Spreading the Word (Acts 10.9-23)

Introduction

The Apollo 11 mission was one of the greatest ever human achievements. Neil Armstrong, when he became the first man to walk on the surface of the moon on July 11, 1969 said - as we all know - "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

But the tenth chapter of Acts is even more significant that the moon landings in eternal terms. It describes one small encounter between two men, Peter and Cornelius, but it was a giant leap forward for the kingdom of God. It is a pivotal episode in the history of the relationship between God and the human race.

This was the day that the good news of God's love and salvation through Jesus, penetrated the non-Jewish world for the first time. From this day forward, God, who had until then been revered only by a small Semitic people in the Middle East, would become worshipped and loved worldwide.

1) God reveals himself to those who seek him

One of the things that Acts 10 shows is that God reveals himself to people who truly seek him. God loves to be found by tenaciously curious people.

Speaking of Cornelius, an officer of the Roman army, the Bible says (in v2-4) "He was devout and God-fearing, and all his household with him. He was generous to the poor and prayed every day.”

One day, about three in the afternoon, he has a vision where he sees an angel of God saying, 'Cornelius.' Cornelius nervously asks: ‘What is it, Lord?' The angel answers, 'your prayers and generosity towards the poor have been received by God.'"

The big surprise to many is that despite his glowing righteousness, despite all his good works, despite all his prayers, Cornelius was not a child of God.

He was sincere, but not saved. He was charitable on the outside but not changed on the inside. He was a believer, but not born again. He had no personal experience of God. He approached a God he did not know. He had not received the Holy Spirit. 

There are many people like Cornelius. Even in churches. The good news is that God reveals Himself to those who seek him with their whole heart as he did.

Jonathan Aitken, the disgraced politician was appointed to the Cabinet in the 1990s but his life was empty and he, like Cornelius, started to seek God. He says in his autobiography Pride and Perjury, “Gnawing away inside me was a problem I could not describe, except by giving it… labels such as ‘lack of inner peace’, ‘emptiness of feeling’, ‘hollowness of spirit’, or more simply ‘something missing’. It was as though, after spending a lifetime wanting to climb a particular mountain, I had unexpectedly reached the final approach to its summit only to discover that there was nothing there worth the effort of the ascent.” Well, he sought God, was found by him, and is now a lay preacher.

CS Lewis once said, “Look for Christ and you will find him. And with him everything else.” This is why we spread the word.

2) Jesus takes people out of sterile religion

The second thing that Acts 10 shows us is that religious adherence is not enough. Teresa of Avila once prayed, “From silly devotions and sour-faced saints, spare us O Lord.”

This is the meaning of this strange vision Peter has in v9-16. For Peter, until he met Jesus, belonging to God was little more than an obsession about what he could and could not eat. 

Mechanical religion is one of the biggest obstacles, if not the greatest, between us and God. Religion stirs strong emotions and tends to make us stubborn, even stubborn against the Lord.

The proof is that in v14, having had a fantastic spiritual experience and heard the audible voice of God, Peter says "Oh, no! Lord. I've always lived this way, I do not intend to change for anyone, even You.”

I love the (probably made-up) story of the vicar who wanted to move a chair in his church on one side of the sanctuary to another. But the choir master didn’t agree. The chair was always located in the south transept and moving against the wall was out of the question. For 3 years they fought about it in church council. The choir master wrote letters to the bishop. Fifty faithful parishioners organized a petition. And the priest eventually moved the chair... an inch per week! It took 3 years to move it to the other side!

Aren’t you glad that Jesus gets us out of useless religion? Jesus sets us free from all that. This is why we spread the word.

3) God destroys barriers between people

The third thing here is how the gospel removes the barriers not just between us and God, bu between each other. In Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither man nor woman, neither black nor white, socialist or capitalist, neither Anglican or Protestant or Catholic, neither young nor old, 'remain' or 'leave'. All racial, national, sociological, political, stereotypical, physiological and ecclesiastical barriers come down through Jesus Christ.

Before the events of Acts 10, Peter had never entered a gentile home, even for shelter from a storm, and had never had any gentile under his roof either, but in v23 he invites them in and offers them hospitality for the night. The gospel brings down the barriers between people.

This is why we spread the word. It’s good news that sets people free and transforms our relationships.

Ending

There’s a rock singer from the band Flyleaf called Lacy Sturm. She talks on YouTube about her tormented years. She says “I couldn’t get away from my own depression.” She tried a lot of religions and philosophies. She said “There were all these great ideas but I never found any tangible healing.” She said “I remember thinking I am tired of the pain in my heart. I am tired of going to bed and feeling this burden. Who am I? Why am I alive?”

One day Lacy woke up and resolved to end her life at the end of that day. Well, that evening, by the grace of God, her grandmother whom she lived with, said, “You are coming to church with me now.”

Lacy said, “I didn’t want to go to church, I despised it, I never went – but look, I’m going to commit suicide later, it can’t get worse, so I might as well go to church.”

So she went. She said, “I hated it - especially the preacher.” [I just thought I’d include that bit in case any of you can relate to it].

Anyway, the preacher, as he was speaking had a word from the Lord and so he said, “There’s someone here with a suicidal spirit.” That got her attention. But she couldn’t stand what he was saying, so she got up and went to walk out. As she got to the back of the church a man with a white goatee beard came over to her and said, “I think the Lord wants me to say something to you.”

She thought, here we go again. Then he said this; “He wants you to know that even if you’ve never known your earthly father, [which she hadn’t] he knows your pain and will be a better father to you than any man could have been. He knows your pain. He knows what’s in your heart. He’s seen you cry yourself to sleep. He wants to come and deal with it. He is called The Comforter.”

She says, “It was as if the God of the universe showed up right in front of me. I realised that God is holy and good. And that I am not. And that he loves me and he knows I am tired of the way I have been living and that he wants to make me new - if I would let him. And I said YES! I want that please. And I woke up the next day with such peace and such joy.”

This is why we spread the word. We have good news of grace to share.

Let’s pray...

Sermon preached at Saint Mary's Long Newton, 3 July 2016