A Remarkable Day for People Without Hope — Carter Conlon

Cornelius and the Remarkable Day of Hope

If you'll turn to Acts chapter 10, please, in the New Testament, I'd like to speak to you about a remarkable day for people without hope. A remarkable day for people without hope. Acts chapter 10, beginning at verse 1.

There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian Band, or that was a regiment. He was a commander of a regiment called the Italian Regiment of Soldiers.

A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms, and it technically means, if you'll check other translations, he gave generously to the poor. He gave much alms to the people and prayed to God always.

He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day, an angel of God coming into him, and saying to him, Cornelius. And when he looked on him, he was afraid and said, what is it, Lord? And he said unto him, thy prayers and thine alms, or your prayers and your generous deeds are come up for a memorial before God.

And now send men to Joppa and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter. He lodges with one Simon a Tanner, whose house is by the seaside, and he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do. A remarkable day for people without hope.

Gentiles Without Christ and Without Hope

Now you and I are about to study today, it's an incredible story of the release of God's redemption and life-changing power upon a group of people that would have been considered up to that time without hope.

Now keep in mind the gospel at a certain point, I mean the Old Testament form of it, was only for the Jews. It was not for you and I, unless you're a Jew here today. It was the rest of the world was really locked out.

Ephesians 2, verses 11 and 12, here's what Paul says, wherefore remember that being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision, or that really means unset apart for God, by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

What an incredible tragedy that was. You know and you and I could say today that Satan had breached the wall of God's protection that was in Eden, and except for that interval for the Jewish nation, he was allowed virtually unfettered access to destroy men and women who were created in the image of God.

Seemingly he could do it at will. And so the question we ask ourselves today is what kind of a person will God use to bring about hope in a hopeless situation? And it's significant to you and I because we're living in a time that apart from the working of God, it appears to be hopeless.

Some here today, your family situation, unless there's an intervention, a divine intervention of God, it looks hopeless. Your neighborhood looks hopeless. You look out the window of your living room and you see the young people in the streets.

You hear the conversation, the godlessness that seems to be almost like a tsunami trying to roll itself over our whole society and honestly, apart from the kingdom of God, it really does have an appearance of hopelessness about it.

Loving God and Loving the Neighbor

And so there's a question we must ask. What kind of a person will God use to break this log jam? What kind of a church will God use? What kind of a people or called by the name of God will he use? Now in Luke chapter 10 verses 25 and onward, the scripture tells us that a certain lawyer stood up and tested Christ and said, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

Now keep in mind his question is a future question. What shall I do, in other words, to go to heaven? What shall I do to know that when I die that I'm going to live with God forever? And he said to him, what is written in the law?

How do you read it? I'm paraphrasing it from the King James, but what do you read? With all your study, Mr. Interpreter of Truth, what have you found in the whole of the Old Testament that he would have had access to?

What is the heart of it? What do you think you have to do to have eternal life? And he answered and said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.

And he said unto him, this is Jesus responding, Thou hast answered right. This do, and thou shalt live. Now it's an interesting point here because he asks a question in the future tense. What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?

You know, his concept is that this is a question that's, when I die, how can I know that I'm going to have eternal life? And when Jesus answers him, when he gives the answer in a sense, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor.

So let that love for God be translated in a sense into your relationship with your neighbor. And he said, do this and you will live. And it's amazing because his answer is in the present tense as well as the future tense.

It really means you'll be caused to live. Do this and you will be caused by God to live, not just eternally, but you will be caused to live now. There's something of God's life that will come into you.

This is why the lawyer wanting to justify himself because he knew he knew the answer, but he wasn't doing it. And he said, I'm willing to justify himself. He asked a question, who is my neighbor? Now he must've thought that was a really tricky question.

Now Jesus answers him and gives him an illustration of types of religion that claim intimacy and access to God, but neither finds life for itself nor opens to others the life which God longs to give to all people.

And he gives them the illustration of the certain type of the first kind of a person that passes by and doesn't really want to see human need. Could rightly claim a love for God. This is a type of person who goes to church and basically says, I love God.

And there's a measure of truth in it. I love God. I love his word. I love his presence. I love his promises. I love God. And that's a very real, but seeing somebody wounded and bleeding on the side of the road, just simply passed by.

This is a type of person who didn't want to see human need. Wants to see God, but does not want to see the work of God. Does not want to really be anything that represents God in the earth. I just want to go to church and leave me alone.

Thank you very much. If God wants to save the world, he can save the world. He's God. He's already saved me. So I'm just going to go to church and I don't, I'm just going to put my horse blinders on on Sunday morning and I don't want to see human need.

I don't want to see it during the week. If, if I happen to have a television and I flip on the channel and it's about a starving people somewhere else, I'll just flip it to something else. Cause I don't want to see it.

Don't put it before me. I'm not interested in it. I've got enough problems of my own. And that's the type of the, the Pharisee or who passed by a priest, it says, and he was on his way to worship. And he just, he just, he just immediately passed by the other side.

And he talks about a Levite came to the same place where a man was wounded and bruised and left for dead on the side of the road. And it says he came by and he looked on him and passed by on the other side.

In other words, this is the type of a person who considers it like you and I, we hear these words today and we're not exactly completely opposed to it, but we're not really hot to the idea either. And considers human.

He considers for a moment, stops and it says it looked on him, thought about it, maybe knew what could be done, but it would be so time consuming and it would require so much and it would, it would take away from what he really wanted to do.

And after looking for a moment, I guess he just passed by as well on the other side. And then J Jesus shows us how the selfish and self-seeking religion, it offers no hope to us, a suffering generation.

It cannot in itself create a remarkable day for anyone. It is, it is strictly just, it's more or less halfway to where God would have us to be as a people. And now Jesus goes on to give us a picture of a man who's completely outside of the religious climate of the day.

Cornelius and a Religion That Serves Others

In other words, there's a, the society in our time is, is largely focused on itself in the house of God. I know that's not just my opinion. I've been around long enough. I've, I've seen enough, I've heard enough to know that we, we adopted a theological focus in the house of God that was more or less self-centered.

And we sit back and wonder, say, God, why do we fast and you don't hear us? Why do we do all this religious service in it? And we're not making that much of an impact in our generation. But God looks to a man who's, who's walking outside of that religious temperature.

May I call it that, that self-seeking religion that's filling churches in this country right now, but really it's just a self-seeking filling. It's not the type of a relationship with God that can really affect change in our society.

But this man actually is doing something that puts him in a place where he's open to the life, which God offers in Christ, both for himself and for others. And he's a Samaritan, which means in this parable, he's outside of the religious system.

And you and I, there's a, there's a, there's a point where we just have to get to by God's grace, where we walk outside of a whole self-seeking system, whether it's in the society that we're living in or in the church or in our own heart, there comes a point where it said, God helped me to get outside of the selfishness of this hour that we're living.

And the selfishness is ruining this generation. It's, it's robbed us of statesmen. It's robbed us of true leadership. It's, it's robbed us in the house of God, of his living word. And it's robbed the people of our generation of a remarkable day that God wants to give them those that are without hope.

And this is what happened through the life of a Gentile man called Cornelius. He was a man who was outside of the system, but the scripture tells us that he was a man who was praying, praying to know God.

It had to be to know God because he didn't, obviously he was without hope himself at this point. And he was giving generously to the poor. And this is the kind of a man, you know, when, when we read this chapter Acts 10, we all always focus on Peter, don't we?

We always focus on Peter going to Simon's house, going up on the roof, a sheaf comes down, that that's our whole focus. And then he goes to Peter again, we focus on, goes to a Gentile's house called Cornelius.

And as Peter preaches, the Holy Spirit comes. It's almost like the Gentiles are just more or less props in a play. We don't really realize that Peter is not the central figure in this story in Acts chapter 10.

Cornelius is the central figure in the story. It's this man who lives outside of a, of a whole system of self-focused and exclusive religion up to that point. That's what it was. It was, it was only contained within a small demographic of society, but now God wants to broaden it.

He wants to open eternal life to millions and millions and more millions around the world. So what kind of a man, what kind of a person is he going to look for? Now, Cornelius is a man of prayer. And technically through his life, the way of eternal life through faith in Christ was open to the entire non-Jewish world.

You and me, we owe a lot to Cornelius, I'll tell you right now. We hardly ever think about his name, but this is a man who's seeking God. It says he prayed to God always, and he was, he was giving to the poor generously.

And technically speaking, he was fulfilling the two commandments that a man who purported to know God was not willing to fulfill. Here's a man completely outside of the system who was actually fulfilling the two most important commandments of the Old Testament up to that time.

And dare I say, the New Testament as well today. He was a devout man in Acts 10 .2 who feared God with all his house and gave much alms to the people and prayed to God always. Verse 4, and when he looked on him, he was afraid and said, what is it Lord?

And he said unto him, your prayers and your alms, your prayers and your generous deeds to the poor are come up for a memorial before God. Verse 30, and Cornelius tells Peter, four days ago, I was fasting until this hour.

And at the ninth hour, I prayed in my house and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing. You remember in Isaiah 58, it says, if you don't hide from human need, if you and I don't hide, then when we say, Lord, we call out, he says, here I am.

It's amazing. Here's a man who's praying. He's really outside the kingdom of God in the sense of, of true faith in Christ. And suddenly a messenger of the Lord stands before him. And he said, verse 31, Cornelius, your prayers heard and your charitable deeds are had in remembrance in the sight of God.

Compassion as the Vessel of God's Salvation

Now, listen to me. I'm not, be careful. I'm not speaking about works for salvation. You cannot work your way through to the kingdom of God. But what I am speaking about is a type of people who choose to live in such a way that it opens their hearts to an understanding of God.

And it opens the hearts of others to the life and power, which is freely offered in Jesus Christ. Cornelius, it tells us, he gathered together his friends and his near kinsmen. And when Peter came to the house in verse 25, it says, or near verse 25, it says, when he talked with them in verse 27, he went in and found that many were come together.

Many people, Gentiles outside the kingdom of God brought together by a man of prayer and a man who was at a heart of tenderness and compassion for people who were in need. Folks, if we want to make a difference, I want to suggest to you that this is exactly what God is looking for in our generation.

Not looking for more religion. He's not looking for more praise as wonderful as all of that is. He's got all of heaven to praise him right at this very moment. No, he's looking for men and women who are willing to pray.

And they're not praying just for themselves. There had to be something in this man that caused his friends and family to gather around. I can see the whole house being filled and it's filled with people who are without hope.

This is what makes this story so significant. It's God found a man through whom he could, in a sense, release forgiveness to millions of people throughout the world. I feel in my heart that the Lord is saying, I'm looking for a church.

I'm looking for a people. I'm looking for an agreement among my own people in this generation that if you will not hide from human need, when you pray, I'll come. I'll come in power. But I'm not just going to come because you fast.

I'm not just going to come because you put on a display of devotion, which is what a lot of religion has become. It's a display, but it simply passes by human need. It ignores human need. It considers it for a moment, but carries on in its journey.

No, God says, I'm looking for somebody who's willing to live outside of a system of selfishness and self-seeking. This is a self-seeking generation. This is a self-seeking church age, especially in the Western world, America in particular.

And the Lord says, I want to do a work in your generation that's far beyond anything you've ever imagined. How could Cornelius have imagined that as Peter began to speak about Jesus Christ, that the Holy Spirit, they didn't even know what the Holy Spirit was.

And as Peter was simply speaking about redemption and Jesus Christ, it shocked him as much as it did Cornelius in his whole house, as he was speaking the Holy Spirit fell. Folks, I feel this is the gospel that's going to have to be preached in this generation.

That as we speak, the Holy Spirit falls. As we speak, God comes to the hungry hearts that he will gather around. And who is the person that he will use to gather these? Isaiah 58. I'm going to read it to you again.

I'm going to read it to you a thousand times before I die or before I leave this church. You're going to hear this until you know it backwards. Is it not to do your bread to the hungry, bring the poor that are cast out to your house.

Will you see the naked that you cover him and that you do not hide yourself from your own flesh. And that means from humankind. You do not hide from human need. You're open. Your heart is open. Your prayers are open.

We're not praying for ourselves. There's a, there's a measure of that necessary. I understand that, but there's, there's a substantial portion of our prayer is not about ourselves. It's about others. It's about, it's about the children that need to know there's a heavenly father that loves them.

It's about people around us that can't feed their children. There's not enough money at the end of the month. We simply, as a church age can't close our eyes to human need anymore and expect the glory of God to be in our midst.

And many people tried this. And that's why the Pentecostal churches in particular turned to such foolishness in the last 15 years, because it was all self-focused in the house. And all it did is lead to delusion power without purpose leads to delusion folks.

That's the very essence. That's the core of delusion. But this man was not a deluded man. He actually in himself fulfilled the great commission of God in the old Testament to love God with all his heart and to love his neighbors himself.

And because of it, God was able to gather people around him. If he only knew what God was going to do through his life. If you only knew today, if you open your heart in compassion to human need, what God will do through your life.

He had no way of knowing the whole Gentile world was about to have the gospel released to them. They were going to be brought out of hopelessness and into the hope of God through Jesus Christ, through this man Cornelius.

It was only while I was studying this week that I saw this, the great debt we owe this man, a Gentile man who was not a believer in Christ, but he actually fulfilled what believers in Christ are called to do.

And God said, I've heard your prayers and your charitable deeds have come before me as a memorial. Now, I'm not even going to get into the theology of that. I just know that God heard this man because the scripture says so.

He heard his cry. I want to know you, God. I want to know who you are. I want to walk with you. I want to see human suffering. I want to see people know you all around me. And it was through this man that people gathered.

Wouldn't it be wonderful in the coming days that you could gather people in your living room who are without hope right now and just simply because you've chosen to reach out to them in their need, because you've not turned a blind eye, because your religion is not self-focused, you open your mouth and begin to speak about Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost comes and fills them.

Why not? Give me one reason why not. Surely Jesus Christ is the same today as he was yesterday and will be forever. These things are not given to us in scripture just to tease us as some kind of an unattainable event in the past.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. I believe with all my heart that Christ doesn't change. We change. He doesn't change. He is still the same. The way he did things, he will still do it again in our generation. Is it not to deal your bread to the hungry?

Bring the poor that are cast out to your house. When you see the naked, cover him and don't hide from your own flesh. Then shall your light break forth as the morning. Your health shall spring forth speedily.

Your righteousness will go before you and the glory of the Lord will be your rearward. That means the weightiness of God, the full power of God will come behind you and gather you and strengthen you. When we refuse to turn a blind eye to human need, then you will call and the Lord will answer.

You will cry and he will say, here I am. And that's remember Cornelius, he cried and an angel came to him. If you take away from the midst of you the yoke, the putting forth of the finger or empty talk, speaking vanity, if you draw out your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise in obscurity and your darkness will be as the noon day.

In other words, I'll give you a testimony. You will be a candlestick on a hill. You'll not be hidden in this time of darkness. Glory to God. Glory to God. If ever there was a time to get the bushel off the candle, it's now.

If ever there was a time to be a city set upon a hill, it's now. If ever there was a moment to stand up for the testimony of Jesus Christ, it's now. If ever there was a moment to believe God for the miraculous, it's now.

If ever there was a moment to pray and say, Lord Jesus Christ, glorify your name in this generation. Glorify your name, God. Bring people to you, Lord, that are without hope. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your soul in drought and make fat your bones and you will be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not.

And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places. You will raise up the foundations of many generations and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.

And surely that's what Cornelius became. He was a repairer of the breach. He was a man who literally shut the hole in the wall that allowed the devil to come in and literally rob thousands upon multiples of thousands of lives at will and destroy homes and destroy families and destroy futures and bring people into a place where they were without God and without hope.

And he became the one through whom God opened a path for countless millions of Gentiles to come back to God. A simple man who prayed and gave as he saw the need and he gave generously to people as he saw the need.

Feeding the Hungry and Seeking Awakening

God began to speak this to my heart and I believe we're so close to being the kind of people, you and I, that the Lord needs for this hour in which we're living. That's why it's so significant what this church is doing with Feed New York in New York City, giving the ability to churches in the inner city who already have prayer meetings to feed those that are hungry because it brings our brothers and sisters in Christ into a place where God will answer their prayer, where they're not hiding as it is anymore from human need, but they're reaching out in the strength that God has given them.

And this is the seed of an awakening in New York City. I'm convinced of it with all my heart. It is the most important venture we've ever undertaken as a church. It's worth everything. It's worth every moment of sacrifice.

It's worth everything that God has called us to do to become a strength to our brothers and sisters who want to do these things throughout the city, who are already crying out to God, believing that the Lord's going to fill these churches and fill those who come with his Holy Spirit.

God Almighty, my prayer is help me to care. Help me to care. Help me to care. Help me, Lord, to not just pass by and consider and think that's good enough. Help me, Lord. And I'm not talking about giving something extra in an offering.

That's not what this is about. I'm talking about you and I giving to people directly. It's a kid across the hall that has no lunch. It's this generous giving of ourselves where the need is genuine, where it's honest, where it's clear, where it's clean.

Now keep in mind when I preach a message like this, there are frauds even sitting in this church that will rub their hands together and say, oh what a great opportunity to milk some people here out of their savings.

You need discernment. You have to know. I'm talking about the kid across the hall, folks, that just has nobody there that's going to school and is lucky to have a bag of Doritos for the whole day. That's what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the single mother that can't feed her kids at the end of the month. I'm talking about an opportunity in this season of hardship economically to reach out as the extended hand of God and watch what God will begin to do.

Watch the numbers of hurting people that we encounter throughout the day and make it a remarkable day for them. This message was called A Remarkable Day for People Without Hope. It should be a season whenever we encounter people without hope, it should be a remarkable day for them.

If we are the true church of Jesus Christ, no encounter should be casual. There should be something of God that moves with us, that walks with us, that flows through us. Little did these people know when Cornelius invited them to his house to hear the words of a stranger that they were about to be filled with the literal presence of God up to this point from the day of Eden to this point.

It was an unthinkable, unreachable, untouchable thing that God would come down and touch these people and he did it and he did it through a man who prayed and didn't close his heart to human need. Hallelujah.

A Prayer for Compassion and Obedience

Lord help me to care is the cry of my heart. Help us as a people to reach out, to obey you, to not close our hearts or as the scripture says, our bowels of compassion, to not get so swamped by the magnitude of human need.

Cornelius could have had that. He could have looked around at the Gentile world which was so godless, even in its apparent seeking of God. He could have been so overwhelmed and discouraged, but little did he know in his just a little piece of obedience that he had where he lived and the little bit of light that he had in obeying what he had, he was going to open the door to the entire Gentile world to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We owe an incredible debt to this man and I pray with all my heart that that could be our testimony. We sang it today when when we get to heaven, what will we do? I hope that it's not sighs of if only, oh God, if only I see now your benevolence, I see your grace, I see your willingness to work with power.

If only God, I had just made that extra step and done it your way. If only I'd stepped outside of my own struggles, my own needs, my own concerns and become aware to the point of doing something to help somebody.

God, what you could have done, you could have made a remarkable day. There could have been many remarkable days throughout my life for people that were without hope. If I would have just heard you and moved with it, by God's grace as a church, we're going to continue to feed people.

We're going to continue to help our brothers and sisters in Christ. I'm praying and the elders are praying with me and the pastors for a much larger vision than we have today already. God, help us so that you can answer prayer in your house so the prayer meetings are not just people gathering and bouncing words off the ceiling, but God, that it moves your heart and people start to come into the house of the Lord by the hundreds of thousands and find Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

We're so close to an understanding of what is required of us. For many, it just takes one more step, one more step into benevolence, one more step into saying I'm going to keep my eyes open and when I see need, and we're not talking about need that's always, yes, it starts in the body of Christ, thank God for that, but I'm talking about outside of the church.

When I see need, when I see somebody that's not talking about the household of faith even, somebody who just has need, that I'm not going to shut my heart of compassion. I'm going to do what I can do and the Lord says if you do that, when you call, I'll answer you.

You'll have an impact because you're going to bring people to me that will build the waste places and raise up the foundations of other generations that have lost touch with God and you will be called the repairer of the breach and the restorer of paths to dwell in.

The cry of my heart this week has been, Lord, through my life, make it a remarkable day for people without hope. Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, as much as I love you, Lord, if I don't love my neighbor, I've missed everything.

Just help me and that really should be our prayer today. God, help me because only you can give me that largeness of heart. Only you can give me the discernment to know what to do and when. You're the only one that can move upon me to do these things.

But we have 8 ,000 people in this church, probably a little more than that, but that seems to be the number we've settled on over the years and can you imagine the great good that can be done through this church if we lay hold of this and believe not just to give a sandwich to somebody but to see them filled with the Holy Spirit of God as we begin to tell them about Jesus Christ.

I believe that God wants to work in the miraculous again. We're right on the threshold of something really profound in our time. I encourage you, get into the battle. Now Father, I thank you. Lord, you've given me this word and you're the one who'll give me the strength to obey it.

I can't preach to others and then ignore it myself. You're going to have to give me the strength and the eyes and the heart. I don't want to be a man who just saunters off to church every week and is completely unaware of human need.

God Almighty, deliver me from that. I pray for this church, Lord, that give us the eyes to see what you put into our hands. Help us to understand, Lord, what you are speaking. Give us the grace to walk in this.

Teach us and guide us, Lord, in our communities, our homes, our neighborhoods, our workplace. Give us eyes to see and hearts to be kind. Lord, break us out of all self-focused religion. Father, I thank you for this in Jesus' name.

The Cross and the Switchblade: A Heritage of Compassion

We're going to worship just for a moment. All I call is very simple, very, very simple. Lord, help me to love my neighbor as myself. I know most of you love God. Let's just take it the next step and learn to love our neighbors as ourselves, believing that God will answer our prayer and make a remarkable day for somebody without hope.

Let's stand together, please, and if this is you, just come and we'll pray together in just a moment. You know, as we were worshiping, I was just thinking about the drama that's happening on Friday nights, the cross and the switchblade and the incredible impact that story is still having.

It happened in 1958 and it's still having an impact such as we're seeing young people right into the lobby and one case coming to Christ. And it started with a man who came to New York City seeking God and gave away his shoes to a homeless man.

And it opened the door to countless hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of drug addicts and people who are hopeless, considered hopeless in society, all over the world. And this is what I feel that the Lord's been trying to get me to get across today, that we have an incredible heritage, but we can't sit on that heritage.

We have an opportunity now to follow in the same footsteps and maybe those footsteps will be shoeless for a moment for a few of us, but we'll have that opportunity to see that testimony of incredible grace operate through this church, in particular, in our lives as well, individually.

Thank God for that. Lord Jesus Christ, we can't even get the fullness of what you're trying to speak to us, but God, we have a heart to obey it. We have a heart, Lord, that says, I don't want to just walk by and have a self-focused religion.

I don't want to just stop and consider this message today, but then go my way and pass the other side. I want to stop and make a difference. And so, Lord, you will put that need in front of us, each of us, Lord.

You will show us somebody we can help, somebody that has no helper, somebody that can't get up if nobody stops to help them. And whatever that means for each of us, Lord, give us the grace. And then you tell us that if you don't hide from human need, then you cry, and I will say, here I am.

A Remarkable Day for Those Without Hope

And Father, we thank you, Lord. Make this a remarkable day this week for somebody we meet that has no hope. Make it a day that is supernatural, it's sovereign, a day when God's spirit comes down and claims another heart for his kingdom.

And Father, we thank you for this, Lord. Jesus Christ, help us to care. Help us, Lord. Put your compassion inside of our hearts. There's no way we can work this up in the flesh. It doesn't work. It won't last.