Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome & Announcements

“SOUP”erbowl Watch Party on February 12, 2023.

We’re encouraging everyone to bring a homemade soup, we’ll vote on the best soup, and the winner wins a $50 gift card to Brown Dog Catering in Philipsburg.

Kickoff is at 6:30pm.

Please prepare for the Lord’s Supper on February 19th, 2023.

Josh Dickson will be preaching February 26th, 2023, during the Sunday AM Service; he will also be teaching Discipleship Groups on March 5th, 2023.

Pastor Daniel will be out of town February 28th – March 1st until the evening service.

In addition, Pastor Daniel and Nataliewill be out of town March 8th – 11th.

In case of emergency, please contact a deacon.

Pastor Jordan Alturas of The Fellowship Church (State College, PA) will be preaching March 12th, 2023, during the Sunday AM Service.

Giving Reminder

Prayer of Repentance and Adoration

Call to Worship (Ps 71:12-16)

Our Call to Worship is Psalm 71:12-16, which continues psalm 71 with a reminder of God’s goodness and the psalmist’s need for Him to save.

Congregational Singing

Holy, Holy, Holy (48)

Praise Him! Praise Him! (94)

My Worth is not in what I Own (98)

Scripture Reading (Gen 18)

Our Scripture Reading this morning is Genesis 18, which continues the historical narrative of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Josh can you read Genesis 18 for us?

Preaching of God’s Word (Acts 10:1-35)

Introduction

If you have your Bible, please open it to Acts 10:1-35.

As you turn there, let me remind you of where in the text we are.

Last week, we studied about multiple healings—really one healing and one resurrection—done through Peter by God as a confirmation of the message that Peter was proclaiming, which was simply the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is after we studied about the great persecutor of the church, Saul being confronted for his sins, repenting, and following Jesus.

I mentioned last week that if you’ve been paying close attention to everything going on in the book of Acts, you’ve probably already picked up on this fact: that Luke is building, and he’s building up to something in particular.

And in today’s passage, you’ll get a fairly significant taste of what he’s building up to before we hit the nail on the head next week.

This week’s passage introduces us to a non-Jewish man, a Gentile, who already believed in God, but didn’t know Jesus.

And as we’re introduced to Cornelius we see both him and Peter having visions that lead them to meet for the purpose of Peter understanding the truth concerning non-Jewish people—that it was always part of God’s plan to provide salvation even to non-Jewish people.

As we study this passage, we’re going to break it into three primary parts: (1) Cornelius’ Vision (1-8), (2) Peter’s Vision (9-16), and (3) Cornelius and Peter (17-35).

Now, please note, that this is only part one of two concerning the spread of the Gospel to Gentiles, so I would recommend that you take a look at vv. 36-48 at your own leisure later today.

What we’ll study today and next week comes to a rather simple conclusion, Jesus saves anyone who repents, believes, and follows Him regardless of their ethnicity, which has significant application in our modern-day world today.

Prayer for Illumination

Cornelius’ Vision (1-8)

Our text starts by introducing us to someone that we haven’t met yet and we’re given some details that are vitally important (1-2) and they fall into two categories—they tell us who he is and what he believes:

Concerning who he is:

We’re told that he is a Caesarean, which might sound like a little detail, but it’s reminding us yet again, that the Gospel is spreading.

At this time, Peter is in Joppa, we know that from the context of last week as well as Cornelius’ vision, which tells us that Peter is in Joppa.

This tells us that this event (Cornelius’ vision) occurred about 30-35 miles north of everything that happened with Peter in last week’s passage.

Christianity is spreading.

We’re told that he is a centurion, which we can’t really contextualize that into our modern-day world, but we know that a centurion typically started as a regular soldier and then they were promoted into the rank of centurion in which they had command over 100 soldiers.

Based on his name, job, and rank in the job, we know that he is a Roman citizen that was high-ranking, that he lived in a Roman town, and his name was distinctly Roman.

And then in v. 2, we’re told some details concerning what he believes:

We’re told that despite being a a Roman through and through, he still believed in God to the extent that the Bible says he was devout and that he and his whole household feared God, gave alms generously, and prayed continually to God.

This is significant because you have to remember that the Roman empire was a pluralistic society—meaning, they worshiped the Roman pantheon of gods and they worshiped the emperor.

And yet, here’s a high-ranking Roman citizen living in a Roman town who didn’t worship the false gods of Rome and he didn’t worship the emperor, he worshiped Yahweh.

The issue is that he has incomplete knowledge of the truth—he believes in God but he doesn’t know Jesus, but that is about to change.

We’re then told of a vision that he’s given in vv.

3-8.

We’re told that this vision came to him during the ninth hour of the day, which is 3pm and then we’re told what exactly this vision is:

He sees clearly in his vision, “an angel of God come in and say to him, ‘Cornelius.’”

The angel literally just says his name but Cornelius is utterly shocked and scared by this.

V. 4, says he “started at [the angel] in terror and said, ‘What is it, Lord?’”

Before the angel tells him that Cornelius’ prayers and his alms essentially have been noticed by God—God has heard him and has been keeping track of his good works and his sacrificial giving, which by the way, this places him in direct opposition of the Jewish people, who were doing what they were supposed to do but with the wrong heart and wrong motive—Cornelius is doing it with the right heart and the right motive and God takes note of this.

So much so, that God tells him of Peter who is staying with Simon, a tanner, in Joppa.

So, Cornelius sends two of his servants and a devout (understand, a believing) soldier from among them to go to Peter and speak to him.

Again, that’s about a 30-35 mile journey and Cornelius is basing this off a vision that he has, which shows us that he genuinely does believe to the extent that when he receives a vision, he doesn’t question whether what the angel says is true, he simply trusts the angel of God.

Now, all these details may seem like they aren’t that important, but you really need to consider this in the context of first century Judaism—the Jewish people didn’t really think that the Gentile people could worship God and that’s based on their understanding of the Old Testament.

In hindsight, we see that there have been non-Jewish people believing in Yahweh since the start of Israel.

But again, that’s not how the Jewish people understood the truth—thus, the fact that Cornelius wasn’t Jewish and was so Roman that his name was unmistakably Roman tells us that something significant is happening.

In vv.

9-16, we transition out from Cornelius and we’re not following the three men as they journey to Joppa, instead, we see Peter and Peter has a vision.

Let’s read vv.

9-16.

Peter’s Vision (9-16)

So as the three men are traveling to Joppa, Peter is on the roof of the house of Simon the tanner, praying.

By the way, don’t think of their houses like our modern-day houses—they didn’t have angled roofs on their houses, they had flat roofs that were typically utilized for different purposes.

And Peter happens to be using this rooftop for prayer at the sixth hour, which is noon.

We’re not sure how long he was praying or if he was only there for a short time, but eventually Peter gets hungry, probably because its around noon, and he goes to find food but before he can eat anything, he falls into a trance and has a vision.

And this vision plays on his understanding of the Old Testament law.

These are the details of his vision:

He sees the heavens or what we know as the sky opening up and he sees something “like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth.”

We know that there’s a bit of figurative language being used here, there’s a simile just in v. 11.

That there is something like a great sheet.

What exactly it was, we aren’t entirely sure nor is it the point of the passage (though some scholars have taken a significant amount of time to try and determine a symbolic meaning for something like a sheet being let down by its four corners and have deduced all sorts of unusual things).

Now, we’re told that contained in this sheet-like object there were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air, when he’s told by a voice to “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.”

And already, if you’re familiar with the Old Testament Law, you know what Peter’s objection is, v. 14, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”

Remind yourself of the Old Testament Law—the Jewish people were told that they could not eat certain animals.

Leviticus mentions several animals that they weren’t supposed to eat—like camels, badgers, rabbit, and pigs.

Certain fish, birds, and winged creeping things were all forbidden for them to eat including the animals mentioned in v. 12, “all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air,”

And Peter’s not a fool, he knows the Old Testament Law, so when he’s told to eat these unclean animals, he responds with an “absolutely not, I’ve never eaten anything common or unclean.”

Now, we might think that Peter would be commended for taking God’s Word seriously and that God would even praise him or commend him for staying firm, but that isn’t the point of this vision and in v. 15, we see a response that’s different than we might expect.

God responds to Peter by saying, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”

We could easily read this and think that this is referring to eating clean and unclean animals and those of us today that enjoy eating food like turkey, bacon, and other creatures might think that’s the whole point but that isn’t the point of this vision.

But up to this point in the text, Peter doesn’t understand what the purpose of the vision is either—we’re told that this vision happened three times before the sheet was taken back up to heaven.

The vision itself is a bit confusing and again, it has actually very little to do with food, but Peter still doesn’t know what exactly the point of his vision is to the extent that as we continue in the text, we’re told that he’s perplexed by the meaning of the vision and its while he’s confused that he meets the men that were sent to him by Cornelius as a result of Cornelius’ vision.

Look at vv. 17-35 again.

Cornelius and Peter (17-35)

In this last section of the text, which is admittedly longer than the other two sections, we’re told that Peter is still perplexed and confused about the meaning of his vision when we’re told that Cornelius’ men were standing at the gate to Simon’s house.

And they “called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there.”

— Remember, that this is a time in Christian church history that there is a significant amount of persecution.

So, there’s a very real sense that Peter heard about these men (one of whom was a Roman soldier) calling out for him and immediately became fearful of what was about to happen.

I think we’d all admit that Peter would have a right to be fearful during this time especially considering the large amounts of persecution that followed the apostles in the New Testament (though, admittedly, the persecution wasn’t as strong as it was prior to Saul’s conversion).

And yet, Peter’s told by the Holy Spirit in v. 19 that “three men are looking for [him and he needs to] rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.”

There are two details in v. 19 that are important:

The first is that Peter’s still confused about the vision that he had already received—but even in the midst of the confusion, he obeys what the Holy Spirit tells him to do.

He doesn’t really even question the Holy Spirit telling him to go speak to these men, he just goes—now, compare that to yourself.

We’re told of what to do in Scripture to live faithful to the calling that He has called us (to walk in the Spirit), when you experience confusion, do you still obey what we’ve been told to do or do you use that as an excuse not to obey?

The second detail is this, the Holy Spirit is driving two people who absolutely would not have met apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.

They lived in completely different places, they were in completely different fields of work, they were probably never going to actually meet; until the Holy Spirit providentially worked in both of their lives.