He Includes

If you're new, maybe you came 'cause mom dragged you here today and said, "You're coming to church with me." Or you may just be new coming back for the first time in a long time. We've been tracking through the book of Acts, A-C-T-S. If you don't know where that is, you can look it up on a device, if you've got something available to you, or you can look in, there are some Bibles in some of the rows there that you could grab hold of as well. And it's in the New Testament. It's the fifth book in. So Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the four gospels, and then right after that is the book of Acts, A-C-T-S. We've been in a series we call Praxis. And that word is kind of where the Greek word that used for the word Acts is where we get the word Praxis. In other words, the practices of the Holy Spirit that we see in the New Testament church. And in just a few moments, we're going to be an Acts chapter number 10. So if you find your place there, you'll ready for me when I land there in Acts chapter 10 in just a few moments. Again, thank you so much for being here wherever you are, wherever you're listening to us, whether it's online or on the radio, or here in person. We're so grateful that you've chosen to be with us on this Mother's Day. Now, I don't know where you were in 2011, but in 2011, I was actually not only pastoring here, but I was also coaching a baseball team called The Angels. Now, it wasn't the Los Angeles Angels in the major leagues, I wish, but it was a minor league team of a bunch of 10-year-olds. And I was coaching with a buddy of mine and his name was Paul and Paul actually was drafted and had the opportunity to play a bit of professional ball. And so he and I were coaching together. And we were coaching this group of 10-year-olds and we actually had kids that were on the team. That's kind of how dads do it back when you're playing at 10 years old. He had two sons that were playing and I had one son and his two sons were good ballplayers. And my son, my younger son, Tanner was a really good ball player. We're on this team together, and so we were pretty much set early on. We had kind of the core of our ball team because we as dads had three kids that were going to be playing. Now, what we were about to do is we were about to be involved in a draft. So even at 10 years old in this little league system, there's a draft of players. Now, part of the, you kind of think, "Well, who would you draft? "How would you know who to draft?" Well, sometimes we didn't and we would just, we would draft based on parents that we knew weren't problems. That's sometimes how you just have to do it. We don't care if their kids are good at all. We just want to make sure that they'll sit over there and bring the snacks. So that was really... I'm letting you in on some of the strategy here. But what you did is, if you were a coach the previous year, you actually rated every kid that was on your team in kind of a, the kids didn't get to see it, but the coaches all for the next year got to see the rating of the kids. And so there were five different areas they could be rated in, and they would get from one to five in each of those ratings. So a perfect 25 would be, this kid is like as good as they come. So we had this whole list of kids, about 220 kids that were playing ball. And now all of these coaches, there were two coaches per team that were represented in the draft room. We were in the war room and all of us are in there together. And you're gonna have roughly 10, 11 kids that are going to be on your team, and so you're going to have to draft them. So you've got this entire list of kids with their names and their ages and their ratings that are on these multiple sheets of paper that you have that you can look through as a coach. Well, we didn't get any draft picks in the first three rounds because we had three kids. And so our kids went first round, second round, third round, and they just said, "We know you've got three kids on the team. "We're gonna slot them according to those rounds. "And so you don't get anybody." And we had to wait until the fourth round. I mean, everybody else is going through their picks unless they had a kid on the team or something, they're going through their picks and we're just like, "Oh, man, they're taking all the good guys. "And we wanna build our team and I mean, we're The Angels. "We plan on winning. "I'm a pastor. We wanna win at all costs." I mean, I am a former athlete, so you still have that in you. You wanna play. You don't come out there just for snacks. You're trying to learn, get better and to do good. Whilst I'm looking through this whole sheet, at the very end, there's a list of about 220 kids or whatever, but the last probably, I don't know, four, six, eight of them, they have no nothing associated with them. Just their name and their age. That's all that's there. Which means obviously they may have been kids that moved into the area or transferred over or something. And so nobody has seen them play. Nobody knows if they're any good. Nobody knows anything about them. They're not ranked or rated. We just have their name. And so you're kind of looking through those and you're going, "Ah, I don't know." And most of the time they're the last kids picked because nobody knows them and they just get stuck on a team. Well, I saw this one kid that was on there and all the other kids on there were 10 years old and there was an eight-year-old that was on the list. And I was immediately like, "I'm eight years old." I'm not a big fan 'cause sometimes kids would wanna do that. Parents actually would want to do that so that they didn't have to drive two places. If their kid was like 10 and they had an eight year old, they're like, "Can he play on that team? We didn't actually love that as a league and as coaches, because we just knew those kids could get hurt. They're playing an up a few levels and this 10-year-old is at shortstop and he's thrown a bullet across the infield and the eight year old's over at first base playing with dinosaurs. That's not gonna go good for his grill, for his teeth, nothing. So we were generally kind of opposed to that. But I looked, and I saw the name, this kid's name was Joseph. And I looked and I was just looking down the list and I saw his name, Joseph, and then his last name. And in my head, it kind of just rung a bell. And I was like, "Aye, aye, "I think that kid has an older brother "who's really, really good at baseball, "which means he's probably also really good at baseball, "but I don't know. "I'm not sure if that's him." So I did what may have been outlawed. I'm not sure. I may be confessing right now to the world that I broke the rules. I don't know that I did, I don't think anybody said so, but I took my phone and I made a very, very quiet call in the draft room. I'm like leaning down next to my desk and I call my 10-year-old. Who's at home. "Tanner." He's like, "Dad, why are you whispering?' "I'm in he draft room." "Well, why are you whispering?" "Because I need some information." "What?" "There's this kid at the end of the draft list "that doesn't have a rating, "and we're up in like two drafts "and I'm wondering if I should pick him up, "but he's only eight years old. "His name is Joseph." And I said his last name. And I said, "Is Joseph Charles' brother by chance?" Tanner's on the other end of the line. Here's what he did. "Dad, yes. "Whatever you have to do, draft him! "I don't care what you have to do. Get him!" I was like, "Okay. All right." So, sure enough, literally, every other coach in there, except one who was a good baseball guy and he'd done his homework and he actually knew who he was and they were drafting right after us, he came to us and I said, "We're gonna draft of the eight year old kid "that doesn't have a rating up there," and some of the other coaches were looking at us like, "You guys are so nice. "You guys just helping develop some kids." And in the back of my mind, I'm going, "He's awesome. "And we're gonna win the championship." That's what's happening in my head. So we drafted Joe. Everybody else kind of excluded Joseph. Because he was eight, just like I was going to do in my head until I figured something out. I was gonna do the same thing. It's interesting because prejudices, which just means like prejudicial, that's where that word comes from, it means forming a judgment really before knowing what you should know, prejudice often leads to exclusion. That's just what it does. You form a judgment, but you don't really know anything, and it usually leads to people being left out. The interesting thing is, is we drafted him, we won the championship, like easy. We were just crushing people. 'Cause we already had three good players and then we added Joseph and he's really good. And he's a senior this year in high school and he's about to get drafted and get paid a lot of money, if I'm being honest. And his brother got drafted. I mean like, yeah. So we won the championship. So taste it, everybody. That's what we did. You're thinking to yourself, "Pastor was just trying to be nice." No, pastor was trying to win a championship. Not at all costs, but everybody didn't know about Joe. But here's the thing. What we don't wanna get ourselves into a position of, is pre-judging based on not knowing anything or not knowing what we should know. Well, the early church, when we get to the book of Acts, was actually in the same spot. And that's why this kind of story came to my mind is because the early church was in the same spot. Remember, when the early church was born, when the gospel was preached to the early church, after the death and the burial and resurrection of Jesus, and then Jesus went back to the Father, and now at the time of Pentecost, they're preaching, Peter's preaching to everyone there, announcing that Jesus is the promised Messiah, what's interesting is that all the people that came to faith in Jesus, right out of the gate, they were Jewish. So the early church in its beginning was Jewish. The scriptures that they worked from were Jewish. The Messiah that was promised to them was Jewish. The prophets that had predicted all of these things were Jewish. And so all of their mindset was is that, maybe all of this being Jewish, maybe this Jewish Messiah came just for us Jewish people. You see, this was what was going on inside of their heads at the time. And that had to be a little bit difficult seeing as how the Holy Spirit wanted something bigger than that. Now, the Jews knew that they were a distinct people. They knew that from their very beginning of their history, when they were formed as a nation. And Moses gave them the law that God gave to them. They even had dietary laws, like things that they could eat and shouldn't eat. And you're kind of always scratching your head when you see those. And you're like, "What was the deal with all of that?" They've got, hey, pretty much four-legged animals are kind of mostly out, not all of them, but mostly they're out. And birds and reptiles, like, God said, "Don't participate in any of that." Well, there was two reasons. One was pragmatic because epidemics that wiped entire populations out usually came through that grouping of animals. Didn't mean they couldn't be eaten, but it meant that that's where epidemics sometimes occurred. So that was one reason pragmatically. But the second reason was because, in the ancient world, the way that you fellowshipped with people was over a meal. And the concern by God was that Israel was gonna so interact with the pagan nations who were worshiping false gods, gods that weren't really gods at all, that they were gonna be influenced in the wrong direction, in that regard. So He wanted them to be a very distinct people. But they knew that, but they were so distinct that they actually took that to the nth degree. Because by the time of Jesus in the early church, when Jews talked about Gentiles, Gentile is just another word for meaning everybody who's not Jewish. So if you're not Jewish, you're a Gentile. You're not a Jew. They looked at the Gentiles and they had a word for them, dogs. That's what they referred to them as, dogs. In fact, there was a place in the temple where a wall was built between the outer court and the inner court that was a special message just for the Gentiles. That basically said, "Hey, if you're not Jewish, "stay out or we're gonna kill you." That's welcoming. You also had this idea that Jews would not allow any Gentiles into their homes, and they would not go into the homes of any Gentiles. In fact, when Jews would travel and they would go outside of Israel, into Jewish nations and eventually would make their way back in, right before they walked back onto Israeli soil, they would take their sandals off and they would beat the dust off of them so that the disgusting Gentile soil never touched the sacred Jewish soil. You could imagine. In that place and in that time, with that kind of mindset, how extraordinary it must have been to find out that the Holy Spirit actually wanted more than just Jews to be included in the saving purposes of God. How would the Holy Spirit convince the church, that was mostly all Jewish at this point, to think about the mission of God in the world and the Gentiles who were not Jewish, how would the Holy Spirit convince them that this was actually a part of what God really wanted? Well, that's what Acts chapter 10 teaches us. And it is absolutely remarkable. Now, what I'm going to do is I'm gonna pull out just really three quick trues out of this passage, really statements to kind of help summarize the passage. And then we're gonna read through the actual historical story of what happened, because what happened at this point in the church, this work of the Holy Spirit was so, so seminal in what happened for the life of the church, that it matters to you and I today as to what happened in Acts chapter 10. So, we're gonna look at really three primary statements as we see how the Holy Spirit worked to include the Gentiles into the sovereign purposes of God. The first statement that I'd have you noticed this, "There was a preparation for inclusion." There was a preparation for it. And you and I both know how difficult it is to undo somebody's really long way of thinking about something. You know how hard that is. When you've just kind of been set in your ways and in a way of thinking about something, it's really hard to undo that. It's really hard to change the lens on the way in which you look at the world. That's just difficult to do. And sometimes we don't even give consideration to it. If you're saying, "No, I do all the time, "I always give consideration to it." I doubt you do because you drive a motor vehicle. And here's what happens with people that drive motor vehicles. Everybody who goes too slow on the highway is a distracted jerk. Everybody who is speeding by you is a maniac. And you have established yourself as the only one who knows what speed and where to go when driving. But you can test how illogical this is, because eventually when somebody starts driving next to you at exactly the same speed for a long period of time, you then start yelling, "Make up your mind! "Speed up or slow down!" It's illogical. We have a hard time changing the way that we think about certain things. And so what the Holy Spirit was going to do, the Holy Spirit was going to prepare both the early church and those through which He was going to work, He was going to prepare them for the work He was going to do. The first part of that preparation was through a man named Cornelius, who was not a Jew. He was a Gentile. He was an Italian. Some of you will love that. He was an Italian. Let me show you what happened with Cornelius in Acts chapter 10, beginning of verse one. It says, "At Caesarea, there was a man named Cornelius, "a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. "He and all his family were devout and God-fearing, "he gave generously to those in need "and prayed to God regularly. "One day at about three in the afternoon, he had a vision. "He distinctly saw an angel of God, "who came to him and said, "Cornelius!" "Cornelius stared at him in fear. "'What is it, Lord?' he asked. "The angel answered, "'Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up "'as a memorial offering before God. "'Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon..."' Who was called Peter. "He is staying with Simon the tanner, "whose house is by the sea." When the angel who spoke to him had gone, "Cornelius called two of his servants "and a devout soldier who was one of his attendance. "And he told them everything that had happened "and he sent them to Joppa." So, we've got this guy named Cornelius. Cornelius is a leader in the Roman Army and he's called the centurion. That means he had charge of at least 100 people. Some of the centurions actually had charge over other centurions, so he was leading at least 100, maybe more than that. And remember he was at Caesarea by the sea or Caesarea Maritima, is what it's called as well. Caesarea by the sea was kind of a headquarters where Herod, the King of the Jews, so to speak, had been given basically a property and a castle and a place to live there by the Caesar. And so this was kind of the epicenter of the focus of occupation of the Jews. And now you've got this Italian guy who's called a God-fearer. Now, listen. Here's what that means. When the Jews would look at Gentiles, they would categorize them religiously as one of three things, either an unbeliever, a God-fearer, or a full convert to Judaism. And where this man, Cornelius, he fell into that middle category, a God-fearer. In other words, he had great respect for the God of the Jews, was beginning to pray to the God of the Jews and learn more about the God of the Jews, and even as a Roman, was treating some of the Jewish people well, as opposed to poorly. So an angel showed up to Cornelius and basically said, "Hey, there's a guy named Peter and he's in Joppa. "And I want you to send for him "because he's gonna tell you some things "that you really need to know." Cornelius was like, "Done!" An angel shows up to you and tells you to do something, like, "I want you to go eat your carburetor." You're like, "Okay, I'm gonna do do that." I don't even know if carburetors are in cars anymore. I have no idea. Stupid joke. You would do what the angel told you to do. Well, that's exactly what he did. Look in the next verses. Picking up in verse nine. "About noon the following day "as they were on their journey and approaching the city,..." In other words, the men that Cornelius sent to go to Peter. "Peter actually went up on a roof to pray. "He became hungry and something to eat, "and while the meal was being prepared, "he fell into a trance. "He saw heaven opened "and something like a large sheet being let down to earth "by its four corners. "It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, "as well as reptiles and birds. "Then a voice told him, 'Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.' "'Surely not, Lord!' Peter replied. "'I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.' "The voice spoke to him a second time, "'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.' "This happened three times, "and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven. "While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, "the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon's house was "and stopped at the gate. "They called out, "asking if Simon who was known as Peter was staying there. "While Peter was still thinking about the vision, "the Spirit said to him, "'Simon, three men are looking for you. "'So get up and go downstairs. "'Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.' "And Peter went down and said to the men, "'I'm the one you're looking for. "'Why have you come?' "And the men replied, "'We've come from Cornelius the centurion. "'He's a righteous and God-fearing man, "'who is respected by all the Jewish people. "'A Holy angel told him to ask you to come to his house "'so that he could hear what you have to say.' "Then Peter invited the men into the house "to be his guests." Watch. Do you see what the Holy Spirit is doing here? The Holy Spirit has already prepared Cornelius. And He said, He sent an angel. And the angel comes and says, "Hey, send for Peter." "Okay." So he sends some men to go to Joppa, Peter's staying at the home of Simon, the tanner's house. It can be confusing. Simon Peter and Simon the tanner. Simon the tanner, he was a tanner. That meant he worked with animals. He cleaned them. He was in the leather business. That's what he did. Jews didn't often look at that as something that they particularly liked because it was smelly and it was stinky and it made you messy and sometimes ceremonially unclean, but yet here's Peter staying with this guy who works with animals. Now, if Cornelius really wanted to tell the guys that he was sending to go find Peter, he could have just said, "Hey, I want you to go to Joppa and follow your nose "because you're gonna smell where he's staying." He's at the tannery. And they would often put those tanneries near the water so that the breeze would kind of take some of that smell away. So it's interesting. Cornelius is already, is being prepared, but at the same time, Peter is now hungry and he's on a roof. They did that normally. That's where they would go to pray oftentimes. He's on a roof and he's praying and God gives him a vision. The sheet comes down and on it, you've got all kinds of four-footed animals. And you got birds and reptiles, all the things that they're not supposed to eat, except a voice says to him, "Get up. Kill and eat." And he's like, "Nope, not doing it. "Never done it. Not doing it." Second time. "Get up. Kill and eat." "Nope. No, no, nope. "Not doing it. Not supposed to do it." Third time. "Get up. Kill and eat. "Don't call unclean what I have made clean." Now, this was not only helping to remind Peter that those dietary laws that you were under, those are kind of, those are irrelevant now. Those are moot now. That's not really the point. He was trying to tell Peter, this is actually about an entire group of people. This is about Gentiles. This is about people that I want to include in the process of my salvation plan. And so Peter, while he is thinking about this vision that he just got, the Spirit says to him, "Hey, Pete, there's some guys downstairs "and they want you to go with them, do it." Peter walks downstairs. "I'm the guy you're looking for." And they're like, "Oh, great. Cool." "I'll go with you. "Why don't you guys stay the night and then we'll head out." And that's what they did. Look at the next verses. "The next day Peter started out with them, "and some of the believers from Joppa went along." In other words, there were some Jewish believers who were there with him in Joppa, and Peter brought them with him to take him to Caesarea to see Cornelius. "The following day he arrived in Caesarea. "And Cornelius was expecting them "and had called together his relatives and close friends." He's Italian. He brought everybody over. It's what he did. That's what I love about going to... You go to an Italian get together, everyone's there! "As Peter entered the house, "Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. "But Peter made him get up. "'Stand up,' he said, 'I'm only a man myself.' "While talking with him, "Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. "And Peter said to them, "'You are well aware that it's against our law "'for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. "'But God has shown me "'that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. "'So when I was sent for, "'I came without raising any objection. "'May I ask why you sent for me?' "Cornelius answered: "'Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, "'at three in the afternoon. "'And suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me "'and said, 'Cornelius, God has heard your prayer "'and remembered your gifts to the poor. "'Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. "'He's a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, "'who lives by the sea.' "So I sent for you immediately, "and it was good of you to come. 'Now we're all here in the presence of God "to listen to everything "the Lord has commanded you to tell us." Don't you wish everything went that well? You're praying for somebody, you wanna talk to them about Jesus, and they call you up. "You know what? I've been thinking. "I need you to come over to my house "and tell me whatever it is you need to tell me. "And by the way, all my family and friends, "they're gonna be here too." And then you get there and they're like, "Give it to us." That would be awesome. That's actually how the Holy Spirit was setting up this entire thing. Do you know why? Because to break through the mindset that everyone had about Jews and Gentiles in the early church, the Holy Spirit had to prepare them for this moment. So that was the preparation for inclusion, but next, there's a proclamation of inclusion. This proclamation of inclusion is when all of those people in Cornelius's house, Cornelius's family, his friends, his work associates, they're all gathered together and basically say, "Here we are, tell us what you wanna tell us, Peter." And you know what happened to Peter? He had an aha moment. Peter realized something in this moment. And it was this: That the gospel that he preached is for everybody.
It's not just for The Jewish people, it's actually for everyone. And so what he's going to do now is he's going to preach the gospel with that in mind. And what he does when he starts to preach the gospel is very beautiful because he actually walks through all of these various elements of the good news of Jesus. And I'm gonna go through them pretty quick. If you're a note taker, you're gonna be frustrated. So just buckle up. You'll get to see them afterwards. We post these online. You'll be able to catch up with me and you may be able to catch up. I may slow down because I'm nice. I don't always have to win. Sometimes. Listen to the content of this gospel presentation that Peter makes. First thing that he says is that God shows no partiality. Or maybe you could write it down this way, God shows no favoritism. God shows no partiality or God shows no favoritism. Look at the verse. Verse number 34 and 35. Here's what it says. "Then Peter began to speak." They're all gathered. Tell us what you wanna say to us. It says, "Then Peter began to speak." Listen to what he said. "I now realize "how true it is "that God does not show favoritism." What? Peter, from the Jewish background, who's been instructed in this way for so long, now says, "I now realize how true it is "that God does not show favoritism, "but accepts from every nation the one who fears Him "and does what is right." This is a startling thing that Peter has said. He has said, "God doesn't have favorites." A Jew, from Israel, just said, "God doesn't have favorites. "And I realize that now." Do you know with that one statement he wiped away centuries of religious and racial prejudice in one statement? I now realize God doesn't show favoritism. What a remarkable statement. And this is how he leads off the telling of the good news. But the second thing that he notes is this, is that Jesus is Lord of all. You see, he wasn't just showing up here to go, "Hey, everything's cool with you." He's actually bringing the message of Jesus. If it wasn't imperative to know Jesus, he would've never been sent there to these "God-fearers." If everything was just fine the way they were, he would have never been sent there, but he was sent there. Notice what it says in next verse. "You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, "announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, "who is," don't miss this. "Lord of," here's the word, "all." Now, you gotta keep something in mind here. When Peter preached at Pentecost, he actually said that the Holy Spirit was going to be poured out on all. He was quoting from Joel, the prophet. And this was at Pentecost. He said the Holy Spirit is gonna be poured out on all. But I'm guessing in Peter's mind, "all" meant all Jewish people, because that's who was there. But now what's happened in Peter's mind is that he says, "I now realize God doesn't show favoritism. "And I'm preaching the good news "or the gospel of peace through Jesus Christ "who is Lord of all." Guess what that means. For Peter now, all means all. Where all used to mean all Jews, all people like me, now, all means all. The third aspect of his gospel presentation is that he talks about how Jesus destroyed the works of the devil. Notice what it says in the next verse. He says, "You know what has happened "throughout the province of Judea, "beginning in Galilee, after the baptism that John preached, "how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth "with the Holy Spirit and power, "and how He went around doing good "and healing all who were under the power of the devil, "because God was with Him." What he's recognizing is this, is that there is not just a force of evil in the world, but there is a person of evil in the world who is doing this evil in the lives of people, and Jesus came to break the chains of that evil. He came to destroy the works of the devil. How did He do that? Well, his fourth aspect of, Jesus died on a cross. Now, Peter doesn't say much about this. He just acknowledges it. It says it in verse number 39, Jesus says, we... I'm sorry. Peter says "We are witnesses of everything He did "in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. "They killed Him by hanging Him on a cross." Now, Peter, prior to that, with the Jews, had said, this was God's plan all along. That Jesus was going to die and He was going to die for the sake of the sins of the people. He was gonna satisfy the justice of God. But He didn't just leave it there with Jesus dying on a cross because he said that Jesus was raised from the dead. This is all a part of the good news. He says, "But God raised Him from the dead on the third day "and caused Him to be seen. "He was not seen by all the people, "but by witnesses whom God had already chosen, "by us who ate and drank with Him "after He rose from the dead." Peter is giving a personal testimony now. I saw Jesus die, I saw Jesus risen from the dead, and I actually ate and drank with Him after that moment. And as a result of Jesus being the One who died and who lived again, never to die again, Jesus is conferred as the Judge of all. Peter says it this way. He says, "He commanded us to preach to the people "and to testify that He is the one whom God appointed "as judge of the living and the dead." In other words, listen. Here's what Peter is saying, "I now realize God doesn't have any favorites. "And I recognize that Jesus is the Lord "of every person everywhere for all time. "And that Jesus is the One "who is going to judge every person everywhere "for all time." He uses a huge phrase, the living and the dead, everybody who's ever been, everybody who's ever gonna be. Jesus is the judge of all. Everybody's gonna have to give an account to the One who is Lord of all, who is also the judge of all. But then he drops this beautiful news on Him. That Jesus is the forgiver of sins. Listen to how he concludes this portion. He says, Peter says, "All the prophets testify about Jesus, "that everyone who believes in Him "receives forgiveness of sins through His name." What a wonderful promise to them. Isn't it? Because there were probably thinking as Gentiles, like, we're the ones that are left out. I don't know that there's any way that we can have our sins forgiven. Man, Jesus is Lord of all. Yes, Jesus is a judge of all and they're probably going, "Oh, man." And then Peter drops this on 'em, He'll forgive you too. He'll forgive you of your sins too. Do you know in that moment, how great that news for them was because they realized that this good news was for everyone, not just for the Jewish people, and these Gentiles, Cornelius and his whole house are so fired up about it. And in fact, what they do is they believe right then. Right then in that moment. They believe. See, I told you that there was a preparation for inclusion, and then there was a proclamation of inclusion, that Peter was preaching this gospel to everyone everywhere, but then the Holy Spirit gives us proof of the Gentiles' inclusion. We get proof of that inclusion. Listen to what it says beginning in verse 44. "While Peter was still speaking these words, "the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message." Get this. Peter tells them, "God doesn't have favorites. "Jesus is Lord of all. "He died on a cross. "He rose from the grave. "He's the judge of everyone. "He's destroyed the works of the devil "and He can offer you forgiveness." And do you know what they did in that moment? They believed. And so, you know what the Holy Spirit did? Cut Peter off. Peter, that's what I needed right there. Thank you. That's all you had to say. 'Cause they believe now, you don't even have to keep going. They believe. And so listen, "While Peter was still speaking these words, "the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. "And the circumcised believers who had come with Peter," in other words, these Jewish believers that were in Joppa that came with Peter to see Cornelius, "they were astonished "that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out "even on Gentiles. "For they heard them speaking in tongues," which means other languages, "and praising God. "Then Peter said, 'Surely no one can stand in the way "'of their being baptized with water. "'They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.' "So he ordered that they be baptized "in the name of Jesus Christ. "Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days." You know what the Holy Spirit did? He proved that He was including the Gentiles, and here's how He did it. Upon their belief, the Gentiles' belief in the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ, upon their belief, the Holy Spirit came upon them just like He did to Peter and the disciples at the time of Pentecost. What happened to Peter and the disciples when the Holy Spirit came upon them? They began to speak in languages that they didn't know, but that were known languages. And in doing that, they were praising God so that the people heard in their own language, the praises that they were giving to God. And you know what the Holy Spirit did with these Gentiles? Same thing. He proved it. He just straight up proved it. The Holy Spirit said, "Exactly what I did for them, "I've just now done for you." Now, He wasn't doing that to say that this will be what has to happen to every believer forever more going forward. That wasn't the point there. This wasn't necessarily to be a precedent for everything. This was proof that the Holy Spirit had included the Gentiles in the message of the gospel, such that they responded in the same way that the first believers did. This is a remarkable event in the life of the church. A remarkable and altering event in the life of the church. And you know what? It caused me to ask a question and I hope that you'll ask the same question. It was this question: Am I as inclusive as the Holy Spirit with the good news of Jesus? Am I as inclusive as the Holy Spirit with the good news of Jesus? See, the only way that we'll ever be able to really fully answer that question, if we can answer that question, is if we've confronted some of our own prejudices. It's the only way we can do it. That's what Peter ended up having to do. And the Holy Spirit helped him in that process. And we have to do the same thing. So I was reading an excerpt from a book called "Leadership" by a man named Hudson Armerding. Hudson Armerding was the President of Wheaton College back in the 1960s, a really influential Christian university in Illinois. And he had served his country in World War II and he was pretty straight laced. Short haircut, everything pressed, shoes shined, the whole deal. He was just kind of a straight lace kind of guy. And it was the '60s now and so there was a lot of social upheaval. Time around the Vietnam war time. All of that. And Dr Armerding was not real big a fan of the social upheaval that was going on because he really, he loved this country and he didn't like what he was seeing in this young generation. He wasn't real comfortable with long hair and scruffy beards and shaggy clothes made out of hemp and trees and stuff. Like, he just wasn't all in that. And everybody knew that actually. They could tell. It was written on his face all the time. And so one day when he was going to be preaching in chapel at the college, they would always gather some faculty and students in a room, and Dr. Armerding would show up and they would pray over him before he went out to preach at chapel. Much like people pray over me before I come out to preach here. And so they were all gathered around and they were talking for a moment and they were getting ready to pray and then one guy came in kind of late. Long shaggy hair. Long shaggy beard with animals growing in it. Clothes that were hanging all off his body, smelled like trees. Sandals on. All the dirt under his toenails showing. He comes cruising and there's one seat available. It's right next to the president. He sits next to him, and they begin to pray. Everybody starts praying. They get around to shaggy and he says, "God, You know how much I love our president. "You know how much of an influence "and an example he's been in my own life. "You know how You've used so many of his messages "to transform my life more into the likeness of Jesus. "And I just wanna thank You God for him. "I pray You'd fill him with Your Spirit. "I pray You'd speak to him "and speak through him this day for Your glory. "In Jesus' name." Dr. Armerding was a little bit stunned and he gets up and he goes into the chapel, and as he's walking into the chapel, right before he preaches, the Holy Spirit is all over him. "How was that prejudgment, man?" He's like, "I know." So he preaches the message that he preaches. And right afterwards, he says, "Hey, before you're dismissed," he says, "You, I want you to come here up on the platform." Shaggy comes walking up on the platform. Everybody in the room thought, they were holding their breath. They thought the president is about to make an example out of this guy. This is what not to do, what not to look like, how not to act. And they were probably thinking to themself, "I wonder if he's just gonna expel him right now." This guy came up on the stage, Dr. Armerding brought him clothes and gave him a big bear hug and affirmed him and told him how much he loved him. And it was a mix in the room between the young men and women and faculty who were crying and who were applauding because he had unleashed a wave of the love of Christ on their campus. He found out at a later time that, when he got to know this young man who he didn't know previously, that the reason this young man had grown his hair out and grown his beard out and was wearing these clothes, is because he wanted to identify with a generation of rebellious people in his own world so that he could reach them with the gospel. How was that pre-judging working out for him? Not so well. But he was confronted by it by God's own Spirit, and he did something about it. You see, I wonder, friends, if we realize even some of our own prejudices, sometimes. I have a tendency to think that we don't, if we're being honest. Some we realize, maybe some that we don't, but are we willing to have the same level of inclusion as the Holy Spirit, when it comes to, listen, when it comes to the good news of Jesus being offered to everyone? I think that's really important for us to understand. Think about it in terms of our mission statement as a church. We say it all the time here. Many of you can say it just like this. That our church exists so that every man, woman, and child, might have a repeated opportunity to hear and see the gospel of Jesus Christ. Here's the question that we have to ask ourselves, "Does every man, woman and child mean every, "or does it in our minds mean "every man, woman, and child who are like me?" Because if we do that, we've actually worked against this text of scripture that says that the gospel of Jesus is to be held out to everyone everywhere. Every man, woman, and child in every place everywhere. That means that the gospel is for black people, for white people, for brown people. The gospel is for Democrat and Republicans and independents. The gospel is for capitalists and communists. The gospel is for police and protestor. The gospel is for the marginalized, the confused, the messed up, the rich, the poor. The gospel is for everyone everywhere, every time. This is what the gospel is for. What that means is that they don't have to be like us before we act like Jesus, and offer them the good news of the gospel. You see, what happened in the early church and what became a shame to them that they eventually grew out of, is that they wanted Gentiles to become Jewish before they could be followers of Jesus. But the Holy Spirit said, "Uh, no, I don't have any favorites. "Jesus is Lord of all. "Jesus is Judge of all. "Jesus can forgive all." So can we have the same level of inclusion that the Holy Spirit does when it comes to holding out the good news of Jesus? Now, that word inclusion is used a lot in our cultural context, sometimes in ways that make really good sense and sometimes in ways that are trying to foist upon people who have convictions around the Word of God that we have to just say anything goes. Well, that's not true. Anything doesn't go. What this text is teaching us is that when it comes to holding out the gospel of Jesus Christ, that we don't hold it back from any group of people. That everyone everywhere gets the opportunity to hear and see and respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ, no matter what they look like, no matter what their background is, no matter where they come from, no matter what nation, everybody gets Jesus held out to them and not held back from them. You see, what we have to remember, friends, listen, when we read this text of scripture, here's what we have to remember. We are the Gentiles. We are! There may be a handful of people I know, a couple who come from a Jewish background in our congregation, but generally speaking, we're almost completely non-Jewish. And we have been, by grace, included in the saving purposes of God. We didn't have the prophets. We didn't have the scripture. We didn't have the temple. We didn't have any of those things. Ephesians says that we were aliens to those things. We were foreigners to those things, but by grace, God said, "What I've always wanted. "That I've so loved the world "that I gave My only son, that whoever," whoever means whoever, all means all, every means every, "whoever believes in Me, "not perish, but have everlasting life. "This has always been My plan. "This is what I've always wanted." Yes, do I want you to be a distinct people? Yes. Is it just in anything goes when it comes to living? No. Jesus wants us living a certain way because it's consistent with the way of eternal life. But when it comes to holding out the gospel, we don't hold back the gospel from any group of people. Do you know what one of the greatest offenses to grace would be? For Gentiles like us, who have been shown such extraordinary grace by God, to now prejudice other groups of Gentiles that somehow don't deserve to hear the gospel because they're not like us. See, my friends, if there's anything that I've learned over the last 14 months, is that people can become really tribal, really tribal. And we wanna put ourselves into categories that we've created. We're the no mask people. We're the mask people. We're the vaccination people. We're the anti-vax people. And so what can happen is, that bleeds into our spiritual life and we hear about those people, and instead of looking at them as someone who needs Jesus, and that we can hold the gospel out to, they've somehow become public enemy number one in our minds. We have let the corruption of the enemies lies take over for a mindset consistent with the kingdom of God and His Christ. I'm this political persuasion. Well, I'm this political persuasion and never the twain shall meet. I'm not saying, listen, this is not me ranting about, we can't have opinions. We can't... I'm not saying any of that. What I'm saying is, when that becomes the thing that defines you, you're missing what the scripture teaches us. And so I'm gonna fight in the body of Christ. I'm gonna fight for the unity of the body. That's what I'm gonna fight for, because it's bigger than your position on masks or no masks. It's bigger than your position on vaccinations or no vaccinations. It's bigger than your political persuasions. And you can have all of those. I'm not dogging you, shaming you in any of those. You can have all of those, whatever those are. Those aren't bigger. Those aren't bigger than the fact that every man, woman, and child, whoever they are, wherever they are, that we hold the gospel out to them, the good news of Jesus, because as people who've been shown grace, we should be a people who extend it. And we hold out the good news, not hold it back from people we don't identify with. You see, some of you may be here and you're thinking to yourself, "Man, I'm from a background where, man, "I've done like lots of stuff. "I'm from a different country. "I'm from wherever." And you're thinking, "Does any of this apply to me?" Great news for you. Great news for you. The gospel is for you too. All means all. Every means every. And even if you think that you're at the bottom of the draft list and nobody wants you, I can assure you, Jesus sees you and He wants you on His team. He died because He loves you and He wants to rescue you. You can't do it on your own. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Him. Your only way to be reconciled to the Father is through Christ, the Judge of all, the Lord of all. But He is graciously, through His death on a cross, taking upon Himself the wrath for our sin. And through His resurrection from the dead, Has made a way for us, by faith in Him, to be reconciled to the Father. I hope that that would be true for you today.