The Mission & Message of the Church: Jesus is Lord
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Is the Gospel for everyone? Are you willing to share it with anyone?
Is the Gospel for everyone? Are you willing to share it with anyone?
Several years ago , when I was in Louisville, KY, I had a conversation with a man about people with disabilities and the church. I was explaining why I thought more people like that should be represented in the body of Christ. The man said he was not sure if he agreed with me. I asked him to explain why he felt that way. he said, “I don’t think people with disabilities have souls. The gospel is for human beings who have souls.”
Needless to say I was beside myself. I don't know how he came to his conclusion that people with disabilities don’t have souls. When I pressed him a little bit he just said he heard it preached once and thought it made sense. To be fair to the man, he was not saying this in an arrogant condescending manner. His theology was off, really off.
By saying that people with disabilities don’t have souls, you are saying they are less than human; as if they are animals or something. In turn, his conclusion was they don’t need the gospel. Why have them in church? Why spend the resources and time ministering to them? Why adopt a special needs child into your family? They are not part of the Great Commission. In this man’s eyes, the gospel is not for everyone.
This train of thought is not isolated to people with disables. Erskin sings the opening lyric to his song “Black & White,” “The most segregated time in our country is Sunday morning 11 o'clock. White churches and black churches worshiping on the same block. With their hands held high to Jesus with a million miles between us.” Why is there a million miles between us? Its because some white people and some black people in the church believe the gospel is not for everyone.If you go back to the early church, you will find the same attitude lurking around with God’s people.
It is no secret that the relationship between Jews and Gentiles was strained. Both groups did not like each other for various reasons. It was ingrained into the heart of a Jewish child to not respect Gentiles. It was ingrained in the heart of Gentile child to not respect Jews.
Our text this morning shows glimpses of the attitude. For starters, Peter makes a point to say to Cornelius,
Peter said to them, “You know it’s forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner. But God has shown me that I must not call any person common or unclean. That’s why I came without any objection when I was sent for. So I ask: Why did you send for me?”
The only reason why Peter came to Cornelius’s house was because God made it clear to him that he must go and not call unclean what God makes clean. Otherwise, Peter would not step foot in that house.
There is also something to be said about Cornelius inviting Peter to come to house house. That would not have happened if God had not made it clear to Cornelius that he must send for Peter. God is making it clear to the Jews and the Gentiles that this nonsense has to stop. God is not Lord of some. God is Lord of all. And God sent his Son into the world to die for sinners, all sinners, and if any sinner, abled or disabled, black or white, Jew or Gentile, calls upon the name of the Lord. That sinner will be saved. That is the message and mission of the Great Commission.
The Great Commission mission and message of the church is Jesus is Lord of all.
The Great Commission mission and message of the church is Jesus is Lord of all.
Jesus commissioned his disciples to take the gospel to all nations discipling them and baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit. He said leave none of them unaccounted. Every tribe, every nation, every tongue needs to hear that God made a way to save them from his wrath for their sin through His Son Jesus Christ.
God has made it clear that he does not show favoritism. Paul makes that clear to the Roman church
He will repay each one according to his works: eternal life to those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality; but wrath and indignation to those who are self-seeking and disobey the truth but are obeying unrighteousness; affliction and distress for every human being who does evil, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does what is good, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. There is no favoritism with God.
Paul also makes it clear to the Galatian church
But we did not give up and submit to these people for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would be preserved for you. Now from those recognized as important (what they really were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism )—they added nothing to me.
David Sills makes a great clarification of us regarding what it means that God shows no favoritism. He says,
“This does not mean God accepts all people no matter their response to him or that people who fear him are acceptable to him and do not need Christ. Rather, it means that God does not restrict any nation or ethnicity from the offer of salvation.” David Sills
Peter and Cornelius may have struggled to see their need for each other and their purpose for God’s kingdom, but God knew all along the two would come together to represent God’s initiative to bring salvation to the Gentiles.
The Great Commission mission and message of the church is Jesus is Lord of all.
The Great Commission mission and message of the church is Jesus is Lord of all.
The Great Commission Mission (Acts 10:24-33)
The Great Commission Mission (Acts 10:24-33)
God, in His sovereign wisdom, has ordained that his people carry out the mission of joyfully advancing hos kingdom by making much of Jesus in the church, community, and home. Jesus made a promsie in
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
He also commanded the disciples
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
This is the Great Commission mission. Those who have received God’s gift of salvation must be on mission to give it to others. I think Paul captures the heart of every believer regarding the Great commission when he says
My aim is to evangelize where Christ has not been named, so that I will not build on someone else’s foundation, but, as it is written: Those who were not told about Him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.
How does this sit with Peter?
God is committed to Peter’s sanctification and effectiveness as kingdom advancer. God gives Peter a vision to help him understand what he is doing among the Gentiles. God gave Cornelius a vision as well to help him see that Peter was going to bring him good news. Don’t miss god’s initiating grace here. God is the one who acts on behalf of sinners. He initiates. peter was not going to move unless God did something. Cornelius was going to remain lost in his sin if God did not do something.
God prepares Cornelius’s heart for the gospel. He sends hos messenger to let him know he hears him. Then he tell him how he can receive the gospel. Send your men to Peter. Peter will tell you about Jesus.
Cornelius is ready to receive the gospel. he sends men to find Peter. Then, in verse 24, gathers all of his friends and family to hear the gospel. This reminds me when I was first saved. I immediately told my best friend. Then when I got home I spoke to my mother and father about my encounter with Christ. When I got back to college, at Winona State University, I told my fraternity brothers. I grabbed all of my friends an d family and shared God’s powerful work in my life. That is a natural response when God moves powerfully in your life. You cant help but put it out there.
Cornelis gathered his family and friends in his home so they could hear what Peter had to say. There was enough people in the room that Peter had to have felt a little overwhelmed when he walked into the house.
Peter responds in obedience to God’s prompting. He goes with Cornelius’s men. When he gets to the house he is met by “many persons gathered” and Cornelius falling down at his feet to worship him. Cornelius’ faith was not complete. Peter had to correct Cornelius by reminding him that he is not the Messiah but just a man. Peter says, “Look I’m pretty orthodox in my Judaism but God has shown me that h does not show favoritism and I should not cal you unclean. What am I doing here?
Cornelius tells him that God answered his prayer and that he needed to get Peter to his house because Peter has good news. And after expressing gratitude for Peter, Cornelius and his family are waiting to hear what peter has to say. By the time you get to verse 34, Peter realizes that God’s great Commission mission is to make Jesus Lord of all the world. Jesus is not just Lord of the Jews. He is Lord of the Jews and the Gentiles.
God told the prophet Isaiah
The vision that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s house will be established at the top of the mountains and will be raised above the hills. All nations will stream to it, and many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us about His ways so that we may walk in His paths.” For instruction will go out of Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will settle disputes among the nations and provide arbitration for many peoples. They will turn their swords into plows and their spears into pruning knives. Nations will not take up the sword against other nations, and they will never again train for war. House of Jacob, come and let us walk in the Lord’s light.
Peter confesses
Then Peter began to speak: “Now I really understand that God doesn’t show favoritism, but in every nation the person who fears Him and does righteousness is acceptable to Him.
God’s great Commission Mission is to unite every nation tribe and tongue in Jesus Christ as one people being brought up as one new man, one holy temple unto the Lord. God moved Peter closer to that vision by bringing him to Cornelius and making Cornelius ready to receive Peter. In turn, God is showing us His vision for the church. It is the mission of FBCL to joyfully advance the kingdom of God by making much of Jesus in the church, community, and home for the joy of all people in every nation for every ethnicity with all abilities. That is the Great Commission Mission.
The Great Commission Message (Acts 10:36-43)
The Great Commission Message (Acts 10:36-43)
God’s mission has a message. That message is Jesus is Lord of all.
He sent the message to the Israelites, proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ—He is Lord of all.
You know the events that took place throughout Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John preached:
how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were under the tyranny of the Devil, because God was with Him.
We ourselves are witnesses of everything He did in both the Judean country and in Jerusalem, yet they killed Him by hanging Him on a tree.
God raised up this man on the third day and permitted Him to be seen,
not by all the people, but by us, witnesses appointed beforehand by God, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead.
He commanded us to preach to the people and to solemnly testify that He is the One appointed by God to be the Judge of the living and the dead.
All the prophets testify about Him that through His name everyone who believes in Him will receive forgiveness of sins.”
Four Components to the Great Commission Message
Four Components to the Great Commission Message
Jesus’s Identity: Son of God (Acts 10:36-37)
Peter makes some assumptions with the people he is speaking. In verse 37, he begins with Jesus’s baptism from John. At Jesus’s baptism, God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit declaring him to be the Messiah, the Son of God in whom the Father is well pleased.
Jesus is the Word who was with God and is God that became Flesh and tabernacled among us (John 1:1; 14). He is God and one with His Father (John 10:30 ). He is the Lord of the Sabbath and Lamb who came to take away the sins of the world. He was child born, to us a son was given, and the government was on his shoulders. And he is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).
Many people have different opinions about who Jesus was and is today. peter is making it clear that Jesus is God, the Son of God, who came in the flesh. Heed the words of C. S. Lewis
“I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [Jesus Christ]: 'I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that option open to us. He did not intend to.” C. S. Lewis
Jesus’s Ministry (Acts 10:38)
At Jesus's baptism, he was anointed with the Holy Spirit and power to heal the sick, mend the broken, and set eh captives free from those possessed by Satan. Jesus’ ministry was to advance God’s kingdom on earth and show us what it will be like to live life under the rule of Jesus. His ministry was to usher in the Messianic kingdom to some degree. In Mark's Gospel, Jesus opens his ministry by driving out demons in the synagogue and healing the multitudes in Capernaum. The rest of the gospel display Jesus feeding thousands, healing multitudes, and casting out demons. e quiets storms and stills the seas. He brings peace and clarity doing good to all of society.
Jesus’s Crucifixion (Acts 10:39)
The bible says in
But He was pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on Him, and we are healed by His wounds.
and in
“Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the house of David and the residents of Jerusalem, and they will look at Me whom they pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child and weep bitterly for Him as one weeps for a firstborn.
In verse 39, Peter seems to be alluding to
“If anyone is found guilty of an offense deserving the death penalty and is executed, and you hang his body on a tree,
you are not to leave his corpse on the tree overnight but are to bury him that day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.
Anyone who is hanged on a tree is cursed by God. Jesus was crucified on a cross, which is sometimes said he was hanged on a tree. The implication is that Jesus took God’s curse on the cross and satisfied the penalty of the law on behalf all who put their trust, their faith, their hope in Him.
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written: Everyone who is hung on a tree is cursed.
The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith.
Peter tells Cornelius and his family that his sins can be forever atoned for because Jesus was the perfect sacrifice. He took the curse of sin in himself for your sake. And God accepted his sacrifice by raising him fro the dead, which is what peter finally gets to in verse 40.
Jesus’s Resurrection (Acts 10:40)
God raised him from the dead three days later accepting his sacrifice. Jesus was seen by his disciples as proof of his resurrection. John goes out of his way to prove Jesus was raised form the dead in his first epistle
What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life—
that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us —
what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship along with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
God raised Jesus from the dead accepting his sacrifice as sufficient to forgive the sins of all who ask f forgiveness and accept his work by faith. This is message that Jesus commanded Peter and the apostles and every Christian to preach to people and testify.
Tell the world that God came down to earth and took on the flesh of man. He came to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and set the captives free from the kingdom of darkness. Tell the world that he lived a perfect life obey every bit of God’s law and died a substitutionary death on the cross in your place. he died to take the wrath you deserve for your sin and in turn give you his righteousness so that you can be at peace with God and have eternal life with him. Tell the world that God accepted his son’s death by raising him from the dead and seating him at His right hand. And that everyone who confess with their mouth and believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead will be saved.
The Great Commission Mission and Message Received (Acts 10:44-48)
The Great Commission Mission and Message Received (Acts 10:44-48)
In verses 44-48, that Great Commission message was received. The Holy Spirit fell upon all of them and they began to speak in tongues and exalt God. Essentially, this is Pentecost for the Gentiles. It confirms to Peter and every other Jewish Christian at the time that God has incorporated the Gentiles into His kingdom. They recieved his spirit just like they did in Jerusalem. God shows no favoritism. Is the Gospel for everyone. Yes, absolutely. Will you share it with anyone? Well, that's the 64 million dollar question.
What Should I do?
What Should I do?
Because Jesus is Lord of all, be on Great Commission mission.
Because Jesus is Lord of all, share the Great Commission message with anyone and everyone.
Because Jesus is Lord of all, baptize and disciple all who call upon him to be saved.