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I want to invite you this morning to Acts chapter ten. That’s where we’re going to be together. Acts chapter ten, for a significant passage of the scriptures, especially if you find yourself as a Gentile and you ask, how do I know whether I’m a Gentile? It works like this. If you’re not a Jew, you’re a Gentile. That’s the way the New Testament categorizes that. So Acts chapter ten is a significant passage, especially in light of Gentiles. Okay. So so what does this passage mean for us? It works as well for Jewish people. And understanding what God’s desiring to do here. But why is this passage significant for us? Well, when you start to look at Acts chapter ten, one of the things that should stand out to us immediately is that Paul’s writing about a centurion or excuse me, not Paul, but Luke is writing about a centurion. And when you look at the writings of the New Testament, it becomes a marker that’s rather unique to Luke’s writings versus all the other writings of the New Testament, meaning the only other New Testament writer to talk about the conversion of a centurion is is Matthew. Matthew talks about conversion. Conversion of Centurions four times in his gospel. The only other author to do that is, is Luke. And Luke talks about the conversion of centurions 16 times in the Gospel of Luke, in the book of Acts. Now, I think there’s a few reasons for that. One is Luke is the only Gentile writer of the New Testament.
He’s very familiar with the Gentile world. And so when a centurion comes to the Lord, this is this is important to him. And he also recognizes what a centurion represents. A centurion in Roman society. They they were a soldier that was given the the authority over a hundred other soldiers. And so this is a person of a prominent figure in society. And and more than that, it tells you he’s from an Italian cohort, which when you read Acts chapter ten, you discover you’re still in the land of Israel. You’re in the a town called Caesarea. There’s lots of towns in the first century referred to as Caesarea in honor of Caesar’s. But here in this particular town, it’s a coastal town northwest of Jerusalem. And so for an Italian cohort, Centurion, to be here. This means this would have been a special group of forces that was sent to Israel for a particular reason. So he’s an elite centurion. And so Luke is writing about his conversion for us, and he’s recognizing the the prominence of this figure as if to communicate the gospel is not only taking root in Israel, but it’s starting to make an impact all the way to Rome by reaching people from Rome who have come to this land. And so here’s, here’s, here’s Luke writing about the conversion story of the centurion. And for us, it works in a similar way as as Luke.
He’s excited about this being a Gentile, seeing this happen, seeing how the gospel is taking root. It’s transforming life. It’s exciting. I mean, for us as a church, that’s it’s exciting for us, too, when we see people come to know Jesus, the church growing, life transforming energy among God’s community. There’s hope. There’s promise, there’s future. We love that, right? I mean, we as people, we want to belong to something that makes a difference. We want to belong to something that has life and and Luke participating in the gospel. He’s seeing this take place and it’s the same for us. And so Luke is sharing the story of the conversion of a centurion. He’s also talking about a man who this centurion man named Cornelius. And Cornelius, we discover in this passage, is a Gentile, which is very significant for us to recognize, because the Jews in the first century as the gospel takes root. Acts chapter two. We see the coming of the Holy Spirit, lives changed, and then they begin to ask the question, well, how far does this call really go? Who does God want us to reach? I mean, he tells us in Acts chapter one verse eight, Go to Jerusalem, Judea, to the uttermost parts of the earth. But in going there, we just trying to reach the Jewish people among them. What is God’s desire? And through Cornelius, we discover God’s heart is for all people. Now, Cornelius is not the first Gentile convert.
We saw this in The Ethiopian eunuch just a chapter ago. But in the in the Ethiopian eunuch conversion, one of the things that makes him a little unique is that we discovered he traveled all the way to Jerusalem to join the Jews in their worship in the city of Jerusalem at the temple. But now here we are learning about a Gentile who’s in a Gentile city, even though it’s in Israel. He’s here. He is in this Gentile city practicing his faith. But the Lord reaches out to him and he comes to know Christ. And in so doing, he becomes the representation of a Gentile conversion that really impacted the rest of the known world throughout history. I mean, he’s part of the reason why, if we ask the question, how did you come to know Jesus here in the 21st century in Utah? And the answer is, well, it started in Acts, and especially with this, the life of this individual known as Cornelius. In fact this this particular passage is so important that it repeats it multiple times throughout the course of the story. Meaning when Cornelius, if you read The Conversion of Cornelius, he has this vision from the Lord who tells him, go find this guy named Peter. Send some people to get this guy named Peter. He has an important message from the Lord to tell you. And when Cornelius shares this story, Luke records it for us. This story four times of how Cornelius encountered this vision from the Lord.
And in so doing, he also records about Peter’s vision that Peter was told, hey, there’s this guy named Cornelius, and you need to go tell him about the gospel. And then it talks about the coming of the Holy Spirit multiple times in this passage. It repeats it over and over again. Now get this. The reason the Bible repeats it over and over again is because it’s important. And if you ever read, take the time to read for example, the Book of Psalms, you’ll note the Book of Psalms is is what’s referred to as Hebrew poetry. And here in our day and age, when we hear the word poetry, what we immediately associate that with is, oh, it’s going to rhyme, right? We’re like, oh, poetry. It’s got a rhyme. You could you could easily turn that into a rap song if you wanted to. I think we kind of have these thoughts of what poetry should be. Hebrew poetry is not the same. Hebrew poetry, the way they’re written is not so much about rhyming. It’s about repetition. So have you ever read the Psalms? You’ll see that where the first line in the psalm is often repeated in the second line of the psalm, and the way the reason it does it either amplifies what was stated in the in the first line, or it becomes the antithesis of what the first line was. But either way, it’s about the thought of repetition, and that repetition is to help you learn and to see the significance of what’s being stated here in Luke’s writings as it relates to Cornelius’s vision.
Luke is repeating this over and over again, so that we can understand just how important this section of Scripture is in terms of what God desires to do in this world and in your heart and mind, and throughout the known world. And so as as he’s he’s sharing this vision with us. I want you to know that this this story starts Acts chapter ten, verse one. It really culminates in in Luke chapter 11, verse 18. They call it a pericope. This is one of the larger pericopes in in the book of Acts. We’re not going to read all of these verses because we don’t have that kind of time today. But one of the reasons I know that we can get by with not reading all those verses is because it’s repetitious. So we’re not going to read the same thing over and over. But I want you to see the significance of the story, because what we’re discovering is how God builds his church. What kind of work does God want to do among us as his people? How does he build his church? Well, let me give you point number one, and we’ll start to look at this passage. Number one is this God prepares hearts, God prepares hearts. And I’m thankful he does. Because if if I’m just being a little transparent in my pre-jesus days.
If you were to line up a hundred people and say, who do you think would be easiest to convert to Christ, and who do you think would be the most difficult? I will just tell you I would have been at the bottom of the barrel. If it was just left up to the perception of the eye and the way we might judge externally, people would just pass right by me. But the beauty is, is while we may look on the outside, it’s God who perceives the inside. And God prepares hearts in ways we don’t always understand. And that’s what makes the beauty of the gospel so important for us to share in this world, because we never know how God’s working and the life of of Cornelius. This is what it begins to tell us in the first chapter or first verse of chapter ten, it says, In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian cohort. A devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day, he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God. Come in and say to him, Cornelius. And he stared at him in terror and said, what is it, Lord? And he said to him, your prayers and your arms have ascended as a memorial before God. And now send me to Joppa and bring one Simon, who is called Peter.
When when Cornelius is having this vision, one thing I want to point out, and I’ll dive a little deeper into this, is sometimes you might encounter in life people that tell you that you have they have a vision of the Lord and maybe or maybe saw an angel or something like that. I want you to know the common response in the New Testament when people describe this is that they peed their pants, right? So like, even like in verse four, you see this with Cornelius, recognize this guy has seen some stuff in life. He is a centurion, right? He is a warrior. He’s he’s battle tested. And and we look at verse four and he sees an angel. It tells you that his he has terror. Like, if you want to know the thing that causes him to shake in his boots. It’s not. It’s not combat, right. It’s it’s seeing an angel. So if someone says to you in a lackadaisical way, saw an angel, you just be like, no, you didn’t. Like that is the response in Scripture is different than that, right? Like you see this and but but I want you to to note that when, when when Cornelius is being talked about here, he’s described as a as as a religious man. But but he helps us to begin to recognize people can be moral, they can be religious, they can be devout, and they can still be lost.
We all need Jesus. We all need salvation in Christ. No matter how religious you might think you are. At the end of the day, that is not your hope. Christ alone is our hope. And this becomes important for all of us, right? Because if it was just about simply being good, God could have looked at this and this passage would be like, and he’s alright, even though he doesn’t know me, even though he knows. Except he’s not accepting me as as Lord and Savior. He’s alright because, well, he’s religious, he’s good. Just be good. Just be the best you can. This, this becomes critical for us as a church to understand how unique your message is and how how important it is to be unapologetic about the gospel that you declare in salvation in Christ alone. Even even Jesus in John 14 six says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father but by me. This becomes critical for us to consider in our own faith journey. Where am I in light of the Lord and how God steps into Cornelius’s life and recognizing, here’s a here’s a man who’s he’s going through religious rituals and practices in a way that he’s trying to honor God, but he still doesn’t know the Lord. And so God’s intervening, intervening in his life. And there’s a there’s a a way in which C.S. Lewis used to describe this, the our our pursuit of God as human beings.
He would. He would often say it like this. He did it in his writings and sometimes in his lectures. He would say, it’s like the the mouse chasing after the cat. Our pursuit of God as people is like the mouse chasing after the cat. Which sounds absurd, right? We would ask the question, why? Why on God’s green earth would a mouse chase after a cat? That makes no sense unless you’re talking like cartoons, like Mighty Mouse or something. There’s. There’s no reason that a mouse should ever chase after a cat. Why would that happen? And that’s C.S. Lewis’s point. It’s like a mouse might want to know where the cat is so he can feel safe as he’s trying to be away from the cat. But in no way would a mouse ever want to chase after a cat, because to do so would be the end of your life. And he compares the journey of our faith, really apart from Christ in that way. He’s saying when when we seek after God, what we’re often seeking isn’t necessarily God, but rather an idol that we want to structure for our own pleasure, in which we call God. Theologians over the last century. The 20th century had described the God of America this way. They said, it’s it’s it’s sometimes it could be found in, in Christianity, sometimes it can be found in other religions. But the true God of the 20th century was honestly moral therapeutic deism, moral therapeutic deism, which we kind of want to do good things.
So we look to do nice things and but, but we also want to feel good about ourselves. So we, we, we pursue this God that makes us feel good. And he’s not really active in my life. That’s the term deism. He’s distant. Right. So moral therapeutic deism, like I’m spiritual, I do good things in this world. So I’m okay and I have this God that I look to, but it’s really a God I’ve fashioned for myself. It’s not the one true God, but it’s the God that I make, the God that I want. And let me just say it like this I realize up to this point I’ve you’re not disagreeing with me at all. You’re just you’re just 100% on board. So so I want to say this next point, not against you. I know I’m going to say this with you, right? No one in this room has their theology 100% correct. I’ll go so far as to say this. No one who has ever come to Alpine Bible Church has ever had their theology 100% correct. There’s always some component of our life, or maybe a larger component of our life, that is in rebellion to who God is, that has an erroneous understanding to who God is. Get this if your God agrees with everything that you think what you’re following is not God, what you’re following is something that you’ve concocted to call it God, but is not actually God.
And we all have the tendency to do this. And here’s how I know, because we receive our news the same way. Like even today. Like we don’t really want news as human beings. We just want to find someone that shares the opinions that I that I have. And then we just want to call that news or we like, we like to be affirmed in what it is that we think and what we want to hold to. God does not operate that way. Right. The call of the Christian walk is not find a God that you want to shape in order to please yourself in this moralistic therapeutic deism. But rather the call of Christianity is to understand all of us in a way are rebellious against the Lord. And so Jesus says, whoever wishes to follow after me must deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me. Matthew chapter 16, verse 24. It really is saying to us, when we approach the Lord, we all need to do this humbly because we all need the Lord. None of us are perfected, and so we may try good things. We may have this, these religious rituals, but what we truly need is Jesus. And you’re not going to know him, and you’re not going to walk with him until you’re willing to surrender your life completely to him, because there’s some component of your life that is not aligned with him.
And it’s not until you’re surrendered to him that you find life in him and you’re able to walk with him. And so Cornelius becomes that example for all of us, that God prepares hearts, and it speaks to the integrity of who Cornelius is, because in humility, he follows what God tells him to. There was a theologian last century known as Martyn Lloyd-Jones. And and he would say it like this when he would go around and ask people if they knew the Lord, sometimes he’d ask the question, how do you know you’re going to heaven? How do you know you’re saved? Do you have a relationship with the Lord? And in asking that question, he would say, you know, based on how they immediately responded, I knew if they were resting in Christ or not. And maybe I could ask the same question to you. What if someone came to you and said are you are you saved? Do you know you’re going to heaven one day? Do you have a relationship with the Lord? How would you respond? Martin Luther Jones would say it like this if they immediately started their response like this. Well, I. If they immediately jumped to I, I knew instantly that they weren’t resting in Christ. He would remark that there was the possibility they didn’t really know the gospel, and I would even say the same for us. If someone asks you, how do you know you’re going to heaven? And your response is, well, I there is a possibility you may not know the gospel that sets you free, because the answer for the life of the believer shouldn’t begin with, well, I, I did this, I, I showed up to church, I performed these certain works.
It’s not about I, but rather it’s about he. He pursued me in my sin. He gave up his throne in heaven to become flesh, to give his life for me. He died in my place. He’s the one that rescues my soul. It’s not about I, but it’s about him. God is the one that prepares hearts. This brings us to this place of humility. But. But let me give you a point. Number two, God is also the one that breaks barriers to expand ministry. He breaks barriers to expand ministry. And in terms of Peter being involved in the story, it says the next day in verse nine, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. So. So these individuals have been sent out by Cornelius to go get Peter. Peter goes up on this house on the top of this roof to pray, and he became hungry and wanted something to eat. This I’m already connected to Peter because this is usually me. After church. It’s time to eat. I did not know that there was ever this thing called conflict and eating until I got married.
Like when I was a young person. I just remember I felt like eating for me was much like Neanderthal me seafood, me eat food. If there was a calorie, I would take it. Just give it to me. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. However, I could get it. It just felt like never ending. And then when I got married, I realized there was a lot more decision than what’s closest. Let’s hurry up and get there. Right. You gotta ask your emotion. You gotta figure out what like, for me, it’s just whatever. Baloney sandwich, I don’t care. Let’s eat it. Right. But here’s Peter. He’s in this conflict of eating, and it says he became hungry and wanted something to eat. But while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and 11 verse 11, and saw the heavens open and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him. Rise, Peter, kill and eat. But Peter said, by no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. Verse 15. And the voice came to him again second time, and said, What God has made clean do not call common. Verse 16, this happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven. So here it is three times this takes place.
So this is helping us begin to understand just how much Peter is wrestling with what God is saying to him, and the true message behind really the dietary restrictions of the Jewish people. If you want to read about what the Jews were permitted to eat and not eat Leviticus chapter 11 all the way to Leviticus 20. It describes the rituals and and purifications and, and what they’re able to ceremonially participate in, and eating and not eating and so much so that and risk of being defiled. The the Jews would avoid Gentile homes, because Gentiles often participated in things that would defile Jewish people and prohibit them from being able to participate in their worship. And so because they didn’t want to risk becoming unclean or common, they wouldn’t they wouldn’t go into gentile homes for that reason. But here’s what God’s doing in this story. He’s helping us begin to recognize what exactly the gospel is doing in the Old Testament. God set up certain laws and regulations for the Jewish people that made them distinct from all the other nations around them as a way of putting the spotlight on them to say, this is where deliverance is going to come from. The Messiah will come from here. And so throughout the Old Testament, you see the pronunciation of of how a deliverer would come through the Jewish people for all people groups. So they had these certain practices. And there’s a lot of different reasons we could look at as to why the Jews had distinctions in their worship practices.
But one is, is to to point out the uniqueness of who they were for the sake of the Messiah who was to come. But when they get to the New Testament, what we find all of a sudden is now what God has called common or unclean, has now been invited to participate because of who Christ is and what he’s done for us. He’s brought forgiveness for all of humanity so that we could know God and walk with him. And so now Peter is being asked to participate, and he understands the risk that’s going to to run with his own people. If he was to do this because in his Jewish community, he would be perceived a certain way, even though the gospel is now transformed. In fact, if you look in verse 28, when Peter finally shows up, it says it like this when Peter gets to Cornelius’s house, Peter said to them, you yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with, with, or to visit anyone of any other nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. What Peter is helping us do is, is to think through the the Old Testament. And what does that mean for us today in light of what Jesus has accomplished? Because when you read the Old Testament, you define you find that there’s certain ways that Israel was to worship certain holidays.
They were to celebrate certain laws that were to observe. And when I wake up each day, I don’t say to myself, man, 613 commandments in the Old Testament, how am I going to obey all those things? Right. I can’t even remember that many things. I can barely remember seven digits in a phone number, let alone 613 commandments like that seems like a lot. And then when you look at Israel, Israel wrote laws in front of loaves laws and fear that they might break those 613 commandments. So they they understood what those commandments were, and they were like so we don’t get close to those. Let’s write some laws in addition to those laws. So it’ll keep us away from those laws. So if we break a law, it’ll be these laws and not the 613 laws, because we don’t want to break those laws. Those are God’s laws. And can I tell you, when you read the Old Testament, there’s not a place you go to where it just lists. Okay, here it comes, guys. 613 commandments. What you discover is, as the first five books of the New Testament unfold, God gives Israel some laws, and Israel, sometimes for a minute, will obey those laws. And then they break those laws, and then God gives them some more laws, and then they break those laws, and then God gives them some more laws. And that pattern continues to 613 commandments.
And the point is not that there’s 613 commandments. The point is this no matter how many laws you write. You can’t truly legislate the heart. There’s something deeper that needs cured and healed. And really, that’s the whole point of law. That’s really the thought of religion. It doesn’t liberate you. It only identifies for you where you fall short. The law in the old Covenant, the reason we don’t obey it today certainly reflects the holiness of God. But the reason we don’t wake up and say 613 laws, let’s do this, is because of what Jesus has done for us, meaning the Old Testament. Another way of saying testament is covenant and the New Testament another way of saying New Testament is a new covenant. We today get to walk in the New Covenant. And so the old covenant for us was a shadow of everything Jesus would fulfill for us. In fact, in Hebrews chapter ten it says, the law was but a shadow of the good things to come. Colossians chapter two, verse 16. Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in question of food or drink, or with regard to a festival or new moon or Sabbath. These are a shadow of things to come. But look at this the substance belongs to Christ. So these Old Testament laws certainly held Israel in this unique place, this distinct place. But Jesus has come and given us the new covenant. And the reason he was able to do that is because he eradicated or fulfilled for us the Old covenant.
In fact, when you think in terms of a covenant, there were two ways to get rid of a covenant. One was you had to fulfill it. The other one was you had to die in it. Jesus did both of those things for you and for me. In Matthew chapter five, verse 17, he says, I came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old covenant demands, so that you and I could walk in the freedom of the New Covenant. We walk now in the spirit, and the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience and kindness. The gospel is breaking down barriers in Peter’s life so that he can see the beauty of what Christ desires to do in this world. And it’s the same for us. I love that about the uniqueness of the gospel. And sometimes I can get in the routine of just living my life, and all of us can run in these patterns of we just do certain things each day. But then we start to contemplate and meditate. But what is the gospel call me to in this world? And it challenges us because we begin to see a God who left his perfect throne to pursue us with his life, that we could find freedom in him and now belonging to him. I have the opportunity to be able to share that with the world around me.
And so for for Peter, it’s it’s knocking down these barriers and communicating the the beauty of who Christ is. And it’s it’s the same for us that as our lives are saturated in the richness of Christ, it calls us to more in this world and what we live for because we belong to something that is eternal and something that’s greater. And in so doing, let me give you point number three. It unites his people. It unites his people. Verse 34. So Peter opened his mouth and said, truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. Now this is incredible to see the heart of God unfolding for this world. And this is what Peter is saying. He’s gone to Cornelius house, he’s shared the gospel, and he’s seeing transformation take place before his eyes. And now, experientially, he understands what the Bible is communicating, that when God promised that he would be for every tribe, tongue, and language, he now experientially understands what this means, that there’s no division, right? It doesn’t mean that cultures aren’t important. The distinctions and cultures can remain. But there’s something greater that ties God’s people, and it’s Christ. Our identity is much deeper in in the purpose for which we are created in him. And, and and Peter is seeing this take place in this passage, and he’s just blown away by it.
And it’s one of the things that, to be honest, when I, when I moved to Utah, loved, loved living in Utah, have always loved living in Utah. I think Utah is a fantastic place to live. And when I first got here, Lehi was about 25,000 people. It’s 2005, I moved here, Lehi is about 25,000 people. It was kind of a strange place, still a little different, but it was really different then. And one of the reasons I knew that is like even living in Utah County, if people ask me where I was from and they would say Lehi, they would make fun of me. They would make fun of that. They considered Lehi the backwards town of our community, of this county. I’m like, are you kidding me? Right? But one of the reasons, like, early on when I moved here, it was easy to recognize, man, the number of horses to people. There were like three times more horses than people. This was this was an interesting town. And like, it was common sometimes just going down the street and you just had to watch out because you never knew what you were going to step in, because so many horses would be on the roads like that was that was that was Lehigh. Also, one of the things that was awkward for me is it is it was the widest place I have ever lived. Like it is like, man, why does this place ever? But one of the things I have really appreciated over the years is how culturally different it’s becoming.
I love that, and the reason I love that is because it’s gospel opportunity to see the beauty of Christ. And I realize when more people from more cultures come to know Jesus, the more opportunity the places where those people are from get to know about Jesus. God’s heart is for people everywhere to see that transformation and to recognize that it transcends culture, because what we have in Christ is far deeper. This is what defines who I am at my core, and then everything else aligns up with that. Jesus dictates and navigates who we are in him. And so it unites. Unites his people. And number four pours out His spirit. God pours out his spirit while Peter was still saying these things. Verse 44, The Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter was amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles, for they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus. Then they asked him to remain for some days. This passage is is critical, I think, for a few reasons. One let me say this.
If anyone has ever told you this is just a theological teaching here, if anyone’s ever told you in order to receive the Holy Spirit, you have to be baptized. Let me just tell you. You should tell them. Read Acts ten, verse 47, right. Because this is this is teaching that in receiving the gospel and receiving Jesus, the Spirit of God instantly dwells his people. And then baptism for us becomes a demonstration of the salvation we already have in Jesus. We don’t get baptized to be saved. We as Christians get baptized because we’ve been saved. We’re not worthy to be baptized because of what we’ve done. We’re worthy to be baptized because of what Christ has done. Sometimes I’ll hear people say that you’ve got to be baptized in order to receive the Holy Spirit. That’s not true. Here’s a verse. Okay. By the way, if you’ve not been baptized, you should be baptized. It’s a good step for believers. It’s a it’s what we’re called to as believers to declare to the world that we follow Jesus. The other thing I want you to recognize is the importance of this phrase that’s highlighted here, that the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. You’ve already introduced to this thought in Acts chapter two, specifically verse 17. The pouring out of the Holy Spirit is important to understand, and it’s kind of interesting in the body of Christ today, if you ask people, what does it look like when the Holy Spirit is poured out on people? And depending on maybe your background, if you’ve grown up in a Christian church, you might answer that different.
For example, if you grew up in a Presbyterian type church and you answered, what does it look like for the Holy Spirit? Whatever your answer is going to be a little more boring than than if you grew up more in like a Pentecostal, charismatic background, like you grew up in that background. That background has got some emotion to it. The background a little dry, right? So, so but, but but I want you to know, in either of those instances you’re familiarity and worshiping the Lord. That’s not really what I care about. What I care about in this moment is understanding what it means to to experience the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, right? And in Acts chapter two, this took place in Acts chapter two when Peter preaches the first message and they receive the gospel, it tells us the Holy Spirit is poured out on people. The Jewish people have received the gospel and the Holy Spirit is poured out on them. Now in Acts chapter ten, the same thing is happening, but now it’s being poured out on the Gentiles. So here we’re seeing one church among Jews and Gentiles. Why? Why is Luke referring to it as the pouring out of the spirit? Well, this phrase is a fulfillment of what God said to us in the Old Testament.
You see it in a couple of places in the Old Testament, but in Joel chapter two, specifically Peter. Peter quotes this passage in the sermon he preaches in Acts chapter two. And now Luke is borrowing that phrase again in Acts chapter ten, and it says, it shall come to pass afterwards that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons, your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my spirit. Some people look at this verse and think, oh, here’s what God wants dreams and visions. The focus of this verse is dreams and visions. When God’s Spirit’s there, it’s all about dreams and visions. And I will tell you that is not the point of this verse. In fact, in the book of Jude chapter eight, the only verse really in the New Testament talks about dreams. It actually warns you against people who try to represent God through their dreams. Colossians chapter two talks about warning you about people who just try to represent God from visions, right? So it’s not about dreams and visions, but here’s what he’s saying in the Old Testament. If you wanted to connect to God the way you did it, you had to go to a prophet or a priest. They were God’s oracles, God’s mouthpiece. Sometimes God would give the prophets visions and dreams to declare to the people.
But God is saying, there’s coming a day when you don’t have to be dependent on the prophet and priest, but rather God’s Spirit will indwell all of his people. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or woman. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor. It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female. God wants to pour out His Spirit on all people so that all people have a relationship with him. What it’s speaking to is the uniqueness and intimacy of a walk with God. God comes near to you, and by pouring out, it’s saying he’s not holding back. He’s not making exceptions. God doesn’t care about your pedigree. He cares about your heart before him. God’s desire is for you to know him. And so therefore he he pours out his spirit. I need to close with this for us. When you think about the beauty of this gift, because God wants to do a miraculous work not only in our hearts, but through our lives, there’s a picture I think about often. This picture was taken in 1993 by a man named Kevin Carter. He won some awards from this picture, but he took this picture in Sudan when Sudan was at the peak of a war. And I felt like Sudan’s been in a perpetual war for decades. But it was at the peak of its war and many people were dying. And as he was on the way to the airport, he saw this young child trying to walk to a food camp in order to survive.
Just a couple of kilometers away. And he saw this vulture laying behind this child, realizing the child was near death, and he he he got out of his car, he took this picture and he shooed the vulture away and continued on to the airport. Now this this particular picture is called the vulture and the little girl. They come to find out after this picture was dubbed that that this actually is a little boy. And so, you know, he made it safely to the camp. But one of the reasons I think about this picture often is one, it reminds me of just how depraved humanity is, that we could do this to one another, but also it helps me reflect on the resources God has given me to do things in this world. Like I’m accountable for the things God’s given me. And sometimes in our culture, if we’re not careful, we get caught up in the race of I need another new car. I need a bigger, better house. I have to have the brand new phone. And do you really think about all the things that God’s given you in this world? Is that really what’s most important? Now, a lot of people, especially in this last decade, have been complaining incredibly about our country trying to rip us apart as people and and putting one side against another constantly. Getting our focus off of really what the real enemy is in our lives.
I just I look at, I look at moments like this, and I just realize how depraved human beings are. The like, if you’re a person that finds yourself often complaining about your country, can you do me a favor at some point in your life, just let me take you to another country. Let me take you to some of the places in this world that we serve as a church, try to minister the gospel, and hopefully you walk back with a far more appreciation. Even though we’re living in a country that likes to be so divided, just to be thankful for what we have, and in some ways recognize that it’s becoming a curse to our own souls and destroying us. But at the same time, in looking at this physical depravity early, recognize that there’s a spiritual depravity here with why we would even do this to each other. And honestly, my own depravity before the Lord, how much I need God in my own life, like God sees my soul this way. This is what makes Jesus so important. But God’s desire is to pour out His Spirit, not hold back that the richness of Christ would be made known in you and for me, if we would just surrender ourselves to him and walk in the joy of his presence, recognizing what God wants to do in His church and through His church is beautiful.