What God Has Called Clean pt. 2

Intro - Recap of Cornelius story…now that Peter has arrived we’ll see 3 things…the scandal of God, the story of God and the Spirit of God

TR: First let’s deal with the scandal of God...

The Scandal

The scandal of God is that He interacts with the unclean

The scandal of God is that He interacts and even pursues unclean people…people that have broken His laws, pursued other desires and disregarded His love.

Cornelius rose with other Gentiles to respond to the invitation of the Spirit

In order to make ourselves feel better about our uncleanness, we develop systems, rules, religions, ceremonies and patterns of social behavior in order to measure our righteousness.

However, there is a problem with our understanding of righteousness....we understand righteousness as RULES. How well did you OBEY....if you OBEYED you are righteous if you disobeyed you are UNRIGHTEOUS.

The Bible speaks of righteousness differently. I said last week how we are a symptomatic culture. We love to heal our symptoms but not our disease.

Unrighteousness is not a lack of obedience to commands but rather a lack of obedience of commands comes OUT OF our unrighteousness.

See righteousness or unrighteousness is a state of relationship. When man fell in the Garden of Eden he didn’t just disobey, he changed in relationship to God, he went out of line, misaligned.

So what we have been trying to do since is to align ourselves, not by our relationship but by our actions.

We do this with our human relationships…we perform our way out of them and then try to perform our way back into them. There’s a danger in that b/c it’s conditional!

Peter has falsely told himself, as have all of the other Jews, that they are righteous because they obey rules. That they are “clean”, because of their behaviors, and Gentiles are “unclean” because of theirs.

Peter learned that God’s definition of clean and his definition of clean were vastly different.

I explained that Peter viewed Cornelius as unclean due to his lack of keeping with the O.T. Law. The concept of clean carried with it the idea of purity and thereby acceptance.

To come into contact with something or someone unclean would make YOU unclean. Thereby making you unacceptable to God for a period of time.

Numbers 19:11–13 ESV

“Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days. He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so be clean. But if he does not cleanse himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not become clean. Whoever touches a dead person, the body of anyone who has died, and does not cleanse himself, defiles the tabernacle of the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from Israel; because the water for impurity was not thrown on him, he shall be unclean. His uncleanness is still on him.

Upon entering Caesarea it soon dawned on Peter that not only would he be preaching to these unclean people but that he would in fact need to enter their home and thereby make himself “unclean”.

Here’s an interesting thought....so many of us have spent so much time trying to get cleaned up for Jesus that we missed him when he walked right past us to the unclean person’s house. Let me give you an example...

Leviticus 13:45 ESV

“The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’

What did Jesus do?

Matthew 8:1–3 ESV

When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

So now here is Peter being made “unclean” in order to reach the “unclean” and here is Cornelius being “unclean” needing the message to be made “clean”....both of them are humbled....

Listen, if some of ya’ll don’t get out of your bougie, up tight way, and start entering some houses, some lives, some walks of life of people to share the Gospel you ain’t ever going to grow in Christlikeness.

TR: After you experience the scandal of Jesus entering your space you then hear the story of Jesus...

The Story

The story of God is that He redeems those who believe, both near and far.

The message Peter spoke with was customized for his audience

It wasn’t perfectly put together or long winded…it dealt with the reality that Jesus is the redeemer no matter who you are or where you’re from. It does so through a few different ways.

It presents an invitation and a confession

The invitation is that God doesn’t care who you were prior to hearing this message....there is no partiality

EX. Imagine if in today’s politics or news you heard a message without partiality. Imagine if the justice system wasn’t swayed by money, quality of lawyer, sexism, racism or classism. The only people that I know who lack partiality like that, and it’s only for a limited time, is children. I was watching a video where a lady was selling her sweet desserts on the pier and the news was interviewing her. She was bragging about how good they were. Then they gave some to a couple little kids…they said it was nasty.

Peter’s message invites Cornelius and all of his family in by starting out stating that it doesn’t matter who you are as long as you fear God and do what is right.

Jesus redeems both near and far.

Object lesson. Blind fold two people but place one near and the other far away. Who is nearer? Farther away? Who is blind and needs guidance? Now here’s the dope thing, Jesus didn’t wait on you to find Him…He’ll come find you.

It presents the power of Jesus through the Holy Spirit

We believe Jesus can redeem both near and far first because he showed power over all illness, disease and death itself.

Truly God was with Him and He had the power of God in a unique way, not just some medicine man but in fact having authority over the Devil himself.

It testifies to His death, resurrection and sovereignty

As a final proof of Jesus’s power He not only died but resurrected and did so at God’s discretion.

It testifies to His consistency and accessibility

Lastly, Jesus wasn’t anything unexpected. He was who everyone had talked about for millennia. The prophets who Cornelius had more than likely read all speak of this man.

The actions that Cornelius was acting out with giving and prayers were embodied in this man.

Now that man, had in fact been appointed as judge and the only thing that you need to do is believe in him to get forgiveness of sins.

What’s amazing is that Cornelius had a heart for God so much that

TR: Lest we stop with the message though…we must move forward to The Spirit and His purpose.

The Spirit

The Spirit of God is the unifying power behind Jesus’s church

The Spirit of God desired to show unity.....UNITY!!!

What is the most important thing next to an accurate presentation of the Gospel? UNITY!!!!

Object lesson, God redeems those near and far away.

The Spirit WAITED....went and got someone else to do something He could have done on His own....just to show unity!!!

This is unique to the Book of Acts…this is now the second time, the first time being with the Samaritans, that God has withheld the Holy Spirit until Peter arrived. We’ll see in the next chapter the importance of these events but it’s safe to say that they weren’t foreseen.

Paul consistently referenced this idea, that Gentiles would be saved, as the mystery of the Gospel

Ephesians 3:6 ESV

This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

The chief goal of the Spirit of God isn’t just to save people but to unify them under one message, one Gospel.

Acts 10:45 ESV

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.

This was proven because they started speaking in other languages that they could not have known, just like Peter and them did in …showing it was the same Spirit.

Yes the Gentiles could be saved AND they didn’t get there through their own actions but through BELIEF ALONE.

None of the people who were in Cornelius’ family or friends were more than likely Jews. They hadn’t done the “church” thing yet.

Yet the Spirit wanted UNITY AMONGST THE BODY.

The obedience in behavior comes out of unity with the Spirit and unity with the Body of Jesus.

Is it any wonder then that SIN produces the OPPOSITE of the Spirit....not poor behavior but DISUNITY!!!

People fall away....people isolate....people disconnect....abandon....conditionally engage.

What would that unity look like for us?

EX. Stopping Heartland Care due to the impact on unity that it was having between my wife and I. At one point it was being done for us but now the unity had shifted and I needed to adjust. My family determined to some degree how I should provide for it. The unity had to be maintained and therefore personal beliefs, goals, agendas need to be sacrificed.

Now obviously we wouldn’t unify in something unbiblical but the idea that if we believe in the same Gospel than we ought to be unified together is implicit in the Gospel itself.

CALL PRAISE TEAM UP

As a messenger of the Gospel, what story are you telling both with your words and even more loudly with you life? Is it one that is unity of the Spirit or one that is caught up in personal agendas/biases/goals?