Christ is Lord of All

Introduction

This morning I want to talk about an issue that is dear to my heart: that is World Wide Missions. Most of you know that Katy and I and Chloe were missionaries in NE India working with the Bhutanese people until we were forced to leave. But leaving physically did not change the fact that my heart has always been for missions. I was saved in a missions church. My heroes growing up were missionaries and now that God has us in the States I don’t want to lose sight of the need for missionaries around the world.

Our text today is the story of the salvation of Cornelius and there are many different applications that could be made from this text; however, the intended purpose of this story is to show us that Jesus is Lord over all peoples in all nations. It shows us the gospel breaking through cultural, linguistic and ethnic barriers as the gospel goes out to the Gentiles.

World Wide Missions is becoming a forgotten mission in the church. We support our missionaries, but very few of us would ever consider being one. The total population of the world is now at 7.8 billion people. The estimated total number of bible believing evangelical christians is about 660 million people world wide. Accurate statistics are hard to find because most sources include Catholics in their stats, but there are an estimated 435,000 missionaries total world wide.

In missions we talk about a region of the world called the 10/40 window. This is the section of the map where most of the unreached people of the world live. This includes much of Northern Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. They would be places where there are very few Christians, so there are very few churches and limited access to Christian materials like the bible and discipleship programs. Out of all those missionaries, only 2.7% of them are reaching unreached people groups.

The Need for World Wide Missions

There are men and women that God desires to save all around the world. Cornelius was a man who was seeking after God. In our text it describes him such a way that it is clear that this man yearned after God, but he was not saved.

A leader of 100 men in the Roman army- midlevel management vs 1

Devout devotion to God vs 2

fears God- This was a common phrase used in the NT for someone who was not a full proselyte of the Jewish religion, but had exposure and respect for Jehovah.

Gives alms

Prays

good reputation with all the Jews vs 22

According to Acts 10:35 “But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” Those who fear God and do right are accepted of God. This does not mean that Cornelius was automatically saved because he feared God and did good, but it means that God wants him to hear the gospel. There was a man on the other side of the ethnic boundaries the Jews had created who needed to hear the gospel.

John 10:14-16 “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” God’s desire is to see the gospel go out to people like Cornelius. 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” God’s heart is that all men would be saved, but they aren’t all saved.

The missionaries job is to bring the gospel to those whom God’s Spirit has been working on to receive the gospel around the world.

There is a dearth today of people even giving it a thought that God might want them in missions.

Most of our young people do not consider missions. I know that God doesn’t call everyone to missions, but He does call enough people to get the job done and as we have seen we are seeing fewer and fewer people doing the work. I think the problem isn’t God, but young people too carried away with entertainment and pleasure to consider serving God.

You might thing you are a middle aged person with a settled life and God can’t be calling me. After all if God wanted to call me wouldn’t He have done it when I was graduating High School or college? God calls people of any stage of life. Do you really think Peter and Paul and Philip were just college graduates without settled jobs and lives?

There has recently been a renewal in missions among the older generation. Those who have hit retirement age. They are coming to realize that God is not done with them and now that they have a retirement, they don’t have to raise as much money to go to the field. One of my best friends in linguistics school was Will and Trina Muldoon. They pastored in Wyoming for years until he decided to retire. Soon after that God put it on their hearts to be missionaries in Papua New Guinea where they are currently serving. They have started a church and a bible college in the few years since I saw them last.

A long time ago I wrote a quote in my bible by William Booth

“Not called” did you say? “Not heard the call” I think you should say. Put your ear down to the bible and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face- whose mercy you have professed to obey and tell Him whether you will join heart and body and soul and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.

People like Cornelius need the gospel and someone needs to go.

The Boundaries to World Wide Missions

The main message of this text deals with what you could call boundaries to World Wide Missions. You see Peter was not ready to preach the gospel to Gentiles yet. That was a line to far. Peter was willing to preach to Jews, to Samaritans and to Jewish proselytes, but this was something new to him. God had to reprogram Peter’s mind before he would be ready to preach the gospel to the Gentiles.

Acts 10: 9 “On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour:”

Peter was doing what he did very often: he was praying on the roof top. According to our text he got a little hungry and asked the host to make some food, but while he was waiting, he fell into a trance. So a trance was something like a dream in which God would speak directly to someone. God had something to say to Peter.

In this vision, A sheet came down from heaven with all kinds of animals both clean and unclean. God tells Peter In Acts 10:13 “And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.”

Verse 14 sounds strange to us because who would ever say No so and Lord in the same sentence. This wasn’t just a formality to Peter. These words are emphatic in the Greek. Peter is dead set against eating this food. Now we can be a little more merciful to Peter than we often are. Peter could have believed this was a test. Peter’s understanding was that this was not allowed according to scripture.

Lev 20:24-26 “But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people. Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean. And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.”

Peter had an obstacle in his mind that kept him from obeying God’s commands. It didn’t make sense to Peter. Scripture seemed to be clear and the right course of action was obvious, but God had to change Peter’s mind. God confronts Peter with a truth that we all need to keep in mind when it comes to missions: What God has cleansed that call not thou common. God has the right to decide what is clean or unclean. God is breaking down the excuses that Peter gives for not obeying him.

What are the excuses we give for not considering missions?

I am settled in my life I am living now.

I can’t stand spicy and wierd food so I can’t go to another country.

I don’t learn languages well.

People from other cultures get on my nerves too much. (We probably wouldn’t say this, but we act on it)

The excuse that Peter was giving is that the gospel is meant only for a certain group of people.

Missions is different from evangelism in that missions focuses on cross-cultural evangelism. Missions means crossing over langauge, cultural, ethnic boundaries to get the gospel to people. God gave Peter this vision three times to drive home this message that the gospel needed to break out of the Jewish confines into the rest of the world. This event in the history was the beginning of something new. The gospel would explode accross the world from this point.

In the following verses we see Peter comes to Cornelius having thought about the vision. In Acts 10: 17 “Now while Peter doubted in himself what this vision which he had seen should mean, behold, the men which were sent from Cornelius had made inquiry for Simon’s house, and stood before the gate,” Peter was not quite sure what to make of the vision. But God reveals exactly what he meant when he tells him in vs 20 Arise, go down and go with these men doubting nothing. Peter arrives at Cornelius’ house and hears the story of what God was doing, preaches the gospel and in vs 44-48 everyone who hears the message gets saved.

This amazed Peter and the Jewish believers that he had brought with him.

The boundary to God doing a great work in World Wide Missions is our own stubbornness and mental blocks that we allow to keep us from being obedient. Peter even told these people his hesitantcy to preach the gospel to them. Acts 10:28-29 “And he said unto them, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean. Therefore came I unto you without gainsaying, as soon as I was sent for: I ask therefore for what intent ye have sent for me?”

God’s desire for World Wide Missions

Gen 12:1-3 “Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” God’s heart for all the peoples of the world was seen all the way back in the Abrahamic Covenant. God did not intend to just bless Israel. But all the world would be blessed by the Messiah who would come through Israel.

Rev 5:9 “And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;”

Psalm 86:9 “All nations whom thou hast made shall come And worship before thee, O Lord; And shall glorify thy name.”

Isa 49:6 “And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, And to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, That thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”

Isaiah 55:5 “Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, And nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee Because of the Lord thy God, And for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee.”

Isa 66:18-19 “For I know their works and their thoughts: It shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; And they shall come, and see my glory. And I will set a sign among them, And I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, To Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, To Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, That have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; And they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles.”

Psalm 67: 1-2 “God be merciful unto us, and bless us; And cause his face to shine upon us; Selah. That thy way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health among all nations.” Blessings came to Israel so that they could reach the nations.

Romans 15:20 “Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man’s foundation:”

Matt 28:19-20 “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

This passage is often called the Great Commission because Jesus commissioned us to give the gospel out. Notice we are not told to give the gospel just to every person, we are told to get the gospel out to every nation. The word nation is the Greek word ethne which means people groups. Ethne are not defined by political boundaries. Nations here are not like the country of China or India. Nations refers to ethnic groups.

Within a single country there can be many different ethnic groups that have their own cultural identity, language and religion. Within India alone there are over 2,373 people groups. 700 distinct languages all within one country. God is telling us t get the gospel to all these tribal, ethnic groups of the world, so that every kindred, and tongue and people and nation will be present to worship God in heaven.

It is sometimes argued that these verses were given only to the Apostles. The problem with that argument is that God promises that while we do that He will be with us until the end of the world. God promises to be with those who preach this message until the end of time. The apostles dies in the first few years of Christianity, so if this command was only to the Apostles why make a promise that would last until the end of the world?

God does not desire for the gospel to just belong to one group of people or one nation on the face of the earth. He does not want it just to belong to the five nations that most missionaries go to. God wants the gospel to break out of the normal boundaries that we have imposed on it. That means that we out to take seriously this work of World Wide Missions. I know we can’t all go, but can somebody go.

Conclusion:

Why should World Wide Missions be important to us? Because Jesus Christ is lord of all. The center of Peter’s message is that God does not play favorites and God is not just a God of the Jews or of the Christians, but Jesus is Lord of all.

Jesus has not limited the gospel to one particular group, but wants that message to break through cultural, language, ethnic and political boundaries.

As Peter ties up his message, he reminds us that Jesus as Lord of all is:

a judge of all mankind Acts 10:42 “And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.” All men everywhere will stand before God someday and have to give an account of their lives. At that judgment seat, only those whose sins have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus will find forgiveness. The rest will spend eternity in the lake of fire. Why should we be concerned about World Wide Missions? Because the Lord of all the earth will judge all the earth some day.

the savior of all mankind Acts 10:43 “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.” But that judge is not willing that any should perish. Is is not his heart to condemn mankind. That is something they choose for themselves. God desires all people to be saved. So that whoever any one who believes in Him places their faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ will have their sins forgiven.

Christian, God like Peter is trying to break down those walls that you have in your mind for why you can’t be involved in God’s work to redeem mankind.