A Second Conversion?

29 September 2019

A Second Conversion

Acts 10

Sometimes a world changing event will happen and everyone will hold their breath as it happens.

The defeat of the Spanish Armada 1588. Hitler invaded Poland 1939. Terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001

These days were major events that changed the world as everyone watched, or heard about almost immediately.

There are other days in which no one is watching, and no one is waiting, and no one is holding their breath, but which quietly and profoundly change everything.

The birth of Martin Luther in 1483, John Bardeen madding the first transistor in 1947, Albert Einstein quietly worked out that E=MC2 in 1905.

No one saw these days coming, no one held their breath but they changed the world.

Acts Chapter 10 recounts the second biggest event in the history of our planet. Second only to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. No one was watching , it was a surprise to all, but nothing was ever the same again.

A bridge was crossed in the coastal town of Caesarea that shook the ancient world to its foundations and still is heard around the world to this day.

Come and have a look at the day with me at Acts Chapter 10.

It starts one afternoon in the coastal town of Caesarea.

There is a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort. He is not a Jew. He is a Roman. He is not a Jewish Proselyte. That is someone who has joined themselves to the Jewish religion by circumcision and temple worship and has, as it were become a Jew.

He is a gentile through and through, but somehow, he is a man who fears God, gives alms generously, and prayed to God, even though he is not a Jew.

So here it was, 3pm in the afternoon or the ninth hour if you are a Roman, that he saw a vision, the appearance of a man who was bright and shining.

Who instructs him to send for Peter in Joppa?

In obedience to the instruction, he does.

Now Joppa is also on the coast 80km south of Caesarea. The story moves to the house of a Tanner in Joppa. To his roof top in fact.

Now the tanner business was a smelly one but more than that, for the Jew the tanner was a ceremonially unclean person. He was religiously an outcast, because of all the work that he did with dead animals.

This is the place where Peter is staying. It is where the apostle to the Jews, where the leader of the messianic movement was staying, and where Peter had a very unusual vision. Something was already happened in Peter wasn’t it?

Israel’s holiness laws were quite clear.  Holiness was about being separate about being set aside for something that is unique or unusual. The whole of Israel’s holiness laws kept reinforcing the idea that being the people of God, the people of Yahweh meant that they were not to live like everyone else.

The clothes they wore were different, the day in which they worshiped God was different, everything was different about them. They were not to inter marry. One of the key differences was the food that they ate.

There were clean foods and there were unclean foods, and they were never to eat the unclean foods.

Here was Peter living with an unclean Jewish Tanner.

Surrounded by the skins of all these dead animals.

When on the rooftop a vision comes to him. In this vision a sheet of all sorts of animals arrives, some clean some unclean and he is invited to eat.

And when he argues against that, he is told:

Vs 15

 “What God has made clean, do not call common.”

What a strange thing to happen and for a devote Jewish man who had spent his life not eating such food it must have been deeply shocking.

Well while Peter is perplexed the men from Caesarea arrive and Peter, by the Holy Spirit is told to go with them without hesitation, and so he does.

On the following day Peter arrives at Cornelius’s house in Caesarea.

Now Cornelius may have been a God fearer but he certainly does not understand God, because the first thing he does is fall down and worship Peter.

Peter knows that you don’t accept worship from anyone and so he says “stand up, don’t worship me”.

Well what is Peter going to do now? He seems to understand that the vision from God was talking about this very situation.

Vs 28

“You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. ²⁹ So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.”

That is the question isn’t it? What am I doing here and why have you sent for me?

So Cornelius tells him about the vision, and that he was to send for Peter in Joppa and he says:

Vs 33

 ³³ So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”

There is only one message that Peter had been command by the Lord to speak …

Here it is … this is the extraordinary moment.

A Jewish leader of the messianic movement, is going to teach a military commander of the occupying Romans army about Jesus. That alone would have made it extraordinary difficult and strange thing.

Which Centurion is going to be taught by a Jewish fisherman? That in itself is an extraordinary thing.

However, it’s not the big one, but it is more than that isn’t it, it is bigger than that isn’t it? This is a Jew and a Gentile.

This is a person belonging to the people of God, God’s chosen people, and a Gentile.

The first Gentile who is having the gospel explained to him.

What is Peter going to preach? What will he say to a gentile? Is he going to say: “well now you have to become a Jew?”

Is he going to say, it is great you are a God fearer, now you have to be circumcised? Is he going to say, first you need to get rid of your pork.

What do you say to the gentile because the Pharisees would say those things.  If the gentile ever came and said I want to become a follower of Yahweh then they would say, you have to become a Jew. You have to become Circumcised, which I imagine reduced the rate of conversion a great deal.

What is Peter going to say?

³⁴ So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, ³⁵ but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. ³⁶ As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), ³⁷ you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: ³⁸ how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. ³⁹ And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, ⁴⁰ but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, ⁴¹ not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. ⁴² And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³ To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Here is the first time that that gospel was preached to the gentiles and it is the same as the gospel to the Jews.

As he was proclaiming the gospel. Cornelius and those with him received the Holy Spirit. How did Peter know that? It was because they began to ‘speak in tongues’.

Speaking in tongues comes when a new barrier is being crossed and indicates the outpouring of the sprit.

It is similar to when the Apostles in Acts 2 as the Holy Spirit is given to the Jews. Also similar to when the Samaritans spoke in tongues in Acts 8 when the Holy Spirit is given to the half Jews. Now in Acts 10, they speak in tongues as the Holy Spirit is given to the Gentiles.

There was no getting away from the fact that these are Gentiles.

So … how can I not baptise them with water?

Which is most important? The symbol or the reality.

They have the reality … you can’t withhold the symbol.

Well that is the Day. The day in which the world changed.

Well friends, what are we to make of all this?

Can I mention three things that ought to capture us as we look together at Acts 10. There will no doubt be more, but here are three things

Our God is a Universal God

There is no nation, no group, no people on the face of this planet for whom Christ doesn’t say “mine”

All nations, not just Jews can be saved by Jesus. For you and me that is a nothing, because we are not Jewish, most of us that is,  but the reason you think that is because of what God did back here in Acts 10.

This was the day in which the Dam burst, and You and I were included in the Kingdom of God.

This was God’s plan from the beginning don’t get me wrong. This day marks the beginning of the gospel to the nations because Jesus is Lord of the universe.

When Jesus said to the disciples at the beginning of Acts that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be preached to the nations beginning in Jerusalem, he did not mean the Jews of all nations.

He meant, all the nations. They hadn’t worked that out yet and now they had. This is the beginning of world evangelism and the mission movement.

This is the turning of Christianity from a Jewish sect to (all be I the true Jewish sect) into the message of the Lord Jesus Christ for all the world.

The gospel is a universal message … the first universal message.

People of any other culture, or religion or no religion are to be called upon to repent and to turn and accept the universal Jesus who is Lord of all.

That is what drove men like William Carey – missionary to India. That is what drove men like Hudson Taylor – missionary to China. That is why they brought missionaries with them in the first fleet to Australia and they said “ give up your paganism, and turn to Jesus Christ. For he is Lord of all”.

There is one God, one judge one saviour who brings forgiveness of sins. Here is the overturn of the sovereignty of cultures and religions and nations and races and people. For there is something bigger than our differences.

Friends I hope we are still excited by the work of Jesus among the nations?

• In 1900, Africa had ten million Christians, by 2000, the number of Christians was 360 million. Even if that is only half right … isn’t that exciting?
• Last Sunday . . . more Christian believers attended church in China than in all of so-called ‘Christian Europe.’
• More Christian workers from Brazil are active in cross cultural ministry outside their homeland than from Britain or from Canada.”

We have a message for all nations.

So today, of the 11,749 people groups in the world about 3,235 are unengaged — that is, not being pursued in missions by any evangelical group or church.

Do you think we should do something?

Praying together, in our small groups.

Sending someone?

There is no nation, no group, no people on the face of this planet for whom Christ doesn’t say “mine”

Our God is a universal God

Our God shows no partiality

The holiness of Israel was hostile to everything that was foreign. The basic biblical message of being God’s distinctive people had been blown out of all proportion by the Pharisees, so that there was no contact with the Gentiles, the Gentiles were unclean by definition and therefore beyond salvation, beyond hope and beyond God. All kinds of rules and regulations that the Pharisees made about having no contact with the Gentiles were far in excess of what the Old Testament said.

Now the very Holy Spirit  of God had come into a Gentile household and so they had been baptised into the Messiah.

Here was the enemy, the unclean outsider who the messiah was supposed to crush under his feet, being welcomed as a full member of the messiah’s household.

And Peter says

²⁸ … “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.

At the very least that will mean that Christians should never look down on a person from any race or ethnic group and say: they are unfit to hear the gospel from me. Or they are too unclean for me to go into their house to share the gospel. Or they are not worth evangelising. Or they have too many offensive habits to even get near them.

The phrase that makes verse 28 so powerful is the phrase "any person" or "any one": "God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean." In other words, Peter learned from his vision on the housetop in Joppa that God rules no one out of his favour on the basis of race or ethnic origin or mere cultural distinctives or physical distinctives.

Peter's point here in verse 28 is that there is not one human being on the face of the earth that we should think about in that way. Not one. That's the amazing thing in this verse. Not one.

No racism, from Christians.

Who would you struggle to share the gospel with?

A culture?

A race?

A grouping

The Japanese after WW2?

A militant, argumentative homosexual?

An advocate for abortion at full term?

A podophile in prison?

A rapist?

³⁴ So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, ³⁵ but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

Our church then  will be full of people from everywhere.

Our God shows no partiality.

Our God delights in glory for Jesus

When Peter had his world turned upside down by the vision of unclean animals in Acts 10, and by the lesson from God that he should evangelize Gentiles as well as Jews, he came back to Jerusalem and told the apostles that it was all owing to God’s zeal for his name.

 We know this because James summed up Peter’s speech like this: “Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name” Acts 15:13–14

The truth is plain: God is pursuing with omnipotent delight a worldwide purpose of gathering a people for his name sake . .. for the glory of Jesus from every tribe and language and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the fame of his Son among the nations.

Why?

Why all the nations?

If you had a orchestra all made up of one instrument, all violins. If they were good players, it would sound good. Violins are nice.

If we added another instrument, flute, well then two instrument, it would sound better. When you have the whole orchestra, all the differences in tones and harmony weaving together it sounds glorious.

If Jesus was the saviour of the Jews … that would be more than gracious enough. It would be more than any deserve and we could look on and praise that he would save any.

If he was just saviour of the Jews and the Samaritans … well that would something … such mercy and grace.

If he is Lord and saviour of people from every nation, from every tribe, from every tongue such that the praise in heaven will be full of harmony, and colour and culture and nation. Well that is extraordinary.

Let’s pray