The Global Gospel
Notes
Transcript
Welcome
Prayer
Introduction: Last week we looked at Acts 10:1-35 and saw how God opened Peter’s thinking to understand that the Gospel wasn’t just for the Jews, and, we applied it to ask ourselves who, in our lives, do we treat like Peter and the early Church treated the Gentiles. Additionally, we pondered the questions, Where is God calling you to serve? How is God calling you to serve? Who is God calling you to serve?
Today we are going to take a look at Peter declaring the Gospel of Jesus to Cornelius and his family and friends; the result of him doing so; and think about how we might do the same thing - where ever we are.
Like last week, we are going to walk through the text so we understand what is going on and then we are going to talk a little bit about the Gospel and a couple of different ways to present it. I’m going to try to move through the text fairly quickly so we have some time at the end to discuss practical matters.
So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
I want to briefly touch on this again, in case you weren’t here last week, to make sure everyone understands what Peter is NOT saying here - He is not saying works save anyone. He is not saying Cornelius’ alms and prayers saved him. What he IS saying is he now understands that salvation is not for the Jews only, but for people of every nation, and the gospel is for everyone. Peter finally, fully, understands the complete scope of the Great Commission.
As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed:
Knowing our audience is important to remember as we witness. Peter is recognizing his audience here. As we discussed last week, there are basically 4 categories of people in the 1 century Jewish view: Jews by birth, Jewish converts, God fearers and Gentiles.
Peter understands that Cornelius is a “God fearer” and, apparently, the basics of Jesus’ life had made it through the synagogue circuit and informed them about Jesus, what He did and what happened to Him, but without an explanation concerning the all important question: why?
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.
Throughout the OT the anointing of the Spirit was a divine indicator of God’s favor. Unlike today, where everyone who follows Jesus has the indwelling of the Spirit, in the OT it was a rare occasion. Starting Joseph being indwelt so that he could interpret the Pharaoh's dreams, to Moses, Joshua, David Micah and Elijah, anointing with the Spirit was something special.
This anointing was demonstrated by Jesus through “doing good” and delivering people from unclean spirits/demons.
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,
Peter is saying - all those things you heard about through the grapevine, we have seen with our own eyes: we saw Jesus calm the storm, cure the sick, heal the infirm, cast out demons and raise people from the dead. We were there when He gave the Sermon on the Mount and when he confounded the religious leaders. We are witnesses to all these things and I can confirm they are true.
And, the Gospel is not the Gospel without the crucifixion.
When we are presenting the Gospel, it is good to remember that Jesus’ sacrifice is tied to the “curse of the law.” In Romans 5 Paul tells us a lot of things, but a couple of them are 1) “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us;” and 2) “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.” That act of righteousness was Jesus, who knew no sin, becoming sin for us, and bearing our punishment for us on our behalf - as Tad likes to say, He was our propitiation (our sacrifice to appease the wrath due to us for our sin).
But wait… there’s more!
but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 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.
Oh yah! BUT GOD - two of the most awesome words in the Bible - BUT GOD, raised Him on the third day! Amen! The single most amazing miracle in all eternity - Jesus rising from the dead to life. The resurrection changed everything - and I mean everything. Without it, as Paul says in 1 Cor 15, - the cross doesn’t matter. Resurrection life is the Christian hope - hope of life after life.
As important as the cross is to the Gospel message, the resurrection is doubly so. This is where apologetics usually will come into play. Why on earth would we believe that Jesus died and came back to life? Because it is the most reasonable and logical explanation of all the facts. We don’t have time to go through all the reasons today, but I’ve included a couple of websites in the bulletin you can visit for more information.
Also, because Peter knows he is speaking to an audience from a Hellenized (Greek-based) Roman culture, he makes sure to let them know Jesus did not rise as some type of “spiritual” being along the lines of Plato’s philosophy, but He was alive in the flesh, eating and drinking with Peter and the other witnesses.
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.
Peter is referring to the Great Commission. He now realizes the Gospel is for everyone and Jesus is the judge of everyone. Jesus isn’t just the judge, He is also Lord of everyone. As Paul tells us in Romans 14:9, “For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”
As we think about sharing the Gospel, Jesus’ lordship is part of the equation.
To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Remember Jesus saying in the Sermon on the Mount “I can to fulfill the law and the prophets?” This is what Peter is confirming here. Paul, in Romans 10:9, echos this, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared,
This is a direct parallel to Acts 2:1-4. The same miraculous outpouring of the Spirit foretold by Joel (see Acts 2:14-21) has now occurred on “all flesh” meaning both Jew and Gentile. This was the final thing, I think, Peter needed to see to confirm what God had shown him in the vision of the mixed animals we discussed last week.
And, lastly...
“Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.
Baptism is for everyone who chooses to follow Jesus - it is not something to put off or think is optional. It is a command from Jesus to be baptized, as He was, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
So, what Luke presents us with here in this text is a high-level overview of the Gospel Peter preached to Cornelius and his family - Jesus, the cross, and the resurrection.
[CHECK TIME]
Now, I want to take a few minutes to talk about a couple of different ways to present the Gospel message.
First and foremost, the Gospel has two key components - the cross and the resurrection - it does not exist without both.
Because there are two key components to the Gospel, there are really two different ways or general categories of Gospel presentation: cross-centric and resurrection-centric. Both have their strengths, but in our current culture, I think one will make it easier for you to have Gospel conversations. And, to one of the first points in today’s text about knowing your audience (unlike our turn and burn brothers here), it is important to tailor our message to our audience.
Presentation style #1 - the cross-centric Gospel. The cross-centric gospel starts with the question: how are sinners justified before a holy God? Answering this question starts with the condition of man – admit you are a sinner, moves to believe Christ died for you on the cross, and culminates with accepting Christ’s work on the cross. Does that sound familiar? That is the modern gospel - you can find examples of it everywhere.
A simplified diagram of this gospel looks like this: You’re a sinner; Jesus died for your sins; Accept Jesus’s work.
Man is the center focus of the entire presentation. You are a sinner, Jesus died because of you, you must repent and accept Jesus’ work to be saved.
In contrast, the resurrection-centric gospel starts with the question: in a world of death and evil, how can we have hope? Answering this question starts with the resurrection, moves to the defeat of death (and evil - because death is evil’s ultimate weapon) and culminates with the offer of hope in Jesus Christ. This gospel narrative is different in that it is God centered.
A simplified diagram of this message looks like: Jesus Rose from the Dead; Defeating Death & Evil; Offering Sinners Hope.
It starts with God and stays with God. God rose from the dead, God defeated death, God offers sinners hope.
The difference is the object of focus, one is the cross, the other the resurrection. It may seem like a subtle distinction, but it has profound implications. One makes man the center of the gospel message, the other makes God the center of the gospel message. The cross-centric message has the resurrection tucked into “accept Jesus’ work.” The resurrection-centric gospel tucks repentance and the cross into “offering sinners hope.” Both the cross and the resurrection are necessary in the gospel, but the tone and focus of the gospel changes depending on which perspective takes priority.
[CHECK TIME]
Of these two options, one is probably easier in our culture. Why? Because our culture has lost its sense about sin. In the not too distant past, people in the Western world had a general notion about sin, and a general understanding that people were sinful. During this time, the cross-centric Gospel was a good starting point because sin and its effects were culturally understood - so jumping into a conversation with “you’re a sinner” did not suffer from cultural barriers.
In our culture today, the cross-centric gospel is confrontational. Starting with the demand that people admit they are “bad” – that they are sinners – is a cultural barrier today. Virtually all people will duck, dodge, minimize and argue about what is “really” a sin - and sin becomes a subjective argument. They will say, “I’m not a murder, I’m not a rapist, I’m not a thief; I’m a good person." Trying to convince them otherwise is often quite difficult.
The cross-centric gospel also feeds today’s cultural narrative which says Christians are self-righteous bigots who think they are better than everyone else. Why? Because we are always putting their sin at the forefront of the “good news.” The topic of sin is personal, political, religious and divisive. Starting with sin shuts most conversations down before they start. This is not how Jesus, or Paul, structured their gospel messages.
Jesus never said “admit you are a sinner and I will heal you” nor did He say “trust in the sacrifice I will make on your behalf” for the forgiveness of your sins – He could not, He had not gone to the cross yet. Still, on multiple occasions, the Gospels record, in various ways, Jesus saying “your faith has saved you.” This saving faith had as its object the living Jesus. In the same way, the resurrection-centric gospel has as its object the living Jesus. The object of faith in both is on who Jesus is, not what He did (or was going to do). This is why Paul says “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
A resurrection-centric gospel message is neither confrontational nor subjective. By starting with the resurrection, the focus is always on God and not on the sin of the person you are talking to, so it is not accusatory and therefore not confrontational in an offensive way. Neither is it subjective because at its core is a binary question: do you believe in the resurrection? Yes or no. The resurrection-centric gospel does not feed into the cultural narrative about bigoted, self-righteous Christians, to the contrary, it addresses, and provides a solution to personal, non-political, non-religious, non-divisive problem that every human being faces – death.
While most normal people do not seek out conversations about death, talking about it (in the appropriate context) is not offensive and in a culture that is always looking for something to be angry about, it can be a safe starting point to talk about Jesus. In contrast, the cross-centric gospel starts by going against the grain of our culture, and the conversation that really needs to happen often ends before it ever begins. The conversation that says, Jesus is alive, death and sin have been defeated, evil has been disarmed, and you can have hope!
Ok, there are my thoughts, I hope what I’m saying makes sense.
Two final things.
If you are just stumped by the whole thought of what talking about a resurrection-centric gospel would look like, that’s OK. You can always go to Romans and follow the modern gospel presentation formula that is pulled out of Paul’s text there - it is called the Romans Road and I have included it in your bulletin. It is self explanatory.
And, for a bit of fun, I decided to mess with the famous or infamous (depending on your view) ChatGPT. If you haven’t heard of it, its OK, this will still make sense. So, I decided to ask ChatGPT to write a Roman’s Road Shakespearean Sonnet in Elizabethan English, and, with a little editing, here’s what we have to close our message today:
A Romans Road Shakespearean Sonnet (Courtesy of ChatGPT - with a little editing from me...)
All have sinned and missed God's glory bright,
And the wage of sin is death, we doth know;
But the gift of God is eternal life,
Through Christ, who died for us, love He did bestow.
While yet sinners, God loved us all so dear,
And gave His Son, a precious sacrifice;
Believe He rose, confess with mouth sincere,
Salvation through faith, is the way to life.
With heart we believe, and are justified,
With mouth we profess, and are then saved sure;
No greater gift than life in Him betide,
For all who call on His name shall endure.
The Romans Road, a clear path to salvation shown,
By grace, through faith, in Christ, alone.
Prayer