Acts 9:32-10:48, Who’s Included?

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Acts 9:32-10:48 Who’s Included?

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Well, over the past year or so, there's been something of a nasty controversy among Christians, at least
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I've become only aware of it over the past year, about race and how to deal with it.
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One of the great accomplishments of Christianity, and that's not like bad news to say there's a controversy about race, but actually it sort of reveals some good news because one of the great accomplishments of Christianity in America is demonstrated in that the controversy is not between like racists on the one hand who are saying let's keep some people out of a different race, let's be segregated, or let's keep maybe people in their own denominations or churches on the one hand.
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It's not between that and on the other hand, includers who want to include all people. That's not really the controversy.
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That used to be the debate, but at least publicly, I don't see that today. I haven't heard anyone, you know, claiming, basically publicly espousing, maybe
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I'm sure there's somewhere some extremists saying some racist things, but that's not really what the debate is going on, at least publicly.
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Just this past week, someone said that opposing racism now takes all the courage of opposing cannibalism.
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You know, it's just kind of taken for granted, and that itself is a good thing. That's a victory. It's a step in advance that most of us know that racism is so out of bounds that no one is publicly defending it.
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Now, I'm sure there are still a lot of private people muttering things, but at least publicly, most, at least every
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Christian leader that I've heard knows that that's just, you don't do that. You don't defend racism or express racism, but that didn't come easily, and it isn't something that hasn't left its mark.
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The wounds are still sore to many people, and that's the controversy over the past year or so.
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Some are still addressing racism, and I think it still needs to be addressed, and others think it's just ancient history.
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They're bringing it up again. Itself is divisive. It's kind of like the editor of the
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Castle Messenger here who told me several years ago, let's consider racism over. I just looked at her like, you're crazy.
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So now, to some, any intentional program or project or effort or outreach for the purpose of making a church or a
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Christian institution, like a seminary or whatever, more diverse. In other words, if we were all white, we intentionally trying to reach black people, that to some is decried and rejected.
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It's just not something we need to talk about, and it's not something we need to do, we need to pay any attention to. The implication is that we should just preach the gospel and let the chips of race and ethnicity fall where they may.
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Black people come, fine, if they don't, fine, we'll just ignore it. Chinese come, good, if they don't come, well, who cares?
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There's nothing we can do about it. I become involved in this controversy somewhat. I think a voice in it.
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When an official sounding, well, when an official sounding statement was issued last September by some fairly prominent
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Christian leaders, it was called the Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel, and usually this controversy is called this controversy about social justice, but the statement is also called the
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Dallas Statement, Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel. I read it, agreed with everything it said, and then
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I didn't sign it, not because of what it said, but because of what it didn't say.
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It was a statement basically, mostly about race, and it showed no empathy, expressed that I recall no sense of being offended at the injustices of racism, no feeling of mercy for those who had experienced it, no expression of the value of including the excluded.
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That just seems to be such an omission. How do you not, how do you address race and not address that?
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So, a month later, I published an article, a somewhat long one in an online publication called the
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Christian Post entitled the Social Justice Statement and the Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience. It was about how that is not enough to defend orthodoxy, right, doctrine, we also have to show orthopathy, right, feeling, a right heart, and orthopraxy, right, practice.
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It's probably my favorite article I've ever had published. When there was a mini -controversy at John MacArthur's The Shepherd Conference, which is early
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March, the controversy was about when the men on the panel, they have these conferences, conventions, and they have these question and answer sessions, and in the one question and answer session, they were asked, why you men did not sign the social justice statement, and they just really didn't answer it, and there was just a big controversy about that, believe it or not.
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There were just people decrying them for being cowards, and so I wrote a response to that, another briefer, punchier article called
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The Rise of the Social Justice Contrast, criticizing, sometimes mocking, those who were attacking the integrators, whatever you want to call them, the includers, those who make addressing racism and including minorities a priority.
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They pay at least some attention to it. Then when a professor, so I wrote that one response to that, and it got some attention, and then when a professor at King's College in New York on the other side of the debate publicly mocked my simple straightforward statement that Christians ended slavery,
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I published a brief article in the Acton Commentary, sort of a, I wouldn't say, it's not quite an academic article, but it's closer to one than the others, and a simpler one for the average people, again in the
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Christian Post, entitled How a Secular Jew Proved Christians Ended Slavery. The professor who mocked me was trying to keep the fires of controversy and shame going by scoffing at the idea that Christians had ended slavery.
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But I had my trump card, you know, the findings of a Nobel Prize winner, who was likely the world's greatest expert, and whom
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I knew personally, was my boss, and who being Jewish, he didn't have any like vested interest. You know, if he's like an evangelical, devout
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Christian, and he's saying Christians ended slavery, you kind of got to wonder, well, he's just saying that because he is one, and he's trying to put the best spin on things.
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But this guy was Jewish. He called himself a secular Jew, and he said
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Christians abolished, they're responsible for ending slavery. There are extremists and irresponsible people like this professor in New York City on both sides of the debate, but the issue comes down to how intentional should we be about including people who are different than us?
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Is it a priority? Are we even aware of it? We just, you know, let it be.
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It's not just a black and white issue. I went about 15 years or so ago, I interviewed in about a dozen
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Chinese churches in North America to be their English congregation pastor, and almost every one of them,
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I would have to make clear, and this is probably why I didn't get the job, to some churches, and some,
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I think all of them actually, put Chinese in their name, right? They were such and such Chinese church.
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I would tell them, you know, you can't have a Chinese church. You can have a Chinese language church,
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Chinese speaking church, sure, no problem with that, but you cannot have a Chinese people church.
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You just can't do that. Churches, by definition, are for, by definition, are for including all kinds of people, and they should be doing that deliberately.
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Who is included in the church, in the gospel, in the kingdom of God?
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All the kinds of people who exist on earth, and if we see that any group of people, any ethnic group isn't yet included, we need to try to do what we can to cross those cultural barriers and include them.
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That's what God does here. Crossing cultural barriers to get to ethnic groups is so important to God.
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He takes the initiative himself. He takes the first steps so that the church will follow.
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Here, they face a huge cultural barrier. The Jews understood that they were the elect.
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They were the chosen people. They were special. There was a barrier then between them and other people.
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They showed their specialness by keeping God's law, especially about food. You know, you know, all the kosher food laws that kept them apart from other nations who liked their barbecue pork and other stuff.
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So they, the Jews, they weren't supposed to eat with Gentiles or even go into their houses, even if they were serving kosher food.
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You just don't go eat with them. You don't fellowship with them. You're not friends with them. They thank God. One of their, one of the traditional
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Jewish prayers written down, I thank you, Lord, that you've not made me a Gentile. That's not what the old
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Testament taught though. They didn't get that from the Bible. Understand that's the tradition that developed over the years, the fair, safe, cool tradition that just got so intertwined with what they were taught.
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God's law said it got so intertwined that they couldn't separate anymore what
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God had really said and the traditions that had grown up. They believed in election, but in an election that was based on race.
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We're elect because we're descended from Abraham. We're of this race. And that they were the chosen people because, you know, they're
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Abraham's children. But John the Baptist tried to assault that idea. You know, God can raise up children from Abraham out of these stones.
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But it was by now so mixed into their religion and culture that they couldn't uproot it.
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So here in Acts, remember the goal, the outline, Acts chapter one, verse eight, the goal, eventually get to the ends of the earth.
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With that goal, getting the gospel to the ends of the earth, the still, we're in chapter 10 now, 28 chapters, we're in chapter 10.
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The church is still Jewish. So this still Jewish church needs to be taught that it has to include all people.
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The idea of election were the chosen people produces exclusion.
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If we don't understand that election is based on grace, not race.
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Well, who's included all the kinds of people all over the world.
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And we see that here, we see that here as we return to the story of Peter's ministry. We were introduced to Paul last week.
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Before him were two stories about Philip and then one long one about Stephen. But now we're back to the man who has so far been the, been the main human character, at least the book of Acts, Peter, the story, three stories about Peter here, two short stories of signs and wonders that he performed.
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And one long story about how God uses him to break the barrier to open that door.
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He has the keys of the kingdom and he's opening the door to include all kinds of people versus Peter.
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Again, he's now traveling and ministering notice. He begins. He's going here and there among all
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Israel. He's no longer confined to just, just Jerusalem. He's visiting the churches, the saints they're called in verse 32.
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He's evangelizing. He comes to a town called Lida, which is about two. You know, where Jerusalem is. It's about two thirds of the way from Jerusalem to Mediterranean coast.
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And there there's a man named Aeneas who has been paralyzed and bedridden for eight years. And Peter says to him,
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Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Take up and rise and make your bed.
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And notice here that he can't heal. Peter can't heal the man based on his own authority. Notice that he says,
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Jesus Christ heals you. He doesn't say I heal you. I, the pontificus maximus with the keys of the kingdom heal you.
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No, he says, Jesus Christ heals you is still as still as in chapter one, Jesus, who is doing and teaching, who is continuing to do and to teach the same things that he did before the cross.
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Now he's doing it through the church. So Aeneas is healed. He gets up, makes up his bed.
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I don't know if this is here as an example of why you should make up your bed or not when you get up. I don't know. When the people of the town and the areas, you know, heard about it, maybe they saw him, you know, shopping at the
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Lida Galleria or, you know, or going on a walk at the Lida Riverwalk, you know, they realized, hey, that guy had been paralyzed for eight years.
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Look at him walking around. They knew that Jesus Christ who healed him was for real.
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So they turn to the Lord, says in verse 35. Nearby in Joppa, which is on the coast,
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Mediterranean coast, was a Christian lady named Tabitha, whose name means gazelle. That's what
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Dorcas means. It's Greek for gazelle. I should have translated it for us. That was my pet peeve. Translated, translators, translated means gazelle.
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Don't tell us Dorcas. That's just Greek for gazelle. Anyway, but verse 36 says she was full of good works and acts of charity.
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As we saw in James, living faith produces works and she had living faith that produced works that just gushed out good works in service to others.
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She made tunics, basically shirts and other clothes and gave them away to the poor.
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She's a model disciple, but she got sick and died. They got her body ready for burial, but instead of burying her right away, they put her in an upper room and they sent for, they sent two men to Lydda, where Peter was still with Aeneas, you know, and all the new
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Christians there. They urged him to come. He realized he's nearby. Come to Joppa.
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Dorcas, not Dorcas, Tabitha, gazelle has died. Remember when, remember when
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Jairus, it's a hard name to say, Jairus, went to fetch Jesus to come and pray for his sick daughter.
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And then while he's coming to, well, he's getting Jesus to come to, to pray for his daughter, news comes that his daughter has died.
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And, and, and they, they basically say to him, you know, don't no use bothering Jesus. Now she's dead.
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She's gone. Not even, you know, but the implication is not even Jesus can, can help her now, now that she's dead.
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Remember that story here, at least some of them believe better, maybe because they had heard about Jairus's daughter, how she was raised after she was dead.
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And so they urged Peter, please come without delay, even though Tabitha gazelle is already dead.
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So Peter comes to see the deceased Tabitha and she's surrounded by these widows or wailing for her.
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That's probably kind of their job in their culture be the wailing widows. And they were showing off for him to him.
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And the things that Tabitha had made, you know, look at this tunic she made for us, making a commotion. When Mrs.
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Perry dies, hopefully not soon, we'll be able to show off this tablecloth there. So I'll be display it.
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And that's sash with a cross on it. We say, this is what she made for us here.
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Peter puts all the wailing widows outside too much commotion, too much fuss, just like the Lord Jesus had put out the mourners outside when he went in to see
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Jairus's daughter. Again, though, Peter is not Jesus. Notice the differences. He's not the vicar, the representative of Christ on earth with this, with the same authority can do the same thing.
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Jesus could just command the girl, you know, right. Little girl, I say, do you arise?
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Peter though, has to kneel. He has to pray. He has to seek the Lord's will.
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And when he can, then being the Lord's will, then he can, then he can say,
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Tabitha arise. And when he does, he opens her eyes and she sees
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Peter and she sits up. Peter helps her up, calls for the saints.
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Come on in the Christians, the wailing widows. I guess they stopped wailing now and presents
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Tabitha alive, resuscitated when news of that had got out. And you can imagine, right?
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That Jesus had still raises the dead. Many believed in Jesus. So Peter stays there for a while in Joppa, uh, in a beach house, belonging to Simon, the
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Tanner, right? Enjoying the beach, I guess. And while it doesn't say we can be pretty certain that both
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Aeneas and Tabitha were Jewish. Indeed that we don't have to be told that we could just assume that they are, that they're
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Jewish is the problem. They've had it so drilled into their heads that the
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Lord is only for them. Only he's for us that God's grace and his word and his covenants are their exclusive ethnic privilege that he's just for us to the exclusion of everyone else who's included just us.
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That idea has so much part, you know, the air they breathe culturally, the water they drink kind of literally their food they eat, you know, cause it has to be different than other nations.
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Always reminding them every time they eat that they're different from other people. They've, they've had this so much as part, part of them.
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They still can't grasp that when Jesus said, go to the end of the earth, that he meant to all the kinds of people all over the earth.
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They probably thought he meant, yeah, go to the end. Cause you know, where all the Jews are scattered all over the earth, go get them to the synagogues and so forth.
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They couldn't conceive that people could believe in and follow Christ without first becoming
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Jewish now so far. Okay. Well, yeah, they've included some, some, some Samaritans.
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Yeah. But the Samaritans were basically breakaway Jews included in Ethiopian. Yeah. But he was a proselyte.
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He was a convert to Judaism to include non -Jews, which is unthinkable to them.
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So the first one to do it is God himself. And we see that here in four major parts.
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First, the visitation, second, the vision, third, the sermon, and finally the sign.
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It occurs to me just now, you may be thinking, whoa, you usually give these parts at the very beginning. And now you're like, how many minutes into this?
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Is it how long is this sermon going to be two hours long? No, don't worry about that. Don't worry about it. It might be, don't worry about it.
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First, the visitation at Caesarea, just up the coast of where Peter is, is staying as a Roman officer, centurion, a commander of a hundred soldiers.
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So I guess something like a captain today, he's a religious man who was known as a, as a God fearer, someone who believed in the
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Lord, a Gentile who believed in the Lord, who believed he was real and, and, you know, basically tried to follow him except hadn't converted to Judaism yet.
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His whole family was that way. He showed his faith by giving generously, especially to the poor and praying.
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One day at about 3 PM, he gets a visitation. He's praying and has a vision of an angel coming to him saying,
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Cornelius, he's terrified and ask, you know, what is it
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Lord? Probably like, sir. And the angel says, your prayers, your alms have ascended as a memorial before God, got him recognized and now send men to Joppa and bring one,
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Simon, who was called Peter. Again, this is like last week. Remember that Jesus appears to Paul and tells him to go see someone else.
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Tell him, you know, why not have the angel tell him directly what the Lord wants.
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Once he went here, Cornelius wants him to hear why, why tell it, why refer him to some other person, but to a human being?
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Well, because God works through, through means. God works through means. He works through people, through the church.
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The angel is just sent to make the connection, to connect Cornelius with, with Peter. So Cornelius sends three soldiers.
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One of them is devout with God fear like himself to go fetch Peter, but will
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Peter come? That's really the big question. Cornelius has to know that Jews don't enter the the houses of Gentiles.
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They won't fraternize with them. If Peter is like that, like he was raised to be, like any good observant Jewish person would be, when the messengers from Cornelius arrived invited him to come, he'd say no.
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So God has to prepare not only Cornelius with the angel, but also Peter.
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Both Cornelius and Peter need to be converted in a way.
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Cornelius needs to be converted to believe in Jesus. And Peter needs to be converted to believe in a
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Jesus who includes all kinds of people. And so for that, he gets a vision.
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Peter in Joppa the next day is hungry about noon. So it's lunchtime and he goes up to the housetop.
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It's probably a flat roof that they would put a stairway up to and use it sort of like a balcony.
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And probably he's enjoying the view of the sea. Maybe he's watching sailboats go by being blown along with their, you know, their sheet like sails.
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And he falls into a trance and in the trance that the heavens are opened and he sees something like a huge sheet or maybe a huge sail would be the same word being descending, maybe like a huge tablecloth descending.
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And on it were all kinds of animals, not just cows, but pigs, reptiles like crocodiles and birds.
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A voice echoes, rise Peter, kill and eat. He knows that's the voice of the
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Lord, but incredibly he says, no, Lord, you think he'd know better than to say, say that by now, when you think he would learn by now, don't, don't be telling the
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Lord, do you know his business better than he does? Last time he did that, the Lord turned to him and said, Satan, but he's so indoctrinated like everyone else in his culture that we don't eat that.
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We're separate. We're holy. We show our separateness by not eating those, those pigs or whatever it is.
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So he refuses by no means, Lord, no way I'm doing that for. I've never eaten anything that is common or unclean.
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Never. I'm not going to start now, but the voice responds, but God has made clean.
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Do not call common. This happened three times. Uh, once for each of the three
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Roman soldiers coming to him, I think that's probably the connection, right? Three soldiers coming three times.
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He was perplexed by this because this was counter to everything that he had been trained in from when he was a boy.
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He still hadn't fully understood that everything that Jesus taught him, Jesus had taught that it's not what goes into a person, right?
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He had heard this himself. He had heard this straight from Jesus's lips. That is not what goes into a person. It's not the food or the drink that makes people unclean.
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It's not pork. It's not even some people still need to know today. It's not the beer or the wine. It's what comes out the hatred, the racial slurs, the slander, the, the, the angry insults, the sexual immorality, the degree, the living for making another dollar.
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That's what makes us unclean. Not the food you eat or how you eat it with unwashed hands, stuff like that.
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In Mark chapter seven verses 18 and 19, Jesus says, uh, do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled.
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And then Mark adds one thing about Mark tradition says Mark was written under the influence, under authority from the words of, you know, who
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Peter I expect you believe would be basically the gospel according to Peter and Mark ads in parentheses in our versions, probably something that they probably maybe
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Peter himself telling Mark about Jesus many years later, something they understood under the inspiration of the
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Holy spirit. Only much later after years of meditating, what did Jesus mean? This is not what goes into a person that defiles them is what comes out.
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Maybe after a vision like this, they add right after Jesus says, uh, it's not what goes into a person, but it's not in his heart, but his stomach is expelled.
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And Mark then in parentheses, thus he, Jesus declared all foods clean.
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Peter is about to see that his vision means a lot more than just about what to eat.
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But first it is indeed literally about food because it was the laws on unclean food that separated
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Israel and excluded people like Cornelius. What God has made clean do not call common.
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Now, while he's thinking about this, he's perplexed. Now, this is just a major change for him.
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It's wondering, what is it that is no longer excluded? There's a knock at the gate.
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Three Roman soldiers just now arrived with an invitation from Cornelius for Peter. They said in verse 22,
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Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God -fearing man who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, who, who was directed by an
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Holy angel to send for you to come to his house and hear what you have to say. It sounded like a great invitation.
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How could you turn that down? But, but still, I think if not for the vision, Peter probably would have said, no, thanks.
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There's the visitation to Cornelius to make the connection. There's the vision to Peter.
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And now there's the sermon. Peter was some friends from the church brothers in verse 23, went up to Caesarea.
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So it's about 30 miles. So he probably set up that day about half the way there and finished the next day, about 30 miles from Joppa to Caesarea to see
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Cornelius. And when they arrived the next day, Cornelius greeted Peter like he was a God, falling down at his feet and worshiping him.
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Peter wouldn't be treated like a God. And he'd seen that he shouldn't treat Cornelius like a dog.
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So he lifted him up. I too am a man. Cornelius had gathered a crowd there in his house.
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Centurion is an officer. He's paid pretty well. It's probably a pretty good size house. Probably all his family and the soldiers who were interested, like that one devout one that he sent to go get
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Peter are there. So there's this crowd there in his house. And Peter remarks in verse 28, you yourselves know how unlawful that is contrary, not against the law of God, but contrary to their tradition, to their culture, their upbringing, what they've been taught for since they were born, how unlawful it is for a
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Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation. You know, we just don't do this.
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You know what I've just done. I've stepped in your house and I'm about to talk to you. We don't do this normally, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.
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Any person, he got it, didn't he? He understood that the vision wasn't just about food, but about people.
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Cornelius repeats for us his story about the visitation of the angel. Why is this repeated again? Well, when a story is repeated like that in the
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Bible, because we have to read it again, right? That's for emphasis. He's saying that this is important.
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Don't miss this. I'm going to make you read these words again. So you don't miss it.
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The visitation is important because it shows how important overcoming cultural barriers and including all kinds of people is to the
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Lord. Starting in verse 34, Peter preaches to the gathering of Cornelius's house. Again, he gets it because he starts out truly.
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I understand once he's heard that story from Cornelius. I understand that God shows no partiality and he means about nations, ethnic groups.
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He doesn't love one nation more than another one race more than another. And inclusion is important to him.
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In verse 35, in every nation, every ethnic group, anyone who fears him and does what is right like Cornelius is acceptable to him.
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Now that doesn't mean some people have twisted that. Then that means you can be just be saved by, you know, by saying you fear him and do good works, giving alms and making prayers.
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No, here, obviously Cornelius himself isn't saved yet, but they are acceptable to have the gospel revealed to them.
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Any ethnic group is acceptable, can be included in church if they believe. Cornelius has heard about Jesus.
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He starts out that way. Peter says, you've heard, you know, this story about Jesus.
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You've heard about it through the grapevine, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power, how
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Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. This isn't like totally new news to him.
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He's heard the stories about Jesus. He just hasn't believed in him yet. He's not converted yet.
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Peter says about Jesus that he wasn't just another, you know, do -gooder or a prophet or whatever
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Cornelius might have, might've thought he was. Oh, Jesus was another prophet who wasn't, who knows what he thought like people in other religions today usually say
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Jesus is good. They use that. I don't know. I hardly know anyone. I don't know if there's any religion that says Jesus is, well,
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I guess Judaism. I don't know any religion that's just rejects him as sort of was just wrong or evil.
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I once stepped inside a mosque in Singapore and a friendly man there told me that they, he says, we believe in, we, we
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Muslims believe in Jesus too. Isa they call him. He's a prophet. Buddhists probably say he was enlightened.
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He's an enlightened one. What is it? The term Buddha Vista, something like that. Yeah. They probably say something, something like that. Some, some new religions even now incorporate
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Jesus as one of their great holy men of history. Cornelius probably believes something like that about Jesus.
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He's a great prophet. He did these great things, God power and horrible thing that happened to him, but he doesn't believe like he's the savior or the
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Lord of all. But Peter says that's not enough. Whatever Cornelius believed verse 36, Jesus is
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Lord of all. He's in charge of the entire universe.
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I mean, what he didn't even, he didn't take time to warm Cornelius up to the idea. He goes right for it.
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He is Lord of all. And God was with him in verse 38.
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We, we apostles, we are witnesses. He says they put him to death by hanging him on a tree. And back there, he could have said, hang him on a cross.
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I mean, the Roman guy wouldn't know what that is, but he referred to a tree, I think, to connect it with the passage in the law where it says that anyone who has hung on a tree is cursed, is judged by God.
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And so he's showing that Jesus took our curse for us, our sins, our judgment.
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But Peter says, but God raised him on the third day and made him appear not to all the people, but to us who have been chosen by God as witnesses.
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And so now Peter is witnessing to it. He says in verse 41, we ate and we drank with him and he rose that he rose from the dead after he rose from the dead.
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Yeah. So Jesus commanded us to go be as witnesses.
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And, and we, we, you know, we, we ate with him. It wasn't just a ghost. It wasn't just a spirit. We can testify to that.
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And Peter says that Jesus told them to preach to the people, to testify that he, that Jesus is not just another great holy man, not just another prophet, not just a guru, but he is the one appointed by God to judge the living and the dead.
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He is the one seated, you know, at that judge's seat on that final judgment day.
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He's the one, everyone, even the great prophets, so -called prophets in history, like Mohammed, great scholars or holy men like Confucius or Lao Tzu are, are our own ancestors.
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They will have to give account to him. And so he, Peter says to him, all the prophets bear witness.
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He's not just another prophet. He's the one, all the prophets were writing about. So the old Testament that Cornelius was studying is about Jesus, Peter says.
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So it's not just ancient history, the old Testament, not just ancient history about Israel or about a now finished dispensation.
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It's about Jesus. Every prophet like Isaiah testifies that everyone, all the kinds of people like in Isaiah 52, remember that all the nations that were the, will be sprinkled by the servant.
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The servant gives him his life as a guilt offering for, for people from every nation, not just for Israel, who cleansed them of their sin to be an atoning sacrifice.
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Everyone, no matter what their race or ethnicity who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
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That's a sermon. He could get to a conclusion. It would be obvious, an invitation, but he doesn't have to, but it's so obvious then believe in Jesus.
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You do, you have forgiveness of sins. As Peter is saying that everyone who believes in him, no matter the race, ethnicity receive forgiveness of sins.
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As he's saying that they believe that they, they believed in Jesus that he was who he was
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Lord of all who Peter said he was because they believe they receive like all true believers do when they believe they received the
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Holy spirit. And we know, we know that we know that they received the Holy spirit because of the sign.
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There's the visitation, right? The vision, the sermon, and now finally the sign, the sign is the same sign that the 120 disciples received on the day of Pentecost.
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Notice that they were speaking in tongues and extolling God. The speaking in tongues here is not to communicate to people from other nations, like in Acts chapter two, because that doesn't appear to be anybody from other nations up there.
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And there's these people, they're probably Italian. And then there's the Jews that came with Peter. It's not to communicate with people in their mother tongue from all kinds of places, but simply to be assigned is to be proof.
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It's to be evidence that they have indeed Cornelius and his bunch have indeed received the
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Holy spirit. Receiving the Holy spirit is experiential, not inferential.
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It's something that is experienced and it makes a difference in your life. A difference that shows it produces evidence.
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It's not just a doctrine. You believe, I believe because I believe these facts. Therefore I have the Holy spirit. It's not something that you infer that you have.
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So, you know, you reason, you know what I mean by infer you reason, I believe these doctrines because I agree with them and I'm not arguing with them.
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Anyway, maybe I've, maybe, maybe you think, well, I've been baptized. Therefore I can infer that I have the
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Holy spirit because that's what they teach me in my doctrine class. Even though I don't feel any different, I don't really love
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God or his word any more than I did before. No, that's not it. That's trying to infer the
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Holy receiving. The Holy spirit is experiential, not inferential. The Holy spirit shows in signs.
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They may be signs of changed desires. Maybe the signs here, or maybe they're just signs of a new desires, a longing to love and to worship
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God. But there are signs here. The signs are not just for the people listening for, for Kenias and his bunch, for Peter's audience.
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The signs are at least in part for Peter and his friends who came with him.
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Peter had his vision, you know, but his, so he was probably open now. He understood, but his friends, you know, brother, as they're called from Joppa still have a hard time understanding that through Christ, God includes all kinds of people in verse 45.
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It says they were amazed. They were astonished for them.
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This is just a, a worldview shattering experience. This doesn't happen.
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God does not accept these kinds of people. Doesn't God know that? Why is he giving the
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Holy spirit to people? We know God doesn't accept God's got this all wrong, but you know, they were just, they could not grasp this at first.
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They were thinking we're God's people were the elect. And that excludes them.
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An election based on race excludes only an election based on grace includes.
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Well, now they had a sign that God includes these other, whatever they used to think, dirty, unclean, ignorant, barbaric foreigners.
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These others, God includes them. The sign proves it.
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So Peter, hearing the signs, in verse 47, can anyone hold water for baptizing these people who have received the
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Holy spirit, just as we have God's included them just like he included us.
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This is amazing. So can anyone say they can't be baptized? No, of course not.
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Notice by the way that the baptism doesn't confer the Holy spirit. They've already saved the Holy spirit before they're baptized, right?
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This church of Christ people want to come to, well, they want me to go debate on TV and they believe you've, you are converted and you've received the
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Holy spirit when you are baptized and you've got to be baptized in their church. And that's what makes you saved and get you the
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Holy spirit. But here, obviously they're saved, right? They're there. They have the
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Holy spirit. They're stolen God and they haven't been baptized yet. Now they should be baptized and they, and they do baptism.
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Does it confer the Holy spirit? You received the Holy spirit with your faith when you receive your faith and are then baptized.
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Wanting to be baptized may be one of the signs that you have indeed received the Holy spirit, but faith and that, but faith and the spirit come first, then baptism who's included the
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Holy spirit has included them. How can we not to exclude people?
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God has included is to insult God, to arrogantly tell
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God that we're better than him. We're more Holy than he is. Sure.
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God may associate with this riffraff, but not us. We're higher.
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We're pure. No, you're just arrogant and hateful. Yet this was the idea that permeated the religion of this area.
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I hear casual County, North Carolina, the South, right?
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We can separate. We can say, there are some people God has included that we're not going to include that was that's permeated this area for the last 150 years.
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Churches, so -called churches would say, God may accept you, but we don't because you're not one of us.
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God may include you, but we won't. And it's not ancient history.
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This building was built to keep some people out. This building was built to exclude a few months after we moved here in 2007,
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I spoke to the pastor of Sassafras Grove Baptist church, the black church, a few miles down the road. And he told me about the segregated school.
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This is the first I heard of it segregated school that tried to open up our Piedmont Academy. It did open up and they built that built that school here.
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They built the gym. That's where we are. All right. He told me about this open up right down the road.
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Little did I know it actually be in their building at the time, but you just told me the story about the segregated school that opened up and for the purpose of keeping him and his children out.
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And he said, thank God it closed down. But you know that for years, even after it closed down this building stood as a monument, even though it was a furniture factory or whatever it was, it stood as a monument to exclusion, to segregation, to racism, to the statement that we don't care who
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God includes. We're only accepting our kind. So when
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Damien Farmer, one of our Jim jr.
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Kids, the 12 year old boy lay dead in a casket right here. I declared to a, to a gym, a full gym.
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The chairs were to the, to the back full. I declared that though these four walls were built to keep out boys like Damien Farmer, King Jesus had other ideas that it would eventually belong to a church that was a tit or including all the kinds of people that God is including.
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And it was a wave of applause and of relief could feel the relief just arising from the audience relief that this former monument to exclusion had been converted to the opposite.
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How important is inclusion integration, breaking down racial ethnic cultural barriers that his people,
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God's people aren't defined by being white or black or Chinese. How important is that to the
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Lord? It's so important here. He sends an angel, a vision, the
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Holy spirit, Jesus himself to build a church where there's no
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Jew or Greek, white or black, slave or free Chinese or American.
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We're all one in Christ. Jesus. It's that important.
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Who's included. Believers are included no matter where they're from believers, believers who believe that he is
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Lord of all that he will be the final judge believers who believe that he's the one.
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The old Testament says sprinkles people from, from all nations of their sin, whose name is the one to call on for salvation believers who believe in the name of Jesus.
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All who believe that are included. So the real question, the real issue for you right now is are you included?