Cornelius: Reluctant Evangelists

[Music] we now find ourselves 50 sermons into our study of the book of the bible called the acts of the apostles and i just want to remind you this morning uh we're not for the fact that the apostles acted um humanly speaking at least we we would not we're going to be here studying this book nor would we even be trusting in jesus christ had they not done the hard thing of acting on the instructions that christ gave them and that's how the book started right remember in chapter one jesus told them to wait in jerusalem until the spirit came into their lives and that they would then be witnesses in jerusalem judea samaria and the ends of the earth and doing what christ said acting on that set of instructions is something that's very difficult as we've been reading and studying throughout this book the last 50 sermons it had sometimes cost them a great deal their freedom certainly their comfort they had been brought before the sanhedrin the supreme court of the nation and they had gone through a lot to be faithful to do what they were told to do it's not just the apostles you need to think about all the subsequent generations of christians that have been faithful to do what the apostle the apostles did and act on the instructions of the lord jesus christ to do what he said we all should be doing and that is to share the message of jesus to those around them were that not happening humanly speaking throughout this history in the last 2000 years we would not be here in church today studying the bible studying the acts of the apostles and learning about christ they they needed to do that as hard as that is and i say hard i keep saying it's hard but it's not that it's complex i think you need to understand that difference right it's it's exceedingly simple right to open your mouth and to talk about christ to say things like well where do you think you stand uh with god as we think about cornelius we met last week this roman centurion he was a very moral upstanding guy he was generous he was praying and he might think well i'm fine but peter had to do the hard thing this apostle had to do the hard thing of going and saying well what you need there's something missing here what you need is to trust in christ because your righteousness isn't going to attain your salvation so this message was going to be hard and sometimes it would cost them greatly and sometimes they had reasons that they did not want to do this they had in this case that we're going to study today theological reasons that they weren't going to do it um and i've just got to tell you what summarizes all of kind of the feel of what we see in the book of acts to this point is uh what i tried to capture in the title of the sermon this morning and that is the word reluctant now there's a lot of reluctance evangelists and we'll see peter in that role this morning and i don't think it's hard for us to think about our own reluctance when we think about opening up our mouths and saying things like well where do you think you're going to go when you die and to bring up a message of or a conversation rather that's going to lead to a message of christ and salvation that's not always easy to do uh it is going to be something that uh is much like the reluctance you would have if you were standing on the perch of a of a rock formation looking down on a lake like most of us did at one time or another and you know as students or teenagers or young people just saying uh okay others have jumped they're in the water they're saying it's great what a great thing this was it was fun come on jump go ahead and as you stand there you know several feet over the surface of the lake there's all of this this reluctance and it's not that it's difficult you've been walking for a long time all you do is take one step it's just that it's very scary when the fear and timidity of our own lives thinking well what's going to happen if i do this am i going to you know fall and go in crooked or maybe massively crooked am i going to belly flop i i don't know how cold the water is all these things in our minds make us pause and the more we pause we can engage in that kind of you know paralysis by analysis it gets harder and harder to do the thing that in that case that we are beckoned to do by others and in our case in evangelism what christ has called us to do he expects us to do what uh the scripture has been saying from the very beginning about all christians you're going to come and follow me and i'm going to make you fishers of men i'm going to make you evangelist to other people i'm going to endow you with the title a very noble title of being my ambassador in your generation you're going to go and make disciples of all the nations these kinds of instructions laid upon us then it makes it incumbent upon us as christians to act on those instructions and um i think the passage we're gonna look at today if you haven't turned there already we're in acts chapter 10 uh we met coronadius last week he sent a dispatch of people from caesarea on the coast of the mediterranean sea down to joppa where peter was staying and peter's going to have theological apprehension about this there's a lot of pressure for him not to share the gospel in this case in other passages there was other reasons and a lot of price tags involved in sharing the gospel but in this case there was a theological reason now here's the thing about preaching this passage to you this morning none of you have the theological excuse that peter has that's not what we're dealing with but some of you do carry a theological excuse with you that i'd like to address using the paradigm of peter struggling theologically with this uh to at least help you think through the theological concerns that sometimes keep us from opening our mouth and they become an excuse frankly for not uh raising the ire of people or engaging in conversation that turns to argumentation and all the reasons we're afraid and timid to share the gospel uh and our theological problem and i would just address and and suss out as the pastor here in the 21st century in our church is probably a theological excuse that is um depicted in the phrase i've used a couple of times already in this introduction and that is the phrase humanly speaking if i say to you we would not be here we're not for the acts of the apostles right humanly speaking we would not be here uh you would say well i got a compass bible church i have a high view of scripture i believe in god's sovereignty i know that he's a god who gets his job done you quote often passages like jesus is going to build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it and he's the good shepherd and his voice is going to go out and his sheep are going to hear his voice and his sheep are going to follow him and he's going to give them eternal life i mean this is all on christ christ is doing this i've read ephesians one he has purpose before the foundation of the world to save the people he's gonna save and so i just know he's gonna get it done because you start talking about things like well we wouldn't be here were it not for some evangelist in the first century or some people sharing the gospel in our past or someone in you know a generation or two previous well i'm sure god would get it done somehow we can rely on the sovereignty of god that oftentimes becomes an excuse theologically for us not to engage in doing the hard work and by that i don't mean that it's complicated i just mean that it's it's it's viscerally difficult to engage in evangelism and i i want to get that out of the way much like god had to get peter's theological excuses out of the way so let's take a look at this passage knowing he's dealing with a completely different problem that we should understand and i as your pastor should give you some information to help you think through that historically and theologically but just keep in mind that his problem probably not your problem but whatever your problem might be in blaming something on god for why you're not sharing the gospel i'd like to get rid of it matter of fact let's even give the point before we read it can we do that i know i rarely do that but let's jot it down because i've already said this in several ways but i want to give you a deep theological word ditch okay number one on your outline ditch any theological excuse get rid of it obliterate it this is what this passage is all about so let's read it once you jot that down it's in acts chapter 10 we're gonna read beginning in verse number nine and we're going to read all the way through verse 20 which i know cuts us off in the middle of this narrative but i've already warned you this is going to be a four-part discussion of cornelius the first roman here to come to faith in christ i mean he's not worshiping at the temple he's not at the day of pentecost here as some kind of proselyte to judaism he is a full-blown roman italian who is just in in israel only because he's there on assignment because of the military that's it and so peter is now going to have to share the gospel with him and the dispatch of people are on the way and it starts and picks up in verse number nine again let's pick it up here acts 10 verse nine the next day as they were the dispatch from cornelius house were on their journey and approaching the city peter our apostle who's about to act again went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray now remember our reckoning of time we got that in the last text and we just need to calculate that that means it's noon so it's noon you're in joppa not far from the mediterranean coast probably got a nice little breeze up there the top of the house was where they would go to uh you know sometimes they have patios up there like in some houses today and it was very common in the first century in in israel and so they had a house they had a little patio up there he goes up there it's midday and he he's praying he goes up to pray and of course he's also hungry because it's noon right i'm hungry around 10 30 in the morning but he he's at noon here and he's ready to eat and he wanted something to eat but while they were preparing it he fell into a trance now that's an interesting word not used very often but the idea of some kind of weird vision he's about to have that's not quite like a dream it's not like he's asleep at night but god is going to reveal some things to him as an apostle very important that he authorized this expansion of the gospel from jerusalem judea samaria and now to this metaphorical end of the earth to see this this italian come to faith in christ so he's there in this trance and he's going to be given this this this vision i saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending being let down by its four corners upon the earth which if you think about having a rooftop patio you might have what i would think you would have you're there in a sunny coastal city of joppa you might have a like an awning up of some some kind of pop-up like we have out here on the patio so you can kind of imagine he's leaning back he's smelling lunch being prepared he's praying trying to focus on prayer he falls into this trance he's about to get communication from god and it's like that awning over his head which i assume he has it is like now it's it's coming down out of the sky and uh it's about to be described what's in it verse 12. in it were all kinds of animals right emphasis on all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air and there came a voice to him that say rise that says rise peter kill and eat and peter said by no means lord for i have never eaten anything that is common or unclean and the voice came to him again a second time what god has made clean do not call common this happened three times and the thing was taken up into heaven now while peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean behold the men who were sent by cornelius having made inquiry for simon's house right is this the tanner's house simon the tanner they stood at the gate and they called out to ask whether simon simon the apostle simon who was called peter was lodging there while peter was pondering the vision the spirit said him behold three men are looking for you rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation for i have sent them we're going to pick it up next time we're going to study what happens next but in this particular passage we have peter being prepared to go on a journey not too far but to travel and to go to caesarea maritime on the coast of the mediterranean in jerusalem or in israel rather and he's going to share the gospel at high cost matter of fact look down further just to get a little sense of what the apprehension would be look at verse 28 i know we're jumping into the next passage look at verse 28 as he's recalling this he says and and he said to them you yourselves know this is acts 10 28 how unlawful it is for a jew to associate with or visit anyone of another nation but god has shown me that i should not call any person common or unclean so you can see the parallel just by reading verse 28 as to what's happening here with the law which the jew would have to follow in terms of his dietary restrictions because leviticus chapter 11 describes all of the things you as a jew in the old testament could eat and not eat today we call it kosher eating right that this is something that is prescribed that you can eat versus something you can't eat now the rabbis have added some layers to this but the basic dietary restrictions are given to us in leviticus chapter 11 i say to us to israel that was going to distinguish their menu from everyone else in the ancient world and it is a little complicated and weird right you start looking through them when you say all kinds of animals like there's lots of animals that were described that you could eat if they had the split whole hoof and they chewed the cud i mean you got to figure out how this animal functions which is easier in an agrarian society than us today but they would clearly differentiate between say a horse you know or i don't know uh all kinds of i don't know mule uh versus the the bison or the or the caribou or or or cattle i mean they can say okay well that's okay but this is not okay can't eat a donkey right and then there's um fish right the fish have to have uh scales and gills right so there's fish that you can eat sorry sushi eaters you couldn't eat in the old testament couldn't eat you know any kind of of of uh i don't know any calamari you can't eat uh you can't eat uh squid i don't know you're tempted to do that you can't eat uh jellyfish uh lots of different sea life that you can eat right you can't eat the lobster but you can eat you know bass and and and you could eat all kinds of uh a fish i'm not a fisherman scales and fins okay um you could eat various insects not that you're tempted to do that depending on what kind it was certain kinds of grasshoppers and locusts you remember john the baptist came eating locusts uh certain kinds of quadrupeds you could not eat uh and then reptiles that's why it's interesting that the word reptile is here because that's like just there there was no list for that just no reptiles don't eat any reptiles so here was this weird list and people ask sometimes they say pastor why did they why that list why that and oftentimes some people say well let me tell you why and they bring me a book about some medical doctor in nebraska or something that says well here's why the the rules were and these are actually better and there's more enzymes or it's better for your digestive system or you know here's the reason why because god said so uh i mean that's the reason a matter of fact when he goes through all of this in leviticus 11 at the end he says did you do this because i'm i'm the lord your god i'm holy i'm totally different than you guys and you're going to be holy totally different than everybody else and one of the problems is in the ancient near east much like today but even more so then your social interaction was done in in meals right you could not just go and eat anywhere because now all of a sudden i got all these weird rules about what i can't eat and what i can't eat all the kosher stuff versus the non-kosher stuff to use modern terminology it would distinguish where i could eat i couldn't go to anybody's banquet i couldn't eat whatever was put before me as a matter of fact it uses words like this the foods that are not on the kosher list should be detestable to you so you have to in your mind now come up with a way to say okay these things are going to be detestable a ham and cheese omelet should be detestable which is almost impossible to do but you know bacon right blt right a ham sandwich all of that just you cannot you cannot even like it but you got to see it as detestable it's much like asking why the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and again all you're back to basically the fundamental answer is because god said so like you pull on your kids every now and then why well because i said so right at some point authority is going to overrule your understanding of of why this and i'm not even sure there is a a a why that we could ever trace out or or describe to you in some book and i've read the books right i i've read ellen g white and keys to health and you know i i get why they think it's better for you to eat certain old testament kosher rules from leviticus 11 but i'm telling you all of that is is to me just the secondary and most of it i think is fanciful double talk because the bottom line is god just said you're not going to eat like everyone else you do over a thousand meals a year right some of us eat way more than that we eat a lot of meals and he says you got to give thought to every one of those why because you're going to be different than everyone else now all of this is going to be reversed i mean think about acts 1 8 that's where we started you're going to be my witnesses in jerusalem judea samaria right these half breeds syrian jewish people and then the ends of the earth you're talking like barbarian scythian slave free from ikea and macedonia you know ancient greece and italy and just the whole ends of the earth everyone this message is for everyone this message is for everyone you don't understand perhaps if you're not thinking in a jewish mindset how radical that is right i can't even walk down the road with someone who's a gentile if my faithful orthodox jew and now all of a sudden i'm supposed to see them as my my my evangelistic prospect well how is that because even when jesus was here he told his disciples only go to the villages in the cities of the lost house of israel the children of the lost house only jewish people and we even see him turning down people at least initially like this the syrophoenician woman no you're from phoenicia no you can't this is the this is for my children these are for the this is for the israelites i am the jewish messiah for the jewish people i mean think about that just repeatedly even when jesus has a discussion in john 4 with a woman at the well who is a samaritan woman i mean she first says well how why in the world are you talking to me i'm a samaritan and jesus says a time is coming right and the age just started because messiah is standing in front of you and now is right when neither in that mountain nor in this one right neither in jerusalem or gerizim where the samaritans worship it's not about that all of this stuff is about to go away right he's talking in terms about the epic and era that he's in this transitional era of the messiah coming on earth and this whole thing is going to be a transition from all this exclusive stuff about of the nation of israel to where now all of a sudden this message of the jewish messiah is going to be for the nations and it's not entirely different maybe a weak illustration but like you raising your children right if you've got a five-year-old you're expecting him to live in in the bedroom that you've furnished for him right you live here this is your home but if you're thoughtful as a parent you're thinking about what the scriptures say regarding you as a warrior with your children shooting them into the world well i don't shoot them into the world when they're three right but i i don't my kids don't check in with me now right they do i don't know what they're doing well i assume what they're doing they're at church this morning doing their things but they are out there doing their i don't know what their schedules are they are affecting the world they're beyond my my my domestic sequestering within my home right that's the goal of parenting to move them out but i expected them to come back to the house every night when they were kids i raised them under my my tutelage right the management and stewardship that i had in their life was there for certain things to be built into them and then send them out into the world and in a sense israel was exclusively cordoned off starting with abraham in genesis chapter 12 and the descendants were then to be exclusively identified holy set apart from everyone else and they had a special diet and special rules and ceremonies and all of that the law was going to be given in moses which is about 600 years after abraham we were going to have revelation now codified and what would end up being 39 books of the old testament all of it's going to lead through this rise of a monarchy that he is going to sovereignly prepare through david and the son of david will then be the ultimate king he will also be the ultimate priest and sacrifice himself so that god's punishment can fall on him there will be a payment for sin there will be leadership provided and he'll be god himself speaking to you when he speaks it will be the mouth of the lord and we will have now prophet priest and king coming through israel and then all of a sudden guess what it's opened up to the world and it's not only like in the old testament when it says in isaiah for instance that that you are going to be a light to the nations like well set up israel over there and if you want truth you can go be a proselyte and join israel but now they're going to be like lasers and they're going to shoot out from israel and they're going to go establish the the people of god in all those places there's going to be this now missionary effort as opposed to if you want to be with us you can come be with us and become a jew and and be a proselyte you won't be an ethnic jew but you can be a religious jew well now it was no no matter where you're at you don't have to come to the festivals you don't have to eat like us you don't have to dress like us you can shave the side of your head if you'd like you don't have to have a priest you don't have to have a temple we now have the messiah and the messiah is the substance of all that god was planning and he dropped that hint at the very beginning i mean it was more than a hint in genesis 12. that abrahamic covenant was i'm going to choose you i'm going to work through you and through the tutelage of this nation i'm going to produce law and i'm going to produce governing documents and i'm going to produce a messiah and then all the families of the earth will be blessed in this one family that was god's plan and part of the distinguishing feature of cordoning off and sequestering that nation was their dietary restrictions and so all of that was symbolic of the fact that now that it has been a complete you know sea change a whole completely different set of rules as it says in hebrews chapter 9 the regulations of food and washings all of that's done because as it ramps up into the punch line in hebrews chapter 10 verse 1 all that was a shadow of the things that were to come but now the substance is in christ and now that christ is here guess what all the other stuff goes away the whole ninth chapter of hebrews was about the fact that the temple is totally not needed christ had the temple veil ripped when he died all of this is passe it's um it is absolutely no longer vogue and now what you eat doesn't matter and don't let anybody tell you it does right not that any of you are really stumbling over that we seem to eat anything they put in front of us now but the point is if anyone starts to tell you that whether it's about sabbath day or new moon or festival or what you eat the dietary restrictions colossians one says no no one can act on your judge in that regard anymore why because christ is the substance of all of that the whole point of hebrews chapter beginning in chapter four was the sabbath itself is fulfilled all the dietary restrictions are fulfilled the priesthood is fulfilled the ceremonial laws are fulfilled all of the ceremony that was to point to christ is now gone because the christ it was pointing to has arrived now we preach christ and him crucified and we draw people to that and we point them to christ and no longer do we need dietary restrictions to cordon off israel now that was hard for someone who went through the struggle even in jesus's ministry to look at gentiles and go i guess right now it's not for them and even as jesus talked to the woman at the well he reminded her salvation is of the jews it comes to us right salvation right the power of god and salvation this this gospel that we're preaching right to the jew first and then also to the greek the non-jew and all of this has come to fruition and now peter's going to have to take heat from other jews as we learn in galatians to say okay dietary laws don't matter i can hang out at your house i can share the gospel with you i can count you as much a child of god as i am even though you're not even a genetic child of abraham that was gigantic now that was a theological struggle he had to get over and one of the ways he did it was a day in which he was hungry god gave him this vision and it was very clear that you no longer should call food unclean and you should no longer call people unclean everyone is your evangelistic target everyone from every tongue tribe and nation god is going to go and use you as an apostle and your descendants of of theological and and spiritual descendants the disciples are going to reach into every nation of the world and that's why we sit here as gentiles on the other side of the world 2 000 years later right worshiping the the jewish messiah and we can go out and have bacon for brunch all of that is all about god fulfilling his plan and no longer is there a theological excuse as to who you shouldn't be sharing the gospel with now all of that just to explain the sunday school lesson for you now to preach to you to say hey but what is your theological excuse is it that you're concerned that you are not needed that really ultimately god is sovereign god's gonna save whoever he wants i've read those passages i believe that you talk about humanly speaking we're not about human centrality around here about god centrality we're about the high view of god now i get all that but let me blow your mind here i don't know if it'll blow your mind but let me say something to you that that may help you i quoted john 10. let me quote it again now my sheep that means people i have picked out here people that i'm going to say will hear my voice jesus says well wait a minute you're going to go up and be ensconced at the right hand of the father you're not your boy isn't going to be here right but my voice going to go out my sheep are going to hear my voice right they're going to follow me they're going to respond obediently trusting me following me salvation right let's be savior and lord to these people and i'll give them eternal life seems like it's all on him here's another 10th chapter from a book that god wrote romans chapter 10. he asks this question theoretical question and it's rhetorical but how are they going to hear right unless someone proclaims it to them translated preaches to them and i hate that because you think of someone standing on a platform with a microphone and a spotlight that's that that's not the point the point is someone's got to tell them this message someone has to say to cornelius who feels like he's fine with god hey you're not fine with god until you have christ you need christ you need to be clothed in christ you need to trust in christ the jewish messiah needs to be your messiah that has to happen and all i'm saying is your theological excuse may sound a lot like when william carey stood there in northamptonshire england after having a map on his wall where he worked as a cobbler and a part-time pastor and he said i've been looking at this map thinking about people that need to hear the message of the gospel and they don't have a missionary there he said i think we need to go and the pastors looked at him and said quote famous quote if god wants them saved he'll do it without your help okay and i think some of us think well there are non-christians in my workplace there are non-christians in my neighborhood there are non-christians on my kids little league team but you know what if god wants him saved he's got them marked out from eternity past he's going to get them saved let me remind you of this to take john 10 and romans 10 and to put them together and for god to say it is necessary for christ's voice to go out and he will accomplish salvation in people that he has picked from the foundation of the world and he will save them his voice will go out they will respond they'll hear his voice and they'll follow him and he'll give them eternal life has to in our mind coincide with the truth that he said how are they ever going to do that if they don't have someone tell them which means he's not only appointed the ends which is what he wants to accomplish and that is someone at your office is still yet to be saved that he's planning on saving but he's also appointed the means by which that's going to happen which is you and i being faithful to act in response to the instructions of christ the acts of the apostles right the acts of the christians in south county in the 21st century we need to act on what he said and he said open your mouth and be my witnesses he said have a conversation and not only have i ordained and decreed what will happen in terms of the salvation of individuals in your neighborhood but i've decreed that you should be the means by which that takes place both of those are true and it's what j.i packer calls an antinomy and and by the way that word you can get familiar with that word in the concept of these two truths in tension you know i could i could refer you to a book like the way don carson one of his dissertations on uh divine sovereignty and human responsibility and if you're up for that great tackle that but if you want a very simple book i i go back to j.i packers little book evangelism and the sovereignty of god it's listed on the back biographical information on the back of your worksheet we have it in our bookstore unless the last service sold out you need to go and read this if you struggle with the theological excuse of i don't feel the pressure the urgency or the requirement to share the gospel because i know god is sovereign he'll get it done you need to see as much urgency as peter felt when god said go to caesarea open your mouth there's someone there that is seeking you to share this message go and he's going to go without hesitation he's going to go because god says i've appointed the means by which people are going to get saved and that's you talking about the gospel so again i guess we could look at other layers but i think that's the broadest one and as a pastor sometimes we have to sit there and say theological problem for peter was this it's nobody in my congregation has that theological problem but you have this theological problem and there may be others but let's just deal with whatever it is that's why i use the word any in this point ditch any theological excuse it's like you saying i'm not going to pray because you know god's going to do whatever he's going to do if my if my prayers aren't going to change you know the sovereign decrees of god then why pray and i'm going to say because god told you to pray and i've had people say to me very educated people why would i ever share the gospel with people right if god's already decided this or they've said it maybe in a more nuanced way why would i call someone to repentance if they don't have the capability to repent right if you really want to get down to the levels of theology right about total depravity and i'm saying this because god told you to because god said to god said to be persuasive second corinthians chapter 5 knowing the fear of god which should be not acting on the instructions he gave us right i persuade men i want to persuade people and that's going to be a hard thing to do because guess what when you start talking about religion at work when you start telling your friends hey let's go to the baseball game but we're going to talk about things that are eternally important you know there's going to be a price tag attached to that probably won't be before the supreme court of your nation that threat of death being told to never talk about the gospel again well that may happen someday but it's not happening right now but you may lose a relationship you may be ridiculed maybe you have questions laid before you that you think i don't know how i'm going to answer that i may look stupid i may feel stupid but it's not complicated start a conversation hey just in your assessment where do you think you stand with the creator where do you think you stand with the god that made you you think you're okay with him 99 people say yeah i think i'm fine with him and i'll bet cornelius probably thought that and here a messenger was sent getting his theological problems out of the way saying no no my responsibility is to share that message verse 16 this vision of this potpourri this this smorgasbord that's a better word of of foods right is now it's not a suggestion hey do you see anything here you like to eat no it's like eat it right and there's going to be a guy that you're not even supposed to be seen with a roman century go and share the god go into his home talk to his family and share the message of the jewish messiah this is all assigned to him and i got to think when peter is being so obstinate i am not going to eat that non-kosher food right you got to think about the pattern of peter throughout the gospels when we get to know him how he's that kind of person right he's a very strong-willed person and in this case he thinks he's doing the right thing right i'm never eating anything common or unclean and yet god's saying no you got to do it you got to do it you got to do it and it's interesting too that it's three times and i'm not a numerologist but i'm just telling you that's kind of the pattern in peter's life right he's always being confronted with things thrice over like when he says ah everyone else can fall away i will never fall away if i have to die with you i'm gonna die with you and here he is elevating his own sense of the value of his own resolve i'm so resolved i'm so committed i'm so loyal and christ had to say you know you're gonna deny me not once not twice you're going to deny me three times before dawn before the rooster crows are going to deny and he does starting with as we learned in the gospels with a common slave girl a teenager likely in caiaphas courtyard as jesus is arrested and being tried he is there denying that he even knows him and then the guys around the fire warming himself by the charcoal fire and all said now they're saying you're with him you're from galilee i recognize your accent never know he calls down curses on himself and by the last time that he denies christ that third time to prove to himself and god has to emphasize it three times over this is not about the value of your resolve or commitment you're not that great you're not all that peter i mean that whole humbling process right after that was made it's crystal clear peter got it and he said and it says in the passage he went out and wept bitterly well then you know what happens he gets crucified and on the third day he rises from the dead jesus does and then he's there he's running in looking in the tomb we know all that you can read all about that in john chapter 20. and then you think okay done time for the book of acts well not time for the book of acts because if you know the story peter says i'm done i'm going fishing and he goes out fishing and as he goes out fishing in in john chapter 21 jesus has to show up and he has to teleport into the sea of galilee there on the shore he makes another fire this time it's a fire of restoration not a fire of denial and he broils some fish on on the shores of the sea galilee and he's out there fishing just like the first time christ called him couldn't catch anything christ says put your nets on the other side he calls him on shore jesus john peter recognizes him he swims in and he sits down and he has a conversation and he asks him three times do you love me do you love me do you love me do you love me do you love me do you love me i love you of course i love you you know that i love you went through that three times and you know what was attached to each of those is three recommissionings of your life hey i told you follow me and i'll make you fishers of men and that means you're gonna be a pastor you're gonna be a shepherd you're gonna feed the flock you're gonna seek the lost sheep you're going to be my arms my voice and my leader in this church and he says no i want to go fishing so he says tend my sheep feed my lambs tend my sheep get back out there leave the nets behind again three times over and i think about the obstacles here of peter going no i'm not gonna eat that i'm not gonna eat that i'm not gonna eat that which has to at some level reflect where we wouldn't need the illustration his real obstinates about being identified with gentile people as later he lapses back into that kind of hypocrisy that paul has to call him out on in the book of galatians and my point is how patient god is to continually go after a guy that seems so hard-headed and i just want to say that i think should resonate with us as you hear another sermon from your pastor 50 sermons in the book of acts saying to you one more time you got to share the gospel you got to share the gospel you ought to share the gospel you should share the gospel god has told you to be his witnesses in our generation and if it's not for our witness in our generation guess what the next generation won't have the gospel humanly speaking but guess what god has ordained the human instrument and that's you and me we have to do this and so i would say this we ought to stop and be grateful for god's patience number two be grateful for god's patience and by the way whenever there's time and god just delays anything whether it's judgment or whatever it might be this is a sign according to second peter chapter three of his opportunity for salvation in other words the reason he he didn't ditch peter is because he wants him in this case to be a tool of the instrument and message of salvation let's think back let's look at this in three ways number one letter a if you will when you were a non-christian and god was seeking you his voice was going out through the instrument of as romans 10 says some human person talking to you about the need for christ i will bet right even with preparation and the tilling of the soil of your heart that whatever you probably didn't respond the first time you heard someone say you know what you should just call yourself a sinner and see yourself who you are and follow christ and trust in him and seek his righteousness and rely on that instead of your own i'll bet you didn't respond matter of fact the people that study this kind of stuff and i know it's kind of just a human analysis of it all they say that the average person who makes a commitment to christ and puts their trust in christ it's taken seven explanations seven approaches seven appeals of the gospel in their life before they do it so most people if they have a testimony they look back and say man it i didn't get through my thick head initially you got to be grateful for the grace that god showed in pursuing you when he pursued you now we introduce ourselves to peter and it seems like he drops the net the first time that we see him but read the gospels carefully i think there was more to it than that and i know certainly with paul how many times did paul hear the gospel that jesus was the messiah and rejected it and in chapter 9 we see god being so patient with paul and bringing him to faith in christ and he has to kick him off of his horse and saying you're kicking against the goats how many times did you kick against the goat how many times did i prompt you to respond to christ and see him for who he was i don't know how many times but you know it was a lot it's kicking kicking plural against the codes right it goes you continually rebuff this message and all of that by the way that obstinate hard-headed kind of zeal saying i'm fine i'm doing god's work persecuting the way i'm doing what i should be doing all of that by the way paul says in first timothy chapter one he saved a hard-headed obstinate person like me so that i could be a template an example of god's perfect patience it's amazing how patient he is how long suffering is and he saved me and i can see god's patience in my conversion story and i'm just saying that is one way you need to look at this and you need to look at it this way that god is being patient with people at your work guys being patient with people in your extended family god has been very patient with people in your neighborhood and he has probably had plenty of of of your neighbor plenty of exposures to the truth of the gospel but hasn't yet responded and you're thinking well they've heard it okay well think of how patient god has been with you i'm saying now you need to see how patient god is being with them speaking of peter peter said think about how patient god was in the days of noah when the ark was being constructed and the bible says he was a preacher of righteousness apparently he was up there saying things not only about the truth but that truth would be calling them to repentance and the only way to get out of the coming destruction of the world was to get on the ark and there was plenty of space and he probably needed some help and it was like you should get on the art and he was so patient with that giving him so many opportunities god is being patient with the non-christians in your world he's been patient with you in your conversion story now here's the real key i want to emphasize and he's been really patient with you when he has clearly articulated to you repeatedly that you need to be talking to non-christians about the gospel how many times has he told you that how many times do you use me to tell you that how often have you heard the fact that you should be gutsy enough and it's a simple step it's not there's no big words in the sentence right where do you think you stand with god that's an easy sentence to say it's simple it's just difficult because you know there's a price tag and i'm saying think about god being patient with you i mean he's trying to emphasize if you feel like pastor mike can't you get onto another theme in this book can't you find something in there that doesn't make me feel like i got to share the gospel today all i'm telling you is the repeated redundant repetition of the call for you to be his witnesses is a reminder of god's patience there was a peter-esque kind of personality in the old testament his name was jonah remember jonah he was a little obstinate wasn't he god said why don't you go to assyria and why don't you tell them that i'm going to judge them now that's how it's introduced us and therefore people say well it's just a statement and a declaration of coming judgment well it was but here's what jonah knew was involved in that because he reveals it in chapter 4 of jonah and that is this i knew that if i called them to repentance now i'm elaborating but here's the point of the passage in jonah 4. i knew you're merciful and gracious if they would even listen to what i would have to say you'd probably forgive them and you know what i don't much care for the assyrians because they're the bad guys so i don't i don't want to go and you know how hard-headed he was right he ran and went the other way went off on the ship and he's like i'm heading to tarshish i'm done and he gets on the boat and he goes and god says fine i'll find another prophet then i'll just kill you no he goes after him has him thrown in the ocean says i'm going to give you a little ride you'll never forget i'll put you in this big fish a little taste for the stomach acids of the big creatures i've created gonna hurt your eyes gonna peel all the hair off your body gonna bleach your skin it's gonna be really bad then you're gonna be a chunk in his vomit and i'm gonna put you up i'm sorry uh but that's what it was throw you up on the shores and i'm gonna here's favorite verses in in jonah for me jonah chapter 3 verses 1 and 2 right and here's how it starts the word of the lord right came a second time to jonah now i told you to go uh to assyria and um i just i i'm not giving up on you i i'd like you to go let me tell you again can you can you go to nineveh and he goes now he's a little obstinate even within his own heart but he goes and you might be a little obstinate hearing a sermon like this i want to talk about hey listen take the step i don't care if you're gritting your teeth while you take a step take the step take a step into a conversation about christ and know this that because he didn't just say i'm done with you then i guess i'll bring you home because you're not going to share the gospel right and get you up here to worship and know the bible better you can be like me have the mind of christ this afternoon he's keeping you here you're here again even though you haven't shared the gospel all month i'm just telling you this you're here and god is telling you one more time i've been very patient with you right and i i'm now going to ask you again be my witnesses get over whatever theological excuse you have and see how patient i am not only with you as an evangelist but with the people in your sphere of influence who are still breathing the air that i've created and they are being called in my patience to salvation god is not slow in keeping his promises as some count slowness but he's patient toward you speaking you in general to this generation of people not wishing for anything to perish but for all to come to repentance well then he better get him he better send his voice out well he's going to use your vocal cords to get the message out he's ordained the end and the means and he's been very patient about the fact that perhaps we have been fighting it let the word of the lord come to you a second time if you will to remind you of your message and your role to share the gospel with people don't test god's patience not a good thing verse 17 acts chapter 10 now while peter was inwardly perplexed this division what he might have seen behold there were the men there they were sent by cornelius made inquiry is this simon's house yep they stood at the gate they called out a salmon the apostle here peter yeah he's here peter was pondering this and the spirit said hey go downstairs behold there are three men looking for you rise and go and accompany them now underscore this without hesitation do it without hesitation i don't want you to hesitate yeah but i was waiting for lunch they were preparing lunch so can i not eat lunch no go get lunch at the gas station right just go i need you to go and of course we learn in the next verse right i mean first three words of verse 21 and peter went right he went he went downstairs and he went even though this was hard for him he went he took the step he did it and he did it without hesitation now this is wonderful because here were the non-christians they were the emissaries that were sent from cornelius but here they were i'm sure there was plenty of conversation that happened between joppa and caesarea i mean here were the non-christians they were standing at the gate they were right in front of his face and all i'm saying is that god had orchestrated all of this so that people might seek him and know god and the whole point was you now are the messenger of this and it's a let's put it this way a an ordained opportunity the door was open and it was an opportunity for him to speak up about the gospel you ought to be looking for those even though they're not far from being right in front of your your nose number three you need to look for ordained opportunities there are ordained opportunities and they're standing at the gate they're right there they're everywhere in church right i'm hoping it's not a target-rich environment because i hope there's a lot of christians surrounding you and you go out on the doughnut table saying uh mostly christians here great but i'll bet wherever you're going tomorrow right here's all you need you a christian and a non-christian that's all you need and to be able to say okay my job is to be a witness to christ i need to say i don't care how good you feel before god i don't think if you think i don't matter if you think you're better you need to trust in christ you need to see your sin for what it is and trust exclusively in christ that's the message and it may spark all kinds of problems and i'm saying if they don't want to hear it right the pattern of scripture is fine does that mean i'm going to shut up with other people but if you don't hear i'm not oh great i didn't know well everybody's been talking about great i'm just here to be faithful to do what i'm supposed to i'm not controlling how many ripples come from my my jump off the cliff i'm not even controlling you know the effect of what other people think of the form of my jump i'm just gonna jump into the conversation that's what god has asked us to do all you need to do is look for opportunities and again i emphasized it when i read it but he was waiting for lunch it was being made and the point here is without hesitation i mean that that's how this is described even thinking chapter 11 yeah look at chapter 11 verse 11 as he recounts this and behold which again is language we don't use much but there was look at the very moment right he was thinking about all this the men arrived in the house which were sent to me and the spirit told me to go with him making no distinction and off he goes this was like bam bam bam bam bam and so i'm saying here's our responsibility all you need to make this sermon work is to find a non-christian and all i'm telling you they'll be right in front of your nose they'll be everywhere this week unless you live in a cave or or a monk and heading back to the monastery or listening on the stream in a bunker somewhere right you are going to interact with non-christians this week and all it takes is a conversation to get the ball rolling and god has asked you to do it and i'm asking you to do it he's been patient with you he's been patient with them he was patient with you and your conversion story and it will disrupt your schedule you may have to call honey i'm gonna be late for dinner tonight because i'm engaged in a gospel conversation great blame it on me right i'll pay for your dinner you can go out and if i ruin dinner i'll fix it but here's the thing i don't know that could get expensive but i hopefully it'll be a small number of you but here's the thing i think of paul paul in 1st corinthians 16 he had all kinds of travel plans here are my plans and he said i had to change them why because a door of opportunity was open he says a wide door for effective ministry was open to me i had an opportunity and in this town i had people that were willing to listen to me about the gospel so i stayed there many adversaries but i stayed there so be ready for god to disrupt your plans and i don't want you to imagine the perfect gospel conversation i want you to imagine all you need is this here's the equation you a christian and someone who's not a christian that's all the equation you need that would be great if they were like somebody just came to me like in chapter eight where they said i'm reading the bible and i just need to understand it don't wait but anyone jesus was criticized often because he was trying to reach people that people thought you shouldn't be talking to them and he said well you know it's the sick that need a physician it's not that everyone wasn't sick is that only certain people realize that there's a story i i gal was talking about this uh she was in line at the mall or some shopping area and there was this person next to her in line and the line was going slow and um very hardened looking the way she described her i won't go into detail but it was like oh this person like a rough life mean i'm sure it wasn't gonna go i don't know why but god had impressed this gal like you ought to talk about christ and so she brought up the gospel and she said to this gal thinking that she's gonna hear this right i mean people everyone who would see this situation say oh you know i don't want your god don't cram your religion down my throat and when she brought up the gospel in christ and where she stood with with god here was a response i don't know what why god would want me right i mean just think about that the prep that has gone in to god cultivating the heart just starting to sound a lot like like like the book of luke where the tax collector couldn't even look up to him like why why would god even answer my prayers here was a gal that was ready even though the external container of this gal looked like she was going to be hostile toward anything that was truthful and all i'm telling you is don't look for the perfect situation know that we are indiscriminately sharing the gospel just like the new testament church was indiscriminately sharing with anyone and everyone look for those specific opportunities no matter what they are allow it to disrupt your plans engage in the conversation it's easy for us here right talk about christ on the patio talk about the gospel in our songs and our lyrics to you know listen to your preacher talk about the gospel in in this air-conditioned room with padded seats it's easy for us to have all this conversation um we are proclaiming the truth of the gospel all the time it's harder out there and i just want you to know the harder is not complicated it's just you in that reluctant internal debate you're having i just we got to get through all that and one of the ways that god wants us to be motivated clearly is by something paul said in first corinthians to the corinthian church like when you guys take the lord's supper two things that make this a reality one is you need to realize you are proclaiming the lord's death until he comes why is this being televised you know to non-christians no but in this church we are proclaiming the lord's death by saying here's the the bread and here's the cup and these things represent the body of christ he died that's why the blood is an issue here this is the blood of the promise of the new covenant all of this in these elements reminds us that that christ died for our sins and now here's the other layer now when you take this examine yourself judge yourself literally it says in that passage judge yourself so i'm supposed to think about my sin i'm thinking about my guilt and there's not a time you take the lord's supper if you do it right where you're not contemplating your own failures and your own sin and your own transgression and praying and thinking oh here's the answer christ was crushed for my iniquities god was able to punish him instead of me and here is the gospel my sin and the amazing transaction that if i confess my sins this payment takes my sins away that proclamation of the efficacious if you will the power of christ's death we're proclaiming that just by taking these elements and all i'm telling you let that motivate you because all i want to do is do the same thing we're doing here do it outside the walls get beyond this group and this building and this piece of property and speak up for christ so let's do that now let's have the ushers come forward we're going to hand to these two elements if you're a christian and you're trusting in the finished work of christ i want you to take the piece of bread let's take the cup i want you to hang on to them and do exactly what the scripture says first corinthians 11 says examine yourself it says judge yourself think through your own life and confess your sins and then think i get the imputed righteousness of christ and i get all my sin absorbed on the cross because of a broken body and spilt blood of the perfect son of man and you pray and then as an act of unity which i think is very important you're only supposed to take the lord's supper when you come together as a church that's why you don't do it in your house you don't we do it together we'll take these elements at the same time we'll synchronize our taking of it which is just another expression of our unity not that the bible says we have to do it at the exact same time but i would invite you to hold on to those elements to examine your heart to pray and to think about the gospel transaction of christ dying for your sin and then thinking that's all i gotta do is take this feeling and this message and this this rationale this equation and just talk about it outside these walls that's why we're supposed to be evangelical christians sharing the good news the ooh angelion the good message of god that we can be forgiven so you spend time with god in three and a half minutes i'll get back up here and we will take these elements together you know precisely what you and i are supposed to do when we ingest these elements because of the same passage of course i know what's supposed to surround it i'm supposed to examine myself i'm supposed to have a sense of of what christ did for me this body and blood of christ i have to trust in that but specifically in that passage in first corinthians chapter 11 i think is verse 24 where he gives us this phrase he says when you eat this bread and drink this cup two verses later he says do this in remembrance of me and that's not just a general statement obviously in the context this is about a body that was killed by god through the hands of roman soldiers and blood that was spilt from that body the death that our sins deserve it reminds me of the king of denmark saying to hamlet right remember me right two words and of course they meant way more than just hey recall me when you know this was huge this was like there was a whole story behind this and maybe we grew up in a church where he had the table up there and they would stack the the trays and all that and it had that inscription on the front you know do this in remembrance of me that that's a loaded phrase right i am supposed to to remember everything about this transaction which is basically the gospel right that i am a sinner who should be just cast out of god's presence but instead i'm going to be forgiven my sin is going to be remembered no more before god it is separated from me as far as the east is from the west that is an amazing thing and that's what we're proclaiming when we do this but our activity is our brain is remembering all of that and that kind of tactile experience of ingesting these elements and saying my identification is with that that christ that suffered for me all we're saying in a message like this is just that that's that's the message you get outside the walls you share the message this experience this feeling the sense of remembering christ that's what your non-christian friends who have never thought that way need they need to think that way and how are they going to ever hear so that they will believe so that they will be saved if someone does not preach to them and that word is that i'm proclaiming the message so may god use our time of declaring and and proclaiming the lord's death in our act of the lord's supper be a catalyst for that kind of conversation this week so with your mind engaged in the right place remembering what christ did for us let's eat this bread and drink this cup in remembrance of christ god as we experience even the taste of the bread and the cup we want to remember our complete need our dependence upon you wrapping us in the righteous activity the righteous life of christ that we would be seen as righteous but we know we are sinners and we remember that every time we are forced in times like this to consider our sin and to think about the judgment we deserve and to judge and evaluate ourselves and to examine who we are and we know that we need grace and what a distance that is from people we rub shoulders with all week long who don't even think they need any of this they think what they need they've got they think what they believe is enough they think what they do is good enough because it's better than someone else god let us engage in the conversation that will lead to our attempts at persuasion which is exactly what you've asked us to do knowing the fear of god we persuade men and i pray we would do that not just out of a sense of duty because we want to do our acts our the acts of our generation evangelists but because we really want we care we are like christ seeing people that are sheep without a shepherd they're not of the flock they're not in the fold they're not adopted into his family and we want to extend that family the borders and the pin if you will of that of that boundary of more people that are following christ so god [Music] open up our mouths this week as we respond to this sermon and this proclamation of the death of christ in jesus name amen [Music] you

Channel: Mike Fabarez

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Length: 58min 41sec (3521 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 21 2021