Acts  Sermon Series

Wheelersburg Baptist Church 5/19/02 Brad Brandt

Acts 10:1-23 "Moving Out of Our Comfort Zone"**

In his classic novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain included the following dialogue between Tom and his friend Huck Finn. It’s a rather revealing conversation into the prejudiced heart of man.

"Tom has just informed Huck that he is not welcome in Tom’s gang. Huck protests, ‘Now Tom, hain’t you always been friendly to me? You wouldn’t shet me out, would you, Tom?’ Tom replies, ‘Huck, I wouldn’t want to, and I don’t want to—but what would people say? Why they’d say, ‘Mph! Tom Sawyer’s Gang! pretty low characters in it!’ They’d mean you, Huck. You wouldn’t like that, and I wouldn’t.’"

Exclusivism. It only happens in children’s story books, right? You know the answer. It’s a heart attitude that causes silent treatment between neighbors, on the one hand, to wars between nations on the other hand. It’s all around us in the world. But worse than that, it’s in the church. It’s tragic, yet true (as John MacArthur observes; p. 290), "Those of another culture, skin color, social status, educational group, or income level often find themselves as unwelcome in the church as Huck Finn was in Tom Sawyer’s gang."

It’s easy to bemoan the problem. It makes for a good political platform to talk about how bad prejudice is and how we’re against it. But what’s easy to talk about is another thing to change.

The text before us today does more than just "talk about it." The passage we’ll be studying is an invitation, indeed a marching order from the Commander-in-Chief for those of us in the church to move out of our comfort zones.

The problem isn’t new as we’ll discover by turning our focus to an event that occurred in Acts 10. Luke, of course, wrote the book of Acts. It’s called Acts for in it he records the acts of the apostles, the activity of the early church during its first thirty years of existence. Before returning to heaven Jesus gave this charge to his followers, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

With those words Jesus made it clear what He wanted the disciples to do. Once they received the Holy Spirit (which occurred in Acts 2) they were to embark on a relay race and take the good news of salvation through Christ to the world. The "race" would involve four legs. They were to go to Jerusalem, then Judea, and then Samaria. They did that, as the first nine chapters of Acts verify. But to fulfill the final leg of this race they’d have to jump a huge hurdle, for going to the "ends of the earth" meant going to the Gentiles.

I don’t think we appreciate fully the gigantic rift that existed between Jew and Gentile in the first century. It was every bit as severe as the racial tensions we know in our country, in fact, I’m convinced worse. The typical first century Jew and Gentile would have nothing to do with each other, absolutely nothing. The Jews despised the Gentiles. They didn’t think a Gentile could ever be right with God, at least not without becoming a proselyte to Judaism. "Become one of us and maybe we’ll open the door for you" was the mentality.

And remember, the first disciples were Jews. The early church was basically Jewish for its first ten years. If it was going to fulfill its God given mission to reach the world, the church would have to move out of its comfort zone. You say, "From how you described their attitude it sounds like you’d need a stick of dynamite to make that happen." You’re not far off! It wasn’t a stick of dynamite. It was something more powerful. God Himself!

In Acts 10 God took action. In Acts 10 God said, "It’s time to move to leg #4 of the Acts 1:8 relay." It’s time to reach the Gentiles." How did He do it? How did He move His people out of their comfort zone, and furthermore, how does He do it today? We’ll find out by taking a close look at the text before us. In Acts 10:1-23 God fulfilled three acts of preparation in order to move His people out of their comfort zone.

It was a ministry to a yet unreached people group—the Gentiles. But like any ministry, it began with one person. Here’s how it happened—verses 1-2, "At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. ² He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly."

God had a new ministry in mind for His church. He set His eye on Cornelius. Why Cornelius? Three things were true of Cornelius.

A. Cornelius was an unlikely candidate (1-2). In what sense? We’ll get to that in a moment as we observe some details that Luke specifies about Cornelius—six details.

1. He was a military man. He was a "centurion" in the city of Caesarea. Caesarea was a coastal city located on the Mediterranean Sea, about 60 miles northwest of Jerusalem. Herod the Great built a large harbor and city there in tribute to Caesar Augustus, named Caesarea Augusta. As a government city not surprisingly the Roman army was well represented there. Luke refers to the "Italian Regiment," which consisted of 1,000 soldiers divided into ten companies (or "centuries"). Cornelius was the centurion of one of these companies.

Centurions were the backbone of the Roman army. Polybius describes their qualifications, "Centurions are required not to be bold and adventurous so much as good leaders, of steady and prudent mind, not prone to take the offensive or start fighting wantonly, but able when overwhelmed and hard-pressed to stand fast and die at their post." Cornelius was such a man, a military man.

2. He was a family man. Some men are pious in a personal way, but Cornelius didn’t hide his religion. He shared it with his family. And they caught it. Luke says that he and "all his family" were devout. Does your relationship with God affect your family life? If it doesn’t, it’s not much of a relationship, is it?

3. He was a God-fearing man. In the first century the term "God fearer" referred to Gentiles who, as Barclay describes them, "weary of the gods and the immoralities and the frustration of their ancestral faiths, had attached themselves to the Jewish religion. They did not accept circumcision and the Law; but they attended the synagogue and they believed in one God and in the pure ethic of Jewish religion."

Such was Cornelius. He was "God fearing." That doesn’t necessarily mean he was a "saved" man. It does indicate God was at work in his heart preparing him for salvation.

4. He was a generous man. He "gave generously to those in need," or as the KJV puts it, he "gave much alms to the people." That reminds me of Tabitha from our last study in chapter 9. She was "always doing good and helping the poor (36)."

5. He was a praying man. He didn’t pray sporadically either, but according to verse 2 "prayed to God regularly."

Those are some commendable traits, a good catch for the kingdom, wouldn’t you say? No, you would not say that if you had been a member of the first church up until this point. Here’s why…

6. He was a Gentile. Strict Jews believed that God had no use for the Gentiles. Some actually said that it was wrong to help a Gentile woman in childbirth because that would only bring another Gentile into the world. Granted, Cornelius was a "good" Gentile and apparently loyal to the Jewish cause. Yet he was still a Gentile, and to reach him with the gospel was to cross a bridge yet unbuilt by the early church.

Thankfully, God is in the bridge-building business! Here’s how He did it…

B. Cornelius had a vision (3-6). "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!" ⁴ 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. ⁵ Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. ⁶ He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea."

The vision occurred at 3:00 in the afternoon. Why are we told that? For one reason to see God’s sovereignty in connection with another preparation taking place in Peter’s life which we’ll see momentarily. Another reason is to verify this was no midnight misunderstanding. This vision took place in the brilliance of daylight.

Luke says Cornelius "distinctly saw" an angel of God. The term means "manifestly" or "openly." This was not his imagination running wild! The first word he heard was his own name. "Cornelius," the angel said. And how did Cornelius respond? He was afraid. He "stared in fear," a far cry from the common notion in our day, "Well, if I could just see an angel like Cornelius I’d believe in God." Maybe so. But first you’d be terrified.

Pleae notice that God did two things through the angel with Cornelius in the vision.

1. God commended him (3-4). "Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God," the angel said. The language of the angel’s message comes from the sacrificial system in Leviticus. Just like Jewish priests offered up sacrifices that pleased God, so the prayers and benevolence of this Gentile, Cornelius, ascended to God’s throne as a memorial offering [a term which means "a memorial" or even a "remembrance"]. So God commended him. Next…

2. God commanded him (5-6). "Send men to Joppa to bring back Peter." This was no suggestion, but an order—one filled with several particulars. And as a military man Cornelius knew what to do with orders.

Why didn’t the angel tell Cornelius to go himself to Peter? Why was he to bring Peter to his house? For that matter why didn’t the angel give Peter’s message to Cornelius directly? The answer is that this instruction was for Peter’s sake as much as for Cornelius. Cornelius was about to believe in Christ and receive the Holy Spirit. No Jew would believe it unless they saw it happen firsthand. The Lord didn’t want two churches—one Jewish and one Gentile. He didn’t want a divided church—a Jewish clique and a Gentile clique. He died on the Cross to redeem one people for Himself, from Jew and Gentile alike.

Just think for a moment what it took for Peter to go to the house of Cornelius. Talk about leaving your comfort zone! Peter had to cross the tracks. He had to go against one of the strongest social taboos of his day. Here was a man who had spent three years with Jesus, who loved Jesus so much he had already done some jail time for him. In the past ten years or so Peter had preached to crowds (sometimes hostile) and dealt with some pretty challenging church growth problems. But he was about to face perhaps the biggest challenge of his life. He was about to go where he’d never been before.

I wouldn’t say Peter was a prejudiced man. But he did have preconceived ideas about how God works (and with whom He works). Yes, Peter knew that Jesus could save anyone. He’d seen people from all over the world receive the Spirit at Pentecost. But those were people who had become Jews first, then Christian.

Peter was like us in so many ways. He had put God in a little box. He was about to see God break the box wide open.

My friend, God won’t fit in our little boxes. There are times when He will ask us to do things that simply don’t make sense. We’ve never done it that way before. We’ve never reached out to "that kind" of person before. Thankfully, when God commands God enables. We’ll see how He did it in Peter’s case shortly.

How did Cornelius respond to God’s bridge-building operation? Beautifully!

C. Cornelius obeyed God (7-8). "When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier who was one of his attendants. ⁸ He told them everything that had happened and sent them to Joppa."

Talk about obeying by faith! The angel didn’t even tell Cornelius what Peter would say. "Just go get him; he’s got something you need to hear," was the message. And Cornelius obeyed. He sent three men to find Peter in Joppa, a little more than 30 miles to the south of Caesarea.

So God prepared a ministry, a wide open door for the gospel. Cornelius and his Gentile family and friends are ripe for the spiritual harvest. All Peter has to do is go to them. Easier said than done.

How do you think Peter would have responded if that very moment three Gentile men showed up at his door inviting him to come to the home of another Gentile? Probably not too well. I must underscore the fact again that Peter was a Jew. He was committed to being "holy," a word that by definition means "set apart," and in practical terms for Peter and others like him included being isolated from the goyim, the people not-like-us, the Gentiles.

That was about to change, but it would take some convincing. But know this. God is the master convincer! Let’s watch God’s second act of preparation.

The door to a new ministry was wide open, but the messenger wasn’t ready yet. To prepare Peter for this ministry God took him to school. He gave him three things.

A. Peter had a vision (9-12). Here’s how it happened. "About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray." Peter is a praying man. How ironic! That’s the same thing Cornelius did. While praying something happened to Peter—verse 10, "He became hungry and wanted something to eat [even an apostle got distracted in his prayer time!], and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance."

The Greek word for "trance" is ekstasis. Peter fell into a state of ecstacy. He was about to see something that shook him to the core.

Verses 11-12—"He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. ¹² It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air."

The first thing Peter saw was "heaven opened." Heaven is God’s royal residence. Heaven is where God’s people go when they die. Who is in heaven? As Peter watched he saw a sheet coming down out of heaven. Interestingly, the Greek word for "sheet" is the same for a ship’s "sail." It’s what the sheet contained that caught Peter’s eye.

There in the sheet he saw all kinds of creatures. I can imagine there was a buzzard, swine, an owl, perhaps a lizard, some lobsters, and some four-footed winged insects. The picture would have turned Peter’s stomach (remember he’s hungry).

"What does all this mean?" he must have wondered. He didn’t wait long to find out.

B. Peter received a message (13-16). The message was twofold. First…

1. The Lord told him to do something he had never done before. Notice verses 13-14, "Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat." ¹⁴ "Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean."

Notice carefully that Peter heard "a voice." But in responding Peter specifically addressed the "Lord." He knew that voice. He’d heard it for three years.

The Lord’s command baffled Peter. It didn’t make sense to him. The Jews, of course, had strict dietary laws as detailed in Leviticus 11. To sum it up, a Jew could eat only animals which chewed the cud and whose hoofs were cloven. All other animals were unclean and off limits. It had been that way for fifteen centuries.

"Surely not, Lord! I have never eaten anything impure [the Greek term koine means "common"] or unclean." And he hadn’t. Nor should he have. To have done so would have been a violation of God’s law given through Moses. If a Jew ate a pork-chop it was sin. It was a violation of God’s law. That is, until Jesus came.

But what did Jesus do? Did He nullify the Law? No. He fulfilled it (Matt 5:17). That’s the point Mark made in his gospel after quoting Jesus in Mark 7:18-19, "Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? ¹⁹ For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.")"

Peter had heard those words. But it took more than ten years and this special message from the Lord to make them hit home. The Lord Jesus had changed something. Previously, certain foods were off limits. Likewise, certain people were off limits. But no longer. It was now time to do something he had never done before. That’s not all…

2. The Lord told him to change his thinking. "The voice spoke to him a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ ¹⁶ This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven."

I like how the Living Bible paraphrases the dialogue. "’Never Lord,’ Peter declared, ‘I have never in all my life eaten such creatures, for they are forbidden by our Jewish laws.’ The voice spoke to him again, ‘Don’t contradict God! If He says something is kosher, then it is!’"

When the Lord tells you to do something you don’t want to do, it’s time to change your thinking. It’s a serious thing to contradict God. Peter may have been polite, but he was still wrong. Dr. W. Graham Scroggie wrote, "You can say ‘No,’ and you can say ‘Lord’; But you cannot say ‘No, Lord!’" If He is truly our Lord, then only "Yes, Lord!" will do, followed by complete obedience.

Peter received something else that day, a vision, a message, and a vital lesson…

C. Peter learned a vital lesson. The lesson is contained in the words the Lord spoke the second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." Simply put, we can sum up the lesson with two statements.

1. God never lowers His standard. The Lord didn’t tell Peter to eat unclean food. He just made it clean! This is critical to see. "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." What used to be unclean, Peter, is now clean. That’s why you can eat it.

God doesn’t lower His expectations. Rather He brings people up to them. How? By Christ. By imputation. Christ kept God’s law perfect. We couldn’t. No one could. Ever since God gave the law His people violated it. That’s why Christ came. He came to meet the Law’s demands, to fulfill it. Then He died on the cross to pay the penalty for our transgression of the law. Three days later He rose again to prove He had finished what He came to do.

You say, "What is imputation?" It’s this. When a person believes in Jesus Christ, God imputes to that person the merit of Christ’s perfect obedience to the law. He also forgives that person of his sins since those sins were imputed to Christ (that is, placed upon Christ) two thousand years ago when He died the sinner’s death on the cross.

That’s why you and I need Christ today. A holy God cannot tolerate sin. Nor will He call something clean if it’s not. God doesn’t accept all people—that would be universalism. Rather He accepts all people He has made clean through Christ.

Which raises an important question. Who is a candidate for this cleansing work? Only Jews? No.

2. God can bring anyone up to His standard through Christ. Yes, anyone. "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."

Here’s where the rubber would meet the road for Peter—and for us. If God accepts someone (that is, makes them "clean"), then I have no right to hold that person at arm’s length. What’s more, if God wants to save someone and desires to use me to reach them, then I have no right to hold back His love from that person.

We’re a lot like Peter, aren’t we? We tend to write off certain people because they’re not in "our sheet." We tend to look down on people based on external things like race and economics and think, "I can’t associate with them, Lord. They’re just not my type!"

Kent Hughes suggests that the four corners of the sheet correspond to the four points of the compass—north, south, east, and west. He says that the sheet’s contents indicate the swarming millions that populate the earth. Hughes writes, "Cornelius, all his soldiers, all his servants, all the Roman people, all other nations on the face of the earth—all mankind were bound up together in one loathsome bundle. And Peter was standing above them, surveying them all and spitting out revulsion and rejection."

Oh, Peter knew Christ but he still had a mindset from his pre-Christian days. He tended to put human beings in one of two boxes. There was the clean box and the unclean box. The Jews were clean—or at least candidates to be clean. The Gentiles were unclean. Nice and neat little boxes, huh?

But God sees things differently. The Jew is not "clean" and the Gentile "unclean." The fact is, both are "unclean" before a holy God as Paul spelled out in Romans 11:32, "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy on all (KJV)."

No, a Gentile doesn’t have to become a Jew to become a Christian. For that matter, a person doesn’t have to become an American or "Americanized" to become a Christian, either. He doesn’t have to become like us to become one of us. He just has to be made clean, by faith in the cleansing power of Christ.

In Acts 10, God fulfilled three acts of preparation to move His people out of their comfort zone. First He prepared a ministry. At the same time He prepared a minister…

Watch how He did it. The timing is perfect. God’s timing always is.

A. The men arrived (17-18). "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. ¹⁸ They called out, asking if Simon who was known as Peter was staying there."

Here is a God-ordained moment. While Peter is trying to figure out what the Lord meant by this statement regarding the unclean being made clean, the men arrived.

B. The Spirit told Peter to go with them (19-20). "While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, ‘Simon, three men are looking for you. ²⁰ So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.’"

The Spirit didn’t ask for Peter’s opinion. He simply gave the orders: Get up, go downstairs, and go with the men. In fact, the term "hesitate" comes from the Greek term diakrinomenos which means "to judge." In other words, "Peter, don’t judge this book by its cover." And he didn’t.

C. Peter obeyed God (21-23). "Peter went down and said to the men, "I’m the one you’re looking for. Why have you come?" ²² The men replied, "We have come from Cornelius the centurion. He is a righteous and God-fearing man, who is respected by all the Jewish people. A holy angel told him to have you come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say." ²³ Then Peter invited the men into the house to be his guests. The next day Peter started out with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa went along."

This was a step of faith for Peter. Notice his twofold obedience.

1. He broke down barriers. Let these words sink in, "Peter invited the men into the house to be his guests." He didn’t say, "Wait outside. I don’t want you in here." No. He let them come near and treated them as guests, thus breaking down a barrier centuries old. In addition…

2. He took advantage of the God-given opportunity. How? Luke says that on the next day he went with them. It was a step of obedience that literally would change the world. If you are a Gentile, you are here today because Peter left his comfort zone.

I read the following story told by Harry Ironside. It concerns the death of his father. "As his father was dying, he kept muttering something, and the family couldn’t quite understand what it was. But finally they got it. Mr. Ironside was thinking about this vision, thinking about the sheet full of animals. He was saying, ‘A great sheet and wild beasts and, and, and …’ He couldn’t quite finish it. A friend bent over and whispered, ‘John, it says, "creeping things"’ (KJV). ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘That is how I got in. Just a poor good-for-nothing creeping-thing, but I got in—saved by grace.’"

And James Boice makes the point, "Whenever you see yourself, not as the clean animal but the unclean animal, not as the attractive beast but as the creeping thing, as one who by the grace of God got into that sheet and is pronounced clean by the sheer grace of God in Jesus Christ, then you are ready to open your heart and arms to other people."

Acts 10 is a call to action, a call to missions. Peter had to leave his comfort zone to go to Cornelius. Cornelius wore different styles of clothing. He ate a different diet. He spoke a different mother tongue. He no doubt enjoyed different kinds of entertainment. He was from a different political background. To reach Cornelius Peter would have to cross some barriers. One of the biggest would be criticism from some in the church itself—as we’ll see in chapter 11. His decision would also result in some tense, church business meetings—if you think I’m overstating it, just wait until we get to Acts 15.

The bottom line is this. It wasn’t easy for Peter to leave his comfort zone. Why did he go then? For one simple reason. God said to go. Go, Peter! And He is still saying to us, "Go!"

1. It’s vital that we reach out to people like us. We all know people we like a lot who don’t know Christ. Family members. Neighbors. Classmates. Work associates. Without Christ they are heading for eternal judgment. So yes, we must reach out to them, to people like us. But know this…

2. It’s just as vital to reach out to people not like us. There are people we currently don’t know for whom we have a responsibility. We don’t know them because they aren’t like us. Quite frankly, they’re probably people we would not care to know, from a fleshly perspective, because they don’t affect our lives.

But they matter to Him! He died for them, too.

Some of them live on the other side of the tracks. Some are on the other side of the world. That’s why we’re sending Kristen as our representative to Southeast Asia. That’s why we have a team that goes to minister in the prison. That’s also why we need to think of new ways to reach unreached people throughout our community and our world.

My friend, what are you doing to reach people unlike yourself? It’s time to come out of your comfort zone. There are people all around us that the Sovereign Lord is preparing to be reached, just like He prepared Cornelius for Peter. Are you available?

3. When we do that we’re doing what Jesus did. Talk about leaving your comfort zone! He left heaven to reach us. What more incentive do we need?

Acts  Sermon Series