The sermon 'God Is Not One to Show Partiality' by Scott Brown explores the narrative of Acts 10, focusing on the story of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, and the apostle Peter. Cornelius, a devout and God-fearing man, receives a vision instructing him to send for Peter. Meanwhile, Peter experiences a vision of unclean animals, symbolizing a change in God's covenant, which challenges his understanding of the law and the inclusion of Gentiles. The narrative unfolds with Peter visiting Cornelius's household, where he preaches that God does not show partiality and that anyone who fears God and does right is welcome. Peter's message is met with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles, signifying their inclusion in God's plan. The sermon highlights the transformative nature of God's message, the importance of being teachable, and the missionary heart of the church. It emphasizes the theme of God's sovereignty in salvation and challenges believers to align with God's inclusive vision.

Book of Acts chapter 10. Now there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort, a devout man and one who feared God with all his household and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually. About the ninth hour of the day, he clearly saw in a vision an angel of God who had just come in and said to him, Cornelius. And fixing his gaze on him and being much alarmed, he said, what is it, Lord? And he said to him, your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God.

Now dispatch some men to Joppa and send for a man named Simon, who is also called Peter. He is staying with a tanner named Simon, whose house is by the sea. When the angel who was speaking to him had left, he summoned two of his servants and a devout soldier of those who were his personal attendants. And after he had explained everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. On the next day, as they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray.

But he became hungry and was desiring to eat. But while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance. And he saw the sky opened up and an object, like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground. And there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. A voice came to him, get up, Peter, kill and eat.

But Peter said, By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean. Again a voice came to him a second time, What God has cleansed no longer consider unholy. This happened three times, and immediately the object was taken up into the sky. Now while Peter was greatly perplexed in mind as to what the vision which he had seen might be, behold, the men who had been sent by Cornelius, having asked directions for Simon's house, appeared at the gate. And calling out, they were asking whether Simon, who was also called Peter, was staying there.

While Peter was reflecting in the vision, the spirit said to him, behold, three men are looking for you. Get up, but get up, go downstairs and accompany them without misgivings, for I have sent them myself. Peter went down to the men and said, Behold, I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for which you have come? They said, Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man well spoken of by the entire nation of the Jews, was divinely directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear a message from you.

So he invited them in and gave them lodging and on the next day he got up and went away with them and some of the brethren from Joppa accompanied him. On the following day he entered Caesarea. Now Cornelius was waiting for them and had called together his relatives and close friends. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter raised him up saying, stand up.

I, too, am just a man. As he talked with him, he entered and found many people assembled, and he said to them, you yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him. And yet, God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean. That is why I came without even raising any objection when I was sent for. So I ask, for what reason you have sent for me?" Cornelius said, Four days ago to this hour I was praying in my house during the ninth hour and behold a man stood before me in shining garments.

And he said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Therefore send a japa and invite Simon, who is also called Peter, to come to you. He is staying at the house of Simon the tanner by the sea. So I sent for you immediately, and you have been kind enough to come. Now then, we are all here, present before God, to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord." Opening his mouth, Peter said, I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality.

But in every nation, the man who fears him and does what is right is welcomed to him. The word which he sent to the sons of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all. You yourselves know the thing which took place throughout all Judea starting from Galilee after the baptism which John proclaimed. You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power and how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses of all the things he did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem.

They also put him to death by hanging him on a cross. God raised him up on the third day and granted that he become visible not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us who ate and drank with him after he arose from the dead. And he ordered us to preach to the people and solemnly to testify that this is the one who has been appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. Of him all the prophets bear witness that through his name everyone who believes in him and receives forgiveness of sins. While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message.

All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and exult in God. Then Peter answered, surely no one can refuse the water to these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he? And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay on for a few days.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you with much joy that you have, on one hand, orchestrated this story in Scripture, and even more so that you have recorded it for us, and that we can look at it and we can see and we can see where we, us being Gentiles, were grafted in to your covenants, where we were grafted into your son. We're very joyful, we're overwhelmed by this. We ask today that you would put the same spirit on Peter, on to Mr. Brown, as he comes and as he preaches the word from this passage to us.

And for us, we ask that you would give us the spirit that Cornelius and his household had as they sent for Peter not knowing what he was going to say to them and as they listened attentively to everything that he had to say. I pray that we would rejoice the same way that that household did. In your son's name we pray, amen. This passage of scripture makes me think of the many, many times in my life where I've experienced a particular sensation. Yeah, I'm reading scripture and something that there is so contrary to the way that I think, or something there is so contrary to the way that everybody else thinks, or the way that they think in the government, or the way that they think in the philosophical manufacturing houses in our land.

And There are times when we are taken aback because God's thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways. And so he's constantly shocking us. He's constantly desiring to reform us, to move us on farther than we were before. And this is the nature of the Christian life, that he saves us so mercifully wherever we are, and then he continues to speak the truth and love to us so that we wouldn't be the same people that we were year after year. Now I do believe that Jesus shocked his disciples just before His ascension.

This is one of the most dramatic moments in all of the New Testament where Jesus is with His disciples for the very last time and He's getting ready to ascend into heaven. He's appeared to 500 He's appeared to numerous people over a period of time. And his last words, I believe, were massively unsettling. He said, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, so far so good. And then he says, and you shall be my witnesses so far so good both in Jerusalem amen so far so good and in all Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth I thought this was all about Jerusalem I thought this was all about everything that we have been used to all of our lives.

I really do believe that what is often to us a blessed testimony was for the disciples there at the Ascension, there were some unsettling feelings that they were having as they were hearing that being said. And I do believe it was radical, it was unsettling news to the ears of a Jewish hearer. They wanted some different things. We do know that they wanted a national king. We do know that they believe that God was building a holy nation, but they didn't understand that it crossed national lines and it crossed religious lines.

They didn't get that quite yet. Jesus had spoken these things a number of times that it wasn't sinking in very well. And God is doing something different with Peter and God is doing something different with the Jews than they A, desired, B, anticipated. And you know, One of the most wonderful parts about this passage of scripture is that it speaks volumes about the nature of our salvation. You know, if our salvation depended upon participation in the Jewish sacrificial system, or if our salvation depended on being descended genealogically from the lines of Abraham, or if it was dependent on circumcision, or if it was dependent on my dietary practices, or my national identification, or my appearance, or my understanding of the law, or anything else, I'd be absolutely hopelessly lost.

And this chapter is about God's love for the Gentiles, And it is the evidence of God's love for the whole world, which extends far beyond Israel, that he has chosen a people who were not a people to become the people of God. So this chapter has one overwhelming focus on one single subject. Now there are some sub-themes that are just great to consider as the other jewels kind of scattered on the black velvet backdrop of what the kingdom of God is all about here in this passage. But the main thrust of this message is the missionary heart of God and how the first Gentiles were converted to the faith. That is the single focus of this passage of scripture and it actually continues on into chapter 11.

But what we learn here from this chapter is that God will have it his own way, even contrary to the blessed thoughts and meditations in the heart of the Apostle Peter, because God is also desiring to transform someone with the kind of stature as the Apostle Peter. And as we read this chapter, you can look at it through different eyes. You could look at this just through the eyes of Cornelius, the upstanding citizen who has inclinations in his heart toward God or you could look at it through the Apostle Peter alone we could spend the entire time just talking about what what is happening to Peter through this this narrative But Peter's world is being shaken up right now. And he's having a changing view of God. Has that ever happened to you?

Where you are saved and you didn't really realize everything that was in the heart of God for you, for your family. And there's this progressive sanctification that takes place. This is exactly what's happening to Peter. It's happening to all of us. We're thinking thoughts this year that we didn't even have two years ago or five years ago or ten years ago, because God is teaching us through His Word.

And here we see it happening to Peter. Peter's view of God is too much of his own view and not enough of God's view. And this is the problem that all of us have. We tend to try to create a God that we're comfortable with. We want a religion that we're comfortable with.

We want a church that we're comfortable with. We want a family. We want a life. We want a business. We want everything comfortable in our minds.

This is what we call idolatry and but God has thoughts that are higher than our thoughts and he desires to take us there and this is the nature of the Christian life. So we could look at it from the perspective of Peter whose life is being shaken up by God himself or we could look at it from the perspective of the people in Cornelius's house and the joy that they experienced at their acquisition of unmerited favor and the gift of the Holy Spirit as he falls, he actually falls upon them. So the story, though, begins with Cornelius. So let's start there. In verses 1 through 8, you see Cornelius.

We see his occupation. There is a certain man in verse 1 named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort. Now, Caesarea is about 30 miles north of Joppa. That's how far Cornelius is from the Apostle Peter at this point. But he is a centurion and in Caesarea there's a Roman garrison and Cornelius was a leader in the garrison.

There are 6, 000 in a garrison. Cornelius had responsibility for 100 men. The historian Tacitus says that Nero organized the Roman cohort, and it was the backbone of the Roman army. And so here was this man in the Roman army commanding 100 men as a centurion, living his life there. His life is explained beautifully here in verse 2.

You see his heart, his home, life. He's a devout man who feared God with all his household, and he gave many alms. Cornelius is a really nice guy. Cornelius is an upstanding citizen. For a pagan, he's living a good life.

He is a pagan. He is a Roman. He's familiar with the gods of Jupiter and Mars and Venus. But it's obvious here that these gods were not enough for him. And his thoughts were beyond the Roman pantheon.

But he's like many people that we know who are good people, they're prayerful people, they're professional people. They seem to have the favor of God upon their lives as evidenced by their success as certainly this man Cornelius did. One commentator, I believe it was Mark Dever, called him a holy pagan And perhaps that's what he was. But the words that are used here really indicate that his heart was being drawn unto the Lord his God. And these words that explain his life make that very, very clear.

You know, he cared. He cared for people. His alms have ascended as a memorial before God. He definitely had some sort of a Godward life. And his servants as well were brought along with him as he was a discipler of those who are around him.

I view him as somewhat like the Gentile Ruth from Moab. It was a wicked country, thorn in the flesh of the people of God, perhaps like Rahab, that Canaanite Gentile harlot who became a spiritual daughter of Zion. This was his heritage and there were Gentiles whose hearts were turning toward God and I would expect he's an example of one of those. They were not circumcised in body but they were circumcised in heart. So he was a Gentile in whom God was working and preparing to enter the kingdom of heaven and he would enter the kingdom of heaven.

We see his visitation and instructions in verses 3 through 6. Next, about the ninth hour he saw Vision, an angel of God, who had just come in and said to him, Cornelius, an angel, shows up and speaks his name. Now, there are a number of places in the Bible where you get a picture of angels. And you don't get any, I don't know where the angels are that have wings in the Bible. I think we get that from the cherubim and the seraphim.

But typically when an angel shows up there are no wings, it's not a baby face, people are terrified. They're not the little angel babies that you see in the knick-knack stores. It's a different kind of experience. And so at three o'clock in the afternoon, this angel came and he brings good news. He says, your prayers and your alms have come up before God.

And then the angel asks him to send men to Joppa to go find Simon Peter. Very specific directions. And so the next thing we see is his quick obedience in verses seven and eight. And when the angel who was speaking to him left, he summoned two of his servants. He's quick on the draw of obedience.

And he sends his two servants out, and a devout soldier who were his personal attendants, just again giving evidence of his faithful heart toward God. And so we start with Cornelius. We're done with Cornelius now. We're going to look at this through the eyes of Peter, because Peter is in Joppa, 30 miles away. And in verse 9, we get the beginning of what happens with Peter, verses 9 through 23.

On the next day as they were approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop on the sixth hour of the day and he became hungry and he was desiring to eat and then he falls into a trance. Now there there are a number of things that are happening here. First of all, God is preparing Peter to bring the gospel to the Gentiles and so before the men arrive from Cornelius' household, God presents Peter with a vision. And this vision is going to shock Peter some more. This vision is gonna take him beyond his spiritual, religious comfort zone and introduce, in an even more powerful way, God's loving kindness toward the Gentiles.

So God is transforming Peter. You notice, you know, on the one hand you can say, you know, God was harsh with Peter because he had so many very terse things to say to him like get behind me Satan okay on the other hand though you see the gentleness of God because God does not God just keeps on going with him you Have you ever thought you were just a lug headed, thick headed, you just can't get it, you make a lot of the same mistakes, you know, and this is Peter, this is you, this is me, this is the loving kindness of God at work on display here in the life of Peter. God is continuing to speak to Peter and take him on one step at a time. And he's on a roof, he's on a housetop, and by the way, the housetop, most people think it was a slanted house top. It wasn't a flat house top because the word doma is used.

The word wheat is where we get our word dome. But he was on the house top And he falls into a trance. And he has this vision. And the meal is late. He's hungry.

For some reason, his wife has not fixed him the meal or the head of the house has not arranged for something. He's getting very hungry, it's in the afternoon, he wants to eat but he falls into a trance And he's on top of this roof wishing that the meal would be ready, but the schedule gets slipped. This vision happens with the slippage of a schedule and the loss of a meal. That's not important at all, but it's interesting. So but it's obvious here that he was wishing the meal was ready He wanted to eat but he didn't get to eat because he was out of control of the food situation So Peter at the same time though instead just wasting his time He's praying in this gap of time when he wishes he was doing something else, he's using it for prayer, he uses his time well.

And, while he's praying, he falls into a trance. Now, we know about housetops from reading the Bible that people pray there. And what a great place to pray on the top of the house. All of you little boys here today, please do not try this at home. OK?

You damage your roof, and it begins to leak when you get on the roof. So don't do what Peter did and get on the roof to pray. Okay, pray somewhere else. And while he's in a trance, a sheet is lowered and lifted on the four corners. And inside the sheet are things despicable to Peter.

He does not want to see these things. These are unclean things. There are four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth, birds of the air, and they symbolize unclean foods. And as we learn later, they also symbolize unclean people. It's not just food that's on the table here.

It has to do with people. Now, turn to Deuteronomy chapter 14 and we'll get a window into the reason Peter was disturbed at the sight of this sheet coming down, and particularly what God said about it, Deuteronomy 14, 1-21. And we'll just read all the way to 21, because it'll really give you a quote unquote flavor of what he's dealing with here. You are the sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves or shave your forehead for the sake of the dead for you are a holy people To the Lord your God now.

This is the main subject You are a holy people you're different You you do different things you look differently you eat different foods. That's the basic idea here. You are a holy people You're not going to look and feel and act like everybody else in the world if you want to do that Then go be a pagan if you want to follow me then you're going to if things will be different you have a completely different kind of lifestyle. So then he continues, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. You shall not eat any detestable thing.

These are the animals which you may eat, the ox, the sheep, the goat, the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep. Any animal that divides the hoof and has the hoof split in two and chews the cud among the animals that you may eat. At this point, I'm thanking God for cows. Nevertheless, you are not to eat of these among those which chew the cud or among those that divide the hoof into the camel and the rabbit and the chaffin, for though they chew the cud, they do not divide the hoof. They are unclean for you.

The pig, because it divides the hoof but does not chew the cud, it is unclean for you. You shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their carcasses. These you may eat of all that are in water. Anything that has fins and scales, you may eat. But anything that does not have fins and scales you shall not eat.

It is unclean to you. You may eat any clean bird, but these are the ones which you shall not eat, the eagle and the vulture and the buzzard, and the red kite, the falcon, and the kite in their kinds, and every raven in its kind, and the ostrich and the owl and the seagull and the hawk in their kinds, the little owl, the great owl, the white owl, the pelican, the carrion, vulture, the cormorant, the stork, and the heron in their kinds, and the hoopoe and the bat and all the teeming life with wings are unclean to you, they shall not be eaten. You may eat any clean bird. You shall not eat anything that dies of itself. You may give it to the alien who is in your town so that he may eat it or you may sell it to a foreigner for you are a holy people to the Lord your God." Now these are the dietary regulations of Israel which are obviously abolished under the new covenant.

There were, God had his own reasons for this, and we could spend an awful lot of time talking about that, but The main issue here is that Peter was disturbed because there were many unclean animals that he, all of his life, had stayed away from. He was a faithful Jew and it was a despicable thought in his mind to partake of any of these things. Leviticus 20 verses 24 to 26 also give indication for why this was upsetting to Peter. I am the Lord your God who has separated you from the peoples. You are therefore to make a distinction between the clean animal and the unclean.

Now we know why, at least one reason why God did this. He was establishing a people who had separate practices. We don't know exactly why he wanted to make a line of distinction on food, but he did at that time. And then Leviticus 20 continues on and then ends with, thus you are to be holy to me for I the Lord am holy and I have set you apart from the peoples to be mine. Now imagine Peter desires to be holy.

Peter desires to have a heart set apart for God. He desires to do everything that God would have him to do. His heart hopes for faithfulness toward God. And here now, God is commanding him to go kill and eat. He says, no, no, no, I will not do that.

The voice came to him, get up Peter, kill and eat. These are instructions from heaven. Even so, Peter being the kind of man that he is, said, by no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy or unclean. No, I can't do it. His conscience is very strong in this regard.

And he's affirming his faithfulness before God, saying that he's always followed the law. This gives you some insight into Peter. As bombastic as he was, as full of mistakes and things like that. He was a faithful Jew and he was his whole life imagined. Not from the time of his being a little child had he defiled himself, he was truly set apart for God.

When the Lord Jesus Christ came and saw Peter, he knew that he had a faithful Jew, a faithful Israelite before him. He was a fisherman, he was a man's man, he was a great guy and he was dedicated unto God and he would not cross the line. But he was having a hard time. He's having a hard time here because God was abolishing the Old Testament dietary restrictions. And it was hard, and he did not like it at all.

And so Peter's instructed again, look at verses 15 and 16. Again a voice came to him. Peter's, he's one of those lug headed, thick headed guys. Right? And He needs time.

God is kind to him and comes a second time. And says, what God has cleansed no longer consider unholy. There's something changing, Peter. I am changing everything. I am the Lord God Almighty.

And then it happened a third time and then the sheep disappears up into the sky. End of vision. That's it. And there's Peter. And so he's being confronted with two things.

His former understanding of unclean food and his former understanding of unclean people. Stay away from both. God is now saying no. So Peter is afraid of breaking his lifelong understanding of the law and of people. And, you know, some, I think it was in our Bible study on Tuesday, somebody suggested that part of this was his fear of man, fear of losing his acceptability among those in Israel and the idea coming from it, you know, woe to us that we would let the fear of man keep us from changing, that we would hear the Word of God and because we're afraid of the people around us that we would stay in our own, the groove that we have worn down year after year.

And are we hung up with our own preferences about life, about church, about anything, so that we are incurably a people who stay with our own standards and we keep our man-made vision of life. This is something God is always calling us out of, our own man-made vision of life. So I think what one of the guys in the Bible said he was saying was that Peter is being controlled by fear so much that the command of God had to be repeated three times before he finally got it. Peter's will is being crossed up here. And God is desiring to bring Peter to that place where he says, not my will, but thine be done, oh Lord.

So Peter's perplexed in verse 17, do you see that? Greatly perplexed, in mind, that's what verse 17 says. And he's reflecting on the vision in verse 19 and and then we see the men show up from Caesarea And Peter obediently goes downstairs to meet them. These are unclean men that have just shown up. Okay?

He's so, he's listening. He's taking one step at a time. Perhaps on another day he wouldn't have gone down to speak with these men. He would not have stayed with them. Although we do know that he was staying with Simon the Tanner already.

Things were already starting to change, but now the change is getting even more accelerated. He goes downstairs to meet. So now that's Peter, okay? We talked about Cornelius. Then we saw this from the perspective of Peter.

Now we look at this whole thing from the perspective of what happened in Cornelius's home, the conversion of his friends and family, this is point three on your outline, picking up in verse 23. So he invited them in and gave them lodging. And on the next day he went with them and some of the brethren from Joppa accompanied with him. So Peter now also has his own entourage. They're going to Cornelius' house.

They're walking 30 miles. It probably take a couple of days to get there. And so he takes the two day or three day journey, whatever, and they get to Cornelius' house. I love this home. It's a spiritual, it's a center of spiritual life, which is so characteristic of the early church.

Kent Hughes said this, he said, mom, the children, the grandparents, his military associates and servants, they did not know it, but they were going to have the first ever cross cultural home Bible study. Well, that's exactly what happened here. And there they were, the relatives, the close friends, the comrades in business. It was just a very rich gathering there in Cornelius' household. The kind of gatherings that we should be having in our households is this kind of gathering.

Now, there are social tensions in the room, there are contradictions in the room, there are strange feelings in the room, because you had a mixed crowd with mixed understanding of spiritual life. No self-respecting Jew would stay overnight in a Gentile home. No self-respecting Gentile would place any value of having a despicable Jew in his house either. So you have seven devout Jews entering in this household, believe me, there were questions. There were thoughts.

There were tensions. There were some uncomfortability here. And I love this scene Because I just think it helps us to understand that in our households, as we gather people together, we should just understand that we should not just gather together for comfortable moments. We should gather together for moments in which God can work in a way beyond perhaps he would work if we were just all of one kind of person. God desires our relationships to be broader than just of our own.

And Peter comes in, he introduces himself to the people in the house, verses 28 to 33. He walks in and you know what he says, this cracked me up. He walks in and he says, verse 28, you see it? You know how it's unlawful for a man who is a Jew to associate with foreigners, yet here I am. He admits, he just throws the tension out on the table just so Everybody understands that we're all uncomfortable here.

We all have problems with this meeting. But we're here. And God has shown me. God has shown me that I should not call any of you unholy or unclean. Wow.

That was a confession. That was a confession of a vision of God that he had just had. And so Peter, he throws out this statement. His fellow Jews, you know, the mouths were hitting the floor probably. And I'm sure the gentiles in there were amazed too.

They knew these Jews, you know these Romans were here you know trying to control these rabble and there they were. They knew what these Jews were all about and they were very I'm sure very surprised that they came in and their leader says, this, something is shaken big time here. So he begins by acknowledging that he should not be in the home of a Gentile. And then he admits that God is teaching him that he's changing. And just a parenthesis for a moment.

You know, what is it? What is it right now that God is in process with you changing? What is he working you about? God does not desire to leave us alone. He convicts us of sin through the Holy Spirit.

He uses us together to convict us of sin, to bring up areas that are unsavory. By the way, in this five year plan that we're getting ready to launch out with here very soon, in the year 2007, we're going to recommend that you read the book, The Mortification of Sin by John Owen. It's all about mortifying sin. He says, be killing sin or sin will be killing you. And it's so important that we are a pliable, changeable people.

And Peter was indeed that. And so, Cornelius opens the door to hear from Peter and gives him authority to speak and he does so. Now we turn to Peter's message. This is a gospel message. It's a beautiful message beginning in verses 34 all the way to verse 46 near the end of the chapter.

And Peter displays a breaking down of pride and his own prejudice. And he says in verse 34, he opens his mouth. The first thing out of his mouth he says I most certainly understand you get that I most certainly understand and this is something new he's most certainly understanding something new I most certainly understand that God is not one to show partiality. The hammer just dropped there in that room. And he says, but in every nation the man who fears him and does what is right is welcome to him.

Now There are two words in here that are so critical. God is, God is. Peter is representing God. Peter is saying, you know, the wisdom of God on the matter is this. The nature of God on the matter is this.

God is not one to show partiality. God is not one to show partiality. You know, he reflects what Paul said in Romans 329, is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes.

Of the Gentiles also, Since indeed God will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one. Do we nullify the law through faith? May it never be. On the contrary, we establish the law. So who is God?

God is one who does not show partiality. That's what he's saying. And if one would desire to be a believer, then one would have to desire to become loyal to God and his nature, to take from him and become and then communicate in like manner. And everything begins with God. This is why in Acts chapter 20, the apostle Paul says to the elders in the beach of Miletus, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to sanctify you.

So the issue on the table is who is God? What is God like? What does he say about this thing? Not what do I think, not what does my tradition determine, but what does God say? That's what's really most important in everything.

And so the purpose of our lives is to take from God, to be transformed by Him, and then to communicate what is about him. That's why we're alive. Does anybody want to know why they're alive? That's why we're alive. It's to partake of heavenly wisdom, to internalize it, live by it, and communicate it.

That's the purpose of life right there. It's a God-ward life. It's a life that cares only about God and his perspective on everything. Now Peter says, God is, that's the first thing he says, This is the beginning of the gospel, who is God. Then he said, then he preaches peace through Christ, verses 36 and 37.

The word which he sent to the sons of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ. God sent his word to Israel through Christ who preached peace. That's what he's saying. And then he says, you yourselves know the thing took place throughout all Judea, starting with Galilee after the baptism of John. And so he's identifying that the gospel is the gospel of peace, peace with God.

He is the Prince of peace and he is our peace and there will be peace between Jew and Gentile. So that's the first part of the gospel that God is not partial and that he preaches peace to his people and brings them into a family from diverse cultures, from every tongue, tribe, and nation he brings them together. Colors, cultures do not clash in the kingdom of God, not in the church. They clash elsewhere but not here. This is God's desire.

Then in his sermon he affirms Jesus' public ministry in verses 38 and 39. He says, you know Jesus of Nazareth? You know Jesus of... I love that statement because he's calling up their memory of the Lord Jesus walking on the roads and all the things that he did, the healing of the sick and the raising of the dead and the preaching that he did and all the amazing things that came from the life of Jesus. As he's preaching to these people, he's just reminding them of the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ, That there's nothing more wonderful than Jesus.

That his ministry was beautiful. And he is the place to start. He was anointed of the Holy Spirit, that's what he says. Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit, that was obvious. You couldn't even argue with Jesus and win the argument because he was so incredibly anointed.

He went about doing good, it says here in verse 38. He was among the people, he was God with us. This was the character of his ministry. He was not in an ecclesiastical ivory tower directing to his inferiors. No, Jesus was just, he was among the people constantly.

So much so that he often didn't, he could, didn't eat, they didn't eat and all kinds of, you know, collateral issues came up as a result of that. He was healing those oppressed by the devil, you see that, in verse 38, and God was with him. Do you see all these things that it says about Jesus? And that we were witnesses of it. And then the next point in the sermon begins in verse 39 speaks of his death and resurrection they put him to death by hanging him on the cross he's preaching the gospel in this mixed crowd and then and then he says he ordered us to preach to the people.

Peter says that. He's talking to these Gentiles and he says, hey, he was anointed, he was filled with the Spirit, he was all these things, and he ordered us to preach. He ordered us to preach to the people and solemnly testify that he was the one appointed by God as the judge of the living and the dead. He's telling these people in the room this, that he has been commanded. Why?

So that through his name everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins. So Peter is saying, hey, we were commanded by Jesus to preach the message that Christ died on the cross and rose again, and anyone who believes in him received forgiveness of sins. He's saying that to these people, these gentiles there. And Peter, I believe Peter's loving these people. By now, Peter's heart is warming, I think.

He's giving them the, he's showing them how to be saved. You remember when Jonah was in Joppa? You remember what Jonah was doing? He was saying, I hate the Gentiles. I will not go to Tarshish.

I will not go to Nineveh. Not Peter. Peter now is actually preaching the gospel with passion, with love in his eyes. He is changing, really. He's doing what Jonah would not do.

And he gives them the gospel, and then the Holy Spirit falls on them. The Holy Spirit falls on the Gentiles. There's no altar call. There's no appeal. There's no laying on of hands.

The Holy Spirit just falls on them. Just surprisingly, J.A. Alexander calls this a fresh spiritual influence upon them. They just came to faith. That's what, by the way, that's what happens to everyone.

You just come to faith. You can't help it. God leads you there. He draws you and he gives you faith and you are saved. And that's what happened to these people.

There is a suddenness and Acts 1, 6 through 8 was fulfilled. Can anybody guess what I'm thinking of? And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Fulfilled. The Gentiles have the gift of the Holy Spirit, and it is a gift.

And they speak in tongues, they speak in these foreign languages. And what do they do? What are these tongues all about? They're exalting God, they're praising God. That's what these tongues are about here in this passage of Scripture.

Then there's a baptism right away. There wasn't a baptismal course that lasted six weeks or a year. They were baptized right there on the spot. And Peter says, surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit, just as we did. Can he?

And the answer is obviously no. So he orders them to be baptized. And here, these people in Cornelius' household, they become children of God without being circumcised, without becoming Jews, without having been part of the genealogical line of Abraham, they were accepted into the family of God, former pagans, joining the ever-expanding Church of Jesus Christ, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. And then there was a follow-up, there's an extended stay that we read about in verse 48. And here we have the first Gentile conversion, the first baptism, the first Gentile church service, and the first Gentile Discipleship program that kept on going for a few days.

And there it is. OK. So what a great, I love this passage. Application. I'm going to give you five different points of application just to consider if they would fall in the right place.

First of all, let's take this as an attitude check against attitudes toward people we don't like or think are unclean. We might despise them, but what does God think? You know, I asked, I think it was Josiah Orr on Tuesday, hey, Josiah, what was really important about this passage? He says, I'm thankful that no one is unclean. I think he was talking about me and himself and everybody else in that room.

And let me read you something I think is beautiful that falls along this line. This Alexander White, he writes this. I would charge, It would change your whole heart and life. This very night if you would take Peter and Cornelius home with you, and lay them both to heart. If you would take a four-cornered napkin when you go home and a Sabbath night pen and ink and write the names of the nations and the churches and the denominations and the congregations and the ministers and the public men and the private citizens and the neighbors and the fellow worshipers, all the people you dislike and despise and do not and cannot and will not love.

Heep all their names into the napkin and then look up and say, not so, Lord. I neither can speak well nor think well nor hope well of these people. I cannot do it and I will not try. If you acted out and spake all these evil things that are in your heart in some such way as that you would thus get such a sight of yourselves, you would never forget it. So the first thing to ask is, take this as a check against attitudes toward people we don't like or think unclean.

Why might we despise them and what would give us more love for them than we ever had before? And of course it's the gospel. It's God's heart. It's the heart of God that would cause us to think differently about it. Number two.

How are we, and I mean we meaning us as a church, and then also how are we individually, How are we doing with our representation of God in the world? We cannot lie to the world about God. And in order to do that we must acquire God's heart. We must know his mind so that we would represent him. You know, as we live together in the church, we're actually demonstrating every day, in every meeting, in every conversation, some aspect of the character of God.

When you greet someone there's some aspect of the character of God that either is or is not being communicated. The way we speak to one another, the way we speak about one another, what we do, it's a living demonstration either of the character of God or the character of the devil. That's just the truth. It's lighter darkness. It's white or black.

We are either properly representing the holy Lord God of love or we're representing something else. And you just, you think about, think about this kind of calling that God has called us to. A whole, a Set apart people, a holy nation for what? To sing the praises of God in the world. To live differently.

Why? Why? Not just to be different, but to represent God to the world. This is why Mark Dever says, our churches must not lie about God's character. Our churches must not lie about God's character.

But we do, don't we? We do lie about God's character. And for this, we should have the conviction of the Holy Spirit in turn and repent of our sins because we can't use our tongues perfectly as Scripture says and so we are in desperate need of the mercy of the grace of God through the blood of Jesus. But how are we doing is representing God in our homes, in our businesses, in our relationships in the church, and then us corporately. Is our corporate gathering here a true representation of the character of God?

When we break up here, all of us, let's be so aware that God has called us as a holy nation and that we would represent him to one another carefully. You know, the Sabbath is set aside for this. He says, it's my day, it's to do my pleasure, let's do his pleasure today as much as we possibly can. Get our minds away from our own agendas and do the agenda of God. You know what?

People say, oh, you might have to do what God wants me to do. Hey, there's nothing more happiness producing than to do what God wants you to do. It's the source of every good thing. It's the source of every joy. It's not a downgrade.

It's an upgrade. We hear it and we think, oh, it's a downgrade. It's not a downgrade at all. To do the pleasures of God is the most wonderful thing you can ever do for yourself and for others. It's the same principle about loving your wife.

He who loves his wife loves himself. You express the character of God to your wife, it comes back to you somehow. You can figure that out on your own. So number two, how are we with our representation of God in the world? Number three, take comfort.

Take comfort and find freedom in that God is sovereign over responses to the message. Peter preached a message. God was sovereign over the message. The whole household was saved. It was a blessing.

Peter's first sermon at Pentecost, they were pierced to the heart. 3, 000 souls came. Peter's sermon in the temple in Acts chapter 4, they get thrown in prison for it. Different result. Interesting.

Stephen preaches in chapter 7, the greatest sermon, greatest historical sermon in the book of Acts. He's stoned on the spot. Peter's sermon before Cornelius, salvation. Look at all the sermons and acts. Different results.

Same God orchestrating all things. So take comfort and find freedom. God is sovereign over the responses to the message. Number four, question. I'm gonna just close with two questions.

First question is, are we teachable? Peter was. Wow, isn't Peter, isn't it so good to see Peter? You know, he is blooding his head, you know, on the rocks of the truth of God. But he keeps getting up again.

He keeps going. God's mercy is toward him. You know, Are we willing to follow him? Are we willing to let him take us where we would not go on our own, willing to know God as he is, and perform our function as he desires us instead of our own function? Are we teachable?

A husband, are you teachable? Are you teachable? Are you allowing your wife to teach you? She's been given to you as a helper to teach you. Are you listening to what the Lord might be saying?

Or, wife, are you teachable? Do you have the humble heart of a helper? Ready to hear and then ready to be submissive to God. You children, are you teachable? Do you have hard hearts?

One of the most destructive things that is going on in the heart of every child is rebellion. Rebellion, strife, and pride. Rebellion, strife, and pride in the heart of a child will not stay as small things. They will not stay small, they'll just get bigger. And are you teachable?

Are you too proud to receive instruction? You children, are you listening? Please, so it's so important that you get this. Are you teachable? Like Peter.

Be like Peter and hear and comply. And then the last question, do we get it? Do we get it that Jesus' church is a missionary church? Do we get that? Have we gotten that?

The Gentiles matter. We do not shun them. We do not despise them. We preach the gospel to them, knowing that God has chosen some of them. So the question, do we get it?

Do we get it that Jesus Church is a missionary church? Let's pray. Oh Lord, the vastness of your Word is beautiful. It's so helpful. And Lord, we are sinners.

We fall short. In every area that we've just spoken of here, we know it. And I pray that you would come and give us great assistance by the Holy Spirit to complete all that you have for us. In Jesus' name, amen.