Not at the table

Intro:

As we move into a place and time of transition, we must always make sure that we are following the voice of God. Many times God will challenge our norms, and shatter our self righteousness because it is as filthy rags before God. We are living in a dangerous and precarious time, because division and hate are at a high. As I continue on this sermonic journey, I have to remind you that the roots of the meaning of Acts 10 are anchored in the shift and changed of Acts 9. God allows things to happen sometimes in stages. Sometimes God just speaks and it is so, but however God decides to do it His will is always done. Remember in Acts 9 Saul is in the infant stages of becoming the apostle Paul. He meets with the Jewish Christians and is not readily accepted, because he is a known enemy and murderer of the saints. Barnabas takes him to the apostles and the church, because we always need someone to help us get into places where we are not accepted, and solace is made and then Paul and Barnabas go on their way to preach to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This subtle mention is a powerful seed that God has planted in the church. Now this same seed is showing up in our text today. I just wonder if I have any witnesses that God has planted some seeds in your life and you are ready for them to come to fruition?!?! You are ready for change, but in order to truly change you need to recognize what’s not at your table!

Text Work:

As we move into the text Luke informs us in the first part of Acts 10 that two men had a vision and/or a dream. Cornelius had a dream or vision of confirmation. Cornelius was a devout man according to scripture and did right and gave alms to the people. He was well respected by the people of this area, but he had not seemingly been confirmed by God or God’s people, because he was a gentile. So we have a man in Cornelius who from his birth and throughout his life has done what Jesus taught his disciples to do, but because of who and where he was born was not accepted among those of Jewish decent. So then God has to bypass his ideology and his raising and tap into his spirit through a vision and utilize a heavenly being to deliver a shifting message. I am saying this because I know that there are a few people listening to me right now and your plight is you don’t think you are good enough, but I come to tell you today that God is about bypass your past and give you a word for your future! You may not be what you think you should right now, but God is about to speak to you spiritually because you cannot hear him naturally! Because your history or your herstory is clouding God is about to do. So let me help you real quick! Just like Cornelius God has heard all of your prayers, and God has seen all of your works. God has watched you help people who hated you and bless people who used you, but God is about to dispatch his angels to connect you to a supernatural blessing! Forget about who you was and where you came from and focus on who God is! In order for you to live up to the fullness of where God is calling you I dare you to say I am worthy of the table!

Next Luke tells us that Peter goes up to pray on the roof of Simon the tanner’s house. He is chilling in the warm Meditaranean breeze. What Peter doesn’t know is that God has set him up. Sometimes God will allow you to experience a few victories only to reveal to you the shift he’s about to bring into your ministry and your life. Watch this now. Peter through the power of Jesus heals the paralytic man and then goes to Tabitha’s house and raises her from the dead. Let us be real Peter has to be feeling good, but there is something that Peter has been missing all this time. Peter prayed so hard church that he got hungry. Now that’s some hard praying church. While lunch was being prepared he fell into a trance. In this trance he saw all manner of animals and a voice said rise up kill and eat. Peter quickly argues with the voice in his religious sentiment Not so Lord for I have never eaten anything impure. Now church here we are Peter is in a vision talking to what many say is a voice directly from heaven giving him instructions, but his religiosity is blocking him from this revelation. Let me bring this into our context. Many of the issues we face in this time in America have to mainly do with what has been taught to us as children. Peter according to Jewish law was taught that if he ate certain animals it would disqualify him from worship with God. His love for God caused his response, but his ignorance of what Jesus taught him caused him to miss God. Listen to me church. Dietary laws is what separated Jews from Gentiles. In this day and time culture is what separates us. We are more concerned with keeping our traditions and obeying what our fore parents said than to hear what God is saying. Peter was right in his religion, but wrong in his obeying and hearing the Holy Spirit!

Close:

See church I have spent a lot of time studying Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In the industry in which I work there is an effort towards diversity, but many companies do not adhere to this thought. The truth being told many of my evangelical and white brothers here this and think that it is an attack or blight on them. So there is a natural resistance to this thought or idea. The problem is that if God says it is clean you can no longer call it unclean, because if you continue in a way against what God has spoken you are no longer against those persons, but now against the will of God. So Peter says no Lord nothing impure, because he thought this does not fit on my table. Church I listen and hear what I call buzz words that imply inequality and racist undertones like FIT. You here people say things that cant be quantified from a human resources perspective. I don’t think they would be a good fit???? Or that person may not be a good cultural fit???? You hear this type of language, because it cannot be qualified or quantified. You hear words like softs skill versus hard skills meaning are they nice enough or will they comply enough, and not whether they are qualified or not. What they are really saying is they don’t belong at that table. We have this in society, church, and our professional lives. We have decided based on how we were raised who and what belongs to our table, because if we have certain things and certain people at our tables we fill unclean or impure! Church there is a shift coming to the house of God and I prophetically declare that Leaders, notice God dealt with Peter, are going to be held accountable to who they have not allowed at their tables. The reason we have not grown to our full potential is because we said not at my table. The reason we don’t have the power we should because we said nope not at my table. The reason our ministries have become stagnant it’s because we said no not at our table. But those who obey God watch God shift them into a new paradigm. For many years women in ministry nope not at my table! Still to this date young people in Leadership nope not at my table. Majorily white churches not accepting of Minority leaders and majorily minority churches not accepting of white ministry. Wealthy churches turning their nose up a struggling churches, and struggling churches scoffing at wealthy churches. I come to tell you that if you are ready for God to shift you. If you are ready for God to change you then you need to quit looking backwards and holding on to racist, prejudiced, and hatefilled ideals and start adhering to the love that Jesus taught, because it’s not what a person eats that defiles them but what comes out of their mouth illustrating what’s in their mind and their spirit is what comes out of their mouth! If you want the fullness of God then you need to allow all of God’s children at the table!