Spirit-Led: Being Changed by the Spirit

Good morning. I'm Russ. I was counting on a few extra seconds to prepare myself. So we have a ton to go through today. So I know you showed up ready to roll.

So let's jump into the Bible stuff. All right. We have been walking through the Book of Acts together, taking this stroll, just kind of hitting different parts. It all kicks off in Acts 1, when Jesus says this. He says, the Spirit, you will receive the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit's gonna come on you, and you will be then my witnesses in Jerusalem. That's the city they're in, in Judea, the region around them, in Samaria. That's those people that nobody likes, all the way to the ends of the earth. These two things we've seen over and over again. The spirit moves, the Spirit fills.

There's Spirit and there's his people, God's people, bearing witness, showing and telling the good news. They come hand in hand. We're seeing that over and over again. Something that has stood out to me just as we've walked through this, seeing this theme rise up. I have stood on stages like this throughout my life and ministry.

And I've said things like, the church is on a mission. And walking through just this beginning of Acts, I'm recognizing it's not our mission, it's God's mission. The Spirit has a mission and the Spirit has us, the church. To see it accomplished, so good. And this week, we're going to look at Acts 10 and 11.

There's this hinge moment in all of human history happening right in here, and it's where we turn up, you and I. Acts 10, verse 1. At a city called Caesarea, there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian regiment. There's a whole lot there. Let's start with the city.

When you are reading the Bible and you see the names of places, geography matters. Pay attention. This is a town called Caesarea by the sea. It's an ancient port city. It is in Israel.

It's a new city. It was built within the 20 years before Jesus was born. Herod built it, named it after Caesar because, you know, Caesar liked things named after him. It's a Roman city. So think aqueducts, massive theater, hippodrome that hosted gladiator fights in Israel.

It's the official headquarters for the Roman governor and the military. You may be familiar with the name Pontius Pilate. He is famous. Famous for overseeing Jesus crucifixion. And he would have ruled from this city.

And Cornelius lives there because he's a Roman. He's living in a Roman city and he works as a centurion. What is that? This is a man who leads an elite paramilitary police force. He's in charge of things like riot control, security for the governor, highway patrol and executions.

Hear that? As crucifixions. He's a man with power and position in a place that is somebody else's place. The local people, the Jewish people. For them, Cornelius represents a system that's built on violence, coercion, allegiance to Caesar, not God.

He's the literal face of state sponsored oppression and an enemy of God's people. I mean, you could in that time and place, you would be hard pressed to find anybody that would seem farther away from God than Cornelius. But it goes on. Verse 2. He and his family were devout and God fearing.

He gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. It's a hard word to say. I've discovered this. So Cornelius is a God. Fear.

That's a specific label for a specific identity. A God fearer is someone who isn't Jewish, but. And they haven't even converted to Judaism. But they love God and they practice his way of life. Cornelius is generous and he's praying.

So he's Roman by ethnicity, but Jewish by practice. And the story here, an angel shows up to him in a vision and calls him by name. And he tells him that God has noticed him and that he's going to send a man named Peter to him. And he tells him where Peter's at. Peter's in another town called Joppa.

That place is really. Is interesting, really important. Look it up. It's really good. He's in a town called Joppa and he's at the home of a guy named Simon.

And he's a tanner by trade. And so after his vision, he doesn't wait. This angel shows up. He doesn't wait. He sends some servants and a soldier.

They immediately to go get Peter. They travel all night. So the next thing we see is. It's the next day. Peter is on a rooftop.

It's noon. He's praying and he's hungry, waiting for lunch. And he falls into a trance. We've had a vision. We've had a trance.

Verse 11. He Peter saw heaven opened in something like a large sheet, let down to earth by his four corners. And it contained all kinds of four footed animals as well as reptiles.

And then a voice told him, get up, Peter, kill and eat. Surely not, Lord. He says he's looking at lizards going, nope, not going to do it. Peter replied, I have never eaten anything impure or unclean. So there are some clear distinctives to being the Jewish way of life.

You don't work on Saturdays, Your men are circumcised, and there are some foods you just simply do not eat. Eat. Those foods are called unclean. Now, for us, we need to know that doesn't mean sinful or evil. It means ritually unclean.

It's less about the food itself. It's about what happens to you when you eat it. So to eat unclean food makes you unclean, and therefore you are not able to enter into the sacred space of the temple for a period of time. Now, you could be unclean for other reasons. Too many of them are just normal bodily things, or there are lots of different reasons you could be unclean, Ritually unclean.

So this vision that he's having is telling him, like, he's faithful to God, and that meant not eating certain kinds of things. And this vision is telling him to eat more than once. The voice spoke to him a second time and said, do not call anything impure that God has made clean. And this happened three times. And when it's over, he's mulling it around.

He's like, what? What was the meaning of this vision? He's wondering because he knows it's not about food. And he's right. God's not telling him to go out and get a blt.

So he's confident of that. It's not about food. It's actually, we're gonna see this. It's about people. So Peter's not gonna start eating pork like God's not asking him to.

In the same way God's not asking or requiring people who aren't Jewish Gentiles, like, I don't know me. He's not requiring me to not eat pork. And, Dads, if you're with me, bacon lovers, that's good news, right? This is not about food. And we see it because it's exactly at this moment the vision has happened.

He's confused and thinking about it. And while Peter was still thinking about the vision, the spirit said to him, simon, three men are looking for you. Get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them for. For I have sent them.

Now, have you noticed how quickly both Cornelius and Peter obeyed immediately. And here Peter even obeys before he fully understands.

So he goes down, he greets the men and listens to as they tell him about the whole story about the angel and Cornelius. And Peter invites the men into the house to be his guest. And the next day, Peter started out with them, along with some other believers from Joppa. They went along with him. So when Peter gets to Cornelius's house, there's a crowd.

And he says to the crowd, you are well aware that is against our law for a Jew to associate or visit a Gentile. Gentile is just simply anybody who's not Jewish, which is probably almost all of us in this room, right? It was against our law for a Jew to associate or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. What's up with the law?

There are 613 laws in the Torah. That is the first five books of what we call the Bible or the Old Testament. There are 613 laws for God's ancient people. Not one of them says that a Jew cannot visit the home of a Gentile. You can't find it there.

But see, there's a much larger set of interpretations or traditions built around those 613 laws. And so the challenge was this. The assumption was probably right that Gentile homes had unclean things in them. Unclean food, unclean idols. And so to go into their homes would make you unclean.

And therefore you were ritually unclean. So there was an unwritten rule that Peter breaks here by entering Cornelius's home. He knows now why the Spirit gave him the vision. God has shown me. He says he knows it's not about food.

It was God preparing him for this moment. God showed him that no one, no person is impure or unclean, not even a Roman oppressor executioner. Peter crosses that threshold and it is a giant step for Peter, for the church, and for you and me. Because the Holy Spirit is dynamic, living and active. And Peter has the humility to lay down deep held cultural beliefs and practices.

He doesn't let them get in the way of what God is actively doing in the lives of people. A person right in front of them. This is what obedience looks like. It looks like just simply taking the next step. God opened the door and Peter steps through.

He just follows the Spirit into the room. And Cornelius tells him that everybody here has shown up in anticipation to hear what Peter has to say. And so Peter begins to speak. And here's what he says. He says, I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism.

Other translations say God is not a respecter of persons, but accepts from how many nations, every nation, the one who fears him and does what is right. He says I now realize that language, the words being used there are about grasping. And it's about grasping something not new, something that's been true all along.

Peter says I'm now grasping what's been true all along. That the good news has always been that God is for everyone everywhere. Genesis 12. All the way back at the very beginning of the book, we see that God says, I'm going to bless my people, the Jewish people, so that all peoples, that's all people groups will be blessed through them. The prophets over and over again would say things like Isaiah says where he says that God's people will be a light and to the Gentiles, that his salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

Sound familiar? Jesus sent out the men he trained the disciples, including Peter, saying, go and make disciples of all nations, all, anyone and everyone from anywhere and everywhere. Peter says, you know the message God sent the people of Israel announcing the good news. News of peace, of wholeness, completeness, rightness through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.

And as Peter simply tells the story of Jesus again, that Jesus lived and he trained them and then he died and then he lived again. And that if they would just make Jesus their king, if they would give their ultimate loyalty to Jesus and live in ongoing trust, that they too could experience the forgiveness and the meaning and the purpose and belonging, inner wholeness and freedom that is offered with life with Jesus. And recognize Cornelius is a really good guy. He gives a ton away. He's praying all the time and yet he still needs something.

What does he need? Jesus.

So Peter shows and tells the good news and while he was still speaking, he gets interrupted. The Holy Spirit came on. All who heard the message, the circumcised believers, that's the Jewish folks who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard speaking in tongues and praising God. This is echoes of Acts 2, Pentecostal as we taught through that what we saw is that at Pentecost the Holy Spirit showed up with power and then Jesus was preached here.

What's happening? Jesus has preached. Holy Spirit shows up with power in Acts 2. The preaching is interrupted by the people tell us what to do. Here the preaching is interrupted by the Spirit, right?

That in a sense Pentecost is more than a one time event. It is an ongoing movement of God. And it happened in Jerusalem with Jewish people. And here it's happening in the living room of a pagan, privileged, unclean, enemy of God's people.

And Peter said, surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. This is beautiful, and it's good. And it confused some people. As we turn from Acts 10 to Acts 11, Peter is back in Jerusalem.

And the circumcised believers, the Jewish brothers and sisters there, criticized him and said, you went into the house of an uncircumcised men and notice and you baptized them. No, that's not the issue. You ate with them. Seems strange. Like, their question is, hey, Peter, why did you eat with them?

You were grubbing with them and left no crumbs. What's up with that, right? See, in an ancient world, eating with people was a big, big deal. It was packed with all this extra meaning. To eat with someone was to say, you and I are connected.

And it was a public thing. It reverberated publicly, not just privately. To eat with someone was telling the whole community that that person you're eating with is an equal, they are a friend, you are one with each other. And if you were around the beginning of the year, as we walked through the Book of Mark with Jesus, what we saw is that Jesus over and over again, ate with all the wrong kinds of people, tax collectors and sinners. And that word, sinners doesn't mean just human beings who do wrong things.

It was a distinction, visible social and religious underclass. It included notorious people, for sure, Tax collectors, cheats, folks like that. It also included people who sold their bodies to survive. It included people who couldn't afford to meet the extra high standards set for them by the religious elite. And they were people who were sick, just simply sick with chronic illness or skin disease.

These were the kind of people Jesus ate with, announcing to everyone around that these people are his equal, his friends, they are one. And eating with them was a way of restoring their dignity.

And Peter was trained by who? Jesus. So it's not surprising that he follows Jesus lead and he sits down with Cornelius. And the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem haven't caught up to the Spirit yet. And so Peter tells them the story from the beginning, tells them the whole story, and their response is here, verse 17.

So if God gave them the same gift he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think, this is Peter, I could stand in God's way. In other words, I'm getting out of God's way on this. And when they heard this, they had no further objections. That is, they went silent. Not because Peter owned them, but because they experienced the truth because they praised God saying so.

Then, even to Gentiles, God has granted repentance that leads to life. They don't argue, they surrender. They praise God because the same life God invited them into, the opportunity to walk with the Spirit is available not just to them, but to everyone, everywhere. This is what it looks like when the kingdom comes and God's will gets done. Walking in the Spirit results in a Jewish fisherman and a Roman centurion sharing a meal and becoming family.

The Kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit has the power to reverse the fragmentation of the world, where an enemy isn't destroyed, but rather transformed into a brother or a sister.

And what happens here ripples out through the rest of the Book and the rest of the New Testament, all the way. Yes, even to Cleaves, Ohio. Right. Any and all of us, wherever we're from, whatever kind of person we are, the good news is for us. And Luke, as he's working with the Spirit, writing the book of Acts, writing this out, he follows this story immediately with the story of another city, verse 20.

Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene went to Antioch and began to speak to. This is the first time this happens where followers of Jesus, we don't even know their names, but they went to people who aren't Jewish at all. Greeks telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord's hand was on them. And a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

Antioch is another pagan city, but this one's not even in Israel, it's in Syria. It's been excavated now as an ancient city. And what they discovered is that like most ancient cities, it had a wall around it to protect them from outsiders. But there were also high walls dividing it on the inside. Because it was a metropolitan city.

There were all kinds of nationalities. Some people think up to 14 different nationalities living in Antioch. You got Romans, Greeks, Jews, Syrians, Persians, all living on top of each other. Different cultures, different gods, lots of confusion, lots of frustration, constant race riots. And so the walls kept them safe and separate from each other.

And yet here, a great number of people turned to the Lord. So much so a couple of leaders. Barnabas, and he goes and finds Saul. And when he finds Saul, he brought him to Antioch. And for a whole year, these two leaders met with the church and taught great numbers of people.

And here's the line. The disciples were called Christians first. Antioch. Why does that have. They had to come up with a name because you got people who for the first time, en Masse have crossed the walls to worship together.

These are folks that had their own gods, their own national gods, and yet they've left them. And now they're this new kind of people. They're still Jewish, Greek, and Syrian, but they're not defined by that. They're defined and united by their shared allegiance to Jesus. So they had to come up with a new way to describe themselves.

And for the first time, they're called Christian. And they ate together and they lived together, they worshiped together. They were a deeply connected people, and they were still wildly, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. And this would be the prototype for the church going forward from here throughout the whole New Testament churches. As we read through the Book of Acts in the New Testament, they met in homes.

They didn't have buildings like this. They met in homes for hundreds of years. And the church grew. And that meant as they grew, it just meant more homes. Networked, multiethnic, culturally diverse communities.

What did that look like? Well, let's say that you're a day worker in one of these cities. Could be Antioch, could be Ephesus, could be Corinth, wherever. And you hear people talking about this Jesus guy, this new King Jesus, and you get invited, and so you show up and there's this people meeting in a home, maybe 25 of them at most. And you get there and you see three Jewish families.

One of them is a very wealthy landowner, but next to him is an Egyptian slave, and there's a Roman metal worker. There's some people from Cyprus. There's a handful of homeless people, an Asian, a Macedonian. And they're all sitting at the same table. A table.

This is the architecture of the early church. It wasn't a stage. There wasn't an altar. It was just a table. And they're at that table eating together, side by side, nobody getting a better seat, all equal, sharing some food.

And they're telling the story of Jesus and they're praying together. And then all of you, at some point get up and go out to the courtyard because somebody there professed their allegiance to Jesus, and you're headed out to the water to get him baptized. This is what it looked like. This is where the Spirit leads. This is who we are.

A band of people from all backgrounds, all cultures, all walks of life bound together into one community through Jesus Christ, celebrating and benefiting from our individual differences. And this is something we cannot make happen on our own, though we try committees, trainings, marketing strategies, whatever they are. It is the power of the Holy Spirit who Opens the door and all Peter did was step through.

So here's some good news. Doesn't matter who you are right now, whoever you are, wherever you're from, whatever, you're included, you're invited, you're welcomed by God and his people. God does not favor any person or any kind of person over another. You're invited into life with them. It's good news.

There's more good news. Whoever they are.

Look around you. It's true for you. It's true for everybody in this room. It is true for every human on earth included. Invited and welcomed.

Peter says God has shown me I should not call anyone impure. Unclean. Every one of us, everyone bears the same image of God. Everyone is someone that Jesus died for. Everyone is invited into life with him.

One preacher from the last generation said it this way simply. No boundaries, no divisions, no exclusions.

Peter was raised in a culture that labeled some people unclean. And it took the spirit breaking into his life for him to enter into a whole new way of thinking and living. And here's the challenge is that we're just like Peter. There are people that we think of in some way as unclean.

What works for me is who am I offended by? And I might be offended by, I just may think you smell funny, right? Like that's an offense. But really I'm offended by what people think or what they do, by their ethics, their positions, their views or their behaviors, their lifestyles or maybe where they come from.

So what do we do? What do followers of Jesus do when we're offended? The way of the world tells us, let that offense become contempt and we find ourselves having contempt for those whom God has made in his image. Or we foster a grievance based identity and we find ourselves defined by who we're against, instead of people who are with and for the people that God is with and for everyone, everywhere. And I'm fully aware that in a crowd this size, there are many of us that have probably lost relationships in the last 10 years simply because they think differently than we do.

We can follow the spirit instead of the world. And when he takes us to the doorstep of somebody who's unclean, somebody who offends us, we can see them the person, not the offense. We can see them as someone to love, no matter who they are, where they're from.

So who offends you? Boomers or kids these days? Poor people, rich people, woke people, maga people, black people, brown people, white people, short, bald, white pastors. Who offends you? You Laughed way too much at that.

Who offends you?

Peter said, God has shown me I should not call anyone impure or unclean.

Don't rush this, because I can't afford to rush this. Pause.

Search your heart. Because the truth is, if there is anywhere in us, deep down inside, where we despise or look down on other people or other groups of people, it's right in that place that we are resisting the Holy Spirit.

Friends, the Holy Spirit is on a mission, and he's got a church. And the church was rushing to keep up with it. And he's calling us to get out and to follow him into the intimate life where he's called us, called us to join him. That's available to us and even to those we would most strongly prefer to avoid.

Acts. Reading this has stirred something up in me, and I hope it has for you. For me, it's this. I want what they had. I want to see the Spirit move the way the Spirit's moving.

I want to be a part of a church. It's like a church they had. And I think, here's the hard part, is that means I have to actually choose the lifestyle they had. Where they prayed and where they were generous and where they practice hospitality.

And what if we did that? Simply that? What if we ate like they ate? If you know me, you know, it's not surprising. I get to food eventually, sharing meals with people who are wildly different than usual.

Because it is one thing, you know how easy it is to exclude people abstractly, to just write them off as a category or a race or a certain class of people. It is a whole nother thing when you're breaking bread with them and looking them right in the eye.

And you may be different from them in a million other ways, but I'm telling you this. You have this in common. You both have a belly, you both have taste buds, and you both have an appetite.

And our ancient brothers and sisters, they had open homes and open arms for anyone and everyone. To live like them is to live like Jesus. It is to share a meal, it is to eat with people, and it is to listen well. And when we do, here's what you'll discover over and over again. As I sit and listen to friends who are different than me.

They tell me good things. They have good things in their life, and so do I. And they have hard things in their life, and so do I. They may be different, but we are so much more alike than we think. And you learn that God can be at work in Anyone, even someone like them.

And when they offend you, simple practice, look at them and say, image bearer.

This person bears the image of God. They are someone of infinite and indescribable worth, period. They are beloved by God. They are crowned with glory and honor. In the words of the poet Maya Angelou, they trail wisps of glory.

We're actively practicing walking with the spirit right now. Just as we've gone through this, we've had this little practice available. It's a half sheet. You can grab one. It's not vague.

We can say walking with the spirit and it sounds like a nice thing, but what is that? This is really, really clear. It's really simple. You notice, you listen, you obey. Three simple things.

And we can pause on that right now. We've just sat in a couple of chapters in the Book of Acts, and it's challenging to me and maybe to you. What are you noticing right now? What's rising up in you? That question I laid out a minute ago.

Who offends you?

Is there somebody coming to mind? Some kind of person coming to mind as you listen to that? And what does obedience look like, to obey?

Maybe it's just you opening your door and setting a table. And when you do that, here's what the good news looks like. The good news looks like you making time to share with somebody else, not waiting for it to happen in your busy schedule. The good news looks like keeping it simple. It looks like being curious and asking questions, even asking advice.

The good news looks like letting the Spirit lead you. And in simple ways, show and tell the good news. And if the Spirit is leading, you're in the best of hands.

Listen, this is where we are all headed anyway in the book of Revelation. It gives us an image of what it looks like, where God is.

And look at this. After this, I looked, and there before me was a great multitude of people that no one could count from every four different ways to describe our differences. Every nation, tribe, people and language. Standing before the throne and before the Lamb, they were wearing white robes and were holding palm trees branches in his hands. So sitting down with somebody different than you, who offends you is just practice for eternity.

That's all it is.