Acts Chapter 10 Verses 1 – 2

• Cornelius is one that you wish you had more information on because everything you read, (maybe this is just me), everything given on him incites intrigue. First, his name means, “Of a horn,” which is a signal of strength and   To be a centurion, according to Roman records, there were strict requirements.  You had to be a proven warrior…notably brave and having demonstrated courage.  If outnumbered or losing in a battle, you had to die with your men…
• We will read in this chapter that he is a just man, one who fears God, a man of great might but also great mercy, a man of continual prayer and a man with a good reputation among all the nation of the Jews which is absolutely unheard of… As a Roman Officer he would be the enemy of the Jews and yet not this man…  It’s too bad we don’t have anything more about this man outside of this chapter…but this chapter is ultra important.
• Spoiler alert, the Centurion becomes a part of this new movement call the followers of the Way, the Saints, the Christians…and you say, “So what!” So what!!??  Imagine if Tim Tebow started to come to church here!  We’d all Tebow during prayer!!  HA!!  That’s Cornelius! Well God uses Cornelius to trigger the spread of Christianity to the gentiles!  He is a big win for the early church as Cornelius is known throughout the gentile nation and the Jewish nation!!
• Was Cornelius the centurion that pleaded with Jesus about his servant in Matthew Chapter 8? Was he the centurion at the cross that saw the earthquake and what Jesus had been like and said on the cross and responded, “Truly this was the Son of God!?”  We simply do not know and while you may draw a connection there, the scriptures do not…but Cornelius, definitely a man that not only is a man of great achievement and diligence but also a man of great honor and integrity.

Acts Chapter 10 Verses 3 – 6

• This is an indication that traditional walls were tumbling! Peter was staying there in Joppa with a man that presumably was a gentile given his   For a Jew to lodge with a gentile was unheard of!  The gentiles were so off limits for the Jews that as the Jews would walk down the street they would wrap their robes tightly so that as they walked there was no chance any part of their garment would accidentally touch a gentile.  Thus the first skinny jeans…there you go…skinny jeans are racist!  HA!
• And check this out…this is kinda crazy but I don’t want this to go unmentioned…God sends an angel but the angel sends Cornelius to Peter…why not just give him the Gospel right then and there…? It’s an interesting question…one that probably has hours of conversational possibilities but I’ll give you just this…my thoughts…HA…
• Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned (Romans 5 and it continues…), the grace of God and the gift by the grace came also through one Man, Jesus Christ…and now even still today God has ordained that His Gospel will continue from one man to one man…It’s interesting and even mysterious but Paul would later warn in his letter to the Galatians that if an angel brings a message that doesn’t align with the Gospel that we have received through men, beginning with the One Man, Jesus Himself…that that angel should be rejected…(actually Paul wrote, “Let him be accursed!”)
• And you look at the religions of the world like Islam, Mormonism, Seventh Day Adventism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Luciferianism, and on and on and the catalyst to those systems was angelic revelation…This angel doesn’t give the gospel…he points Cornelius to Peter…that is entirely interesting!!

Acts Chapter 10 Verses 7 – 13

• Notice this, and I love this…God through the angel has sent Cornelius to Peter, a Roman Soldier, the enemy of Israel…and yet while God has worked on the side of Cornelius, He now works on the side of Peter as well…preparing him to receive Cornelius! I love that…I AM REQUIRED to know that by faith!  God always works on both ends!  I am so faithless…a planner of planners…a strategizer of strategizers…how it’s going to go, what I’m going to say, what I’m going to say or do if they say or do thus and so…when I ought to just trust God and go…He’s already prepared the person, place and future present!  HA!!
• This is also a good lesson for those that sense or feel as if the Lord has called you to do something. This is a good picture Biblically of what we call “confirmation.”  God will confirm in others what He has called you to so often.  1 Corinthians 13:1 says, “By the mouth of two of three witnesses every word shall be established.”  And so most often if God is calling you to something He will send confirmation of that calling…not always…but often.  De-confirmation is also a clear sign that you might be crazy!  HA!  Hey, Matt…I sense the Lord is calling us to put out donuts AND carrots in the Coffee Room?  I will slap you sane!  HA!!!

Acts Chapter 10 Verse 14a

• Look, you can’t say that! That doesn’t make any sense!  You can say, “Not so,” or you can say, “Lord.”  But you cannot say, “Not so, Lord!”  If He is Lord then “not so,” is a contradiction!  But man how we do this all the time, don’t we!!  This is what trusting the will and word of God comes down to
• …right here!!

Acts Chapter 10 Verse 14

• What’s he talking about? He’s never hit the drive-thru after church!?  HA!!  According to the law, a Jew could only eat certain animals that were identified as clean in the Bible.  But on this sheet there were ALL KINDS!  Clean and unclean.  Your Bible, if you have a certain translation, your footnote might give the name of this sheet.  It was called Golden Corral!  HA!!

Acts Chapter 10 Verses 15 – 16

• I love that…first because it was Peter who 3 times denied the Lord and my how the Lord just wants to free you and me and Peter and us from personal condemnation…but I also love this because my heart is so naturally inclined to “Not so Lord” way too often but God is so faithful…takes God 3 times sometimes to help me see what He’s trying to do…sometimes 30 times…but God never gets impatient…He is always good and His love and mercy never fail! And I just love this statement…
• What God has cleansed…literally that is “freed from impurity,” not you cannot, not you should not, YOU MUST NOT ever call common…never again, don’t ever call what God has made right, what God has made clean, unclean…and this is the story of salvation…I love this…1 Corinthians 6 lays out sin after sin…sin that defiles and dirties the soul and spirit…and then in 1 Corinthians 6:11 we read, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God…the best Zest FULLY CLEAN…and now…you are fully clean!
• Yes we fall short still and yes we still battle the flesh and sin in our lives but by the blood payment of Jesus, you indeed, even through all your junk, are pure and prepared for eternal life in the perfection of heaven because of the sufficiency and love of Jesus Christ…and when you receive that…it drives you to worship God, to love Him, to be ultra thankful…because the Gospel is very much indeed…GOOD NEWS…and at the end of the day, you haven’t cleansed you…wouldn’t work…like showering with a compressed lump of trash as your soap bar…or your loofah for you male hipsters…HA! But God has cleansed you through the giving of His Son…and that truth, sunk in and received…changes everything!   You’re now on record with the Father…