The Fuel

We’ve been talking about fire for a long time now. This is the tenth week in a row. We’re now well into “the longest sermon series I’ve ever preached territory.” And in all of this time I’ve not yet talked about probably the most critical piece of fire building.

You know, it’s pretty common for fires to start and even spread. But what is it that keeps a fire from burning out? What’s the most essential element to keeping a fire going? It’s fuel.

By nature fire consumes. And when it’s consumed everything that it can then it eventually fizzles out and dies. So, in order for a fire to continue to burn it has got to be constantly fed new fuel.

The church, both in Acts and even now, experiences this very same type of reality. While the church doesn’t actually consume us, in order for a church to continue to grow and spread its influence new fuel needs to be added to it.

That new fuel can take a number of different forms, but the very basic type of fuel that a church needs is human beings. We can have programs and service projects and committees, but if there are no people then there is just no church.

So this is where we find ourselves today in our journey through the Book of Acts. This sermon series called “How to Start a Fire” is a look at all of the elements that were present in the early church that allowed it to spread like a wildfire across the known world.

Now the mission of God in the world began a long long time before the events of the book of Acts. In short — it began way back in the book of Genesis. On like page 3 of the Bible things begin to go badly. Sin enters the world are really breaks down all of the major relationships that humans are meant to flourish in. Particularly, the relationship between God and humans and the relationships between humans and one another are strained, and the world descends into violence and idolatry. People begin to worship other gods and they begin to worship power.

So God calls a man named Abraham from among the nations — Actually from the nation of Babylon — and tells him that he will make him the father of a great nation and that through him all of the world will eventually be blessed.

Abraham’s family becomes the nation of Israel, who’s purpose was bear the message of the One True God’s desire for the world and how we could live in a way that reversed the broken relationships in our world.

But Israel wasn’t very good at this. They slipped into idolatry and eventually turned to violence towards each other in a civil war. They had violent encounters with their neighboring nations whom they were meant to be witnesses of God’s love to. They ended up chaining themselves to the same gods that they were supposed to liberate the world from.

The end result was that the mission of God through Israel seemed to have failed. Israel was the subject of Gentile — non Jewish — nations rather than a beacon of hope to the world around them.

But then the most incredible thing happened. Through the lineage of Abraham a child was born. The Messiah, the son of God, Jesus of Nazareth came to reinvigorate the fire that was beginning to fizzle out. Israel was in survival mode and Jesus came to light a new fire that reinvigorated the mission of God in the world.

After Jesus’s death and resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit the Church was born and the fire began to spread. First in Jerusalem, then outward to Judea and Samaria which were the territories of the original nation of Israel.

But like any good fire this fire needed more and more fuel if it was going to continue to burn and spread. The message of the Gospel had spread to the descendants of Abraham, but it was time for the second part of God’s promise to Abraham to begin to come to fruition. It was time for God to bless the entire world through the family of Abraham. The person who would carry that blessing would be the Apostle Peter.

This is the story of how the community of Jesus became fully opened to the rest of the world — this is how the community of Jesus became something that you and I were invited to be a part of.

Visions and a Party

Acts 10:1–8 NRSV

In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called. He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God. One afternoon at about three o’clock he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius.” He stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” He answered, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter; he is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside.” When the angel who spoke to him had left, he called two of his slaves and a devout soldier from the ranks of those who served him, and after telling them everything, he sent them to Joppa.

Alright, so here’s the cool thing. Cornelius has got it all. He’s living the Roman dream. He’s got power, he’s got troops, he’s got money, he’s got what every pleb in Rome dreamed of.

But Cornelius knows that there’s more to life than what he’s got. He’s a gentile — but he worship’s Israel’s God. He’s not a Jewish convert, but he respects the God and religion of Israel and even gives money to it.

And God comes to him and says “Cornelius, I know you. I see you. Send for Peter in Joppa.”

Acts 10:9–16 NRSV

About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. Then he heard a voice saying, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” The voice said to him again, a second time, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.

Ok, So Peter has a vision as well. And What the vision means is that all of these things that had been used as a means of separating Jews from non Jews — primarily food laws as Jews did not eat a lot of different types of animals — that God no longer sees these things as a barrier. The food isn’t unclean anymore. And because the food isn’t unclean, neither are the people who eat it. This is an incredibly important point. This is the truth that changes everything. Lets continue:

Acts 10:17–23 NRSV

Now while Peter was greatly puzzled about what to make of the vision that he had seen, suddenly the men sent by Cornelius appeared. They were asking for Simon’s house and were standing by the gate. They called out to ask whether Simon, who was called Peter, was staying there. While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Look, three men are searching for you. Now get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them.” So Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for; what is the reason for your coming?” They answered, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” So Peter invited them in and gave them lodging. The next day he got up and went with them, and some of the believers from Joppa accompanied him.

What happens here is that the heart of Peter is beginning to change. Even inviting these gentile messengers in to stay with him is a pretty profound step towards healing this rift that has existed between Jews and Gentiles for almost all of their history.

Then next day Peter goes to Cornelius’s house and the two of them share their respective visions. They realize that the same God has spoken to both of them and prepared them for this moment. And so, Peter joins Cornelius’s dinner party and offers everyone there these words:

God Shows no Partiality

Every nation is loved by God

Jesus Christ is Lord of All Nations

Jesus died on a Cross and was raised of the third day

Everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness

While Peter is talking, the final stage of the Gospel expansion program begins

Acts 10:44–48 NRSV

While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

With the coming of the Holy Spirit to these Gentiles and God’s definitive declaration to Peter that they are no longer considered “unclean” the universal application of the Gospel is realized. God’s plan to bless the world through the family of Abraham is finally at its culmination. The work of spreading the fire of Jesus’s community to the ends of the earth can now take place.

This is a mission that the Apostle Paul will be the most instrumental actor in, but it begins here, in Cornelius’s house with Peter.

New fuel has been added to the fire, and almost endless supply of it. All that needed to happen was for Peter — and along with him the rest of the Apostles back in Jerusalem — to have their hearts rearranged by the action of God. They needed to be given a new set of glasses by which to see the people around them -- permission to truly love their neighbors as themselves by introducing them to the God who created them and desperately wants to bring them into his community. Finally, God’s mission is unleashed on the world.

Fueling Our Fire

How this truth applies to us as 21st century Americans isn’t a terribly hard stretch of our imaginations. But for the sake of just saying the darn things, we should connect the dots.

I think that the lesson here is two fold. First we’ve got to see how this idea of adding fuel to the fire affects us all on a personal level. Because, lets face it, we all need to keep the fire of the Christian life burning inside of us.

You see no matter where we are on our Christian journey, we always need to be adding fuel. It may look different, but the truth is that if we aren’t going forward, we are probably going backward. There’s not a whole lot of room for being stagnant in our spiritual lives. The fuel for the Christian life is our ability to hear from and commune with God.

While Peter and Cornelius had the wonderful experience of visions from God, the reality for us is that we might not experience God in the same way. But we do have ways of hearing from God. So, the mark of a healthy Christian life then can be very simply evaluated by whether or not you engage in the two most prominent means of hearing from God.

Do you read Scripture?

Do you pray?

Certainly there are other means of communing with God, but if you aren’t reading scripture or praying — how can you possibly think that God is going to reveal anything new to you?

And if God isn’t revealing anything new to you, then you aren’t going to be able to really dive into the second part of this lesson:

God is calling us to fuel the fire of the church with human beings. Souls. Warm bodies that turn into warm hearts. Warm hearts that turn into Christian hearts. Christian hearts that turn into hearts that reach out to and transform the world by… you got it… fueling the fire with new human beings that begin the process all over again.

And the beautiful, scary, wonderful, messy part is — there is no barrier around who those human beings can and should be. God tells us what God told Peter: What God has called clean, you must not call profane.

And there’s a lot of people in this world that we call profane are there not? It depends on who you are, where you grew up, what you particular cultural inclinations are — but not a single one of us in this room has got a heart that doesn’t have some person or group of persons lumped into the category of profane. So I’m here to tell you one thing:

KNOCK IT OFF.

and you’re here to tell me the same. Go ahead tell me: KNOCK IT OFF.

Cornelius was looked at by the world as a symbol of Roman authority. But by God he was seen as an opportunity for the floodgates to open, as the gateway to the expansion and fueling of the Gospel movement to the very ends of the earth.

When we are feeding and fueling ourselves and are in turn feeding and fueling the mission of God through our church we are fulfilling the mission of God in the world — that ancient mission to restore the fundamental broken relationships of our world. Then we will be able to truly say that we have loved God and loved our neighbor with all that we have.

There’s a song called “Give Me Your Hand” that I think says all that needs to be said.

There's none to poor, too dirty, too broken, Too naked, too stupid, too drunken, to be thrown outside His love

So let’s go on a be people, be a church who engages that truth with everything we have, and lets fuel this fire with whoever God sends us to.