Bible Guys Classics: Acts 10 Part 2

Hey, everybody, we're the Bible guys, and if you're just tuning in recently, just know that we are showing a little bit of reruns for a few months, and then we'll be back bigger and better than ever on August thirty first, because behind the scenes we're taking a hiatus to do some very important things. Yeah, we're building building out a new studio and we've got some new structure. Super excited about it. So August thirty first, brand new content. But in the meantime, enjoy some of our greatest hits. So today we're continuing on the story of the Italian Stallion Cornelius. Yes, because you said that because he was the centurion in charge of the Italian Regiment. Is that why he said that? Yes, the Italian Stallion. Okay, well he's Chris and he is Italian, and I'm Jeff and we're the Bible guys. Boom, it's got that big explosion at the end. It does it does? It lasts too long? Hey, So last week you asked me a segment and you said, what made Chris mad this week? Yeah, that was very enlightening. You were mad about shopping carts. Shopping carts, Yes, and I said that anybody who doesn't return their card is not a nice person. Yeah. Yeah, it's implied they might not even be on the way to heaven. Okay, so this week it's appropriate that I turn around for this segment and ask you what has made you mad? Oh? So what made Jeff mad this week? Yeah? Oh you know what? So I have a problem. Well we all know that, Yes, I mean, well, this is a bad problem. Which one? So I get angry? Do you get angry? Uh? I don't think I do? My daughter? Does I do? I? And so I feel bad because for some reason, I don't know, I just got really out of sorts with Bonnie, my wife, this last week. And she's like, I just think we need some time apart. Yeah, and she didn't mean mad, not separate, now separated, just. Jeff, you need to go get somebody and calm yourself down. Yeah, there we go. Okay. So I just remember, it's like everything said, every decision anybody around me was making just made me mad. It's just stupid. Everything was stupid, just made me mad. I didn't know why. So then I go and I can't remember. I had a taco or something, and then everything was better. Everything better. So I don't know why I get angry, but I do. And everything irritates me. I'm serious. The color of this guy irritates me. The breeze on my face here, everything makes me angry. And then you know it just takes a little sandwich or a little sandwich everything better. Yeah, i'd be honest, I don't think, But then again I probably wouldn't know, so you'd have to ask my wife. Yeah, oh, I know, I can tell like I'm just getting out of control. Yeah, you can tell your shay I'm spiraling. Okay, So I thought you were saying you could tell. I'm like, get away from me. I just want to growl it over. Yeah, I don't think I want to go on record and say I don't think I get angry at all. So what makes Jeff mad? I think the answer is not having lunch. A late lunch, not having food, that's right, A. Late lunch makes me angry, that's funny. So I'm sorry, Bonnie, and I'm glad that she let me sleep indoors. That very nice, very nice. So once I had a sandwich, I was fine. So we are containing hey real quick? Yeah? Yeah, do you make your own sandwiches most of the time, or does Bonnie make them for you? Oh? I demand them. A woman. Yeah, I'm making myself. I do not all, but I do a lot of the cooking. Yeah, I love it. Well, that wasn't like a wife homemaker reference. Yeah, but you set me up for it. I had no choice. Well, no, no, I don't care about that. I mean I care about the fact that every home has their own system. Yes, right, that's what I was meaning. So you have your own system, you make most of the food, so therefore you lot sandwiches. Well, in my house, my wife is the one who grew else. Oh yeah. And I don't know why people have to share. I've always thought I've always thought, yeah, you my wife can share grilling recipes. I've always thought that that I would do the grilling. But then she just sort of did it one day, and then she likes it, and I was like, well, that's okay. I don't really have that big of a desire to do it. So I think that consequently, she just makes better sandwiches than I do. Oh wow, she just does. So I just so a lot of times, you know, she won't even tell me what she's making. It's super convenient that you're able to be so complimentary about how amazing she isn't making sandwiches. It is convenient. That's a that's a tremendous strategy. Young men, all of you brand new married men, just compliment your wife on how amazing she is. You're so much better than I am making these amazing sandwiches. Okay, you keep doing that. Nobody can do this like you. I cannot put this meat down on this bread. Not possible. I cannot put the slices in between these stupiece of bread. Leg Are you doing voodoo in the kitchen? Oh, it's brilliant. You are a genius. Thank you. You're an evil genius. You're awesome. I love you. That's great. So, by the way, she's in the bathroom right now, putting on her makeup for going to work, is listening to this. Yeah, okay, every day, every day, every day? Yeah? All right, Well, now you know one of his secrets, Liz. Don't let him get away. With it, Okay, okay. So we are finishing up the story of Cornelius, right, and he's the leader of the Italian regiment. He's a centurion. He's a good guy. But even good guys need Jesus right, and so good guy, but he still was separated from God. And so God sends Peter. God has to overcome Peter's biases, and Peter goes, I'm not comfortable being here. You know, I'm not supposed to be here, but God told me to be here. And so Peter walks through the door. And then here's the rest of the story. So we're going to start in verse thirty four in Acts, chapter ten, and it just says, Then Peter replied, I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism in every nation. He accepts those who fear Him and do what is right. 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. You know what happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after John began preaching his message of baptism, and you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. And then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. For God was with him. And we apostles are witnesses of all he did throughout Judea and Jerusalem, and they put him to death by hanging him on a cross. But God raised him to life on the third day. Then God allowed him to appear 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, and he ordered us to preach every everywhere and to testify that Jesus is the one appointed by God to be the judge of all the living and the dead. He is the one all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in him will have their sins forgiven through his name. Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message, and the Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the gift the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles too, for they heard them speaking in other tongues and praising God. Then Peter asked, can anyone object to their being baptized now that they've received the Holy Spirit just as we did. So he gave orders for them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and afterwards Cornelius asked him to stay with them for several days. Wow, that's so cool. So, as far as we know, this is the first gentile convert, non Jewish convert, as far as we know, it's the first, first one mentioned in the Bible. Yeah, it's an accuracy and making an. Emphatic statement that this is the first gentile that became a Christian in the book. Okay, he's saying that because we because the heading on our note says Cornelius is the first gentile convert. And I made a comment, and here's the comment. And this comment is irrefutable, by the way I'm laying irrefutable. I'm laying the line. There's an open minded person, please tell us. Well, no, I mean facts are facts. Yeah, this table is would Yeah, okay, and it's this the first gentile convert. I said, well, it's actually the first gentile convert convert mentioned in the Bible. Yes, right, So unless the Bible goes out of its way to say, hey, just Crnelius was the first John, I agree. I just said it. Yeah, he said it the way you told me to say it, did you. Yes, Just now I think we should rewind the tape on that one. Oh no, no, you said he's the first gentile. Convert that we know of in the Bible. I said it that way, Okay, all right, So anyway, I'm I have this. I feel like sometimes you just want to fight, just to fight. Well, you beat me at the fall kickoff, and I feel still bitter about it. So let me just say this. I do have a little bit of a thing. Yes, and so I could just talk about this for two secs. Why I brought it up. Yeah, So anybody who attaches something that isn't in the Bible irritates me. So for instance, there was a speaker at my old church and he was talking about a lot of these Jewish customs and mentalities. And the woman who touched Jesus' garment, remember that, he said, Jesus turned around. He goes, let me tell you why Jesus turned around, And the why wasn't because of the power drained. It was something else. And then he said and then he noticed blah blah blah. And I actually thought to myself and I said this to him later, which he did not appreciate. I said, are you literally telling me that you know the why behind jesus motives, what he was thinking, what he was feeling, what his motives were. When it's not given in the Bible. Now, all of it could be completely be okay. With one single tiny tweak. You can say this, he probably turned around for that reason, or it's. A good maybe, or maybe yeah, have you ever thought maybe he turned around? But if you want to lean toward confidence, you could say there's a good chance. Right, So you can say all those things, but you have to you have to not You can't say definitively that Cornelius is the first convert in the Bible, because there's a good chance that maybe he was. Right the first gentile convert. Here's where it makes sense. It makes sense that, you know, the Holy Spirit gets poured out to the gentiles afterwards, it makes sense that Cornelius is this huge influence because of his position as a Roman centurion. Makes sense that he would have been the first convert. Well, the next chapter also Peter gets hauled in for leading a gentile to Christ and has to justify why you baptized him. That's great, right, so the consequences, Yeah, so. Then there's probably, yeah, very. Likely, so he is the first gentile convert in the Bible, right, we just don't know that he's the first gentile convert in christ in the history of christian. And the history. Yeah, so my big tweak for pastors and teachers isn't a big tweak at all. Just say most likely or probably, or I believe, even I believe is subjective. Right, Well, this is the reason why I want to bring this up is because you know you'll hear us say. Sometimes you hear me say when I'm speaking. The reason why I want to use more scripture and less of Jeff's words is because Jeff's opinions don't matter any more than anybody else's opinions. What the words of God say in the Bible, that's what matters. So if the words say it, we believe those words. If the words leave stuff out, well then we shouldn't. We can try to connect the dots and fill in the gaps, but we can't definitively say that God said those things because the words of the Bible don't say he was the first convert in all of Christianity, the first gentile convert. But he appears to be, at least in the storyline of Scripture. He's the first one mentioned, and it sure seems like it stirs up pot afterwards, and so evidences are Cornees was probably the first gentile convert. But the Bible doesn't specifically say that, so it's fair to kind of wrestle with it a little bit. And I think I think that your your opinion on that is very solid. Be careful about saying things the Bible doesn't say. Just say the things the Bible does say, right. And so there isn't I don't remember where this is. I think it might have been in Deuteronomy, where it says, and it has the weirdest words. It says, don't add a jot or a tittle to God's word. And a jot and a tittle were the smallest marks. They were sort of like equivalent to today is like apostrophes or right or commas. That's how small they were jots and tittles in that language. And so but it would say don't add a jot or a tittle, in other words, don't add a single thing that isn't there. So it just it just is a great challenge for all of us to say. And by the way, you could say, I fully believe with all my heart this thing. And that's fine if you want to go strong on something. So that being said, and I just really want to spend it because we spent a big time yesterday on this story a little bit, but I wanted to cover that. I thought that was a great idea. But what you have here now is Peter explains the gospel. Now, the gospel is not just you all people need Jesus. That's not the gospel. The gospel is we're sinners all y'all people need Jesus. Right, that's not the gospel. Your opinion that people need to be Christians is not the gospel. Our idea that more people need to pray or go to church, that's not the gospel. The gospel is we're all sinners separated from God. Jesus died on the cross and rose again, and if we'll have faith in Him, we can have forgiveness of sins. We repent of our sins and place our faith in him, we can have forgiveness of sins and eternal life with God in heaven. And this is basically the storyline that he's telling it. And then he says, and we were witnesses of the fact that he died and rose again. Right, So this is the gospel presentation that he's making. Cornelius and the others they received Christ, and the Holy Spirit falls on Cornelius and the other listeners at that point. So Peter isn't just giving his own opinions here. He's explaining the gospel from a biblical the actual events of the death baron resurrection of Christ. So let me tell a real quick story. Yesterday I did a funeral and I officiated a funeral. And it wasn't a family that I knew. It was a funeral home that needed a non denominational pastor. Apparently, she the deceased, was ninety six years old, by the way, So that's a pretty good long life, isn't it. So she grew up in the Great Depression. It's pretty fascinating you're. Ninety six years old. It doesn't matter if she'd gotten hit by a bus. It was still natural causes. Right at that point, you've lived a long time. Right. So she has one daughter and a son in law, and they were my contacts, and we were collecting information about her life and things, and so you know, it was a hodgepodge where the dad was Catholic, she was a Presbyterian, and the daughter was Methodist. It was pretty crazy, so they called me. So anyway, I go in there and I sit down with this gentleman and his first name was Dave, and Dave said, Dave said two things that stood in my mind. The first thing he said is he said, well, I grew up in a certain faith that taught me that it's that all the other faiths are bad and mine's the only faith. And so he had this sort of issue at the fact that you know that I was even there, right, And he says, if you're not of this faith that I grew up in, then then you're not You don't you don't count. And I laughed, and I said, you know what's so funny, Dave is I was sort of taught the same thing growing up. And I said, it took me a long time to sort of unlearned that. And it really depends on where you believe the authority comes from, because if you believe the authority lies with man commissioned by God, you know, and the church has the authority to speak on behalf of God, then you know that's that's a whole different story. But if you believe the authority with the word of God that I'm going to tell you that Nowhere in the Bible does it say that. And he said, really, doesn't say that in the Bible. I said no. So that was his first thing. He was like, huh, I've never heard. I've never heard that. I always had the Bible said that, and I said, no, doesn't say that in the Bible. Okay. First thing. Second thing was whether that's extremely relevant to Cornelius, right, being brainwashed by people? Right? And then and then the second thing was I stood up there and I gave the gospel, which is exactly what Peter did with in Corneus's home, and I said, you know, Jesus Christ died in the cross for only one reason, to pay for your sins and mine fully completely. And finally, and then and I said, most people believe they get to heaven based on their good versus they're bad. But we just have to believe in what was done for us at the cross of cavalry. So we get done. And you know, and I only share like five or six minutes some comforting promises of the scriptures. We get done. And now, granted, you have to understand they're they're playing a last song, they're going to do final respects. People have come up and passed by the casket, like there's still more funeral to happen, Right, So I get up and I walk out. This dude gets up and follows me, leaves, the funeral comes and follows me in the hallway and he goes. I have never heard that, And so what he was really saying was and all of his time associated and he got offended by the church in nineteen sixty nine hadn't been back. But in all the time growing up, he had never heard his claims where he had never heard plainly that that's how you get to heaven. Wow. Yeah, And I thought that's unbelievable. Well, this is the story of Cornelius. Right. Cornelius was a good man who did a lot of good things. He might have been the best Roman soldier as far as morality goes, but he still needed the Gospel to penetrate his life. He still needed his sins forgive, and he still needed to place his faith in Jesus Christ. Right, there's so many good people, people who do good things, but you can't get into heaven just good deeds. Cornelius wasn't on his way to heaven until responded to the good news that Jesus paid the price for our sins right and rose again. And so what a powerful thing for many people when they discover there's no way to heaven except through Jesus Christ. Right, it's not your good deeds. So this is Peter back to the very first verse we read. He said, I see very clear that God shows no favoritism. This kind of goes back to the conversation we had a little bit yesterday. The racial thing, the social thing, all those things, and then God accepts those who fear him. That's really the issue. Some of us reject God, reject Christ. And God's fine, I'll let you do your own thing. But if you fear Me and you come to me, then I will receive you. I'll accept you. And this is what's happening in this context. And then what do they do. The Holy Spirit comes on them at salvation, so there's not some other secondary thing. It's at the moment they trust Christ, the Holy Spirit comes on them. And then Peter goes, we need the baptizem or is anybody going to objective I baptize these Gentiles. Now, most of the Christians would have objected, probably right, But because Peter goes, nobody's gonna object here are they. Right. Peter's using kind of his apostolic authority and his influence in the church, being maybe the most influential Christian leader at the time. He's going, nobody's gonna argue me, argue with me about baptizing Cornelius. And this this is a very significant moment. So he orders them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and then he stays and teaches Cornelius for a little while. You know, another thing that we can learn from this passage is it says that as Peter said these things, the Holy Spirit came down. And then it says the Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed at the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles too too. Right, Also, what like like the same God for me is for them. So here's here's shocking when when you have the awareness that God loves your enemies as much as he loves you, Right, that's a that that messes you up. So so here's here's the lesson for us here's another Yeah, another lesson hidden in this passage. Don't underestimate the power of influence. Don't underestimate the fact that Peter led the way, and that those who were thinking the same thing that Peter was thinking when he was praying on a flat rooftop and God shows him in a vision clearly that you know that God shows no favoritism. You know, those other guys didn't have the dream. Those other guys didn't you know, here's what happened. They watched Peter show no favoritism. They watched Peter preach the gospel, and then they saw God working in gentiles, and so they were influenced by Peter, who led the way. And you know what it is. It is an amazing thing when you see someone take a stand in the moment and then watch other people finally who are afraid to take a stand finally say oh, thank goodness that person took a stand so I can align with them or voice my opinion, you know, because it all it takes is just you know, it's like that movie I'm famous for movie quote, say we bought a zoo? Yes, okay, remember twenty seconds of courage? No what Okay? Doesn't matter. I saw the movie. Okay, So Matt Damon said, I watched. A movie and like fifteen minutes later, I don't remember anything. Okay. Well, the premise was all you need is twenty seconds of courage that could change your life. And it was the twenty seconds of courage that he ran and asked his wife out for a date that set his legacy. So anyway, that's the point. And so for you to take a stand when nobody else is taking a stand, or speak up or do what is right, or to actually just say, you know what, I kind of disagree with everybody in the room, or I believe this, or yes, I do have these values in my life. You can make fun of me all you want, but I'm going to say it out loud. And if you take that stand, watch how many other people who were afraid to align that way fall right behind you because they're thinking that they're feeling it. But all they need is a leader. Yeah, and it doesn't take much to lead. I think a lot of words are said about equality and about favoritism and bias and all these things, and I think one of the best things that can happen is anybody who has any influence. Parents, the best thing rather than preaching to your kids about accepting other people, demonstrate it, live it right right, leverage your influence, advocate on behalf of those who don't have a voice, those kinds of things where you just model it and you show this is what we do and this is how we behave. We're not going to get caught up in the fights. We're not going to get caught up in the arguments. We're not going to argue polemics, We're not gonna argue all these things. Instead, I'm just going to model the fact that I don't show favoritism to other people. Right, we treat everybody the same. And the modeling of it was huge here. And because he didn't pick a fight, he does ask is anybody going to object? But he's pretty much letting them know nobody's going to object. That's what he's doing right, right, And he leverages his influence and they baptize them. So for some people, there's this big holy spirit moment right in this moment, for Cornelius and his other people, for the apostles in the upper room, there's a big, huge holy spirit moment. Did you notice there was no giant Holy Spirit moment. For Paul, there's never a time where it goes and there was a mighty rushing wind and he begins to speaking tongues right, right, So something he did have scales phosph Yeah, but it wasn't the Holy Spirit moment. It doesn't say anying about the Holy Spirit there. So so we do know from Cornelius the story you receive the Holy Spirit at salvation. Right. Sometimes it's dramatic, sometimes it's not, and both are okay, right now, go live in the power. The Holy Spirit really is the is the answer, and that's always going to be producing the fruit of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, piece, all those kinds of things and God's God's going to do in your life, and also going and making other believers operating. You will be my witnesses, right, and so that's really cool. Well, that's a great place to end, and we will see you next time on the Daily Bible, guys,