Scripture Reading:

• Acts 10:1-48

Opening Prayer:

Father God, as we gather here this morning, I pray that you would open our minds and our hearts to receive your Word. We pray that you would help us to have a teachable spirit. We pray that you would give us strength to stand firm on gospel truth while also remaining teachable and always willing to learn from You. Help us always to discern truth from error, and your voice from the voice of the enemy. Guide us and teach us Lord, we pray. Amen.

Introduction:

Last week we continued our sermon series, “The Heart of A Disciple” by focusing on being Spirit-Filled and Mission Focused. We looked to Christ’s great commission in Acts 1 to remind ourselves that our power comes from the Holy Spirit and our mission is to complete the great commission task that Jesus has given us. We also looked at a passage from Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth to remind ourselves just how good the good news is, and why we should not be ashamed of sharing this wonderful news with everyone that God places in our lives. 

This week we will be looking at the importance of a disciple having a teachable heart. What do I mean when I say someone is or is not “teachable”? This is, ironically, a tough concept to teach. We never want to be so open minded that our brains fall out. Scripture warns us not to be “children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:14) and yet at the same time we are called to be teachable, to be willing to learn, relearn, reconsider, or reexamine the things we might assume we have already mastered. 

One of the most dangerous things a person can be is unteachable. A person who is too prideful to be corrected or too set in their ways to learn something new is in danger of falling into the same sins that plagued the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. This is why I believe the heart of a disciple is one that is teachable, willing to learn, open to correction, and ready to change if necessary.

Overcoming Prejudice 

The passage I chose this morning in Acts 10 is a passage about overcoming prejudice, which is one of the hardest things for anyone to unlearn. Prejudice in some form or another exists in every human community and in every human heart. We don’t like to admit it, but it is true. Some of you might be tuning me out already just for touching on this subject, but in the spirit of teachability I pray that you would hear me out and see what the Word of God has to say. 

We all have prejudice in our hearts. For some of us it might be nationality, skin color, or people of a certain religion. For others it might be their appearance, the way they dress, the behavior, or where they live. We might hate people who are richer than us, or people who are poorer than us. I know for many of us politics is a major dividing line for prejudice to rise up in our hearts. I admit that there are certain political issues and certain political candidates that I struggle, and I mean I really struggle, to understand how people support them. I think the people who support them are wrong and are doing real harm to others. At the same time, if I let myself degrade or dismiss those people in my heart, I am not only closing myself off to opportunities to love them, but also I am closing myself off to learn from them and to be a voice that they can learn from. You can’t speak truth in love if you don’t have love to begin with. 

Sometimes I know that we feel our prejudice is valid because of how we were treated in the past. We have had bad experiences with people who looked a certain way, acted a certain way, or believed a certain thing. I worked with a man in my former church whose daughter was assaulted by people of a certain group, and for decades he could not be around people of that group without feelings of animosity rising up in him. It took years of patience and compassion to slowly begin to untangle those prejudices. 

Sometimes prejudice doesn’t come out in anger or outright hostility. Sometimes it comes out in fear. Sometimes it comes out in the ways we ignore, neglect, or avoid certain groups of people. Maybe we tell jokes about them, gossip about them, or we find other subtle ways of thinking of them as somehow less than us. 

Once again, don’t think for a second that I’m innocent of this. I’ve told jokes I regret. I’ve been uncomfortable when a certain type of person walks in the room. I’ve been guilty of looking at the actions of some and making conclusions about whole groups of people. I’m not proud of it. I try to repent of it, and confess it as the sin it is whenever I see it rise up in me, but I tell you this because I feel that if Jesus was here today this is one of the areas where all of us would need to be teachable. 

Jew vs. Gentile

People in Peter’s day were just as prone to prejudice as we are today. Peter was a Jew and, like every other group, the Jews of Peter’s day tended to feel safe and comfortable around other Jews who shared their faith, nationality, and customs. And like every other group, the Jews tended to be cautious or suspicious of those who didn’t share their faith, nationality, and customs. 

Jews could point to their history to justify their caution towards outsiders. Even in the first century there was a long history of mistreatment and persecution by gentiles. In Peter’s day this mistreatment and persecution tended to come from their Roman oppressors, gentiles who allowed Israel to exist only under Roman rule. 

Jews could also make religious arguments to justify their prejudices. God had commanded the Israelites not to intermarry with people outside their religion, both to avoid a mixed allegiance in the family and to avoid mixing pagan worship with worship of the one true God. This was a religious prohibition, but because their religion was tied to a people group it took on a racial identity. The Jewish people had also long misinterpreted God’s purpose for them. God had called Abraham to father the Jewish nation so that they might be His people, His witnesses, His missionaries to the rest of the world. Instead of proclaiming God and His Word to the nations, Israel separated itself from the world, claiming that God and His law were theirs and theirs alone. By the time Jesus entered the scene, Jewish prejudice had gotten so bad that Jews were taught in synagogues to have no contact with Gentiles unless doing so was absolutely necessary. And if you had to deal with gentiles, you were expected to go through a religious ceremony to be cleansed. 

This wasn’t just a one sided prejudice. The Roman attitude towards Jews could be described at best as cautiously tolerant, and at worst as openly hostile. In peaceful times the Jews were allowed to practice their religion so long as they stayed out of Roman business and paid their taxes, but in more hostile times Roman persecution against Jewish communities could be intense. The Roman Emperor Tiberius famously drafted Jewish men into the army and stationed them as far from Rome as possible to eliminate Jewish influence in the capital. In the year 19ad, he outright banished all Jews from the city of Rome and penalized any who remained with hard labor or slavery.  

Now imagine being Peter, and having grown up in this world. What would Peter have felt towards Romans? Even after his time with Jesus, what thoughts and attitudes about Roman people might Peter hold in his heart?

God Breaks Down The Walls

In the beginning of Acts 10 we are introduced to Cornelius, a Centurion in the Roman army. He was a soldier in the Roman army and a commander with at least one-hundred men under his command. In spite of being a Roman and a servant of the emperor, Cornelius had a reverence for God. We are told that he was a devout man who feared God. Even if he had grown up in paganism, he acknowledged God’s presence and sought to live rightly by his neighbors and to do justice with the position of power he was given. He was a charitable man who gave to the poor and was devout in his prayers. 

Later, in his letter to the church in Rome, Paul would describe how even pagan people with no exposure to God’s Word can still have some knowledge of God: 

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Romans 1:20, ESV

Cornelius was one such pagan, but it seems to have gone further than that. At some point during his military career, he must have been exposed to the beliefs of the Jewish religion and must have concluded that their God was the true God. However, Cornelius did not become a Jewish convert. It is unclear if this was a choice made by Cornelius to worship God from afar, or if this was a choice made by the Jewish community in Caesarea not to welcome a Roman Centurion into their faith community, but we know that he was a worshiper on the outside. 

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 alms have ascended as a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.” When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him, and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.

Acts 10:3-8, ESV

Cornelius, we are told had great respect for God, but when God spoke to him through an angel we are told that he was in terror. He immediately recognizes God as his Lord, and after receiving the command to summon Peter, he obeys by sending two servants and a trusted soldier to bring one called Peter to meet with him.  

Before the men can arrive to summon Peter, we are told that Peter likewise receives a vision: 

The heavens opened 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.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.

Acts 10:11-16, ESV

This is a strange vision. Peter is presented with a menagerie of all creatures great and small, and is told to rise, kill, and eat in order to be nourished. Peter, being a good Jew, protests that many of these creatures were unclean according to Jewish law and custom. Peter had never eaten anything that was not kosher. The voice from heaven, however, tells Peter that, “what God has made clean, do not call common (or unclean).” 

We are told that Peter received this vision three times and still did not fully understand what God was telling him:

And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.”

Acts 10:19-20, ESV

Though he did not understand, Peter was in tune to the Holy Spirit, and when the men came to gather him, he followed the Spirit’s lead and journeyed with them. 

Notice that it was God who orchestrated this meeting of Jew and Gentile. It wasn’t Peter’s idea. It wasn’t Cornelius’ idea. Had it been up to man, the dividing walls would have stayed up, but God had other plans. God alone can break down prejudice. God can reconcile the Jew to the Gentile and the Gentile to the Jew. God can reconcile us to one another, and can bring peace across any divide. 

Despite his being the leader of Jesus’ apostles, Peter was still just a man. Being born again, being spiritually mature, and even being called to serve God did not make Peter perfect. It did not make him unbiased or without prejudice. But God orchestrated these events to teach Peter something new. He was about to change Peter’s prejudice against the Gentiles! And praise God because if He had not addressed this prejudice, we who are gentiles would still be lost and without Christ in this world.Imagine if Christianity had stayed within the bounds of Judaism? As a gentile, where would my hope be?

Humble Correction:

Both these men, who were kept apart by race, politics, and religion, were destined to become brothers in Christ. However, this coming together could only happen when both men humbled themselves in faith. 

Cornelius had been humbled by his vision from God. When Peter arrived he did something no Roman Centurion would ever do, he fell at the feet of a Jewish man in deep reverence. Peter turned away such reverence saying “Stand up; I too am a man.” Peter then realizes what all this was about when he says:

“You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.”

Acts 10:28, ESV

Peter then proceeds to preach the gospel to the gentiles: 

“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.  As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.  And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Acts 10:34-43, ESV

This was a historic moment in the history of the church. The very gentiles that Jesus’ followers hoped he would overthrow in his kingdom, were now hearing the good news. A commander of the Roman army, who represented the very empire who nailed Jesus to the cross, was now hearing about the forgiveness of sins. But it did not stop with just hearing, it lead to belief and repentance, and new life! 

While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were 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 Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.

Acts 10:44-48, ESV

How wonderful it is that God is not confined by the man made walls that separate us. I am drawn to the line “The believers… were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles.”

I am a gentile. There was a time when the idea that God would save me, fill me with the Holy Spirit, baptize me, and call me into his service was scandalous. 

Try in your mind to fill in the blank today: 

“The believers… were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on __________.”

I don’t know who you put in the blank, but I can tell you that it is not impossible with God. Maybe it’s something we need to pray towards. The person whose presence today might make us uncomfortable, might be someone God is working on right now. Maybe God is laying the groundwork for salvation in the very communities we would rather avoid. What if the missing piece is you? What if your testimony about Christ is the last piece of the puzzle needed for the Holy Spirit to rain down on the very people we would rather not think about. We will never know unless we go. We will never know until we try. Maybe the enemy in our mind is who God is calling us to take our ministry of reconciliation. 

Prayer of Decision: 

Father God, as we enter this time of decision, I pray that you would help us to know the way in which you are calling us to respond to your Word this morning. Help us to see the truth and the courage to act on the truth. If we need correction, help us to be teachable. If we need re-direction, help us to hear your voice. Lead us on paths of life and guide us according to your will. Amen.

Closing Prayer:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you wherever he may send you. 

May he guide you through the wilderness, and protect you through the storm. 

May he bring you home rejoicing at the wonders he has shown you. 

May he bring you rejoicing once again into our doors.