Energized [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. What happens here is pivotal in world history.

The world changes because of Acts Chapter 10, when a Gentile, a non-Jew, receives the Gospel. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Unlimited, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I'm going to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastoralan.org. That's pastoralan.org, or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Now, more on this later in the program, but right now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? God can make anyone clean.

Anyone. No matter the past, no matter behaviors and thoughts, what's happened to someone, God can make anyone, anyone clean. We're in Acts Chapter 10, and this is, I know I say this week after week as we go through the book of Acts, but it's not just a pivotal chapter in the book of Acts, not just a pivotal chapter in the Bible, but this chapter and what happens here is pivotal in world history. The world changes because of Acts Chapter 10, when a Gentile, a non-Jew receives the gospel.

We're going to see something that was inconceivable to Peter, and yet the Holy Spirit revealed to him, and thus the power of the gospel fell upon Gentile Christians, and we're going to pick up reading at verse one. At Caesarea, there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household. So a centurion was a Roman soldier who had oversight of a hundred troops, and he feared God. He loved God, of whatever he knew of God, and he gave alms generously to the people and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day, he saw clearly in a vision, an angel of God come and say to him, Cornelius, and he stared at him in terror and said, what is it, Lord? And he said to him, your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. So that's another image we see in the scripture of prayer, like they would have been familiar, the Jewish people of the incense that the priests would burn at the temple, that it's like it rises. And you know how you breathe in an aroma and you breathe in that aroma of incense? Well, this is one description of how God receives prayer, that it's like prayer rises like incense and God breathes it in.

It's a beautiful image, isn't it? That your prayers are breathed in by God. This angel of God came and said, Cornelius, and he stared at him in terror and said, what is it, Lord? And he said, your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God, verse five, and now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who's called Peter. He's lodging with Simon, a tanner whose house is by the sea. And when the angel who spoke to him departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him.

And having related everything to him, he sent them to Joppa. Well, the next day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. So it's noon and he's gone up to a rooftop, which is in many Middle Eastern houses, that rooftop would be flat and it was part of their what we call outdoor living space. And he became hungry and wanted to eat. And while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and he saw the heavens open and something like a great sheet descending. Some have said that maybe this word conveys like a great sail of a ship.

So a sail or a sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. And in it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air, all kinds. And there came a voice to him, rise Peter, kill and eat. But Peter said by no means Lord, for I've never eaten anything that is common or unclean. So as we'll talk about today, this sheet was full of all these ceremonially unclean animals, walls from Leviticus that said, you're not supposed to eat these animals. And here this voice said, rise Peter, kill and eat. Peter said by no means, I've never eaten anything that's common or unclean. So common is just another word for unclean.

And the voice came to him again a second time. What God has made clean, do not call common. Now that verse 15 is going to be our focal point today.

What God has made clean, do not call common. This happened three times. So it was something that a vision that I guess God just wanted to get it through to Peter.

So it gave it to him three times, same thing. And sometimes God will do that because he just so wants you to understand something. You ever have that happen where people come to me so often, they'll say, pastor, I cannot believe what you preached about today, because that was the very thing I was studying in my quiet time this morning on the way to church. Or that was the very thing that I heard another preacher speak about this week. Or I heard the same thing twice. And then I had a conversation with somebody and then I came and you preach this. Well, what's God doing? Well, he said, I want to get this through to you.

So it happened three, it happened three times. It was taken up to heaven verse 17. Now, while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he'd seen might mean behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon's house, stood at the gate and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. And while Peter was pondering the vision, the spirit said to him, behold, three men are looking for you.

Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation for I have sent them. So here comes another vision from the Holy Spirit. So God is giving two different men visions and instructing them.

This is how God's able to get what he wants done. In verse 20, rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation for I've sent them. And Peter went down to the men and said, I'm the one you're looking for.

What is the reason for your coming? And they said, Cornelius, a centurion and upright and God-fearing man who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say. So he invited them in to be his guests. And the next day he rose and went away with them.

And some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied them. Oh, we'll stop there. This is really in some ways part one of two messages. We'll come back to this text next week. What's the best bath you ever had? I mean, I'm not talking about like you went to some fancy spa and had some, you know, I'm talking about like when was a time you just felt like, I can't wait to get a shower. And then you get, I was trying to think this week, what were the, what was the best? And a couple of instances came to mind. One was, I remember what it felt like to get in a cool shower after the late August three hour soccer practices we had in high school, I would come home sweating for three hours and, um, always something was a little bloodied and something was muddy by that time caked on in the middle of the sweat. And I can just remember the feeling of just getting out of that drenched soccer outfit and just stepping into a cool shower and just, oh, it felt so good.

That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Would you love a better marriage? You don't need more good advice.

You need more good news. Marriages like people aren't changed by human effort or even by applying principles. Marriages are changed by the gospel of grace. In six video sessions, pastor Alan and his wife and lead you and your spouse into a fresh encounter with the God of grace. You'll learn a simple grace filled process that makes great communication easy. You'll discover the freedom of forgiveness and the power of celebration. You'll also learn how to pray for your spouse and how to bless one another with a faith filled vision for the future to help you grow.

When you order the video series, we'll also send you two copies of the accompanying study guide. Whether your marriage is going through some special challenges or your marriage is in a season of health, you'll find powerful transformational truth in good news for your marriage. Make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today and fill your marriage with the grace of God. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860.

Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. Another, another, some reason this popped into my mind when I was a teenager, um, I used to work at the tennis courts and one summer, um, they used some of us teenagers as the labor in, uh, resurfacing, uh, the, the soft courts we call composition. It is a kind of what you might think of, uh, sort of like a more clay light surface to a court. And then it has a sandy, dusty, granular surface on it. And we call composition and, um, it's kind of green and grayish and it has, it's sort of dusty and has sort of a, a sandiness to it. That's what, that's what it, and so, uh, all day long we would shovel that stuff into wheelbarrows and then, you know, move the wheelbarrows in a 95 degree sun all day and take it wherever they said we needed to take it, dump it and go and shovel up another one. And by the end of the day, the sweat, all the sweat, and then that dusty gray green stuff is just all over you.

By the end of the day, I look like a junior Hulk, you know, just a green little man. And, uh, I remember going home and just the, just to feel the shower, just get that stuff off me. That was a good one. But by far and away, I'm sure the best shower I ever had was after a trip of a lifetime, uh, that some of you've heard me tell about before that my daughter Abby and I got to go and be part of a Bible dedication service at a little island, uh, off the Northern coast of Papua New Guinea, where Jeff and Sissy Dejournis had spent 27 years learning the language of this people and living this little island that had no electricity, no running water, no transportation, no medical care. It was like a step back into some prehistoric time. They had, they had nothing, but it's a beautiful island.

Um, we're flying in. You can see it's just a beautiful lush Island with beautiful waters and, and a beach, but it's very near the equator. And so the temperature is pretty constant year round, right around 90 to 95 degrees.

And the humidity is pretty constant around 90 to 95% year round. And you know how here we have those dog days of August, but in the evening you go, finally you go, ha cooled off. It just kind of stayed the same.

I mean, the only difference was it was a moon in the sky rather than a sun. And, uh, we had, uh, we had a good time. Uh, they were so kind to us.

We had no language. We couldn't talk to any of the locals, but, um, it was amazing what people learned to do. These, these trees, um, these little boys could shimmy up the tree.

I mean, like you think of somebody that was a worker that works up telephone poles and had mechanisms just climb right up. They just do it where their bare feet just climb up to the top and cut you a coconut and you drink the thing. Um, the local girls let Abby in on how they weave their baskets.

And, uh, and that was fun. They were so kind to us also that some of the local, most of them just slept on the beach. That's the way they live their lives. They just slept out under the stars on the beach. And, but some of the ones, uh, had the, I guess the more prosperous ones had some huts and, um, they let some of us stay in their huts, which my daughter observed had only half walls, which are very, uh, they were not very conducive to privacy, but they were conducive to blocking whatever breeze you might accidentally get in the middle of the night. And so we were just lying there on these $5 Walmart pool floats with a mosquito net over us trying to sleep and just sweating all night, all night long. They were so kind to us though. And they also let us use their bathroom.

Um, there it is. And, um, so, uh, we had three days on this Island. There is no source of fresh water available except for one little place where it trickled down onto the beach, like a spring that kind of trickled out of a little rock and it came down to the beach and it made about a two foot pool that was about six inches deep. And that's what the locals use to go and, and get fresh water to drink or they'd go and scoop it up and put it over their heads. And we just felt bad about even going and trying to get into that, not knowing what we're doing.

If you muddy that water, it was very inconsiderate. So bottom line, the only way you could get cool was to get in the ocean, but you get out of the ocean and, and you're stickier than you were before you got in and saltier than you were before you got in. And I did this for three days. We had the time of our lives watching a people get the Bible in their language for the first time. But on the way back on that little missionary plane that flew back over to the Highlands of Papua New Guinea and a place called Ukurumpa at the mission headquarters there, all Abby and I could talk about was which one of us was going to get the first shower.

I think she got it, but I didn't care. When we finally got in there and three days of just living in sweat and being slathered in mosquito repellent and to finally get in that, that cool water coming down. Oh, I tell you, what's the best bath you ever had? Well, if you can envision what it feels like to get clean physically, then good, you're very close to understanding what the Bible means by being clean spiritually. And the way in which we are washed clean is not by any physical act, but it is by a spiritual act of God. And what is required is a spiritual revelation that is received by faith. And so I want to focus in on this verse that says, what God has made clean do not call common. In the context of this remarkable story that was one of the greatest paradigm shifts in any spiritual leader's history. When Peter began to realize that the Gentiles, God was now not calling unclean, but wanted him to preach the gospel, starting with Cornelius and all the Gentiles. Well, let's lay the setting here. This is a Roman centurion who is God fearing and a man of prayer and a giver of alms.

Prayer and the giving of alms, very important to the Jewish people. So this is a way of indicating that this was for all he knew of God, a godly man. He lived in Caesarea, which is a beautiful city and on the coast and Caesarea is a beautiful place to visit today. There's an amphitheater that's there.

The waters are beautiful. King Herod really built up Caesarea because, well, he lived there most of the time in a nice climate and all, but also he made it a big port city. So all of the traffic had to come in through Caesarea where he could tax heavily everything coming in.

Caesarea also being a lovely place indicated that if you were a centurion overseeing a hundred troops and you were stationed at Caesarea, then you were well thought of because it was a popular place to be. He has this vision and like most people that have a vision or see an angel, at first he's terrified and the angel instructs him to send some men to Joppa, which is on the coast also about 30 miles to the south. And he goes down to, he sends them down and as they're making their journey, Peter is up on the rooftop at noontime and he's praying.

Well, I guess like most of us, it makes me feel a little more at home. He's trying to spend a season of prayer and he starts getting hungry. And so it even happened to great Peter. And so he has told people, you know, he's ready to eat. Somebody downstairs therefore is cooking a meal while he's praying on the roof. And this is part of the irony of this story is the meal that they would be preparing is a kosher meal. Now kosher, it comes from a Hebrew word, and it means prepared properly.

It means the appropriate food. And what this means for the Jewish people has been very precious over the centuries is that God in Leviticus chapter 11, when he was laying out ceremonial holiness laws, described some clean and unclean foods. And by unclean, what it means is that if you eat it, then you are being disobedient to the law and you are yourself ceremonially unclean. And there are many different states of uncleanliness for the Jewish people. But if you are in a state of being unclean, then you would have restrictions as to your participation at temple worship. And so these laws in Leviticus 11, we won't take time to read them, but essentially said that animals that had cloven hooves and chew their cud like a cow are okay to eat.

So I'm very happy that God validated my ribeye steak. It listed several animals just distinctly that said, do not eat them. They're considered unclean. The camel, the badger, the hare, rabbit, you couldn't eat rabbit. And of course, famously the pig. So most people are familiar that Jewish people don't eat pork.

It's from Leviticus chapter 11. There are also animals that are listed there that they're not to eat. And it's specified amongst the things that are in the ocean. If it has fins and scales, you know, mahi mahi, tuna, tilapia, then you're welcome to eat it. But if it doesn't have fish and scales, then don't eat it.

So that sad thing is that ruled out my calabash popcorn shrimp and scallops and oysters and rock main lobster is out. So, but fish is good for you. And amongst the birds of the air, certain of the birds that you're glad they're counted as you shouldn't eat it. Some of the majestic birds like the eagle, you know, you can't eat. And the scavenger birds like the vultures can't eat. Reptiles, lizards, geckos, all that can't eat. And all this is specified in Leviticus chapter 11. And people have conjectured, you know, over the years Jewish scholars have, Christian scholars have, many people have said, well, what are these about? Because some have noted that there are some health benefits to the dietary laws.

Yeah, you're probably better off eating some pan seared tilapia than you are that good Lexington barbecue. Alan Wright, today's good news message, energize the difference between zeal for the Lord and zeal for the law. It's in our series titled unlimited and pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day.

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It's free and just a click away at pastor alan.org. Would you love a better marriage? You don't need more good advice.

You need more good news. Marriages like people aren't changed by human effort or even by applying principles. Marriages are changed by the gospel of grace. In six video sessions, pastor Alan and his wife and lead you and your spouse into a fresh encounter with the God of grace. You'll learn a simple grace filled process that makes great communication easy. You'll discover the freedom of forgiveness and the power of celebration. You'll also learn how to pray for your spouse and how to bless one another with a faith filled vision for the future to help you grow.

When you order the video series, we'll also send you two copies of the accompanying study guide. Whether your marriage is going through some special challenges or your marriage is in a season of health, you'll find powerful transformational truth in good news for your marriage. Make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today and fill your marriage with the grace of God. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

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That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Back here now in the studio with Pastor Alan and our parting good news thought for the day. And this message is about being energized. And some of us, we could use a little more energy these days. There's a temptation for us to try to find our energy through thinking I'm going to become a better person by conforming to the law. There's a temptation to think that the way to energy is to just try harder and be better. But the real source of energy, the actual working out of the power of God, it comes not by a commitment to law, but by the infilling of grace and by zeal for the Lord himself. So this is what the Lord wants is for us to find energy, not through the law, but through the Lord himself.

And this comes from an inward passion, a thirst for the living water. And so I pray for our listeners today that God would put you in touch with your deepest thirst, the zeal to know the Lord himself. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox free. Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.