophets testify about him, about Jesus, that through his name, everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins. We hear again this hint that Peter is in real time having his understanding unlocked. He's beginning to realize what Jesus was talking about when he told his disciples, I have other sheep that are not from the sheep pen.
I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd. While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came down on all those who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even when the Gentiles for they heard them speaking in tongues in other languages and declaring the greatness of God. If you've been with us through our study, you will recall that this is the same thing that happened to the Hebrew believers in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. In Acts chapter two, it was the same thing that happened to the Samaritan believers when Peter and John were called up to minister with Philip.
The point being that they, the Gentiles, were receiving the same Holy Spirit as the Jews and the Samaritans. God was giving his Spirit to and placing His Spirit in these Gentiles the same way he had done it with the Jewish believers in Jerusalem. And this made it clear that God was making no distinctions between Jews, Samaritans and Gentiles. God had eliminated any kind of class structure in the church, and God was not requiring the Gentiles to be circumcised or follow any Jewish rituals or anything like that. This was once again undeniable and incontrovertible evidence.
The theology of the Jerusalem Church would need to change to line up with what God was doing. And we should also note there was no special teaching on the Holy Spirit that needed to be given before these Gentiles could receive the Holy Spirit. All they did was listen and believe. And when they believed they received the Holy Spirit and they were regenerated, their dead spirits were brought to life. Simply put, when a person repents and believes the Gospel, the Holy Spirit comes into their lives, there's no such thing as a Christian who doesn't have the Holy Spirit.
It's impossible. If you don't know what tongues is when it mentions that, please go back and listen to the message dedicated to that from earlier in this series, where we go through it in detail. Remember what Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the gift of tongues, though he told them, the person who speaks in a tongue is not speaking to people, but to God. It is not God speaking to man. It's man speaking to God, as we see here in verse 46, where the household of Cornelius is given the gift of tongues, which they use to do what?
Declare the greatness of God, it says. Then Peter responded, can anyone withhold water and prevent these people from being baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? He commanded underline commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, we always see baptism follow salvation. And Peter even makes the point that since these Gentiles have clearly received the Holy Spirit, they must already be saved and should therefore be baptized.
It's clear evidence that baptism is not what saves a person, but it is what should immediately follow salvation. And I think Peter was being smart when he got the six Jewish men who had accompanied him from Joppa to do the baptizing. Peter was like, I'm getting you in on this as well. You're not going to be able to pretend this whole thing didn't happen because you're going to be the ones who baptized these guys. So later on, when we have to go give a report about this to somebody, you're all going to be witnesses because you're part of this now, and that's what he's doing.
It says, then they asked him. They asked Peter to stay for a few days. And these are other evidences of genuine salvation. There's a hunger for fellowship with other believers and the desire to learn more about Jesus. Even if someone is a brand new Christian, we see these desires when the Holy Spirit is present in a person.
They want to be around other believers who love Jesus, and they want to learn more about Jesus by staying with them. Peter would, of course, be eating with them, and he did. All the pieces came together, and Peter was able to understand now the full picture of what God was doing in bringing the Gentiles and the Jews together. In one church on Pentecost, peter had quoted the prophet Joel in his sermon to the crowd when he said, then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. His thinking had been, of course, everyone can become a Jew and be saved.
But now he was realizing there weren't Jews and Gentiles anymore. There was just the Church of Jesus, and Jesus would give his spirit to anyone who called on his name, repented and placed their faith in him. There were no other prerequisites or requirements. While Peter chose to stay in fellowship with the Gentile converts in Caesaria, word of what had taken place reached the Jerusalem church and shocked them. All they heard was Peter's defiling himself by eating with uncircumcised Gentiles.
Let's continue into chapter eleven. The apostles and the brothers and sisters who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. When Peter went up to Jerusalem, the Circumcision Party criticized him, saying, you went to uncircumcised men and ate with them. The Circumcision Party were a sect within the very early Church made up of Pharisees who claimed to be Christians but believed and taught that one had to become Jewish in order to be saved. Most notably, this belief mandated circumcision for men who wanted to join the church.
Members of the Circumcision Party are also referred to by scholars as Judaizers, which means to become a Judean or to live like the Jews. And as we shall see in later chapters of the Book of Acts and later books in the New Testament, some members of the Circumcision Party were genuine believers who would change their wrong beliefs over time, but others were not genuine believers, and they would eventually oppose the early Church. It says in verses four peter began to explain to them step by step I was in the town of Jonpa praying, and I saw in a trance an object that resembled a large sheet coming down, being lowered by its four corners from heaven, and it came to me. When I looked closely and considered it, I saw the fourfooted animals of the earth, the wild beasts, the reptiles, and the birds of the sky. I also heard a voice telling me, get up, Peter.
Kill and eat. No, Lord, I said, for nothing impure or richly unclean has ever entered my mouth. But a voice from heaven answered a second time. What God has made clean, you must not call impure. Now, this happened three times, and everything was drawn up again into heaven.
At that very moment, three men who had been sent to me from Caesaria arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to accompany them with no doubts at all. These six brothers he's obviously gesturing to the brothers from Joppa, also accompanied me, and we went into the man's house. He reported to us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, send to Joppa and call for Simon, who is also named Peter. He will speak a message to you by which you and all your household will be saved.
Peter expands on the account we read in chapter ten by telling us that Cornelius'divine visitor specifically told him that Peter's message would save him and his household. As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came down on them just as on us. At the beginning, I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, john baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If then God gave them the same gift that he also gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, how could I possibly hinder God? Peter tells him it wasn't my call.
God does what he wants, and it's clear that God has given the Gentiles the same Holy Spirit he's given us. This was a seismic theological shift. Because if God considered these gentiles worthy of being temples of his spirit, then it meant that ceremonial laws and food laws no longer had the ability to make a man clean or unclean. Before god says in verses 18 when they heard this, they became silent and they glorified God, saying so then God has given repentance resulting in life even to the Gentiles. When we look at the actions of the circumcision party over the rest of the New Testament, I think it's likely that in this moment the sincere believers glorified God, while the insincere members probably just got angry eyebrows and held their tongues because they knew there was nothing they could say.
They couldn't argue with Peter's logic because it was arguing with God. Unquestionably, the apostles and the other believers definitely glorified God in this moment. And again, this marked a seismic shift in the Church, because if this had not happened, the Church would never have begun to evangelize Gentiles like us in earnest. It took years, but the Church finally realized that because Jesus had lived a perfect life on our behalf and fulfilled the law on our behalf, all Jewish ceremonial laws had passed away with the old covet. Write this down.
This is what it meant in the New Covenant were made clean and righteous by faith in Jesus. We're made clean and righteous by faith in Jesus.
As Western men and women, we don't generally like the concept of submission. If asked the question, do you submit to your boss? You'd likely say no. Or at a minimum, you'd fight me covet the terminology. You'd be like, use a different word, Jeff.
I mean, in reality, you do submit to your boss, right? Because if you didn't, you wouldn't be working there very long. You just don't like the word submit, do you? Something in the natural flesh of a woman shafts at the biblical command to submit to one's husband, just as something in the natural flesh of a man chafes at the biblical command to submit to governmental authorities must be a typo. Hear me on this, because it's deeper than you think.
Our flesh values deeply the illusion that we are independent of all authorities. I'll say it again. Our flesh values deeply the illusion that we are entirely independent of all authorities. That's why when churches talk about the Great Commission that Jesus gave to his disciples, it's usually quoted as, go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and the rest gets left out.
You know what the rest of the Great Commission is? Teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. Jesus commanded his disciples to make disciples by doing what? Preaching the gospel? Baptizing new believers and teaching them to observe.
That means to obey everything he had taught the disciples. The term Christian and disciple of jesus are synonyms. You cannot be a Christian without also being a disciple of Jesus. You cannot accept the forgiveness of Jesus, but refuse to obey Jesus, as we often put it. You cannot accept Jesus as Savior, but reject him as Lord.
It's not an offer Jesus makes. Jesus is our Lord. He's our commanding officer. He gives orders, we obey. Because to be a Christian means willingly placing your life under the authority of Jesus.
That's what it means to be a Christian. I'll ask the worship team to come up and get ready. I was struck by this theme of authority that comes up around Cornelius and the other centurion's interactions with Jesus in Capernaum. Cornelius tells Peter, God commanded me to get ready to receive a message that he had commanded you to bring to me. So here I am with my entire household, ready to receive our orders.
The centurion in Capernaum told Jesus, I recognize that you have authority over sickness and death, therefore, don't inconvenience yourself by coming to my house. Just speak the word. I know it'll be done. And Jesus told his disciples to make more disciples by this standard, teaching amen and women to obey his commands.
The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives serves as inarguable evidence that God has approved of us because we are robed in the righteousness of Jesus. God has marked us as clean in his sight. But the hear me on this. The presence of the Holy Spirit, we love the thing I'm clean. We love it.
I'm approved by God, we love it. But understand this. Paul writes about the synthesians one as well. The presence of the Holy Spirit in us also marks us as God's property.
Paul said it like this in his second letter to the Corinthians, writing don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body. The Christian life gets a lot simpler when we begin to understand this. It doesn't get easier when we begin to understand this, but it does get simpler.
Jesus is my commanding officer. He gives the orders and I obey. And many Christians are confused and engaged in all kinds of foolish living, because in their minds, they're at the table as an equal with Jesus making decisions together. And Jesus in their mind is looking at them and saying, but what do you think? What do you think?
That's what I really want to know. And I'm sorry if this is news to you, but it doesn't matter what you think. It does not matter what you think. Jesus is not interested in your input in the decisionmaking process any more than a heart surgeon would be before he operated on you. That surgeon is not going to give you a bunch of scans and charts and say, here's what I see.
I mean, here's how I'm going to approach the surgery. But what I really want to know is what you think we should do. Where should we cut first? That scenario is ridiculous because you know nothing about heart surgery. I don't either.
The gap in medical knowledge between you and me and the heart surgeon is about the size of the Grand Canyon. We get that. But we don't get this. How immeasurable, then, is the gap in knowledge and understanding and wisdom between you and God in every subject? How great is that gap?
We are not God. We are not at the table to offer our input. He's our commanding officer. He gives orders and we obey. But, my goodness, we are blessed beyond measure for this reason.
Our commanding officer loves us. In fact, our commanding officer loves us so much that he died for us. He took every bullet, every shot, every hit for us. And every command that he gives us is for our good. Every command.
Therefore we gladly submit. Therefore we gladly obey. Therefore we gladly say, jesus is King. Jesus is king. Let's pray.
Would you buy your head and close your eyes? Jesus, thank you for Your word. And thank you that you are the commanding officer over our lives. Thank you that we need not flounder in life directionless. We need only turn our focus and our attention to the One who has authority over us, who only commands us to do that which is good for us, who loves us and gave Himself for us.
And so, Jesus, I pray, first of all, would you forgive us where we have resisted and been rebellious against Your authority over our lives? Forgive us, Lord. You have never been anything but good. We have no reason to doubt and no reason to question. And so forgive us where we have ignored the ocean of evidence of Your kindness and instead listen to the lies of our flesh.
Forgive us, Lord, and wherever we need to turn and repent. Would you illuminate that right now in each of our individual lives by the power of Your Spirit, that we might repent and begin to follow our orders? Because you're the king. You're the king. And then, Jesus, thank you that we're robed in Your righteousness.
Thank you that you didn't just give us a second chance, because we know we would have messed that up too. But you gave us Your righteousness that is more kind and good than we could ever put into words, than we could ever express with a million songs. You're just so good to give us, you. And so I pray again this week for anyone who is living for you, following you as Lord, but is haunted by any shame from sins that you have forgiven. In Jesus name we speak the righteousness of Jesus over that life.
In Jesus name we speak the truth of God's Word over that mind and we command every contradictory thought to leave in the name of Jesus and be replaced with the peace and the assurance that comes from the inalterable, unchangeable righteousness of Jesus that is ours through him. Thank you for that. Lord Jesus, we bless you and we love you. And just as we take this time to worship you, we just want you to be blessed. We don't want anything from you other than for you to just be blessed and to hear from the depths of our heart.
Thank you. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for caring about us. Thank you for lighting the way that leads to life. Thank you for calling us.
Walk on it. Help us to do it. Lord, we want to be a blessing to you. We love you so much. Jesus.
In your name we pray. Amen.