As We Continue Growing In Christ This Week

• Are you anxious about your salvation? Are you searching, longing, trying to figure it out, not sure if you really understand? You don’t have to worry. We do not search him of our own initiative. 

John 6:44 says, “For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up.”  If you are searching, it is because of God. He is working. It is a sign of his presence in your life. 

• Are you plagued by self-doubt? Do you feel badly about yourself? Do you have trouble forgiving yourself for your past? “Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean” (Acts 10:15). If you are “In Christ” there is much to believe about who God has made you to be. Now, arise, and live your life as a joyful response of obedience to what God has done for you. 

• Peter was discipled by Jesus. He is the one sharing the gospel with Cornelius. However, Peter still has things to learn. His encounter with Cornelius, someone from a different culture, teaches him things he did not previously understand. Parts of Peter still needed the transforming work of God’s truth and Spirit. He still had latent racism that needed to be transformed by the gospel. 

• God spoke to both Peter and Cornelius because they placed themselves in positions where they could hear from him. Has our work or how we spend our leisure time crowded out the time we devote to hearing from God? 

• “It did not matter how small the group was to start with so long as they reproduced and taught their disciples to reproduce. . . Through the dedicated lives of those who knew the Savior so well that his Spirit and method constrained them to tell others. As simple as it may seem, this way the way the gospel would conquer. He had no other plan.” 

Robert Coleman

“It did not matter how small the group was to start with so long as they reproduced and taught their disciples to reproduce. . . Through the dedicated lives of those who knew the Savior so well that his Spirit and method constrained them to tell others. As simple as it may seem, this way the way the gospel would conquer. He had no other plan.” 

Robert Coleman

Gospel Breakthrough:

Even Gentiles Believe!

The Book Acts part 13

“A barren Christian is a contradiction. 

A tree is known by its fruit.” Robert Coleman

“These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also,” Acts 17:6 ESV

Church In the Pines

West Wareham, MA

Acts 10: 34-48

³⁴ Then Peter replied, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. ³⁵ In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right. ³⁶ This is the message of Good News for the people of Israel—that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. ³⁷ You know what happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee, after John began preaching his message of baptism. ³⁸ And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

       ³⁹ “And we apostles are witnesses of all he did throughout Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a cross, ⁴⁰ but God raised him to life on the third day. Then God allowed him to appear, ⁴¹ not to the general public, but to us whom God had chosen in advance to be his witnesses. We were those who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. ⁴² And he ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is the one appointed by God to be the judge of all—the living and the dead. ⁴³ He is the one all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in him will have their sins forgiven through his name.”

       ⁴⁴ Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message. ⁴⁵ The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles, too. ⁴⁶ For they heard them speaking in other tongues and praising God.

       Then Peter asked, ⁴⁷ “Can anyone object to their being baptized, now that they have received the Holy Spirit just as we did?” ⁴⁸ So he gave orders for them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Afterward Cornelius asked him to stay with them for several days.

Consulted and quoted: 

John Stott, Timothy Keller, Ajith Fernando, Leroy Eims, R.C. Sproul and Robert Coleman. *The outline is modified from Timothy Keller

• Conversion occurs because of God’s Initiative.

• An angel appeared and spoke to Cornelius and told him to find Peter (10:3-7; 30-31). Cornelius would not have searched for Peter on his own. He did not know who Peter was. Also, God spoke in a vision to Peter to challenge his worldview. Leroy Eimes

• God spoke to Peter when he was praying. He was not even praying during one of the times for prescribed Jewish prayer. He was not playing board games, watching TV, fishing, or playing Pokémon. We will never know the secrets of God without spending time with him. 

• There are two “conversions” happening here. Cornelius will be born again, and Peter’s worldview will be radically transformed from an ethnocentric, “My people first” view to a “God shows no favoritism” understanding (10:28, 34). John Stott

• Conversion occurs through the sharing of the Gospel.

• Conversion occurs through a challenge to religion. God has seen Cornelius’ goodness (10:2, 31). God does not say, “Keep it up, do more good things, they will outweigh your sins.” God says, I have seen your good deeds, now go find Peter so that he can preach the Gospel to you (10:5-6). Tim Keller

• Peter preaches the sinless life of Jesus, his death on the cross and his resurrection (10:36-44). Your testimony is important, but is an illustration of the Gospel, not the gospel itself. “The content of the Gospel is very specific, the scope is wide, in fact, universal” John Stott

• Conversion occurs by the power of the Holy Spirit.

• While Peter was speaking they believed the message and the Spirit fell on them (10:44-46). This amazed Peter and the other Jewish believers. God seems to have done this intentionally in front of the Jewish believers to remove all doubt that his grace was being offered to everyone (Acts 15:8). 

• The work of the Spirit is normative in all conversions. Visions and speaking in tongues are not. The Ethiopian did not speak in tongues when he converted, neither did Lydia, and neither of them saw visions.