Sermon Tone Analysis

Brain Dump

Simon Bar Jonah/OT Jonah Parallels

sent to people you despise

Peter was establishment - Make Israel Great Again; Cornelius was the opressor

Peter among the group asking when the kingdom is coming even as Jesus ascends Acts 1:6

Peter rejects the vision 3 times

God even has to tell peter to actually go - Acts 10:20

Jonah was sent to Nineveh, the enemy

seeing miraclulous conversion

Cornelius Vision in prayer of needing peter

Peter’s vision in prayer of eating

denies his dream three times

Cornelius household conversion confirmed by tongues

Nineveh conversion confirmed by God relenting wrath

Then Peter asks the critical brothers, “How could I possibly hinder God?” (v.

17).

In this we see that Peter was thoroughly convinced God was working to save the Gentiles; to stand in God’s way was neither wise nor safe.

(Just ask Jonah.)

Tongues

at pentecost

again now

Freedom from the Law

This passage is the stumbling block of the religious person and the joy of the nonreligious person

Riz and Ramo

Freedom from the Law is a hangup for them; we get the freedom, but do we go?]

The beauty of the gospel is that you are free from being judged by the fruit of your labor; instead, you are judged by the work of Christ and get to experience the fruit, not of your labor in Christ, but the fruit of the Spirit

So What?

Call to Action: It is easy to wake up and eat bacon wrapped shrimp and accept that part of the story; it is hard to get up and take the gospel to places and people our hearts are hard to.

The point of the passage is not eat the shrimp, eating the shrimp is an implication of getting up and going

God doesn’t save Cornelius in the vision - he sends PEter

I recently heard about a missionary in a dangerous part of the Middle East who started an underground church.

Locals tried to discover the location of that assembly in order to persecute the believers there, but they could never find it.

Late one night, however, the missionary heard a knock on the door of the secret church.

He cautiously opened it to see a tribesman standing there.

The man explained that he had walked for days in order to find the missionary.

He said, “I had a vision three days ago that there would be a man standing at this address who would tell me how to get to heaven.

Sir, are you this man?”

That tribesman, like Cornelius, was given a vision leading him to an evangelist who would teach him how to cross from spiritual death to abundant life.

An old classmate was recently ministering to Muslims in Washington, DC.

One day a Muslim man approached him and asked, “Who is ‘I Am’?

I keep seeing ‘I Am’ in my dreams.”

After giving a summary explanation, he gave the seeker a Bible and encouraged him to read the Gospel of John.

It wasn’t long until he led the man to faith in Jesus, and at that point the convert confessed, “Many of the ‘I am’ statements I read in John I heard first in my dreams!”

This story, too, reminds us that even when God uses visions to nudge people toward faith in Christ, evangelists must still do the exciting work of explaining the gospel to them that they might understand and embrace it with confidence.

It is simply not possible to fully accept someone with whom you are unwilling to share in the intimacy of table fellowship.

The early church had to solve the problem of kosher food laws in order to launch a mission to the Gentiles.

Purity distinctions and human discrimination are of a single piece.

Context

Caesarea was the capital of the Roman occupation of Israel.

It was a military town.

It’s right on the coast, thirty-one miles north of Joppa.

It’s important to know that the Jews hated Caesarea.

They called it the daughter of Edom, a place of ungodliness, that is a symbolic name for Rome.

Cornelius is a captain of the occupying Roman army.

As a centurion, he would have commanded about a hundred Roman soldiers posted in Caesarea, and he would have been paid as much as five times more than an ordinary soldier.

So he’s a wealthy and influential man.

Jews, however, surely resented him.

In this intensely Gentile place Peter comes to terms with his own prejudices.

The gospel is about to shatter an antigospel tradition lurking in the apostle’s heart.

JOKE?

Texas Superiority Complex?

What is the most despised location in the world to you?

Which nation, city, or part of town could you do without?

Take a moment to consider why you feel that way.

Now, imagine traveling to that location, working to befriend those you meet there, and offering them the good news.

That’s Peter’s assignment.

If you are hungering to know more about Jesus or find yourself drawn into a conversation with someone who expresses such desire, realize that God does actually seek us.

C. S. Lewis once remarked, “Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about ‘man’s search for God.’ … They might as well have talked about the mouse’s search for the cat” (C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy).

Peter Rejects the vision 3 times before accepting - PEter and threes

1.

We can show no hesitation in befriending people unlike us (v.

20).

2. We can show hospitality toward everyone, opening our homes and lives to them (v.

23).

3. We can show humility before all people, regardless of their skin color or annual income, living with the understanding that we’re all made in God’s image (v.

26).

Would displaying love in these ways come easily for you, or might you first need to be “converted” like Peter?

If you hesitate at the idea of befriending and associating with people unlike you or have never opened your home to those outside your usual circle, it’s possible that you do have an air of elitism.

If so, ask the Lord to change your heart, to give you his perspective.

What is your disposition when you encounter a person with tattoos and multiple piercings?

When you are introduced to a same-sex couple or encounter a cross-dresser when paying for your groceries?

How do you speak and act when introduced to those whose politics are the opposite of yours?

What about when you meet a Muslim family new to your neighborhood?

Are you and your friends unaffected by the elitism, exclusivism, and discrimination that pervade our society?

This text teaches that no wall should keep Christians from offering the gospel of Jesus freely and lovingly to everyone.

Peter’s Sermon in 5 Parts

What exactly does he proclaim?

First, he denies that God shows partiality across ethnic lines (v.

34; cf.

Deut 10:17–19).

Second, he affirms that God welcomes from every nation people who fear him (v.

35).

In making this statement Peter isn’t saying that God’s welcome is based on works (see the necessity of faith and forgiveness in 10:43).

Instead, he’s simply saying that God shows mercy to those who humble themselves before him.

Third, Peter stresses that Jesus, the sent One who preached peace, is Lord of all (v.

36).

Fourth, Peter assumes the crowd is aware of Jesus’s controversial earthly ministry (vv.

37–38), which included several elements.

Peter mentions the descent of the Spirit at Jesus’s baptism, Jesus’s good deeds, Jesus’s healings and power over the devil, and God’s presence with Jesus.

Fifth, Peter centers his message on the cross, the resurrection, and the return of Jesus (vv.

39–42).

Then, finally, Peter mentions the prophets—but the sermon gets cut off before passages are quoted (v.

43; cf.

11:15) as the Spirit of God falls on the Gentiles in the middle of the sermon (10:44).

God’s saving grace extends to those of every people group who cry out to the Savior for salvation.

Yet this basic truth is difficult for some Christians to apply because of deeply embedded prejudice that can lurk within even a redeemed heart.

Consider the following example of an all-too-common attitude Christians display toward outsiders:

Mahatma Gandhi shares in his autobiography that in his student days in England he was deeply touched by reading the Gospels and seriously considered becoming a convert to Christianity, which seemed to offer a real solution to the caste system that divided the people of India.