Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Acts chapter 10, emphasizing that God's grace knows no boundaries. He highlights the story of Cornelius, a Gentile seeking God, and Peter's transformative vision that challenges his prejudices. The sermon encourages believers to recognize that the gospel is for everyone, urging them to share their faith with those they might overlook, as God is already at work in the hearts of many. Ultimately, the message calls for openness and obedience in spreading the gospel to all people.
Welcome and Church Information
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. Amen. Well, thank you, choir.
If you have your Bibles this morning, we're going to be in Acts chapter 10. Acts chapter 10, we're going to do a bold task this morning, and we're going to cover all 48 verses this morning.
If you have a child be dismissed at Children's Church at this time, that'll be an opportunity for you there. Acts chapter 10,
this morning, Acts chapter 10, we are nearing the end of the first portion of the book of Acts.
I've sort of divided it into two portions, the Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. This is the first part where the church is there in the local region, and then in chapter 13 is where it goes into the uttermost, where Paul comes onto the scene and begins his ministry.
And so that'll be picking up at the end of the summer. We come back from summer, and we'll have a break from Acts over the summertime.
So don't fear if you're not going to be here missing out on something. But we begin looking through a couple of these, and we're in Acts chapter 10 in Cornelius' vision. I've entitled it.
I did make a spelling error. I've titled it, God's grace knows no boundaries. I forgot the S on that. If you want to write that in on your notes, you can. God's grace knows no boundaries. And so we'll be looking at these 48 verses this morning.
I'm not going to have you stand because it is a lot. I don't want you to have to stand too much. I'm just going to read them, and the verses will be on the screen for you. And so the Bible says, there was a man in Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion,
who was called the Italian Regiment. He was a devout man and feared God along with his whole household. He did many charitable deeds for the Jewish people and always prayed to God.
About three in the afternoon, he distinctly saw a vision of an angel of God who came in and said to him, Cornelius. Staring at him and all, he said, What is it, Lord? The angel told him,
Your prayers and your acts of charity have ascended as a memorial offering before God. Now send men to Joppa and call for Simon, who is named Peter. He's lodging at Simon the Tanner, who is in a house by the sea.
When the angel who spoke with him had gone, he called two of his household servants, devout soldiers, and one of them who attended with him. And after explaining everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.
Peter's Vision and Hunger
The next day, as they were traveling to the nearing city, Peter went up and prayed on the roof at about noon. And he became hungry and wanted to eat. That's a great thing for Baptists.
He became hungry and wanted to eat. And while they were preparing something, he fell into a trance.
He saw heaven opened and an object resembling a large sheet coming down, being lowered by the four corners of the earth. And in there were four-footed animals and reptiles on the earth and all the birds of the sea.
And the voice of him saying, Go up, Peter, kill and eat. Peter responded, No, Lord, for I have never eaten anything impure or ritually unclean.
Again, a second time the voice said to him, What God has made clean, do not call impure. And this happened three times. And suddenly the object was taken into heaven.
While Peter was deeply perplexed about the vision that he had seen and what it may mean, right away the men who had been sent by Cornelius, having asked them directions to Simon's house, stood at the gate. They called out, asking if Simon, who was also named Peter, was lodging there.
While Peter was thinking about the vision, the Spirit told him, Three men are looking for you.
Get up and go downstairs and go with them, and with no doubts at all, because I have sent them. Then Peter went down to the men and said, Here I am, the one you are looking for. What is the reason you are here?
Then said Cornelius, a centurion and upright and God-fearing man, who has a good reputation with the whole Jewish nation, was divinely directed by the holy angel to call to you to the house and hear the message from
you. Peter then invited them in and gave them lodging. The next day he got up and sent them out, and some of the brothers from Joppa went with him. The following day he entered Caesarea.
Now Cornelius was expecting them, and he had called together his relatives and close friends. I love that image there. He called these people together, expecting the Lord to bring something.
Verse 25, When Peter entered Cornelius, met him, fell at his feet and worshipped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, Stand up, I myself am just a man.
While talking with him, he went in and found a large gathering of people. Peter said unto him, You know it is forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner. But God has showed me that I must not call any person unclean or impure.
That is why I came without any objection and was sent for.
Cornelius's Divine Encounter
So may I ask why you sent me for me?
Cornelius replied, Four days ago at this hour, at three in the afternoon, I was praying in my house.
And just then a man in dazzling clothes stood before me and said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your acts of charity have been remembered in God's sight. Therefore send someone to Joppa to invite Simon here, who is also named Peter, and his lodging in Simon the Tanner's house by the sea.
So I immediately sent for you and was good for you to come.
So now we are all in the presence of God to hear everything that you have commanded by the Lord. Verse 34, Peter began to speak.
Now I truly understand that God doesn't show favor, but in every nation by the persons who fear him and does what is right and is acceptable to him.
He sent the message to the Israelites for claiming the good news and the peace through Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all.
You know that the events that took place throughout all Judea, beginning in Galilee, at the baptism of John that he preached and how God anointed Jesus from Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power and how he went
and was doing good and healing all who were under tyranny of the devil because God was with him.
We ourselves are witnesses of everything that he did, both in Jerusalem and Judea, Judean country and in Jerusalem.
And yet they killed him by hanging him on a tree. God raised up this man on the third day and caused him to be seen, not by all the people, but by us whom God appointed as witnesses,
who ate and drank with him. And after he arose from the dead, he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead.
All the prophets testified about him that through every name who believe might receive forgiveness of sin.
While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came down and all who heard the message, the circumcised believers who had come out with Peter were amazed by cause of the gift of the Holy Spirit that had been poured out even to the Gentiles.
For they heard them speaking in other tongues and they declared the greatness of God. Then Peter responded, can anyone withhold water and prevent them from being baptized?
Who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? He commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And then they asked him to stay for a few days. That was a lot of reading. Let's pray.
Lord, we love you. We thank you for your reading of scripture. We thank you that we have an infallible word of God that we can go to for every help of everything that we ever struggle with.
Prayer for Understanding Grace
God, I pray that you'll be with the message this morning. Help us to understand the grace that you've given us more and more. In your name we pray, amen.
I've broke this up into five different sections and we're gonna quickly go through this, but I wanna tell you a story that I came across this week on the mission field. A group of missionaries traveled to a deep, remote village that had never heard of the name of Jesus.
They had been told of this place and how it was hardened and closed off to anyone who had wanted to come to tell them about Christ. They were uninterested in Christianity and the mission team was prepared for this endeavor.
They had prayed and they had prepared for the rejection. They had prepared for persecution to happen. They had heard stories of missionaries going in and death coming upon them.
And so they said, we're going to go and we're gonna pray and we're gonna see what happened. And when they got there and they found out what happened here, the entire missionary unit was stunned. The village chief greeted them kindly.
He invited them into his home and offered them food and asked why they had come. And when they shared that they were followers of Jesus, his eyes widened. He looked at them and he said, we've been waiting for someone like you. One of the missionaries surprised, looked at him and said, waiting?
And the chief went on to explain that years ago, he had had a dream.
And then a man dressed in white had told him that one day messengers would come from afar to tell him about the one true God. Since he had been praying to the unknown God, asking that they would send one of those messengers soon.
The missionary sat stunned and the man had been seeking a God that he didn't know. And now God had brought the good news to his doorstep. That day, he and many villagers believed in Jesus. You see, God was working in these missionaries' lives before they ever arrived.
He was working in this village before the villagers ever knew what was gonna come and he was preparing them for what was gonna be told. The story sounds a lot like what I read in Acts chapter 10. Cornelius, a man that nobody expected to be interested in this Jewish Messiah.
He was a Roman, he was a Gentile, he was a soldier, he was a soldier to Rome. And yet he's praying and he's giving and he's seeking.
The Bible says that he was giving alms to Jesus, to the church because he just thought maybe this is the way to go.
Pondering Our Own Openness
And God heard him, God saw him, and God sent Peter to his life.
As I was thinking through that story and the story of Cornelius, my mind went to one specific question for us to ponder this morning. What if we've underestimated how ready people are to hear the gospel? Barna has put out studies every year. They're a good Christian organization.
And Barna had put out a recent study because the longer we get, the more away from the gospel we get, the more away from Christ. And 2,000 years ago we get, we seem to feel like people don't care about the gospel. People don't care about church.
People don't care about coming and worshiping together like we do. And in this study they showed that the most recent generation, the Gen Zers, the Gen Alphas, are the most open to hear the gospel than any other generation that's ever been alive in recent history.
They're more open than millennials. They're more open than the baby boomers because they've been told certain things their whole life.
And now they're just trying to figure out the answers to the questions. And oftentimes we as cynical Christians, we can be sometimes we just think, well, the world's just going to hell in a handbasket. There's nothing I can do. There's nothing I can say.
But there is a group of people that are searching for answers. They're searching for, as Cornelius said, peace and comfort in life. And they're searching for answers. And yet we have the answers that they need.
And I want to ask us this morning, how are we breaking down some barriers that are inside of our lives that sometimes we feel God's just going to save people like me. And yet he says here, he is here to save all that call upon the name of the Lord.
And we must get to the point where we get to this area where we say, God, who is it in my path? Who is it that you are putting in my way to tell the gospel about, to tell others about Christ?
And we see as we begin this process of this passage, the first thing we see is a man, the man that is sitting here, a seeking soldier. God is apparently already working in his heart that he might accept what was going to come.
I'm going to mention this later, but I want you to go back to those five people that I challenged you a couple of weeks ago. Five people that are closest to you, that are in your area of environment.
Maybe you go to the same restaurant with them. Maybe you work with them. Maybe you play sports with them. Maybe you're golf buddies with them.
Praying for Open Hearts
These are people that are in your region that are seeking Christ and are in your area of influence. Begin to say, how can I share the gospel with them? Be praying for their hearts to be open. Be praying for the Lord to work in their lives. Cornelius here, he was a Roman centurion.
He was a Roman soldier. But the Bible says that he was moral, he was generous, he was prayerful, and he was respected. And in all of these things,
the Bible says that he still needed salvation. He still needed to hear the gospel. His life still needed to be changed. And it reminds us that being good isn't enough.
Just coming to church on Sunday, just giving in the offering plate, just coming to a Bible study is not good enough. It is understanding that we are totally wicked, wicked, we are totally without goodness in us, and we need Christ inside of us.
And we must ask ourselves, who is it that needs to hear the gospel? Who is it in our lives?
And maybe it's us this morning that needs to understand that good works don't save us, and yet we need Christ. As I was thinking through this, my mind went to the man named Nicodemus.
We all have heard of the man named Nicodemus who came to Jesus at night. As I teach kids this, I tell them this is Nick at night, right?
Nick is coming to Jesus at night, and he's coming because he's ashamed, and he doesn't want his status, his wealth, everything to be exposed. And he came to Jesus in his lowest state, and he said, I am just trying to figure out what's going on.
And Jesus, in his most humble approach, looked at him and said, he looked at him and said, Nicodemus, you're a great man.
You're a teacher of the rabbis. You're a rabbi of the rabbis.
And he looked at him and said, but you also must be born again. You cannot live in your sin.
You must be born not only of water, but of the spirit. And he gave this challenge to Nicodemus to be born again, which tells us as well, we also are seeking people who need Jesus.
And I want to ask you this morning, who have you been overlooking that is spiritually hungry for the gospel, that you were maybe unexpected to come and hear the gospel.
We were all in this area. We were all unexpected people to hear the gospel. As a five-year-old little boy sitting at church in Salisbury on that Sunday night service when my pastor, Jerry Warhart, was preaching the gospel and preaching that we needed to come to know Christ, as a five-year
Personal Testimony of Salvation
-old little boy, I recognized and I realized that I needed to be born again. And I accepted Jesus.
I professed Jesus. I was someone who was seeking God and God was seeking me. And this is what we see in this picture. We see this soldier who is seeking after Jesus and God comes and meets with him and sends someone. This vision that we get to, a challenging correction.
Oftentimes, God must deconstruct our prejudice before he can use us on our mission. Oftentimes, God has to take away our preconceived notions of what life really is in order for us to be used in the glory of God. Peter, a faithful Jew, he receives this message, this vision.
This message and vision, I know there's a lot here and there's a ton we can do and I hope you go back and you study through it, but in verses 9 through 16,
this message was something that Jesus was declaring for you and for me. You see, the gospel was staying right here in Jerusalem,
Judea and Samaria. It wasn't going anywhere out from there. And this vision that came to Peter was a vision saying all people can be declared clean. All people can receive this ceremonial of cleansing of Jesus and oftentimes, when we seek the Lord, we are humbled by our approach to the Lord.
Peter did not want this message. Peter said, Jesus, I have never touched anything unclean. I'm not going to anything unclean. I'm not going to go to these unclean people, these Gentiles, these barbarians in their mind. I'm not going to go to them. I'm going to stay right here. This vision had to happen three times.
I think it's interesting that it happens three times because all throughout Peter's life, Peter is doubting Jesus.
He's questioning Jesus. He's questioning his own life when it comes to, I'm never going to deny you and yet I deny you three times and Jesus comes to him on the boat and Jesus says to him on that seashore, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? Right?
He's coming to him three times and now Jesus is having to come to him three times and say, Peter, you got to take the gospel to these other people. These other people need Jesus as well.
And as a reminder for me as I'm studying through this that God is faithful and he's gracious even when we're unwilling. Even when we're unwilling to do things that are outside of our comfort zone, that are outside of what we expect, God is still gracious in our lives.
I like food and people tell me often, you talk about food all the time.
Food and Personal Anecdotes
Food's a big part of my life, right? We eat all the time and so we've got to have food and so I can remember back, I was like six or seven years old, six, seven as the kids say these days. I was like six or seven years old and we went to a new Mexican restaurant.
It's called Monterey there in Salisbury and we were trying all the new things and one of the guys said, you've got to try this thing called guacamole and so he brought it out and as a young kid, I tried it and it was the most disgusting thing I ever put in my mouth.
I'm like, how in the world do people eat this? And so for like 20 years, I didn't touch guacamole
and I came to college and I had a roommate who was a Hispanic guy and his mom was from Mexico and he said, I'm going to make some guacamole.
I'm like, no, no, no, no, get that out of my house, get that out of my apartment, I don't want this near me. It's disgusting. He's like, no, no, no, you've just never had good guac before
and so he began making this guacamole and I'm like, I don't know if I tried this and so finally I got a chip and I tried it and it was like a light bulb came off in my head like this is good stuff
and so like Christy, she's not here today but she makes some awesome guacamole as well and so as I was thinking through this, I began to think things that gross us out in one moment of life, the more
mature we get, the more we begin to be palpable to these things where we later find out that it's actually delicious and this is what's happening in Peter's life.
He has this deep relationship with God, this deep relationship with standards and legalism and he's like, God, this is what I've got to do and God says, no, no, no, I'm going to break everything down and I'm going to show you what needs to be done
and this vision was a revolutionary thing in the church.
This vision was something that was going to shake every bone of the church and some people weren't ready for it.
We're going to see later there's this argument that happens in the church where some of them are like, hey, we've got to stay to these things and Peter's like, no, no, no, I think God's telling us to do
something different and there's just this huge assumptions of things in our life that when God begins to work, He begins to challenge our way of thinking,
begins to challenge what we believe is right and what we've been taught and how we can begin to grow closer to Him.
Peter's Boldness with Gentiles
But then after the vision, there was this visit, this divine appointment from 17 to 33 where God orchestrates this gospel opportunity and He only does this as we talked about this morning in Sunday school when we begin to obey Him.
When we step out and we step out by obedience in Jesus Christ, there's this awesome opportunities that come our way.
And this morning is we're looking at Naaman's life where Naaman had to step out by obedience for the Lord to restore him.
Peter had to step out by obedience here in this appointment that was coming in order for the Lord to take the gospel to these other nations. As Peter reflects on this vision, in the moment of him reflecting, Cornelius' men arrive.
And in this moment, these are Gentiles that are coming to this house and Peter does something that is so out of the ordinary, we don't even understand it today,
Peter invites them into his house. These are people from Caesarea. These are Gentile people that he is allowing to come into his house.
Now, for us, it's like, yeah, who doesn't welcome people? We've got welcome mats in our front door. We're welcoming everybody.
I mean, I was telling a guy this past week as he was calling me, I'm like, dude, my schedule's so crazy.
Just show up and come and hang out with us and come be a part. Allie, she'll figure out things and she'll make some brownies and we'll have dinner and it'll be great. Just come like, that's our attitude in the Western culture a lot of times. The Jewish culture was completely different.
If you were a Jew, only Jewish people were allowed in your house and if that Jewish person was unclean, they were not allowed in your house. They were super strict on the standard.
So for him to open his door and allow a Gentile to come in, this is breaking down barriers, but then he goes a day's journey away to Caesarea and he goes into this man's house.
He begins to go into Cornelius' house, which would have been unthinkable for a Jewish person to ever enter into an unclean home. Right?
Jewish homes, they had to have everything right, everything had to be kosher, everything had to be perfect according to the Jewish home and the Jewish laws that was there and for Peter to take that step into that threshold of an unclean
barbarian household, this is the gospel going into unthinkable places and it would have been unthinkable in that day. It seems super small for us, but for a Jewish person this was huge.
This was a huge moment for us because this was the moment that the gospel was going into the homes of the Gentiles.
Challenge to Share the Gospel
This was the gospel coming into my home. This was the gospel coming into your home and this was the moment that the church began to grow and the Jewish leaders that were there with him going into this Gentile house was completely unthinkable.
It would have been like you're going down the road and your GPS tells you it's time to shift gears. You've got to turn around. You've made the wrong turn. You've got to go the other way and you're hesitant
but you want to trust it because you think you know the way. You think you know where you're going but the GPS is telling you to go a different way and this is what is happening in Peter's life.
He had to be obedient to step out by faith to take the gospel to these people. What an awesome opportunity for the gospel to be spread.
What an awesome opportunity for us to be challenged in thinking as I said at the beginning those five individuals those five people that the Lord laid on your heart just a couple weeks ago. Maybe it was only two or three. Maybe it wasn't five.
But I want to ask yourself what is interrupting your life that God is saying hey I've given you opportunities to go and tell these people.
I'm giving you opportunities to step out by faith and oftentimes as it is in my life and many of your lives our schedules are too busy our things are too busy and so we just say I'm going to do my thing Lord I'm not going to listen to what you have for me.
We may not say that visibly or out loud but yet oftentimes we just dismiss what the Holy Spirit is telling us to do.
The Bible is telling us here there are appointments in our life that I use as divine appointments when someone calls me or I run into someone's path there's a reason why God is allowing us to interact and allowing
us to share the gospel in a way maybe they've they've trusted Jesus their whole life and maybe it's just the gospel coming into their sanctification and they're wanting to grow closer to the Lord they're wanting to grow more
in his in depth in his word and we're having opportunities for discipleship and growth that happens through that.
The fourth thing we're going to look at is the message here 34 through 43 Peter begins to preach a gospel for everyone a gospel for all the gospel is now crossing the lines of in their terms racial lines
as Jew to Gentile religious lines the lines of of a Jewish synagogue to a Gentile home but also this is crossing the lines of culture and this is crossing the lines of we're going to do things one way
Jesus as the Source of Peace
but yet culture is stepping in and we're going to change the way we're doing things in order for the gospel to go out and Peter
begins his message as we should all begin our message as we talk to people because I'll hear it often Pastor James I'm just I'm not confident enough I don't know what I can say to these people start at
the beginning start at Jesus coming in this world and living a perfect life that's what Peter did he said you've heard about this man who was baptized by John who began to go out and do good works and
good deeds and lived a life that was perfect and then these people these Romans killed him and they crucified him on a cross and on that cross they crucified him and he died for the sins of the world
and he rose back again and hundreds of people saw him and his resurrection this is where Peter starts he's declaring that forgiveness is for all who believe if we just take that step of obedience if we just take
that step of believing who he is and he makes this powerful statement he says that Jesus is the only source of life and the only way to peace the only source of life and the only way to peace
people church that people are searching for life people are searching for peace I don't know how many times in the last three weeks someone has called me or came into my office or stopped me and said my marriage
is struggling my kids are going crazy things just aren't working I just need peace I'm anxious about these things I'm worried about what's going on around the world and I tell them this is what I tell everyone there
is hope in the gospel there is hope in Jesus when Peter is standing on this
tumultuous storm and he's out on the water and Jesus is standing there in the midst of all the craziness as Peter is standing on water Jesus gives him a space of grace and peace and he says I'm out
here and all the waves are going on all the storm is going on and yet in this small moment there's peace in the moment that Peter takes his eyes off of Jesus what happens turmoil pain he begins to
sink and life seems hopeless because he's worried about the things around and it's only until he gets his mind back on Jesus does he have peace and often times that is the error in our life right we have
gotten our minds and our lives off of focus off of that true north focus of Jesus and we are beginning to see the turmoil that happens
and we know that people are searching we know that people want to have the gospel we know that people want this peace that we can offer and yet as we talked about in Sunday school who are we telling who are we going out and sharing the gospel with in our
Inclusivity of the Gospel
opportunities that God has given us I want you to think of a members only club right you used to have these member only jackets anybody ever have a member only jacket a couple people had a members only jacket
these member only clubs you couldn't go into a golf course or something unless you were a member of it
and what is happening this is the Jewish church right unless you're a Jew unless you've been circumcised unless you're following all the rules of the Jewish church you can't come into the Jewish church and this is the moment where Peter
metaphorically stands up and takes the members only jacket and rips it in half and says we're getting rid of all those things
we're allowing other people to come in and we're allowing the gospel to step in that's no longer for Jews but for the entire world Jesus says that the gospel didn't just come for those that were clean but for
everyone all the unclean all the Jewish people and we've got to understand and maybe ask ourselves these questions maybe write these questions down do you truly believe the gospel is for everyone
do you truly believe that the gospel is for the person down the street that has done unthinkable horrible things do you really believe that the gospel is for the sinner that has committed unthinkable actions and unthinkable things that view the world different than we do are they worthy of redemption
and then the second question that I would ask you to write down is what is keeping you from sharing the gospel with them or more freely what is keeping us from stepping out of our comfort zone and saying
can I tell you about the man that changed my life forever can I tell you about the person that stepped into my life that from that moment forward my life has never been the same from the moment that
I was a five year little boy till now my life has never been the same as it was before
I wasn't a horrible young four year old boy I wasn't someone who was going out and murdering people at four years old but at five years old the light of the gospel transitioned in my life and it changed
everything that I've done it changes how I interact with people it changes how I talk to people it changes how I live my life
and that's what the gospel does it changes who we are it changes everything about us so that others can come to know Jesus and then we begin to see the conversions that happen the conversions of an outpouring of
grace in the last four verses really it's this supernatural salvation experience of the work of the spirit this was not a product of religious pedigree it wasn't a product of how good we can be but it was a
moment where Peter is still preaching it would be like I'm up and I'm preaching and the gospel has been preached and the word has been preached and in that moment the spirit falls and Peter couldn't even get the rest of his message out the Gentiles are coming and they're
wanting to know Christ and they're wanting to get right they're wanting to change their life it was like the moment when the man I can't remember his name Stephen will probably tell me if I say it but the man who got up and preached the sinners in the hand of an angry God
Jonathan Edwards that's who it is Jonathan Edwards he got up and he preached sinners in the hands of an angry God he read his message he never looked up at the people he never stepped out from behind the
pulpit he got up and he just simply read the message of this that God had given him through the sinners in the hand of an angry God and while he's reading the message it says that people were crying
out to God one person said it was like they were standing over the pits of hell and the only way for them to get away from that was to repent and come to know Christ and this is what's happening Peter's preaching
salvation has been preached the gospel has been proclaimed and people are literally coming and saying I have to know Christ I have to know this salvation this grace that you're preaching about this faith that you have I want that and this is like
this overwhelming amount of conversion that's happening this outpouring of grace upon Gentiles that we had not seen up until this point and Peter's standing there and he's just in awe it's like he would be preaching and all of
a sudden the doors would open and the surprise party would come in and all the craziness of that would come in and it was just this
overwhelming amount of just unmanufactured spiritual encounter that Christ was giving them are we in that area are we trusting for an outpouring
of Christ on our lives and in our church are we saying God we want this experience we want these things to happen we want Clingman we want this this area that we're in to be transformed by the gospel
so that souls can come to know Christ so that the churches of the area can grow and so that we can see your name flourished all throughout the area so that one day we'll look back and we'll say
look at the the preachers that came out of that movement look at the people that came out and have changed in the world in mission fields in Thailand and in China and in Russia and in Japan all these
different places because the spirit moved in our little town and we said God we want that here we want it to be to a point where the gospel has been shared all throughout the world because of what you've
done you see Jesus is the boundary breaker as Terry comes and plays as we begin to transition to our closing
years ago a pastor was visiting a large urban church this church had recently launched a ministry and an opportunity to help homeless people in their area they hosted a weekly meal where people from the streets would come in
and they would sit and they would eat alongside members of the congregation the goal was very simple this was the goal build relationships share Christ and treat people with dignity
one particular Sunday afternoon after the service the visiting pastor had noticed something that was beautiful he was at a table and they're eating and they're gathering around and there was one man in a nice three piece tailored suit
and he looked at the pastor and said hey who's that guy he said he's a successful businessman he's one of the richest people in our church and one of the richest people in the area and he's been a
long time member of our church and sitting right beside of him was a young man who was homeless his name was Ray he had been living on the streets for over a decade
Ray had come to Christ just a couple of weeks earlier and someone had shared a meal with him and began sharing the gospel with him
and Ray and this businessman were sitting together they were laughing they were sharing stories together and at the end of the meal the businessman pulled his bible out and he said Ray I want to go over what we
read this week in scripture and he said they did this like they were old friends
he said as I looked at this and as I I looked over he said one thing came to my mind the gospel tears down all the walls that we think we can build
where else in the world would a millionaire sit beside of a homeless man rub shoulder and shoulder and have love for one another learning from the same word worshipping the same savior and growing in their faith together
as I read that story I thought man this is the power of Acts chapter 10 this is what the power of the gospel does it takes down the barriers it takes down the walls and it allows us to
reach the people that are around us Peter watched the Gentiles people who he he once considered unclean he once considered that they were
barbarians in the Jewish mind and yet they're receiving the gospel they're receiving the Holy Spirit and been baptized and it changed everything so I want to ask us one simple question who's at our table
who are we opening our doors up and saying can I have you come over and have a meal can we share the gospel with you can we love on you just a little bit can we give you the gospel because no one's too far gone no one's
too different and no one is too messy for Jesus' life to transform
I took these next three points out of a one of my commentaries he wrote it down like this Jesus shows compassion to all people and because Jesus shows compassion to all people we should imitate Christ we should walk toward the outcast we should dine with the sinners and we should love the unforgivables
Jesus commands us to preach to everyone and so let us be a church that is going to proclaim the gospel to everyone we meet he doesn't tell us to wait until they clean themselves up and they they look right they act right he says no go into the world and preach the gospel
Jesus saves both the irreligious and the religious and so because he does that we should worship him whether you're Cornelius in this story and you're seeking Jesus or you're Peter and you're the preacher everyone comes to God by
grace God this is the beautiful thing about the cross nothing that we have ever done or ever will do will bring us to Christ it is only what Christ has done so that when we stand before Christ it's
nothing that we have ever done it's all about Christ it's all about what he's done and we lay our filthy rags down and we pick up his holy anointed robe and we get to be a Christian who follows
Jesus church this morning we must ask ourselves are we being kind and open to tell others about the gospel believing that Jesus might just save them and surprise us believing that Jesus can break down every wall of barrier
if we just simply step out and trust that he is good enough that he is enough for salvation because ultimately the gospel is for everyone and everyone this morning church means everyone no one is too far gone no
one is too far broken for Christ not to put back together if only we'll go out and we'll tell them about what Christ has done for us father we love you we thank you for what you've done god I thank you for this this wonderful story in Acts chapter 10
where Peter steps out of his comfort zone Peter didn't want to do this he argued with you he said god this is not who you want us to go to and yet Jesus came to him three times and said no go go go tell this man about Jesus
and oh we're so thankful that it did because it brought the gentile church into existence
I pray god that you would help us to be like Peter not resistant but ultimately stepping out through obedience and saying god who do you have for me who do you want me to go and tell about you who do you need me to go and tell the gospel to
god we thank you for this day in your name we pray amen thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of pleasant road please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week nic bah connects phrases Thank you.
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