Sermon Tone Analysis

Acts - 27

Acts 10:1-33

Introduction

We’ve all done it.

You walk into a room to get something and then totally forget why you went into the room in the first place.

Or you think, I need to look that up online.

But when you go into the dining room to get your computer and open up your browser, you have no idea what you were planning to look up.

It happens to us all and is not at all an indication that your memory is fading.

It is known scientifically as the “Doorway Effect.”

First solidified by Gabriel Radvansky, a Psychology Professor at the University of Notre Dame, the Doorway Effect is a real phenomenon that happens when you walk through a doorway, into another room, and you forget why you went in the room.

This is because a doorway is known as an “event boundary” in the mind.

Your brain compartmentalizes your memories from room to room.

When you walk through a doorway it is like your brain closes out one document and opens up a new one.

All that needs to happen for your way of thinking to change, for your worldview to change, for you to see things differently than before, is to walk through a doorway.

In Acts 10, the Apostle Peter is going to walk through a door that will forever change him, and will forever change the faith of Christianity.

Peter has been on quite a journey already that is slowly transforming him.

He comes out of a good Jewish heritage.

He loves God and wants to honor Him with His life.

To do that, he obeys God’s revealed Law in the OT.

He’s done it his entire life.

He doesn’t know any different.

What he does know is that God elected the nation of Israel to be His people on the earth.

They hold privileged status.

They aren’t like the other nations in the world, that much is crystal clear.

The nations are full of pagan idolatry with pagan lifestyles that match.

But God’s people are distinct.

They are set apart.

They are holy like their God is holy.

Most of their Laws are designed to be a means of distinction, that sets them apart from the pagan nations around them.

Most well-known among them are the kosher food laws.

For example:

Leviticus 11:41-47 - 41 ‘Now every swarming thing that swarms on the earth is detestable; it shall not be eaten.

42 Whatever goes on its belly, and whatever goes on all fours, whatever has many feet, in respect to every swarming thing that swarms on the earth, you shall not eat them, for they are detestable.

43 Do not render yourselves detestable through any of the swarming things that swarm; and you shall not make yourselves unclean with them so that you become unclean.

44 For I am Yahweh your God.

Therefore, set yourselves apart as holy and be holy, for I am holy.

And you shall not make yourselves unclean with any of the swarming things that move on the earth.

45 For I am Yahweh who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy.’”

46 This is the law regarding the animal and the bird and every living thing that moves in the waters and everything that swarms on the earth, 47 to separate between the unclean and the clean, and between the edible creature and the creature which is not to be eaten.

Leviticus 20:22-26 - 22 ‘You shall therefore keep all My statutes and all My judgments and do them, so that the land to which I am bringing you to inhabit will not vomit you out.

23 Moreover, you shall not walk in the statutes of the nation which I will cast out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I have loathed them.

24 Hence I have said to you, “You yourselves shall possess their land, and I Myself will give it to you to possess it, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

I am Yahweh your God, who has separated you from the peoples.

25 You are therefore to separate between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean; and you shall not make yourselves detestable by animal or by bird or by anything that creeps on the ground, which I have separated for you as unclean.

26 Thus you shall be holy to Me, for I Yahweh am holy; and I have separated you from the peoples to be Mine.

Do you see the connection?

Their diet is part of what marks them as God’s covenant people.

Don’t be like the pagan Canaanites that once occupied this land.

You are mine.

You are separate from the nations.

Therefore, eat this way.

But the laws went much further than just food.

The clothes they wore, the places they went, the people they interacted with…all was to be done with a concern about clean and unclean, holy and unholy.

So when Jesus told the apostles in Acts 1:8 that the Gospel would go out from Jerusalem into Judea and all Samaria, and even to the nations…well, that was quite confusing.

The nations are bad.

The nations are evil.

The nations are unclean.

These Gentiles (nations/ethnos) cannot become part of God’s holy people, they are unholy.

Therefore God hates them.

He condemns them.

We are in, they are out.

The only people God would ever concern Himself with saving are His own good and godly people.

But they were wrong.

They had totally missed the fact that the ultimate point of God electing Israel to salvation, to choosing them, to blessing them, was so that they would be a light to the Gentiles.

So that the nations would flood into Israel to worship her God.

Jesus came and sought to remind them of this great truth.

In Matthew 8, Jesus encounters a Roman centurion who needed help.

This centurion is a Gentile of Gentiles, a pagan military officer who is enforcing the Roman, pagan way of life onto the world.

Listen carefully to the encounter:

Matthew 8:5-13 - 5 And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, 6 and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.”

7 And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”

8 But the centurion said, “Lord, I am not good enough for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed.

9 For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this man, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.”

10 Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.

11 And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; 12 but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

13 And Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed.”

And the servant was healed that very moment.

Do you see it?

The pagan, Gentile centurion is presented positively.

Jesus marvels at his faith.

Jesus fulfills his request to heal the servant.

And Jesus declares that indeed the nations will come and sit at the table (be equal with) God’s covenant people.

Surely not!

God doesn’t save outsiders, right?

God wouldn’t make us less special by saving them, right?

Acts 10:1-33 - Now there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort, 2 a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the people and prayed to God continually.

3 About the ninth hour of the day he clearly saw in a vision an angel of God who had come in and said to him, “Cornelius!” 4 And looking intently on him and becoming afraid, he said, “What is it, Lord?”

And he said to him, “Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God. 5 Now send some men to Joppa and summon a man named Simon, who is also called Peter; 6 he is lodging with a tanner named Simon, whose house is by the sea.” 7 And when the angel who was speaking to him had left, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier of those who were his personal attendants, 8 and after he explained everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.

9 And on the next day, as they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. 10 But he became hungry and was desiring to eat.

And while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance 11 and saw heaven opened up, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground, 12 and there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the sky.

13 And a voice came to him, “Rise up, Peter, slaughter and eat!” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything defiled and unclean.”

15 Again a voice came to him a second time, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider defiled.”

16 And this happened three times and immediately the object was taken up into heaven.

17 Now while Peter was greatly perplexed in mind as to what the vision which he had seen might be, behold, the men who had been sent by Cornelius, having asked directions for Simon’s house, appeared at the gate; 18 and calling out, they were asking whether Simon, who was also called Peter, was lodging there.

19 And while Peter was reflecting on the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you.

20 But rise up, go down and accompany them without taking issue at all, for I have sent them Myself.”

21 And Peter went down to the men and said, “Behold, I am the one you are looking for; what is the reason for which you have come?”

22 And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man well spoken of by the entire nation of the Jews, was directed by a holy angel to summon you to his house and hear a message from you.” 23 So he invited them in and gave them lodging.

And on the next day he rose up and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa went with him.

24 And on the following day he entered Caesarea.