Acts 9:32-11:18 | Peter + Gentiles

Zach Cunningham continues a series on the book of Acts.

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Good morning, guys. Hey, grab a seat, grab a seat. Guys, welcome to King's Church. Hope you're doing well. If we haven't met yet, my name is Drake. I'm one of the pastors here. Excited that you guys are joining us this morning. Excited to be here. And like Zach said, yes, my wife and I also made the mistake of going to Target where there were thousands of college students, moms asking to buy their kids snacks, which I want my mom to buy me snacks more often. But it was uh it was great, which can only mean, yeah, college students are back. And so, like Zach was saying, I mean, if there's a few things that you need to know uh about our church, one of them is that we are a church all about the next generation, and pretty unapologetically about the next generation. Uh, if you look at uh just kind of the revivals and awakenings that have happened throughout church history, uh they are often on the backs of two things prayer and young adults and college students. And so we want to do everything that we can, leverage everything that we have to help reach the next generation, because we believe if we can reach the next generation, we can actually uh win the world. And so we love college students, but not just that, we also love the Bible, okay? We are a Bible church, that's one of our values, and so we're about to do what we do every single Sunday, and that's just open up the Bible and see what God has to say to us and look at Jesus Christ, the greatest one who has done the greatest thing. And so Acts chapter 10 uh is where we are going to be in our time together this morning. Acts chapter 10. Uh, we're continuing in the sermon series, just going through the book of Acts, and today uh we have the longest narrative in the book of Acts. And so I don't want to waste too much time. Acts chapter 10. Uh, but while you guys turn there, I will start with this story uh that I heard uh this summer. Uh it happened and made the news, was uh going through the news and everything, and it was basically one of uh America's like fighter pilots uh was shot down over Iran, and uh there were two people on board of this fighter jet, and both of them were able to be ejected. Um the pilot of it uh was actually able to be rescued almost right away. Uh but there was another guy on there, the uh systems operation kind of guy, and he was also able to be ejected and everything, but uh his leg was injured and he wasn't able to be rescued. And so for the next 48 hours or so, he was just in enemy territory uh in the mountains, uh knowing that the IRGC was trying to find him. And he knew, okay, the jet got shot down, the fighter jet got shot down, and so like usually best case scenario uh is that the United States military would about have a 100 square mile radius of where he could be. And so not great odds. And yet, the last piece of communication uh that he got was this, where the United States military said, Hey, if you have a heartbeat, we will find you. Which that's like some Liam Neeson type stuff, you know, like, you know, I have a unique set of skills, I will find you. I was I was like getting goosebumps. I'm like, that's awesome. And uh the reason that the United States military was so confident is because they were just rolling out this new technology uh called the Ghost Murmur, uh, which could locate a heartbeat up to 40 miles away. And so they said, hey, if you have a heartbeat, we will find you. Okay, and that and that's exactly what they did. You see the United States military go through this honestly pretty impressive uh coordination tactic thing. They were using a bunch of these different people in order to get this one guy. I mean, they had over 150 uh aircraft carriers, a hundred other personnel, special ops, air force people, all these kind of people uh moving around, coordinating logistics in order to get this one guy. Spent over $200 million, thank you, taxes, uh, you know, all the all that kind of stuff, across barriers, did everything to get this one man, and they did. And it was successful and it was awesome. And I start there this morning because uh, in not a too unfamiliar way, that's a little bit about what we are about to see in the book of Acts, okay? In the book of Acts, chapter 10 specifically, we actually see another mission unfolding, okay? But this time it's not a military mission, it's the mission that God has left his people. Okay, if we remember in uh Jesus' earthly ministry, he gives us his mission statement, where in Luke 19, Jesus says that he has come to seek and to save the lost, but it didn't just end there. Jesus actually gave his disciples, gave his followers the same mission to continue. And it's the verse that we've been going back to over and over again in our study of the book of Acts, and it's Acts 1.8, that his disciples will be his witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to what? To the ends of the earth. And today we are going to see that shift. Okay, because Acts chapter 10 is God moving around a bunch of these different people to accomplish his mission. A mission to get the gospel to the nations, and he's orchestrating everything to make it happen. Okay, he's going to prepare the heart of one guy, he's going to prepare the heart of another guy, he's going to time everything up so that they meet, so that they can encounter, and ultimately the mission will be a success where the gospel won't just stay with one people group, but it's actually going to reach the Gentiles and eventually to the rest of the nations. And it's because of this story in the Bible. Uh the most a lot of scholars are going to say this this uh Acts chapter 10, it's not just one of the most significant chapters in the book of Acts, but really it's one of the most significant chapters in all the Bible. And because it's it's this chapter here that's the reason that we are sitting here in Denton, Texas, thousands of miles away from Jerusalem, worshiping a carpenter from Nazareth. Okay, and it's also this chapter here that really sets up the rest of the book of Acts that follows the gospel going to the ends of the earth. And so that's what we're gonna see today. Acts chapter 10 is something that we should pay attention to, and I just want to walk right through it. And so Acts chapter 10, verse 1, that's where we're gonna be. Says this. There was a man in Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian regiment. He was a devout man and feared God along with his whole household. He did many charitable deeds for the Jewish people, and always prayed to God. About three in the afternoon he distinctly saw in a vision an angel of God who came in and said to him, Cornelius. Staring at him in awe, he said, What is it, Lord? The angel told him, Your prayers and your acts of charity have ascended as a memorial offering before God. Now send men to Joppa and call for Simon, who is also named Peter. He is lodging with Simon, another Simon, a tanner whose house is by the sea. And when the angel who spoke to him had gone, he called two of his household servants and a devout soldier, who was one of those who attended him, and after explaining everything to him, he sent them to Joppa. Okay, quickly, let me just make sure that we're all on the same page here. Uh we are introduced to this man named Cornelius, and the first thing that we need to see about Cornelius is that he was a Gentile. Okay, up until uh this point in Scripture, really there were only kind of two categories for people. You either had uh Jewish people who were the people of God's promise, God's covenant, and then you also had the Gentiles, and the Gentiles would have been considered uh the outsiders in this realm. But this Gentile man, he gets a vision to go to a different man, Peter, and we know Peter he is a Jew. Now, what's interesting is that these two groups, Jews and Gentiles, were completely opposed to one another. Okay, like today we have some different categories for people being opposed. You know, we have the Aggies versus the Longhorns, we have Toby McGuire Spider-Man people and Tom Holland Spider-Man people, and then like 1% of people who are Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man people. Um, but we have different types of groups. I'm sorry for some of these guys. Uh we have these different categories here, right, where people can be opposed to one another. That's not what's happening. It's not like Aggies versus Longhorns here, for as much as you think you might hate each other, we're still Texas. Um, but Jews and Gentiles, they wanted nothing to do with each other uh in this day and age. Like, just to paint a picture of it, like Jews considered Gentiles defiled and unclean. They would not welcome them into their houses, they would not go to their houses. They even considered Gentile uh countries to be like dirty countries, so much so that if they had to travel through these countries, they would shake the dust off of their feet before they got back to Israel. Like that's how much they despise one another. And that's going to be crucial to the story. But let's move on to Peter's vision. So we saw Cornelius in this vision happening, but God's moving his pieces, and in verse nine it says this. The next day, as they were traveling and nearing the city, Peter went up to pray on the roof about noon. He became hungry and wanted to eat, but while they were preparing something, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven open and an object that resembled a large sheet coming down, being lowered by its four corners to the earth. In it were all the four footed animals and reptiles of the earth and the birds of the sky. And a voice said to him, Get up, Peter, kill and eat. No, Lord, Peter said, which, by the way, total contradiction. If he's Lord, you don't say no. But if there's one person to talk back to Jesus and God, it's going to be Peter. Uh and so he he talks back and he says, This for I have never eaten anything impure and ritually unclean. Again, a second time the voice said to him, Well, God has made clean, do not call impure. This happened three times. And suddenly the object was taken up into heaven. Alright, big thing that we see right off the bat in the story. We kind of see these uh two different um uh people and these two different visions, and really what we're seeing is that God, He's going to take two very different people from two very different places, two very different spiritual states, and he's orchestrating again all of this together to accomplish his mission. And so the scene is set. What we're seeing right off the bat is that God is preparing the heart of the gospel hearer, and he's preparing the heart of the gospel messenger. Okay, so let's go back and let's see this gospel hearer. Let's look back at uh Cornelius again in verses one through eight. Luke is actually going to give some descriptions about Cornelius. And so we've already seen that he's a Gentile, but Luke kind of adds on to this, uh, and he says that in general, like Cornelius was a man of faith, that uh he feared God. Now it's not saying that he was uh he worshipped the God of Israel and the God of the Bible. Basically, what he's saying uh is that he's rejected kind of the paganism that existed in Rome at the time, and he wasn't going to submit to uh those types of little deity gods. But also not just that he was a man somewhat of faith, but also he was a family man. It says that his whole household followed him and that he had some type of fervor, right? He he gave a lot of charitable deeds, he prayed continuously to God so much so that I mean when you combine a man of faith, a man of family, and some fervor, some umph behind what he believed, uh we see in verse 22 that he was well spoken of by the entire nation of Israel. And again, this is a Jewish dude, or this is a Gentile dude, but all the Jews were speaking highly of him. And so, as far as we can tell, like Cornelius, he's a good dude. And yet, his goodness was only getting him so far with God. We're gonna see later on in chapter 11 that Cornelius, in this moment, although he was good in a worldly sense, he was not saved. Okay, he has not responded in faith to the gospel, and so he was religious, but he was not righteous. Okay, Jay uh commentator Jay Vernon McGee said this He said, In America today, he would pass for a Christian, a Christian of the highest degree, an outstanding man, but he actually was not a Christian. Why? Because religious sincerity does not make someone a Christian and yet we see something interesting is that God, what he what he's showing us in these first eight verses is that God was preparing his heart. Right, and so he had heard Cornelius' prayers and he's actually sending an angel to him. And what this angel comes to Cornelius and says is, hey, God has heard your prayers, and also, hey, you need to go find this dude named Peter. He's gonna tell you some pretty cool things. Okay, but if if I'm Cornelius, first of all, I'm shocked it says that he's in awe, but I'm just like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. Like an angel shows up to me. Okay, you want me to go find Peter for him to tell me some things, but why can't you just tell me right now? You know, like that that'd be pretty cool. Like, let's just hash this out. You said that Peter's in Joppa, that's like 33 miles away. It's gonna take him a little bit to get here, okay? No cars. That's gonna take him a while. Why don't we just figure this out right now? But that's not what happens in this story. The angel he didn't just tell him the good news of the gospel, and it's because God wasn't just preparing the heart of the gospel hearer, he was also doing something unique. He was preparing the heart of a gospel messenger in Peter 30 miles away. Right? Because at the same time that Cornelius was getting this vision and getting these commands for what to do, he was also preparing Peter's heart to actually share the gospel with this uh Gentile unclean man according to some standards. And you may notice if we go to Peter's vision, uh Peter's vision is a pretty weird vision. Like, like, why is the Bible being weird again, you know? Like that type of stuff. Like Peter, but he like a good Jewish man at the time, he went up on his rooftop to pray in the middle of the day, uh, as they were called to do. Uh, but like any man, he gets hungry, okay? And all of a sudden, Peter he sees the sheet representing all of the animals of the entire world come down, and God, in this moment, he says every hunter's favorite verse Rise, kill, and eat. Okay, every hunter has that memorized, right? And this is like a meat lover's dream right here, okay? Like pigs descending upon a blanket. This is the OG pigs in a blanket that's happening right now. And Peter, and Peter, he basically says, No way. Like, no way, Lord, I'm I'm not going to do that. Okay, because Peter, as a good Jew, would have known, hey, there are certain animals that I am not supposed to eat. That in the Old Testament, God had created a covenant people. He wanted these people to be different from the surrounding nations, and part of being different was following a different dietary restriction. Right? And so Peter would have known, hey, God, I read Deuteronomy 14, I've read Leviticus 11, I'm not touching those things. Right? But Peter, maybe thinking this is a test, he's saying, No, I'm not gonna do it. But if you know anything about Peter, uh, Peter is like the king of the threes, okay? He's like Steph Curry. Um, because if you know him, you know his story, you know that he denied Jesus three times, you know that he received like restoration and forgiveness three times, and then he receives this uh vision three times because God is trying to get him to see something pretty unique and significant. And so God in this moment, it's almost like he's saying, Hey Peter, I'm not testing you to see if you're gonna be a faithful Jew. No, I am expanding your understanding of what it means to be a faithful follower of me. And what it means to be a faithful follower of me is to see that salvation, it's not just gonna be for the Jewish people, it's going to be for people of every tribe, tongue, and nation. Okay, because this vision, it ultimately wasn't about food, it's about people. Okay, and Peter is going to realize this in a second, but I think before we move on to see these uh two guys actually meet, we at least not need to stop and ask some questions about Cornelius and Peter. And the first thing that I think this text absolutely needs us to see is this. The first thing is this it's hey, some of us honestly need to be asking the question, am I a Cornelius? Am I like Cornelius? Okay, I would be foolish to not bring this up. Like there's there are people all over the world, and I think just from my experience, to a heightened level in Texas, who look a lot like Cornelius. Okay, they respect God, they will even pray to God, they will do some amazing charitable deeds, they can talk the talk, they can walk the walk in some solid ways. They know how to pray, and from the outside, it looks like they are a good person. They would pass for a Christian, but they aren't actually saved. And that's because what what we see here and what we know from Romans 3 and all over the Bible, it's that it's not good people who go to heaven, it's forgiven people who go to heaven. Right? People who have uh received the gospel by faith and actually have responded to it. And so I think we at least need to pause and consider like, am I a Cornelius, and then look at some diagnostic questions to think, man, is does that describe me? Right? Like, have I been around Christianity so much that I actually haven't received Christ? Because I think the most maybe the most dangerous place in the world could be where you get so comfortable being around church and Jesus, but you actually miss Jesus and you haven't responded to him in faith. So some diagnostic questions I think that we can be asking just to see, man, am I a Cornelius? Have I been around Christianity but haven't actually responded to Christ? I think the first one is this is like, do you have a head knowledge of Jesus but no real heart affection for him? Okay, like maybe maybe for you, I mean, you grew up in church. Like you were basically born in the church, like your first word was Jesus, all that kind of stuff. And you went to Iwanas, you know all the stories, you could be teaching the story. You're like, Drake, I know the Cornelia story, you know all of this kind of stuff, and yet if you're honest, even though uh like in a small group setting you can say the right things in order to come across as a Christian, you actually haven't really like dove into the beauty of actually knowing, loving, and trusting and following Jesus. You have head knowledge but no real heart affection. Another thing, maybe a diagnostic question, it would be to look at your relationship with sin. That when sin gets exposed, do you actually want to repent and to kill it? Or do you just want to kind of manage it? Right, and just to look respectable, because that's what one option would try to be. Like, hey, I don't really want to get rid of the sin in my life. I just want to maneuver it so that it looks good for the outside people, right? Because there's a huge difference in trying to want to get rid of sin just to look respectable to outside people, and wanting to get rid of sin to try and actually be holy before God. Right, those are two different types of realities. And then just the last one that I'd be curious about is that there's actually no desire in your heart to get baptized. You're like, no, man, that that's not for me. Like I've responded, sure, and I'm willing to follow Jesus anywhere, I guess, but I'm not willing to follow him into the waters of baptism. That just doesn't really seem like something I want to do. That's that's not really manly of me or anything like that. You know, like there's some people I've talked to, it's like, no, that's just that's that's for the super crazy Christians. I'm just like, man, to love Jesus is to follow his commands. And one of the very first things that Jesus is gonna command his followers to do is to go public with your faith through baptism. Right? And none of these diagnostic questions are meant to actually save us, right? Like Cornelius is about to find out that Peter, he's not just gonna say, hey, try harder and figure out these questions, then you become a believer. No, to be a believer, it's to repent and believe in the gospel and put your full uh worth onto Jesus. Yeah, I think that we need to at least be asking the question, man, is there some Cornelius in me in this moment? But not just that. I think the second thing that we need to see before we move on is that God wants to use believers to participate in the mission. God wants to use believers to participate in the mission. I think, I mean, it's so interesting. Like Cornelius could have had a really awesome story here. He could have gone to his small group and said, guys, you wouldn't believe it. There was this angel came to me, shared the gospel with me. It was crazy. You should have seen it how awesome it was. He shared the gospel with me, and I and I put my faith in Jesus. But what do we see? The angel comes, and basically, what the angel is there to do is to give him directions to go talk to Peter. Why? Well, because it's God's intention for Cornelius to hear the gospel through the mouth of Peter, which is a reminder that God's plan to save the world has always been through his people. That's God's plan A to save the world. Okay, and I love what John Phillips uh says. He says this uh God's plan to save the world through his people. World evangelism may be slower that way, but it is sweeter. Right? Because the believer has this really uh like uh weight and authority to their testimony. No angel can come to somebody and say, Hey, you wouldn't believe it, but I was a wretched sinner, and then Jesus changed my heart to make me want to respond and love him. An angel can't say that, but we can, and we see in Romans 10 that we've been like, how are these people supposed to believe unless they hear? How are they going to hear unless someone preaches to them? How are they to preach unless they are sent out? We have always been God's plan A to reach the world with the good news of the gospel. And so the question on the table for the believers in the morning, it's not, does God want to use me? It's am I willing to be used by him? Am I willing to be used by him? And so in this moment, God, in these first 16 verses, he's preparing the heart of the gospel hearer and preparing the heart of the gospel messenger, and now they are about to meet. Verse 17 says this It says, While Peter was deeply perplexed about what the vision he had seen might mean, right away, the men who had been sent by Cornelius, having asked directions to Simon's house, stood at the gate. Okay, that's awesome. Like in the same moment that Peter is like, he gets the vision, he's thinking, Man, what in the world could that mean? All of a sudden, some some Gentiles come and knock at his door, and they're like, Hey, like we we've been come, we've been sent to come and get you. And then verse uh 32, uh verse 23 says, And so he invited them in and began lodging with them, which is just awesome. Again, Jew, Gentile, a Jew would not have welcomed in a Gentile to his house, and yet we see Peter welcome them in, and Peter eventually go with them to go and try and find Cornelius. And we see the sensitivity to what God is already trying to do in his heart. He wants to be obedient to what God has revealed to him so far. And then what we see, just to kind of summarize the next few verses, is that these men with Peter they travel all the way back to in order to find Cornelius. Cornelius is just like posted up at his house. He's invited all of these different people because he's like, hey, Peter is coming. And so Peter gets to his house and Cornelius starts talking to him, and he says this in verse 33. He explains the vision, and then he says, So I immediately sent for you, and it was good of you to come, Peter. So now we're all in the presence of God to hear everything you have been commanded by the Lord. That is like a preacher's dream, if people have that posture. Alright, so remember our United States military operation, like different people, different places moving simultaneously towards one objective? That's what God is doing here. I mean, we should be so encouraged by how much control God has in this moment, how sovereign He is in this piece of scripture. Like He is so sovereign over the salvation of His people, He's willing to move about all of these different pieces in order to accomplish this. I mean, just again to think about. It's like he is like a movie director in this moment, and he's like, All right, Cornelius, have the vision. Great, the angel's gonna talk. Okay, at the same time, over here, Peter start having the vision, get confused like always. Okay, uh, Cornelius, send people to Peter. He's not gonna understand, just get him to come back here. And he's just like this movie director, cueing up all of these different things to get them to this moment. God is in total control of salvation in this moment. And so here's what I want you to see is maybe you get nervous by the idea of sharing the gospel and participating in this great mission that God left for us. I'm like, hey, you guys, we we are God's plan A to reach the world. And you're like, not for me, I'm an introvert. That's not me, Drake, you know? And you're like, no, that that seems out of my comfort zone, but but I think you gotta see this, okay? I love what our sending church pastor Austin Waddle said. He said, assume God's working around you because he probably is. Okay, assume God is working in the hearts of people around you because he probably is. Like we have no idea what God might be doing in the hearts of the people that he has strategically placed us around. Okay, and I'm even just preparing this message, I've seen this play out in my own life, okay? Go to the gym. I'm not listening to podcasts these days or music, I'm just just there at the gym, which feels so weird. Um, but but one of the things that I was prepping for in this is like, okay, God, like I know that you're probably working in some of the people around me. And so I just I'm trying to have my eyes to see, God, what might you what might you be doing? Let me step into some things. And and so there was like a 60-year-old guy, he was lifted more than me, so I felt really insecure, but I was like, man, um, God, assume God's working in the people around you because he probably is. And so uh just to show you, you don't need to be great at initiating gospel conversations. I just go up to him, like basically in the middle of a lift, and I'm like, bro, you're jacked. How'd you do that? And uh we just start talking, and uh, you know, I'm asking him, like, how long have you been in Denton? And uh he's saying, you know, some things, and ask him if he has a faith background, all this kind of stuff, and and we get to the end of this conversation, he says, you know what, man, this is this is so weird that you would even be asking me some of these questions because I actually just went to the doctor this past week, got some really nerve-wracking results, and I've just been thinking about the end a lot. And here I am, nervous to enter into this conversation with this guy, wondering what he's gonna think of me. And all this, I just didn't even realize what God might be doing. Like, I didn't create a spiritual interest in this dude. I mean, he said, you know, like I grew up Catholic and all this kind of stuff, but it's not really been personal to me. I didn't create a spiritual interest. God had just been moving in his heart and I just stepped into what God was doing. And and and man, I'll tell you, I I would so much rather have that. I would so much rather have God prepare somebody's heart to receive a pretty uh below average gospel presentation from me than to have like the best gospel articulation of all time, but a heart that's just hardened to what God might want to do. Like God, God is just always doing those types of things. And so I want us to just, man, what if you just live life, assuming that God is working in the people around you because he probably is? All right, and so maybe for you that's like your co-workers, just assuming that God is working in the life of your coworkers because he probably is. All right, some some stay-at-home moms assume that God is working at the mom that's also at the park with you during the week because he probably is. Right? College students. Like there are thousands of college students that are coming to Denton over the next couple of days. What if you just assumed that as you're walking on campus, God had been working on these freshmen's heart as they're coming into college to have an encounter with you? That God had been prepping their heart so that they can actually hear the good news of the gospel through you? What if you just operated like that? For the business guys in the room, for some of you who who oversee a bunch of people, what if you just assumed, hey, these people who are looking to me for guidance for work? What if what if God's actually just working in their life and I have a pretty unique setup as a boss, someone influential in their life, where they would actually be willing to hear the good news of the gospel through me? Right, like assume God's working in the life of people around you because he probably is. Alright, and I want you to see, like, certainly God was preparing the heart of Cornelius, but it's not just that, he was also really working on Peter in this moment. Going back to verse 28, it says this. Peter, he's getting to the house and he says this. He says, You know, it's forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner. But listen to this, but God has shown me that I must not call any person impure or unclean. I mean, thousands of years that the Jewish people were thinking about this, and and Peter is now showing, hey, God's showing me something. And you can just see the work that God is doing in his heart. I mean, verse 17, it says that Peter was deeply perplexed in this moment. But then in verse 28, it says, God has shown me. Alright, and so certainly in the story, absolutely, I think we should be so encouraged. God is moving in people's lives in order to save Cornelius, but he's also moving some pieces around in order to sanctify Peter. Right? And absolutely, like he's doing all these things, and then Peter, we're about to see the light bulb moment come on for him, where he's about to get, like, oh my gosh, like this is what God has been doing the whole time. Look down at verse 34. It said, Peter began to speak. Now I truly understand light bulb moments, that God doesn't show favoritism, but in every nation, the person who fears him and does what is right is acceptable. This is what Peter's saying. He's he's realizing what God's doing, and he's not saying, hey, it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere. No, what Peter is saying in this moment is that in God's kingdom, in God's economics, nobody is off limits and nobody is too far gone. God doesn't play favorites in his kingdom. Okay, and so and so if right here, Peter is realizing, man, it doesn't matter if you're a Jew or a Gentile, it doesn't matter if you're a Roman or an Israelite, it doesn't matter. Every nation, God has come for these people. Right? No, no ethnicity makes you too far to receive the gospel, right? No social class makes you too far gone, no worldview, no, no political tribe, no sexual history makes you too far gone. Peter is showing us there is no us versus them in the presenting of the gospel. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. God has come for his people, and now it's been unlocked for the Gentiles. It's been unlocked for people like us. And Peter sees that, which is awesome because I mean, man, Acts chapter 10, it shows us the mission of God. It doesn't merely save the people that we reach, it also sanctifies the people that he sends. And man, I'm I'm just encouraged by that. And now Peter, he's in a place to do what he's been sent to do, and that's to preach the good news of Jesus to these men. Verse 36, it says this. He's sharing the good news, and he said, He sent the message to the Israelites, proclaiming the good news of peace. How? Through Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all. And Peter's going to go through the perfect life, through the substitutionary death, through the triumphal resurrection of Jesus. And then he ends it in verse 43 with this. All the prophets testify about him that through his name, everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins. And while Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came down on all who heard the message. Okay, remember the question from earlier. Am I a Cornelius? Well, this is what Cornelius needed. This is when Cornelius was actually saved, and it's this, it's what every one of us needs is that forgiveness is through the name of Jesus. Okay, I've heard it said like this is that man has one problem: sin. We're all a part of one race, the human race. We all have one uh Savior in Jesus, and there's only one hope of the resurrection. And I love this because it just shows the simplicity of what actually receiving the gospel in faith actually is. Like Peter in this moment, he doesn't even get to finish his sermon. And all of a sudden you see the Holy Spirit come upon these people, these people are saved. Like Peter, he doesn't give an altar call. Peter's not having people respond through prayer. He's not uh orchestrating maybe some uh like emotional type of response. No, it's as Peter was preaching, all of a sudden, boom, Cornelius, all of these people are saved, and it just shows us that I mean you can receive the good news of the gospel in a moment. It doesn't have to be from something, it could be up here while I'm talking. Right? And not just that, but I love it because something else that's fascinating is that scholars are going to refer to this moment as the Gentile Pentecost. Okay, if you remember from our study of Acts chapter 2, what happens? It's our boy Peter preaching again, and he's preaching to all of these Jewish people who had come back to Jerusalem for a feast, and all of a sudden Peter is preaching about a risen Savior Jesus. All of a sudden people respond, they hear the gospel, respond to the gospel, the Holy Spirit falls into sins. And that's exactly what happens here. Peter is preaching a message to these people, they respond in faith, the Holy Spirit descends, and it's because God is trying to show us that this faith isn't just for the Jews. No, this faith is for people of every tribe, of every tongue, of every nation. I came for everyone. In fact, we're not gonna get to it, but half of chapter 11 is Peter going back to the church at the time and just saying, guys, this is what happened. God's coming after the Gentiles, and that's gonna rub up against so much of what we believe. But guess what, guys? Who are we to stand in the way of what God is trying to do? And so Peter is just laying this out for them, and really it's Acts chapter 10 that's just gonna set up, like from here on out, when we're studying Acts, we can look back to Acts chapter 10 and realize, man, the gospel is gonna go to the nations. And that's the rest of like Paul's missionary journeys. It's him going to the nations to preach the good news of the gospel. All right, so this may be an obscure story, but it's an unbelievably significant story about the gospel going to the ends of the earth. And Cornelius is just kind of like this poster child that says, Hey, I'm coming for anyone. No one is off limits from the good news of the gospel. No one's off limits from it. And so God, in this moment, he had a mission. He was moving the pieces around, he prepared uh the heart of the gospel here, he prepared the heart of the gospel message, he crossed barriers, he saved Cornelius, he sanctified Peter, and the gospel kept going. And we're gonna read throughout the rest of Acts the gospel kept going forth, and the gospel kept going forth, and the gospel kept going forth, and now, thousands of years later, we are here in Denton, Texas, worshiping the same gospel that saved these Peter back then. And the gospel just kept going, like the gospel it has come to us, and now the question is will it end with us? Is the gospel going to end with us? I love this idea that we are meant to be a gospel river, not a gospel reservoir. Right? We're not we're not supposed to keep the gospel with us. We are supposed to move the gospel in us and through us and to other people around us. We're not meant to be a reservoir that holds it in. We're meant to be a river that it flows out of. And so, I mean, I'll just tell you, the Christian life becomes a whole lot more fun when you realize that, man, God has saved me, but he hasn't just saved me to sit on the sidelines. No, he has saved me to be sent back out on this mission. I'm just curious what would happen if all of us in this room we just approached the city of Denton, we approached our campuses like that military operation uh that the United States went on to get this one dude. Where we just approach us like, man, okay, we're leaving here, we're going back out into our neighborhoods, into our workplaces, on our campuses, and basically, if we just had the posture of, man, if you have a heartbeat, I'm gonna tell you about Jesus. I'm gonna come for you because Jesus has saved me. I mean, I've been thinking about uh this week is so crucial in the life of our church. All these college students are coming, and we have 28 college students who have said yes to being a leader for Saul Company, who want to, who they've experienced God's grace in some pretty significant and real ways. So many of them actually have gotten baptized at some of our baptism services. Other, other of them, man, they just came to college just trying to be a morally better person than some of the people around them, not try to party too much or drink too much or anything. I just want a little bit of a college experience. And man, just by the grace of God through this past year, they just experienced, man, God has actually given me this amazing message. Now I want to go on mission for him. I want I want to go back to the to the people who I once was. I I was once a lost freshman who didn't know what to do. I didn't know the grace that I could receive in Jesus. But through Saul Company, through King's Church, through all these other different people, man, I've just experienced and taste the good news of the gospel, and now I want to tell everyone else about it. And so be praying for those 28, but but what I'm saying is it's not just for those 28, it's also for us as well. Every single person in the room who has received the message of Jesus, now we're called to be a messenger because the gospel of Acts 10 that went to Cornelius, that went to the ends of the earth, it's come to us. And now are we gonna pass the baton on? Who are we raising up? And that's what King's Church is all about. That's what we want to be. We don't want the gospel to stay here. We want the gospel to go all over Denton. We want the gospel to go all over Texas, all over the country, and we want to see a people raised up and just want to be a part of the work that God is doing, and maybe in his grace we can be a footnote of history in Denton for what he wants to do here. And so to that end, let me just let me just pray for us. Lord, I'm I'm so thankful for Acts chapter 10 and just being reminded of what you did through people like Peter, who was deeply perplexed about a lot of things, and yet what did he do? He just stepped out in faith and in boldness, and I pray that the people of King's Church that we'd see this message and this mission that you have given your people to seek and to save the lost, and we just come alongside of you for what you are already doing. Lord, would you prepare the hearts of people on the campus of UNT and on the campus of T Dub and NCTC? Would you prepare the hearts of people in our workplaces and stay-at-home moms and dads and all these different types of people that we may come in contact with? And and then would you prepare our hearts to want to just participate in what you would have for us? And so, Lord, would you use King's Church? Oh, if we could be a footnote in history of what you're doing here in Denton, I pray that we could. And so, Lord, even now I'm praying for the thousands of college students who are stepping foot onto campus, who are like sheep without a shepherd. Would you meet with them right now? Would you prepare their hearts so that when our student leaders and so many college students are going to come, that they'd be willing to respond to the gospel. I pray that welcome back Sunday next week, even we just get to see the fruit of what you're already doing, that we'd be encouraged and that would just embolden us even more. And so, Lord, we're so thankful for you and your goodness and your grace with the messages that came to us now to stay with us. Would you help us to reach more people around us in Jesus' name? Amen.