WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.400 I grew up in a small Highland village called Gullspey, 00:00:04.400 --> 00:00:08.400 very long away from cosmopolitan Edinburgh or Glasgow. 00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:10.900 Because of my family circumstances, 00:00:10.900 --> 00:00:14.400 I only very infrequently get a chance to go home. 00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:17.600 But whenever I do, I feel like I've never really been away. 00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:20.600 The people I grew up with might look a little bit older 00:00:20.600 --> 00:00:23.100 than we did when we were in school together, 00:00:23.100 --> 00:00:25.000 but to them I'm still a local. 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:27.400 And I often ask myself the question, 00:00:27.399 --> 00:00:30.199 how long do you have to live in a small Highland village 00:00:30.199 --> 00:00:35.799 before they'll accept you as one of their own? 00:00:35.799 --> 00:00:39.799 And it seems to me the answer isn't in terms of years 00:00:39.799 --> 00:00:44.000 or even in decades, but centuries. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:47.399 It's only after your family line goes back for centuries 00:00:47.399 --> 00:00:49.899 in the village that they'll accept you. 00:00:49.899 --> 00:00:51.200 But once they do accept you, 00:00:51.200 --> 00:00:53.700 it doesn't matter that you move away and only return in holiday 00:00:53.700 --> 00:00:57.300 or when you retire, you're still a local. 00:00:57.300 --> 00:01:02.400 And that sense of acceptance in your village never leaves you. 00:01:02.400 --> 00:01:07.900 Now Acts chapter 10 focuses on the question of acceptance. 00:01:07.900 --> 00:01:11.600 Does God only accept a certain type of person 00:01:11.600 --> 00:01:15.100 from a certain ethnic background? 00:01:15.100 --> 00:01:17.600 You will know that the Book of Acts is all about 00:01:17.600 --> 00:01:21.100 how after his resurrection, Jesus sends his spirit 00:01:21.099 --> 00:01:24.000 to work through his apostles to bring the good news 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:27.500 of his gospel to all people everywhere. 00:01:27.500 --> 00:01:32.299 The key verses, Act 1, verse 8, where Jesus says to his apostles, 00:01:32.299 --> 00:01:36.199 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you 00:01:36.199 --> 00:01:40.299 and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea 00:01:40.299 --> 00:01:43.899 and in Samaria and to the ends of the earth. 00:01:43.899 --> 00:01:47.199 And so the whole Book of Acts describes 00:01:47.199 --> 00:01:50.699 how the Holy Spirit works in power through the apostles 00:01:50.700 --> 00:01:54.700 to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Jews, 00:01:54.700 --> 00:01:58.500 then the Samaritans and then to the nations. 00:01:58.500 --> 00:02:02.700 The book begins on a hellside outside Jerusalem, 00:02:02.700 --> 00:02:06.800 but it ends in Caesar's palace in Rome. 00:02:06.800 --> 00:02:10.599 The risen and exalted Christ through his Holy Spirit 00:02:10.599 --> 00:02:16.199 is working through his apostles to bring the gospel to all nations. 00:02:16.199 --> 00:02:18.500 Now thus far in the Book of Acts, 00:02:18.500 --> 00:02:21.400 the apostles have been proclaiming the gospel in Jerusalem 00:02:21.400 --> 00:02:25.400 and Judea and even as far as Samaria. 00:02:25.400 --> 00:02:28.500 But there remains to be crossed the greatest of all ethnic 00:02:28.500 --> 00:02:33.699 and cultural barriers, that between Jew and Gentile. 00:02:33.699 --> 00:02:36.500 You see, the Jews and the Samaritans didn't like each other, 00:02:36.500 --> 00:02:38.599 but there was Jewish blood in the Samaritans 00:02:38.599 --> 00:02:41.300 and they shared a common heritage. 00:02:41.300 --> 00:02:48.400 But to ethnic Jews, Gentiles may as well have been another species. 00:02:48.400 --> 00:02:51.099 For thousands of years they'd kept their distance 00:02:51.099 --> 00:02:54.200 and they'd put countless barriers between them 00:02:54.200 --> 00:02:56.900 to keep themselves pure. 00:02:56.900 --> 00:03:00.300 But the evangelistic program of the risen Jesus 00:03:00.300 --> 00:03:06.200 is that the apostles are to be witnesses to the Gentiles also. 00:03:06.200 --> 00:03:08.300 That is Russell reminded us in his prayer 00:03:08.300 --> 00:03:13.000 they are to make disciples of all nations. 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:16.700 Now for the disciples, all of whom were ethnically Jewish, 00:03:16.699 --> 00:03:19.799 this presented a huge problem. 00:03:19.799 --> 00:03:23.000 How can they be faithful to the Jewish law 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:28.599 which had erected these huge barriers between Jew and Gentile 00:03:28.599 --> 00:03:33.799 and at the same time be faithful to Jesus and his program? 00:03:33.799 --> 00:03:39.000 The idea that God could accept Gentiles wasn't just crazy, 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:42.799 it was blasphemous to the religious Jew of the day 00:03:42.799 --> 00:03:45.000 and these early Christians, 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:48.599 they desperately needed to learn something new. 00:03:48.599 --> 00:03:53.599 Acts chapter 10 is God's wake-up call to the early church 00:03:53.599 --> 00:03:56.400 and to its chief apostle Peter. 00:03:56.400 --> 00:03:58.800 The key verses, it seems to me anyway, 00:03:58.800 --> 00:04:01.400 are in verses 34 and 35, 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:03.599 when after his contact with Cornelius, 00:04:03.599 --> 00:04:04.699 Peter says, 00:04:04.699 --> 00:04:08.599 truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 00:04:08.599 --> 00:04:12.599 but in every nation, anyone who fears him 00:04:12.599 --> 00:04:16.800 and does what is right is acceptable to him. 00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:19.199 In other words, God's acceptance, 00:04:19.199 --> 00:04:24.399 it reaches beyond the borders of the apostles comfort zones, 00:04:24.399 --> 00:04:27.899 it reaches to all the nations of the earth. 00:04:27.899 --> 00:04:30.899 You don't have to be able to trace your family tree in Israel 00:04:30.899 --> 00:04:35.500 all the way back to Moses, Aaron or Abraham to be accepted by God. 00:04:35.500 --> 00:04:40.100 All you need to do is to fear him and do what is right, 00:04:40.100 --> 00:04:43.400 words which we'll explore more in a moment. 00:04:43.400 --> 00:04:48.500 Peter and the other apostles needed to realize this, 00:04:48.500 --> 00:04:55.300 if Jesus' program of world evangelism was to be realized. 00:04:55.300 --> 00:04:58.400 The Old Testament, Tau De Bebel read in Genesis chapter 11, 00:04:58.400 --> 00:05:00.700 with all its confusion and dispersion, 00:05:00.700 --> 00:05:03.300 it had to be reversed 00:05:03.300 --> 00:05:06.500 and all the nations brought back into oneness 00:05:06.500 --> 00:05:09.100 through faith in Jesus Christ. 00:05:09.100 --> 00:05:14.900 So this then is a chapter which focuses on the question of acceptance. 00:05:14.900 --> 00:05:17.100 And the question all of us here need to ask ourselves, 00:05:17.100 --> 00:05:19.100 whether you've been in church for 50 years 00:05:19.100 --> 00:05:22.300 or whether this is your first ever time in church is, 00:05:22.300 --> 00:05:25.700 can God accept me? 00:05:25.700 --> 00:05:29.600 And if He can, on what basis? 00:05:29.600 --> 00:05:33.600 If God can accept anyone, 00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:38.600 then what does that mean for the way in which Christ's church works? 00:05:38.600 --> 00:05:41.300 Well, there are four features of God's acceptance. 00:05:41.300 --> 00:05:44.100 I want us to think through on this day, 00:05:44.100 --> 00:05:50.300 when through baptism we're going to be accepting little sorely into this church, 00:05:50.300 --> 00:05:53.800 and God has accepted him into his family. 00:05:53.800 --> 00:05:57.900 First, God accepts who we would not. 00:05:57.900 --> 00:06:02.000 Secondly, God accepts how we could not. 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:06.000 Thirdly, God accepts what we will not. 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:11.300 And fourthly, God accepts when we do not. 00:06:11.300 --> 00:06:15.800 I cannot stress that the question we should all be asking ourselves today is this. 00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:20.000 Can God accept even me? 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:23.399 And if so, on what basis? 00:06:23.399 --> 00:06:26.500 So the first question, or the first statement we want to make is this, 00:06:26.500 --> 00:06:29.800 God accepts who we would not. 00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:32.399 God accepts who we would not. 00:06:32.399 --> 00:06:35.399 On the surface of things, there were few less likely candidates 00:06:35.399 --> 00:06:39.399 for God's acceptance than a Roman centurion called Cornelius, 00:06:39.399 --> 00:06:41.399 with whom our chapter begins. 00:06:41.399 --> 00:06:44.399 Cornelius was stationed in Caesarea, 00:06:44.399 --> 00:06:48.399 a city which headed the great, had built and gifted to Caesar Augustus. 00:06:48.399 --> 00:06:51.899 It had become the permanent residence of the Roman procurator, 00:06:51.899 --> 00:06:54.899 and was the seat of Roman power. 00:06:54.899 --> 00:06:57.399 The Romans were the occupying power. 00:06:57.399 --> 00:07:04.899 The Pax Romana, the iron fist of Roman taxation, politics, and control. 00:07:04.899 --> 00:07:10.399 What do these Jewish Christians have in common with the same people 00:07:10.399 --> 00:07:15.399 who had crucified the Lord Jesus? 00:07:15.399 --> 00:07:21.399 By his name Cornelius, we suspect that this man was an Italian Roman citizen, 00:07:21.399 --> 00:07:23.399 high class. 00:07:23.399 --> 00:07:28.399 What does he have in common with low class Jewish fishermen? 00:07:28.399 --> 00:07:32.399 He was a gentile who was brought up with emperor worship, 00:07:32.399 --> 00:07:35.399 the pantheon of Roman gods, 00:07:35.399 --> 00:07:39.399 and he was the commander of what we're told is the Italian regiment, 00:07:39.399 --> 00:07:44.399 600 regular Italian Roman soldiers. 00:07:44.399 --> 00:07:47.399 In fact, there was no one in the whole Judea of the day 00:07:47.399 --> 00:07:51.899 who was really more different from these Christians than Cornelius. 00:07:51.899 --> 00:07:53.899 He was ethnically different. 00:07:53.899 --> 00:07:57.399 He belonged to a different social class. 00:07:57.399 --> 00:08:02.899 He was the representative of the power of an occupying emperor. 00:08:02.899 --> 00:08:06.899 And yes, he may well have been a devout man and gave charitably and prayed, 00:08:06.899 --> 00:08:09.899 and he may well have been respected by the Jewish nation, 00:08:09.899 --> 00:08:13.899 but in the prevalent mindset of the day, he was a gentile, 00:08:13.899 --> 00:08:23.399 an unclean man, whose ethnic uncleanness meant that he could never be accepted by God as an equal. 00:08:23.399 --> 00:08:26.899 He will never belong. 00:08:26.899 --> 00:08:30.899 And if Peter wants to be faithful to the teaching he was brought up with, 00:08:30.899 --> 00:08:36.899 rabbinic teaching, he and the early church will not accept him either. 00:08:36.899 --> 00:08:43.899 But then Peter receives a vision in verses 9 onwards of a sheet being let down 00:08:43.899 --> 00:08:46.899 with all kinds of animals, reptiles, birds. 00:08:46.899 --> 00:08:50.899 Many of these species are in the Jewish mind unclean, 00:08:50.899 --> 00:08:53.899 and a hungry Peter cannot eat them. 00:08:53.899 --> 00:08:57.899 Even though the voice from heaven comes and says, get up, Peter, kill and eat, 00:08:57.899 --> 00:09:01.899 Peter will not disobey the laws of men. 00:09:01.899 --> 00:09:08.899 He will not eat anything unclean, no non-coacher food for Peter. 00:09:08.899 --> 00:09:14.899 But then the voice comes, do not call anything impure. 00:09:14.899 --> 00:09:16.899 God has made clean. 00:09:16.899 --> 00:09:19.899 If God declares these meats clean, 00:09:19.899 --> 00:09:25.899 then what right do the laws of man have to treat them as unclean? 00:09:25.899 --> 00:09:28.899 If God accepts, then so must we. 00:09:28.899 --> 00:09:32.899 To Peter, the idea of eating some of these foods was repugnant. 00:09:32.899 --> 00:09:33.899 Make him sick. 00:09:33.899 --> 00:09:38.899 He would rather die of hunger than eat non-coacher. 00:09:38.899 --> 00:09:41.899 But God has made them clean. 00:09:41.899 --> 00:09:44.899 What's important here is that God has made them clean, 00:09:44.899 --> 00:09:48.899 and therefore they are to be treated by God's people as clean. 00:09:48.899 --> 00:09:52.899 What God calls clean and what God accepts, then we must also. 00:09:52.899 --> 00:09:56.899 For ethnic Jews, the Gentiles are unclean. 00:09:56.899 --> 00:10:00.899 And Cornelius, the Roman centurion from Caesarea, 00:10:00.899 --> 00:10:03.899 was the uncleanest of the unclean. 00:10:03.899 --> 00:10:07.899 But through this vision, from verse 28, 00:10:07.899 --> 00:10:15.899 God has shown Peter he should never call anything impure or unclean, 00:10:15.899 --> 00:10:18.899 that he does not. 00:10:18.899 --> 00:10:23.899 Well, having gone to the house of Cornelius in verse 24, 00:10:23.899 --> 00:10:27.899 enjoyed his hospitality, which it was illegal for a Jew to do, 00:10:27.899 --> 00:10:30.899 listened to his man's story. 00:10:30.899 --> 00:10:33.899 Peter comes out with the phrase in verses 34 and 35, 00:10:33.899 --> 00:10:37.899 I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism. 00:10:37.899 --> 00:10:42.899 He accepts people from every nation who fear him and do what is right. 00:10:42.899 --> 00:10:46.899 Cornelius was the last man in Palestine you might have expected 00:10:46.899 --> 00:10:51.899 that God of Israel to accept the Gentile invader, 00:10:51.899 --> 00:10:56.899 but God accepted him. 00:10:56.899 --> 00:11:00.899 Who could have expected that God would have accepted a man 00:11:00.899 --> 00:11:04.899 who had failed Jesus so dramatically and denied him three times 00:11:04.899 --> 00:11:08.899 on the night of his crucifixion, Peter himself? 00:11:08.899 --> 00:11:10.899 But God did. 00:11:10.899 --> 00:11:14.899 Who could have expected that God would accept a man 00:11:14.899 --> 00:11:18.899 who had persecuted the Christian church to the point of extinction? 00:11:18.899 --> 00:11:20.899 Paul. 00:11:20.899 --> 00:11:22.899 But he did. 00:11:22.899 --> 00:11:28.899 Who could have accepted that God would have accepted a trader in human slavery? 00:11:28.899 --> 00:11:30.899 John Newton. 00:11:30.899 --> 00:11:32.899 But he did. 00:11:32.899 --> 00:11:34.899 And that same John Newton went on to write the immortal, 00:11:34.899 --> 00:11:37.899 him amazing grace. 00:11:37.899 --> 00:11:43.899 What God makes clean, we dare not call unclean. 00:11:43.899 --> 00:11:47.899 God accepts who we would not. 00:11:47.899 --> 00:11:49.899 Just think for a second in your own mind. 00:11:49.899 --> 00:11:55.899 Who or what kind of person is in your mind the least worthy 00:11:55.899 --> 00:11:58.899 or likely of God's acceptance? 00:11:58.899 --> 00:11:59.899 Who? 00:11:59.899 --> 00:12:01.899 What kind of person? 00:12:01.899 --> 00:12:05.899 Have no doubt that God can accept them. 00:12:05.899 --> 00:12:08.899 That God can make them clean. 00:12:08.899 --> 00:12:12.899 God reaches out everywhere to all nations, to every person, 00:12:12.899 --> 00:12:15.899 and offers acceptance with them. 00:12:15.899 --> 00:12:18.899 It doesn't take centuries of belonging. 00:12:18.899 --> 00:12:22.899 It takes personal faith and divine cleansing. 00:12:22.899 --> 00:12:25.899 That's why we're determined as a Christian church 00:12:25.899 --> 00:12:29.899 to reach out beyond ethnic, social class or personality barriers, 00:12:29.899 --> 00:12:36.899 proclaiming the message of acceptance with God through Jesus Christ. 00:12:36.899 --> 00:12:42.899 Now back in the mid-19th century, our fathers in the free church grasped this idea with enthusiasm. 00:12:42.899 --> 00:12:45.899 They planted hundreds of churches up and down our land. 00:12:45.899 --> 00:12:49.899 They spent vast amounts of money on the poor and uneducated, 00:12:49.899 --> 00:12:56.899 and they sent hundreds of missionaries to other nations bearing the news of God's love. 00:12:56.899 --> 00:13:00.899 And we in our own day, we want to realise this afresh, 00:13:00.899 --> 00:13:03.899 to devote ourselves to the mission of the Gospel, 00:13:03.899 --> 00:13:10.899 to proclaiming God's acceptance in Christ and the oneness of Christ's people in Him. 00:13:10.899 --> 00:13:17.899 In my own church back in Glasgow City, we've got contact with some 100 or so Kenyans 00:13:17.899 --> 00:13:21.899 who have made their home as refugees in our city. 00:13:21.899 --> 00:13:28.899 They all belong to a Kenyan denomination called the Presbyterian Church of East Africa. 00:13:28.899 --> 00:13:39.899 The PCAA have 9 million members throughout Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. 00:13:39.899 --> 00:13:42.899 I went to visit some of their congregations a couple of years ago 00:13:42.899 --> 00:13:50.899 and I discovered that the PCAA was planted by free church missionaries back in the late 19th century. 00:13:50.899 --> 00:13:56.899 Back then, many people here in Scotland considered Africa the dark continent 00:13:56.899 --> 00:13:59.899 and considered them subhuman, heathen. 00:13:59.899 --> 00:14:01.899 Why reach out to them? 00:14:01.899 --> 00:14:03.899 Got enough trouble back here? 00:14:03.899 --> 00:14:07.899 But our missionaries realised what Peter did here in Acts chapter 10 00:14:07.899 --> 00:14:10.899 that God does not show favouritism and so they went. 00:14:10.899 --> 00:14:14.899 The first batch, 10 missionaries, most of them from Glasgow, 00:14:14.899 --> 00:14:18.899 all died very soon after they arrived in Kenya. 00:14:18.899 --> 00:14:27.899 The second batch took coffins made of Scottish pine from the borders with them on the ship out to Kenya 00:14:27.899 --> 00:14:35.899 knowing that they too would die of malaria, tribal hostility and wild animal attacks and they did. 00:14:35.899 --> 00:14:42.899 But they went and they went and a church was born, now 9 million strong, 00:14:42.899 --> 00:14:46.899 over a hundred times stronger than ours. 00:14:46.899 --> 00:14:49.899 Babel had to be reversed. 00:14:49.899 --> 00:14:52.899 The program of a risen Saviour had to be obeyed. 00:14:52.899 --> 00:14:56.899 The Gentiles had to be reached and told of God's love in Christ. 00:14:56.899 --> 00:15:06.899 And so we say again on the basis of Acts 10, let's redouble our efforts to reach out beyond ethnic, social, class, personality boundaries 00:15:06.899 --> 00:15:13.899 proclaiming the message of acceptance with God through Jesus Christ. 00:15:13.899 --> 00:15:17.899 God accepts who we could not. 00:15:17.899 --> 00:15:25.899 Secondly, I want us to notice from this passage that God accepts how we could not. 00:15:25.899 --> 00:15:30.899 Why, what process does Peter come to the conclusion that he's been wrong all along 00:15:30.899 --> 00:15:34.899 and that God has made clean, he must not treat as unclean, 00:15:34.899 --> 00:15:38.899 that Gentiles must be reached with the Gospel of Jesus Christ 00:15:38.899 --> 00:15:43.899 and made equals of a common salvation in him. 00:15:43.899 --> 00:15:49.899 It wasn't at this stage you'll notice in Acts 10 through deep theological reflection in the Academy 00:15:49.899 --> 00:15:54.899 or by a plenary parliament where opinions could be aired. 00:15:54.899 --> 00:15:59.899 It was as God's people opened themselves out to God's heart 00:15:59.899 --> 00:16:04.899 and they listened to the voice of the Holy Spirit as he spoke to them. 00:16:04.899 --> 00:16:08.899 I wanted to notice something very interesting about our passage. 00:16:08.899 --> 00:16:18.899 The vision Cornelius had of an angel from God came about as we learned from verse 30 as he was praying. 00:16:18.899 --> 00:16:23.899 And Peter had this vision of the large sheet being let down from heaven 00:16:23.899 --> 00:16:30.899 as we learned from verses 9 and 10 as he was praying. 00:16:30.899 --> 00:16:36.899 While both these men, one a Gentile, one a Jew had opened their hearts to the heart of God 00:16:36.899 --> 00:16:41.899 and were listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit, God spoke to them and showed them something new. 00:16:41.899 --> 00:16:47.899 It was while both men were aligning themselves with God's will through prayer, 00:16:47.899 --> 00:16:52.899 God changed their minds and brought them into alignment with his loving purposes for the world. 00:16:52.899 --> 00:16:58.899 It was in the place of prayer that change took place, that the light was turned on. 00:16:58.899 --> 00:17:02.899 They prayed and God spoke. 00:17:02.899 --> 00:17:08.900 Now what happened in the days of Acts before the conclusion of the Canon of Scripture is unrepeatable. 00:17:08.900 --> 00:17:12.900 To make important decisions today we need to come together in general assemblies 00:17:12.900 --> 00:17:15.900 reflecting upon the teaching of the Bible. 00:17:15.900 --> 00:17:19.900 God speaks to us through every page of the Bible, every word of the Bible 00:17:19.900 --> 00:17:24.900 and brings us to the realization that we need to change to get into line with his will. 00:17:24.900 --> 00:17:31.900 However, the shudder does not take away from the present priority of prayer. 00:17:31.900 --> 00:17:36.900 When God's people pray, God does amazing things in the Book of Acts. 00:17:36.900 --> 00:17:43.900 Their prayers cause earthquakes in Philippi, their prayers break open prison bars in Jerusalem, 00:17:43.900 --> 00:17:46.900 their prayers bring back the dead to life. 00:17:46.900 --> 00:17:49.900 Prayer is the strength of the Christian life. 00:17:49.900 --> 00:17:55.900 It unleashes the power of heaven into our experience and into our world. 00:17:55.900 --> 00:17:58.900 But more even than that, prayer changes us. 00:17:58.900 --> 00:18:06.900 It brings us into alignment with the will of God and gives us the strength to overcome the barriers that we naturally erect. 00:18:06.900 --> 00:18:15.900 It was while praying, Peter came to realize he'd been wrong and begun to accept Gentile mission. 00:18:15.900 --> 00:18:21.900 I wonder, speaking here mainly to Christians, are you struggling with acceptance, accepting others? 00:18:21.900 --> 00:18:24.900 Yes, even accepting yourself. 00:18:24.900 --> 00:18:28.900 By all means, spend time in God's word. 00:18:28.900 --> 00:18:32.900 But spend it on your knees in prayer. 00:18:32.900 --> 00:18:37.900 The burden wall was broken down by the collective will of the people. 00:18:37.900 --> 00:18:45.900 But the greatest barrier in the world of the day between Jew and Gentile was broken down in prayer. 00:18:45.900 --> 00:18:53.900 In what ways today are you devoting yourself to seeking God's heart and will in prayer? 00:18:53.900 --> 00:19:00.900 What new revelations of the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ await us when we as individual Christians, 00:19:00.900 --> 00:19:07.900 and as a church, listen to the heart of God and pray. 00:19:07.900 --> 00:19:11.900 God accepts how we would not. 00:19:11.900 --> 00:19:17.900 Third, God accepts what we will not. 00:19:17.900 --> 00:19:19.900 God accepts what we will not. 00:19:19.900 --> 00:19:26.900 So what is the basis upon which there is acceptance with God for Cornelius, for Peter, for you and for me? 00:19:26.900 --> 00:19:30.900 Does God accept everyone, regardless of who they are or what they've done? 00:19:30.900 --> 00:19:32.900 Well, clearly not. 00:19:32.900 --> 00:19:37.900 In verse 43, Peter talks of our need for forgiveness of sins. 00:19:37.900 --> 00:19:44.900 These sins we commit, they're the only barrier which stand in the way of our acceptance with God. 00:19:44.900 --> 00:19:47.900 Our ethnic barrier, clearly, is no background. 00:19:47.900 --> 00:19:49.900 Our personality type is no background. 00:19:49.900 --> 00:19:51.900 Our social class is no background. 00:19:51.900 --> 00:19:54.900 Our transgressions are. 00:19:54.900 --> 00:19:59.900 Now, every human has this intuitive sense that there's a gulf between them and God, 00:19:59.900 --> 00:20:04.900 a gulf that needs to be bridged, sins that need to be forgiven. 00:20:04.900 --> 00:20:11.900 That's why in every society in our world today, there is a sense of the religious. 00:20:11.900 --> 00:20:17.900 There has never been nor will there ever be a human society with no God consciousness. 00:20:17.900 --> 00:20:28.900 And even in our so-called secular societies, it is only that the true God has been replaced with other gods of our own making. 00:20:28.900 --> 00:20:34.900 Gods with the names, money, comfort, happiness, pleasure, football, whatever. 00:20:34.900 --> 00:20:38.900 All human beings know that there is a problem between themselves and God, 00:20:38.900 --> 00:20:41.900 but go about fixing the problem in all the wrong ways. 00:20:41.900 --> 00:20:45.900 Humans think they can earn the forgiveness of their own sins. 00:20:45.900 --> 00:20:49.900 We do it through religious ceremonies, by acts of self-denial, 00:20:49.900 --> 00:20:55.900 by adopting a religious lifestyle where forgiveness becomes not a gift of grace from God, 00:20:55.900 --> 00:20:59.900 but a reward for our religious effort. 00:20:59.900 --> 00:21:05.900 Or human beings adopt the belief system that, well, as long as my good works outweigh my bad works, 00:21:05.900 --> 00:21:07.900 well, I'll be okay. 00:21:07.900 --> 00:21:14.900 Whatever form it takes, forgiveness is earned, doesn't come from God. 00:21:14.900 --> 00:21:21.900 But in so doing, all that happens is that people sink deeper into alienation, loneliness and guilt. 00:21:21.900 --> 00:21:26.900 How can we do anything to appease the God of infinite holiness? 00:21:26.900 --> 00:21:31.900 What we need isn't to turn over a new leaf and become better people. 00:21:31.900 --> 00:21:38.900 What we need is complete transformation and forgiveness, and that can only come from God. 00:21:38.900 --> 00:21:45.900 The only basis upon which we can be accepted by God is through the Gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ, 00:21:45.900 --> 00:21:55.900 that Gospel which is called in verse 36, the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 00:21:55.900 --> 00:22:02.900 Peter goes on after that verse to recount historical narrative of the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus, 00:22:02.900 --> 00:22:07.900 and explains its significance, the perfect life of Jesus, the sacrificial death of Jesus, 00:22:07.900 --> 00:22:16.900 as He takes upon Himself our sin and guilt, the resurrection of Jesus as He defeats death and reigns in power. 00:22:16.900 --> 00:22:23.900 And here in this passage, Peter is reflecting upon the historical reality of these events. 00:22:23.900 --> 00:22:27.900 These things happened verse 37. 00:22:27.900 --> 00:22:30.900 Jesus went about doing good, verse 38. 00:22:30.900 --> 00:22:33.900 We are witnesses, verse 39. 00:22:33.900 --> 00:22:41.900 God caused the risen Jesus to be seen by certain witnesses, verse 41, who were called to testify, verse 42. 00:22:41.900 --> 00:22:45.900 The word testify here has a legal connotation. 00:22:45.900 --> 00:22:50.900 This is Peter's legal deep deposition. 00:22:50.900 --> 00:22:55.900 The apostles were witnesses of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. 00:22:55.900 --> 00:23:02.900 One wonders as to the skepticism of our own age when we are unwilling to accept the testimony of so many witnesses, 00:23:02.900 --> 00:23:10.900 not just the apostles back then, but the hundreds to whom the risen Christ appeared after His resurrection. 00:23:10.900 --> 00:23:16.900 Well, so what, I hear you say, as you look away in this interest, so what? 00:23:16.900 --> 00:23:18.900 Peter makes the point in verse 43, 00:23:18.900 --> 00:23:26.900 Forgiveness of sin does not come through our own efforts to make ourselves right with God, it comes through believing in Christ. 00:23:26.900 --> 00:23:35.900 Believing in Christ is the vehicle through which God forgives our sins, not pilgrimages, but faith, not religion, but trust. 00:23:35.900 --> 00:23:43.900 We believe that having lived the perfect life, Jesus bore our sins upon the cross and as our substitute, 00:23:43.900 --> 00:23:49.900 and His rising from the dead is the declaration of His universal lordship. 00:23:49.900 --> 00:23:56.900 It is simple faith in Christ through which we are forgiven and accepted by God. 00:23:56.900 --> 00:24:04.900 That faith is otherwise described in our passage as being devoted to God, to fearing God, but at its root it's faith. 00:24:04.900 --> 00:24:11.900 Cornelius had faith in this Christ, Peter had faith in this Christ, and so both found acceptance with God. 00:24:11.900 --> 00:24:19.900 God did not accept them on the basis of their good works, but on the basis of their faith in Jesus Christ. 00:24:19.900 --> 00:24:23.900 Now some people in our society today think we're really naive to believe in Christ. 00:24:23.900 --> 00:24:29.900 What Neal and Dayspring are doing today, and professing today in their faith in Jesus, 00:24:29.900 --> 00:24:35.900 has all the epistemological value of Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings. 00:24:35.900 --> 00:24:41.900 But their faith, as that of the Christian church, is based upon the solid witness of history 00:24:41.900 --> 00:24:46.900 and upon the love and the glory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 00:24:46.900 --> 00:24:51.900 There can be no more reasonable basis for faith than this. 00:24:51.900 --> 00:24:58.900 That's what they pray, that's what they wish for Sory and Flory, that both would grow up believing in this Christ. 00:24:58.900 --> 00:25:11.900 God accepts us on the basis of faith in Christ, not ethnic background, not class, not social background, or personality type. 00:25:11.900 --> 00:25:19.900 I'm not asking today whether you have faith, because everyone in Scotland today has faith, even if they deny it violently. 00:25:19.900 --> 00:25:27.900 I'm asking whether your faith is in Jesus Christ, because it's only here that there's true acceptance with God. 00:25:27.900 --> 00:25:33.900 It's only here, through faith in Christ, God accepts us. 00:25:33.900 --> 00:25:43.900 And it's only here, through faith in Christ, we can accept others, and we can learn to accept ourselves for who God has made us to be. 00:25:43.900 --> 00:25:51.900 God accepts what we will not, but it's through faith, not by our efforts that we're saved. 00:25:51.900 --> 00:25:57.900 And then lastly, God accepts when we do not. 00:25:57.900 --> 00:25:59.900 God accepts when we do not. 00:25:59.900 --> 00:26:05.900 As we close, I want us to focus upon what the net result of Peter's new realisation was. 00:26:05.900 --> 00:26:15.900 How Peter and the Gentile Church reconciled their new understanding of gospel mission with what they had always believed prior to this. 00:26:15.900 --> 00:26:21.900 While we read in verse 48 that having witnessed the Holy Spirit filling these Gentile believers in Christ, 00:26:21.900 --> 00:26:27.900 Peter commands that they be baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. 00:26:27.900 --> 00:26:35.900 Who God has baptised with his Holy Spirit, the church must now recognise with its baptism in water. 00:26:35.900 --> 00:26:46.900 That baptism symbolises incorporation into the family of the church, where all share equally in the outpouring of Christ's grace and blessing. 00:26:46.900 --> 00:27:00.900 This Gentile Centurion Cornelius, together with his household, they now become equal sharers in salvation with Peter and the Jewish believers of his day. 00:27:00.900 --> 00:27:06.900 The Gentiles and the Jews become one through the gospel of Christ's peace. 00:27:06.900 --> 00:27:12.900 Babel, Genesis 11, is reversed through Christ. 00:27:12.900 --> 00:27:24.900 Equality, fraternity, oneness become the life of the church, as through Christ and by his Spirit, God breaks down the barriers which had for millennia 00:27:24.900 --> 00:27:36.900 divided humanity into the haves and the have-nots, the clean and the unclean, the acceptable and the unacceptable. 00:27:36.900 --> 00:27:47.900 One church, one church, one people, the true united nations of God's grace and love. 00:27:47.900 --> 00:27:55.900 In my own church back in Glasgow City, that oneness is demonstrated every time we sit round the Lord's table as we'll be doing tonight at Communion. 00:27:55.900 --> 00:28:02.900 There will be Christians in our church tonight from every inhabited continent on the planet. 00:28:02.900 --> 00:28:13.900 And we'll sit there together as equals, refugees and doctors, asylum seekers and accountants. 00:28:13.900 --> 00:28:24.900 We'll be eating the bread of Christ's body and drinking the wine of Christ's blood together as equals with no one person more equal than any other. 00:28:24.900 --> 00:28:31.900 Because in Christ all the barriers which once existed between us are torn down. 00:28:31.900 --> 00:28:44.900 So much so that the Apostle Paul can later on go on to say, in Christ there's no Jew or Greek, there's no slave or free, there's no male or female, because you're all one in Christ Jesus. 00:28:44.900 --> 00:28:48.900 That's the church into which Sory is being baptized today. 00:28:48.900 --> 00:28:56.900 A church, a family of faith that's reaching across the whole world and holding us together as one. 00:28:56.900 --> 00:29:04.900 A wonderful family in which Christ fills us with joy, grace, love and acceptance. 00:29:04.900 --> 00:29:09.900 God accepts Cornelius on the basis of faith. 00:29:09.900 --> 00:29:14.900 The church accepts Cornelius on the basis of faith. 00:29:14.900 --> 00:29:19.900 It doesn't take sanctuaries for Cornelius to belong. 00:29:19.900 --> 00:29:25.900 It just takes one moment of revelation and realization. 00:29:25.900 --> 00:29:35.900 My village up north in Galsby, most people will always be thought of as encumbers, especially if they're English. 00:29:35.900 --> 00:29:50.900 Not the church, not the church, because the church of Jesus Christ accepts all encumbers who will come through faith in a risen and crucified Saviour, yes, even guys from Glasgow like me. 00:29:50.900 --> 00:30:00.900 Will you come to Jesus today in faith, believing that though we're sinners, what Christ did on the cross He did for us? 00:30:00.900 --> 00:30:09.900 You won't find real acceptance anywhere else, but here you can, in Christ and in this church, will you come? 00:30:09.900 --> 00:30:25.900 Even as New and Day Spring are coming today, will you come? With a billion other Christians, will you put your faith in Jesus and find acceptance there?