Faith in the Name of Jesus

As we wrap up our Bible study on the first days of the last days, I was reflecting on the 10 chapters and for me personally I feel like the cream that rises to the top with this is looking at the people, looking at the apostles and the disciples, the followers of Christ, who chose to be truly walk in the Spirit, who chose to be filled with the Spirit and watching how it affected their lives, watching their daily experience in life because of that, their choice to abandon the pleasures of sin or even stability in their life and really, as we talked about last week, offering themselves willingly to be used in the kingdom, whether they were well-known or whether they were, as we talked about, more obscure everyday disciples and what the Lord enabled them to do. We've also celebrated the fact that God has a plan for the people that he created. God had a plan for the first 10 seconds of the church age and his plan was that the message of salvation would go from Jerusalem into Judea, into Samaria and eventually to the Gentiles and today's lesson sees the completion of that initial plan. But we want to remember too that God has a plan for our time, if we are in the last 10 seconds or if we aren't. God has a plan for how things unfold and it would have been difficult, it would have been impossible for the disciples to have known exactly how God was going to unfold their plan. They weren't able to make a 5-year evangelism plan or a 10-year evangelism plan. There was a few breadcrumbs in the Old Testament and of course Jesus had told them how it was going to go, but they didn't have the details. They didn't know enough. They had to trust in the fact that God was going to bring about his plan in his time and in his way. And do we not have to trust in our lives as well that God has a plan and he is going to bring it about in his time and in his way and we need to line up with his plan. And so I think that to me those were some of the big takeaways from this whole Bible study. I want to point out a key verse in verse 43 even before we begin. In our study guide we wrote out the 12 words, I'll read them to you. The phrase is that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. An older translation might say that whosoever believeth. I just love how that rolls off the tongue, whosoever believeth. But it is a real key to wrap up this whole thing. And so before we study chapter 10 I just want to enjoy for just a moment God's plan to reach all the whosoever's from the Old Testament into the New Testament. Because I love to enjoy those times when we see the old and the new complement and complete one another. And so what I want to do is point out that there is a book in the Old Testament that is called the Book of Acts of the Old Testament. And it is the Book of Jonah. Because what God was doing in that narrative was reaching people by his mercy. He was reaching out to people who were enemies of him, enemies of his people. And he was wanting to reach them with his mercy. They were the whosoever's. They were the Ninevites. They were Assyrians. They were brutal, harsh, bent on world domination. And God chose Jonah to be his instrument to take his message of mercy to them. In the Book of Acts now we see the same thing. Because we see God extending his mercy to another people group very similar. Harsh, brutal people bent on world domination. The Romans were the first Gentiles to have received the gospel in this way. And God's chosen instrument was Peter. And so one little breadcrumb for us to enjoy in the complete story of God's mercy spread out throughout history. One amazing little breadcrumb is this coincidence that both Jonah and Peter were sort of launched out of the seaport village of Joppa. To do what God had told them to do. When God came to Jonah and said, I want you to go to the Ninevites. He went to Joppa and from there brought passage on a ship. He turned from the presence of the Lord, brought passage on a ship and went down into a ship and went to Tarshish. God had to send a storm into his life for him to hear what God's plan was. And the storm broke Jonah down until he finally heard and agreed with God's plan. Now Peter was already in Joppa and Peter didn't need a storm because Peter had already gone through the storm in his life. And what comes to mind when I'm saying that is Peter had just 10 years ago denied the Christ that he loved in a pretty significant way that night. And that was an event that was a watershed event in Peter's life. A storm, if you will, that broke his pride, that broke him down, that broke his will. That was so significant that he came into agreement with his master for life, I would say. And so Peter was in Joppa, he was already broken and he went immediately and we'll read that in our narrative today. God, it has been my experience in life and maybe it has been some of your experiences in life that God does this work in our lives someday. At some point, maybe it's a day, maybe it's a year, where God brings that storm to just break us to the point where we so willingly submit now to his will and our pride has been broken down. But we see this happening in these two men. So we want to start with these two men, two dispensations of God's mercy, two responses and yet God's plan prevailed. God's plan prevailed in both of those instances regardless of initial obedience or immediate obedience. And I think of that verse, we all know it, from Jeremiah 29, 11. For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Every few years that verse takes on a kind of a new meaning, you know, to me. But sometimes, because again, I've said this often, we're American Christians, we read a verse like that and we see God's work in our life. Like the high school guidance counselor that sits behind the desk and looks at us and says, you are so fabulous. Like I am going to do everything I can to set up your life and make sure that you have a tremendous life. And we see God, we think that's his job in our life, to make sure that I am successful, I'm fabulous, everything goes well. And that is not the right perspective when we say, I know the plans I have for you. God is a little bit more like the football coach that says, I have a team and I have a plan and I call the plays in this. And if you would like to join that, I have a place for you. I have a plan for you, but you'll go where I tell you to go, right? You will do the position I tell you to do. And it will be a winning team, it's going to be awesome. We better get into our study. Verse 1 says,

Now Caesarea was sort of the Roman capital of Judea. It is where they launched their directives from and Cornelius, we see, is a God seeker. Just like the eunuch was last week, he's someone who is seeking the Lord. And so in verse 3 it says,

Now you might ask, why send for Peter 30 miles away? Why did the angel do this when Philip, the evangelist, was probably right there in Caesarea? Why didn't the angel direct him to Philip? That wasn't God's plan. It was God's plan to use Peter. Peter had been given all three keys of the kingdom and this is going to be the third and final one. And so that was why it was important. Verse 9 tells us,

Okay, so Peter needed to be prepared for what God was about to do, and God used a vision related to food. And don't you find it a just amazing coincidence that we just studied Leviticus chapter 11 Wednesday night in church, and so, and it was pointed out in your study guide, but the food laws were given to God's people. In Leviticus, we read a lot about it, and they were given to, well, God was training the people to be holy, to be set apart, and to discern the clean from the unclean. But I think another super important element in food laws was to create this sharp division between God's people and the people in the lands that they were going to enter. And so, God's plan from Mount Sinai, when the laws were given to his people all the way to the church age, was that there would be this wall of separation between his people and the Gentiles, and food was a big part of it. Do you have problems in your life right now with a lot of people having food allergies and food things? Is it hard not to, is it hard to fellowship together over food? It is, right? I mean, we've got gluten-free, and lactose intolerant, and vegetarian, and allergy, not allergies, and you know, it goes on and on, and it can be tremendously difficult to fellowship together when you don't eat the same foods. Now, go back into a day when these food laws were given, and there's no refrigeration, no preserved foods, it created a sharp division, and I think it helped the Hebrews maintain a separation from the peoples around them, and all of that. But now, God is building his church, and he's building it into one body, and the Apostle Paul explains some of this. I think I just want to reference Ephesians chapter 2, when he talks about the Gentiles, and he says, but now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off, he says, your Gentiles separated from Christ, you were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, you were strangers to the covenants of these promises, you've been brought near, not by the food laws, you've been brought near by the blood of Christ, who has made us both one, who has broken down the wall dividing us, the wall of hostility. How? By abolishing the law and the commandments expressed in ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new man in place of two. So we observe from Peter's vision, and from further insights giving us to the Apostle Paul, that it was not God's plan. God's plan was not to reach the Gentiles through the commandments that were given to Israel, through the ordinances, through the food laws, through circumcision. That was not his plan. It was God's plan to reach the Gentiles by breaking down the dividing walls, and by abolishing those ordinances. Now, you may sit here and go, I know that, of course, this all makes sense to me, but I want to bring it up, because from time to time, there are people and groups that seem to want to come back in with even Jewish ordinances, and teach people that they need to make peace with God through the ordinances that we see in Scripture, and given to Israel, through food laws, through Sabbath keeping, through taking holy communion, through being baptized, or things like that. This happens in our experience, and we need to know with certainty how we really do make peace with God. It is through the blood of Jesus Christ, not through these other things. So remember this, that our effort or work in keeping any sorts of laws, or taking communion, or being baptized, does not cover our sin. It is believing that Jesus' blood and sacrifice is sufficient, and personally accepting that, that covers our sin. So back to the action now. We've got these two men with two different worldviews, and two simultaneous and complementary visions that are going to fit together. Verse 19 tells us,

And for the sake of time, I want to kind of summarize verses 24 to 33. Cornelius had so much faith, I would too if a holy angel appeared to me and spoke, but he had so much faith that he already gathered up his friends and his relatives. His house was full by the time Peter got there. So Peter travels and gets to his home, and Peter explained his vision, his side of the vision, how God had prepared him to even enter into Peter's home, a Gentile's home, and then Cornelius expresses his side of the vision, and they realize it's like a puzzle that fits together, and this is so exciting! Can you imagine what that must have felt like? That's just goosebump stuff, I think. And we read, now therefore we are all in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord. I picked it up in verse 33, I'm sorry I didn't tell you. And verse 34 we start with, back to our initial analogy, Peter has the ball in his hands here for the last time during this game for the score, and he says,

And while Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word, and the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed because of the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. And how did they know for sure? Well, it was just like the day of Pentecost. Look, verse 46, for they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. And so this particular expression of the Holy Spirit coming on them, it is our proposition epi. It was a very important witness to the Jews. In fact, I think that it was very important. It was a good move on God's part to make it just like Pentecost. Every baptism of the Spirit is not just like Pentecost. But in this case, it was good for those Jewish believers that came with Peter to see this reminds me of just what it was like in Jerusalem 10 years ago. And it was a testimony that God had indeed saved the Gentiles without them first becoming Jews. Peter merely gave the gospel. He wasn't even done. He was just starting. And the Holy Spirit fell on them and they started speaking in tongues. So the Holy Spirit, they believed as Peter was sharing the gospel. They believed the Holy Spirit came in to dwell them. The Holy Spirit also came upon them and they were speaking in tongues, which was undeniable now to those Jews that they had come into the kingdom of God. but without fixing themselves up, without keeping the laws, without observing the Sabbath, without doing anything of Jewishness that they formerly thought had been required. And so then Peter says, well, can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And we finished saying that he asked, they asked him to remain for some days. I wanna just dip into chapter 11 for just a minute, maybe just a page turn for you, for just a couple of verses, because it helps us also get into Peter's head as to how he felt about this experience and what he had learned. And so after a few days, he goes back to Jerusalem, and there were some in Jerusalem that did feel like people had to become Jews first in order to be saved, in order to receive Christ. And so he's sharing with them about being at Joppa and the trance and the food and the sheet and the people and going, he's sharing all this with them. And if you wanna look at Acts chapter 15, this is what Peter is telling those people in Jerusalem. Excuse me. He says, as I began to speak, he's talking about being in Cornelius' home. As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit just fell on them as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Peter says, if then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus, who was I to stand in God's way? So he started defending himself, and his realizations and his defense are, number one, it's the same spirit. I can tell you that. And number two, the realization was that he couldn't argue with God. This just happened, and who was he to argue with God? And then the Jews said the same thing. Their response was, when they heard these things, they fell silent, which is always in good taste when you're dealing with things of the Lord, just fall silent and just listen and observe. It says, and they glorified God saying, then to the Gentiles also, God has granted repentance that leads to life. And so that is the transition. That completes our transition now in the first days of the last days. I just always appreciate so much when God lines numbers up for me. 10 years, 10 chapters. They just line, 10, 10, just lines up perfectly, right? But this completes the whole initial, God reaching out with his mercy to all the people groups of the earth. There are no other kinds of people groups. You're either a Jew, you're half a Jew, or you're a Gentile. And God has now effectively reached all of those people groups. And so I wish we had time to summarize more what we have learned through looking at all 10 years, and maybe you can do that a little bit at your tables. But what I want to do is I just want to end with this one restatement of what I feel is a super important part of this particular chapter. And that is by saying that our flesh, our soul, is always going to be magnetized toward doing something or giving up something or achieving something so that we believe we will be worthy before God. That is just the nature of our flesh. We always want to do something or give up something or achieve something so that we will feel that we are worthy. But we know that it is faith in Jesus's blood. It is because of what Jesus, Jesus already did something. Jesus already gave up something. And Jesus already achieved something so that we could be brought into the kingdom. And it is faith in what Jesus did. And so we need to say to that little voice that even as Christian believing ladies might still come into our head, to encourage us to keep some kind of discipline or whatever, which may do well for your Christian life, but it does nothing for your salvation. Just say to that little voice, no, Jesus already did it. He already did it.