Acts 10 - Part C

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That's Connect with Skip Heitzig on YouTube. Now, let's continue with today's teaching from Pastor Skip. But Peter said, Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean. Ah, there he is. There's the Peter we all know and love.

The Peter who doesn't say, Yes, Lord, whatever you want, but goes, No way, Lord. Which, by the way, is a perfect contradiction in terms. You can't say, Not so, Lord. You can say, Not so, dude. Not so, whoever you are. Not so, friend.

Not so, mom, dad, brother, sister. But you can never say the words, Not so and Lord, because if he's Lord, then you say whatever you want. Because if you say, Not so, he ain't your Lord. If you're saying, Not so, then he's not your Lord. Well, that's Peter. His immediate response is, Not so, Lord. Now, compare.

You just got to do this. You just got to understand how entrenched Peter is. Compare the centurion's response to the angel to Peter's response.

Just for fun. Verse 4. And when he observed him, that is, the centurion saw the angel, he was afraid and said, What is it, Lord?

Like, whatever you say, I'm ready to do. And he did what the angel told him to do. We get over to Peter, voice from heaven, Not so, Lord.

And it's capital L, so it's like he's saying to God, No. So, who is more compliant in the story? The Roman centurion or the Jewish, I follow Jesus, three and a half years apostle?

The centurion is. His excuse is, I have never eaten anything common or unclean. Okay, I get it.

I get it. But Jesus asked a question once. He said, Why do you call me Lord? Lord, but you don't do the things that I say.

How many people do you know that say, Oh, yes, I love the Lord, or I love the big guy in the sky, or the good Lord? But they're not compliant. They're not obedient.

They're not bendable to his commands. And I said, There he is. This is Peter. This is the Peter we know and love, because this is what Peter is known for. You remember when Jesus went to the Sea of Galilee and said, Peter, let's go fishing, launch out into the deep for a catch of fish. And Peter said, Look, Lord, you're a great preacher, but you're talking to a fisherman. I fished all night, caught nothing. That's the best time to fish on the Sea of Galilee.

Been there, done that, caught nothing. Nevertheless, at your word, all humor of the preacher will go fishing. That's what you want. Then remember in Caesarea Philippi, Jesus said, Who do men say that I am? Who do you say that I am? And then Jesus began to announce to them that he was going to go to Jerusalem, be betrayed by someone, be delivered to the chief priests, get killed, and then rise the third day. And Peter spoke up and said, No way, we're not going to let that happen to you. To which Jesus replied, Get behind me, Satan.

Ouch. Or what about the time when Jesus announced to his disciples, Hey, all of you, all of you are going to run away tonight. You're going to flee from me. And Peter said, You know, Lord, even if all are made to stumble, not me. So he's telling Jesus, who's telling him what's going down, you're not really accurate about that, Lord. I know you're like God and stuff and you predict the future, but you're wrong when it comes to me being the guy who's going to run away.

Because they might because they're flaky. But I'm Peter the rock. I'm Rocky.

Not going to happen. So Peter always was the guy who is resistant. He has a mind of his own. One hand, I admire it. On the other hand, I relate to it, unfortunately. And in the other hand, there's only two hands. So I ran out of hands. Oh, here's another one. Remember when Jesus is washing their feet and he comes to Peter and Peter goes, You're not going to wash my feet. So, you know, this is just his history, his character. Verse 15, and a voice spoke to him again the second time.

What God has cleansed, you must not call common. Now, this was done three times, and the object was taken up into heaven. Now, while Peter wondered within himself, and I love that about Peter, he's thinking, Man, this is weird. What could that mean?

He's processing it. Well, he wondered within himself what this vision which he had seen meant. Behold, the men who had been sent from Cornelius made inquiry for Simon's house and stood before the gate. And they called and asked whether Simon, whose surname was Peter, was lodging there. It happened three times for Peter. Why? I don't know.

But it is interesting to me, and these are things I look at and I ask, Why three times? I know that Jesus restored Peter three times. He said, Do you love me, Peter? Yeah, Lord, I love you. Do you love me, Peter? Yeah, Lord, I love you. Peter, do you love me?

Okay, I love you. And that's because Peter denied Jesus three times. Now he sees a vision and goes, No way. Happens again.

No way. Happens again. Okay, I better listen. Okay, so it could be that he's just, you know, tough to get through to. You know, you have to knock a coconut hard with a hammer to bust it open sometimes.

He's a little hard-headed, maybe ADD just everywhere. God has to grab his attention. But it's interesting that three times were given to Peter.

And the message was the same. What God has cleansed, you must not call comma. Pause for a moment and think back quickly in your mind to an Old Testament person who had difficulty believing that a group of non-Jewish people should have God's grace and favor extended to them. Can you think of anybody? He was a prophet. He was on a boat, but he went the other direction. Jonah, because he didn't want the Ninevites to hear a message of forgiveness and have God not annihilate them. He wanted them dead. They hated his people.

They were so Gentile, it reeked. So he didn't want to be the preacher to extend a hand of forgiveness and have God overlook judgment to Nineveh. So he went the other direction. So he is like Peter on steroids, but what's interesting is what Peter's name is. Peter or Simon, son of Jonah. Not that he was the son of that Jonah.

That was actually his name. His dad's name was Jonah. But it's interesting that they are so similar, one much more so than the other, Jonah much more so than Peter. But I just find it interesting that he was Simon, son of Jonah. And I wonder how many sons of Jonah we have here, sons and daughters of Jonah, a little bit tough, hard-hearted for God to get through and break his grace into their lives. So they would extend God's grace to others.

Okay, now we can go on. While Peter thought about the vision, verse 19, the Spirit said to him, Behold, three men are seeking you. Arise, therefore, go down and go with them, doubting nothing, for I have sent them. Then Peter went down to the men who had been sent to him from Cornelius, and he said, Yes, I am he whom you seek. For what reason have you come? Now what did the Lord just say?

Go with them, asking nothing. So Peter meets him and goes, What do you want? Old dog, new tricks. I love Peter. I love him.

I relate to him. It's like, you forgot that already, even though a voice came from heaven and told you that. You forgot that part already. And they said, Cornelius, the centurion, a just man, one who fears God and has a good reputation among all the nation of the Jews, was divinely instructed by a holy angel to summon you to his house and to hear words from you. Then he invited them in and lodged them, and on the next day, which in and of itself is amazing that he brought Gentiles into a Jewish home, but after all, he's staying with a tanner, right?

And last week, a tanner is somebody who is considered unclean because he handles carcasses of animals. So he brought them in, and some brethren from Joppa accompanied him, and the following day, they entered Caesarea. Now Cornelius was waiting for them, and he had called together his relatives and his close friends. Now, two worlds are about to collide. A Jewish apostle of the Messiah, the Jewish Messiah, and a Gentile God-fearer, a Roman military man, and the grace of God is going to interact and intervene.

It's a pivotal moment, and it's a milestone in redemptive history. As Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet, and what did he do? He says he worshipped him. And I wonder what Peter thought about that worship. I wonder if Peter said, yes, my child. This is good, and there will be other saints after me that you will have to bow down and worship as well. No, it says, but Peter lifted him up, saying, stand up.

I myself am also a man, and as he talked with him, he went in and found many who had come together. Throughout the New Testament, we find people who are tempted to worship someone other than God, the saints. Peter was one. Mary was another, rebuked by Jesus when somebody tried to worship Mary. Later on in Acts 14, when Paul and Barnabas make it to Lystra, and a man through their agency is healed and cured, the people in Lystra say, the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men, and they called Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes, and they started sacrificing to them, and Paul said, stop this.

This is nonsense. We're just human beings. Even John the Apostle, when he saw the angel in the book of Revelation chapter 22, at the end of that revelation, that angel that had given him the whole preview of end-time events, it says John said, I fell down, and I worshiped him, and the angel said, see that you do it not. I am a fellow servant of the living God. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we return to Skip's teaching, in his Jesus Loves booklets, Pastor Skip Heitzig shows you God's radical love for all people and challenges you to love all people like Jesus did. And when you give a gift of $50 or more today, we'll send you four of these booklets in our Jesus Loves Them bundle. Our thanks for your support to reach more people with God's love through Connect with Skip Heitzig. You'll fall more in love with your living Savior as you see just how much he loves all people and calls you to do the same.

Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your bundle when you give. Now, let's get back to the teaching with Pastor Skip. So angels forbade people to worship them. Peter said don't worship him. Paul and Barnabas said don't pray or worship me. Jesus said don't pray to my mom and worship her. So I wonder about those who want to worship others other than Jesus. This should give them pause.

This should get their attention. Then he said to them, verse 28, you know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go into one of another nation. What a thing to begin with. Welcome, come in my house. We're here to see you.

He falls down on his feet. No, get up. You know, I shouldn't even be here. It's not even lawful in my religion to hang out with you. But again, I love this guy. But he says, but God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean, kind of betraying what he really thinks about him. Therefore, I came without objection. I wonder if he swallowed weird when he said that. As soon as I was sent for it.

Yeah, right. I asked then, for what reason have you sent me? And Cornelius said, four days ago, I was fasting until this hour, and at the ninth hour, I prayed in my house, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing and said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your alms are remembered in the sight of God. Send therefore to Joppa and call Simon here, whose surname is Peter.

He is lodging in the house of Simon a tanner by the sea. When he comes, he will speak to you. So I sent to you immediately, and you have done well to come. Now therefore, we are all present before God to hear all the things commanded you by God. Then Peter opened his mouth, which can be a dangerous proposition for Peter in the past. But here, under the control of the Spirit, he said, in truth, I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him. He's honest here, and he says, you know, I'm new to this.

I'm not good at this. I've never really thought about a Gentile coming to faith in my Jewish Messiah. Now, Peter would have remembered perhaps at this point something our Lord Jesus said in John chapter 10, when He said, there are other sheep I have that are not of this fold.

Then I must also bring, they will hear my voice that there may be one flock and one shepherd, speaking of non-Jews, Gentiles. And so Peter's honestly saying, you know, I think I'm figuring this out. I think I'm getting the message the Lord is trying to tell me.

I'm starting to understand what this is. And the bottom line is, in truth, I perceive that God shows no partiality. Can I just say, congratulations, Peter.

You passed the test. You just discovered the grand truth God's been trying to get through to your thick head, and that is, God has no favorites. God has no favorite people. God has no favorite places. God loves the world, and you are discovering the great truth of that, that God plays no favorites. Can I just say really quickly, I think it goes without saying because you probably believe and understand it, but there is no place at all for bigotry and prejudice in the Christian church. We can never stand before God with a clear conscience while we are holding ill will toward people of another race or a different economic system or a different origin who happen to be among us.

We can't. There's an interesting story about Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian leader, who was trained as a lawyer and spent time in South Africa. What's interesting is that he was drawn to Christianity. He was drawn in particular to the person of Christ. He was enamored with the Sermon on the Mount, and he was thinking about converting to Christianity. He believed that Jesus Christ and Christianity, from what he understood by reading the New Testament, was the answer to the caste system that plagued India. So one Sunday, he went into a church. That is, he tried to enter a church, and he was stopped at the door by an usher who suggested that he, as a brown person, go worship with his own. And he was not allowed into that white church. And Mahatma Gandhi walked away from that, and he wrote, Well, there seems to be a caste system even within Christianity, and I just think I'll remain a Hindu. And he said that was the seminal moment where he rejected Christ, rejected Christianity, and decided, I'm just gonna stay with the system I was raised with and try to reform it.

How sad. So Peter's recognizing God has no favorites. There's no partiality with him.

I'm figuring that out. But in every nation, verse 35, as we saw. Verse 36, The word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ, which he is Lord of all, that word you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

And we are all witnesses of all things which he did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they killed by hanging on a tree. Now he is appealing to Cornelius' knowledge of the local facts. I bet you've heard about this, Cornelius.

I bet you know the story. I am just here to say, that was the guy. That was the Messiah. That Jesus is God's answer.

That's God's solution. We are witnesses of that. Verse 40, Him, God raised up on the third day, preaching the death, burial, and resurrection, the core gospel, and showed him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with him after he arose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that it is he who was ordained by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets witness that through his name, whoever believes in him will receive the remission of sins. So it took all of this elaborate scheming of a vision of a sheet with unclean things to Peter three times, 35 miles away from the guy who has to hear the message, who sees an angel to go get the guy who saw the vision, and they come together, and this is what he hears.

And that's it. It's a simple message. If you compare Peter's message here to Cornelius with Peter's message preached at Pentecost, there's two different messages. One is a very hard-hitting polemic against Israel and forcefully preaching repentance here. It's just the very simple facts of the gospel. Death, burial, resurrection, he's the guy we followed and we're witnesses.

You gotta believe in him and you'll have remission of sins. And you know, when it comes to sharing, you should tailor your testimony and your message depending on the audience. Peter gives a good lesson in both of these examples. While Peter was still speaking, verse 44, these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word and those of the circumcision who believed, those Jewish people who are believers, Messianic believers, were astonished as many as came with Peter because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles only. Like, what?

Wow. It's like what happened in Jerusalem on Pentecost. For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God.

Notice that. That is used as a prayer and worship of God. And then Peter answered, Can anyone forbid water that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord.

Then they asked him to stay for a few days. So what lessons did we learn? First of all, no one is beyond reach. Second, we learned what a privilege it is to preach the gospel, a privilege that even angels don't have but we have. Number three, there's no place for bigotry or favoritism among God's people. And finally, number four, leadership means, or excuse me, lordship means ownership. If he's your Lord, it means he owns you. You are his servant. And a servant never says, Not so, Master. Not so, Lord. He says, What do you want me to do, Lord? You're the Lord?

I'm not. You're the Master. I'm the slave.

What is it you want me to do? So go back to Peter fishing in the Sea of Galilee. Launch out into the deep, Peter. Let down your nets. Oh, Lord. I'm a fisherman. You're not. I'm the captain of this ship.

Yeah, Peter, that's the problem. I'm showing you you're not in control because last time I checked, like you said, you fished all night and caught zero. So let down your nets over there and prepare for a big catch. And the nets began to break.

There were so many fish. What changed? It changed the moment Peter let Jesus be the captain of his boat, captain of his ship. Remember that bumper sticker, Jesus is my co-pilot?

Have you ever seen that? I remember it used to be a popular bumper sticker, Jesus is my, or God is my co-pilot. I hate that bumper sticker.

No offense if that's on your car, but change it. God doesn't want to be your co-pilot. God wants you to move to the back seat. He'll drive. Give him the keys. Give him the pink slip. Give him control. You're sitting next to him going, well, let me help you out, Lord. Here, I'll grab the wheel.

Let me, no, get off. God is my pilot, not my co-pilot. Give him the reins of your life if you haven't already. Let him into your boat. Do what he says. Say yes, Lord. And when you say yes to the Lord, you're in for a grand adventure.

Thanks so much for being with us today. Before you go, remember that when you give $50 or more to help reach more people with the gospel through Connect with Skip Heitzig, we'll send you a copy of the Jesus Loves Them bundle to help you understand God's abounding love for all people. Request your copy when you call and give 800-922-1888.

That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. Come back next time for more Verse by Verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Have a great day. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast your burdens on his word. Make a connection. Connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.