I invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to the book of Acts. If you're a visitor, we like to preach through books of the Bible. And we believe that's important for God-inspired books. And gave us an entire big book, didn't he, with many books in them. And we're working presently through the book of Acts. And this morning we come to Acts chapter 9. You'll find that on page 1168 in those Bibles in front of you. 1168. We will read from verse 32 to 1023. This is the word of the Lord. Now, as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. There he found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Rise and make your bed. And immediately he rose. And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. Now there was a man at Joppa, a disciple named Tabitha, which translated means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. In those days she became ill and died. And when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, please come to us without delay. So Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room, and all the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas had made while she was with them. But Peter put them all outside and knelt down and prayed. In turning the body, he said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes. and when she saw peter she sat up and he gave her his hand and raised her up then calling the saints and widows he presented her alive and it became known throughout all of joppa and many believed in the lord and he stayed in joppa for many days with one simon a tanner at caesarea there was a man named cornelius a centurion who was known of what was known as the italian cohort a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day, he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, Cornelius. And he stared at him in terror and said, What is it, Lord? And he said to him, Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. He's lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea. When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him. And having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop at about the sixth hour to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat. But while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heavens opened in something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter, kill and eat. Peter said, By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And the voice came to him a second time, What God has made clean, do not call common. This happened three times, And the thing was taken up at once to heaven. Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon's house, stood at the gate and called out to ask whether Simon, who was called Peter, was lodging there. And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them. And Peter went down to the men and said, I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming? And they said, Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man who was well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and hear what you have to say. So he invited them in to be his guests. And there ends the reading of God's Word. Well, we have already learned in our study through the book of Acts that this is all about the great commission of Jesus. The great commission to go and evangelize and baptize the nations. You remember how the book began that right at the beginning, Luke recorded when he said, Acts is a book of all that Jesus is continuing to do and to teach. It began by saying, this is a book of what Jesus, a record of. In my gospel, all that Jesus began to do and to teach, Acts is the continuing of that. It's continuing to see what Jesus is doing in the world, what Jesus cares about in the world, what Jesus is after in the world. And it's so beautiful that Acts is showing us that our God is a missionary God, that our God is having us here and continuing this world. it's continuing to go on because he desires to evangelize the nations with the gospel and as soon as that's done as soon as he saved his people the end will come that's the message of the bible all of us being gentiles and not jews at some point along the line someone made a great sacrifice in sending missionaries to us it got here somehow right someone had to come someone had to be sent someone had to do the hard work the problem that acts is showing us though and what i believe is in front of us today to help us with that is that often the attitude and complacency of the church was the greatest hurdle that Jesus had to overcome. One of the greatest hurdles was the attitude and complacency of the church. Due to deep-seated attitudes that were understandable but not biblical or understanding of the mission, Jesus had to first take down the barrier in the Jewish apostles, the barriers that were set up by them before the gospel would break out to the ends of the earth. And that's what this is about today. That's what this whole section is about. We come to the last great barrier to the Gentile world and guess what it is? Caesarea. Caesarea was the door to the nations. Caesarea was the door. Remember Acts program. It's gone from a little house, it's broken out in Judea and Samaria and it going to the ends of the earth. That's where we are now. It's about to break out to the ends of the earth. But that's not really the barrier I'm focusing on today. The barrier Jesus had to break down was much greater. It was a barrier between Jew and Gentile. The apostles had been given the keys of the kingdom through the preaching of the gospel. The kingdom of heaven was being opened and closed. Do you understand that? When the gospels preached to you and you believe, the heaven is open to you right there. And when you reject it and turn away from it, heaven is closed to you. That's the message of the Bible. This is what the apostles understood their ministry was. But they were struggling with the direction of that ministry. How far-reaching is that ministry? They had to see that Jesus' ministry was not just to Israel. That Jesus' ministry was to the nations. And that's the main point today. The entire section here challenges us to be supportive of God's missionary desire to evangelize the nations. That's what this is all about, to be supportive of that, to understand that. And with that today, the text zeroes in on Peter to deal with this problem. If you're a note taker, I've been trying to do my best to give you three points, right? You should appreciate that. I'm doing it again. Here you go. First, I have Peter's progress, and then I have Peter's problem, and then I have Peter's prodding. You'll see. You'll see. I have, creatively, three Ps. There are two conversions that Acts has shown us. The first was Saul, and now it juxtaposes and sets another conversion right by Saul, and that is Cornelius. These two conversions Acts sees as formative for the whole program of the church and the Great Commission. These two conversions, they're very unique conversions, wonderful conversions. It is the program here that's being shown of the Lord wanting to break it out to the ends of the earth. So think of the conversions. The first conversion is by a devout Jew who was a Pharisee and he was so rigorous with the law understood it all he would be the one after his conversion that god would use to take the gospel to the gentile but now he sets a conversion of a gentile right next to saul and he uses peter to open the door to which now after this peter drops off peter's basically done in acts after this event to show that it was gospel to the gentiles focus but think about it a pharisaical jew converted to become the apostle to the gentiles and peter now the one that opens the door and then it goes and focuses on paul's great work this is a turning point in the book then a big turning point last time we left off with the statement that peace had come to the church after saul's conversion in judea and galilee and samaria and now the story abruptly shifts to Peter what's he doing where's he I first call this Peter's progress then Peter himself begins a sort of itinerant missions trip into the areas of Judea we read that as Peter was traveling from place to place he came down to the saints that lived at Lydda and the two cities that are mentioned here are Lydda and Joppa. These were semi-Gentile regions, but still mostly filled with Jews. Clearly, Peter was going around and visiting his folk from Jerusalem who had been dispersed. Remember, there was a great persecution in Jerusalem under Saul and others, and this had pushed the Jews out, and they were dispersed, and they filled that whole region, and Peter now is running around visiting the churches and the gatherings of these early christians who had been persecuted and pushed out now i say peter's progress because he seems to understand and accept the dispersion and his responsibility as an apostle to continue the ministry of jesus to go to go go baptize go teach go bless the churches and in that great responsibility one of great peter's great purposes was to go around to the churches and be an encouragement to them the apostles were constantly concerned about this how were the churches functioning what were the churches doing what were the people of god doing out there so without in mind two major figures show up that are interjected between the conversion of Saul and the conversion of Cornelius to teach us something. He first comes to Lydda and he finds a man that had been bedridden there for eight years and Peter heals him. And remember then, he goes down to Joppa and there this woman Tabitha dies and there's a great mourning for Tabitha. And we find a great moment since the resurrection of Jesus that Peter, by Jesus' power, and he'll give all credit to Jesus in this, through his hands, this woman is raised from the dead. This is a big moment in the book of Acts. I wrestled with, why are they here? You'd love to just kind of jump right to Cornelius and avoid these two sections. But you've got to think a little bit about why did the Spirit put and inspire it for these two pairs, these two accounts, this pair here, of a man and a woman to be put right in front of the sending to Cornelius. And I believe that it's showing us something about Peter. The narratives are more focused on Peter, in my conviction, than they are the people that are here mentioned. There's a peculiar message here. it was through the church being strengthened and the witness of the church that the gospel was spreading it was through the church being strengthened the church had to be strengthened the church had to be helped and it's really fascinating what peter's doing he's mimicking and patterning the ministry of jesus as an apostle now remember that apostolic era is over and we're not seeing the dramatic healing events as they ended with that apostolic era they're teaching us something about the advancement of the word and the gospel both of these miracles are deja vu for us we know these we've heard this story almost verbatim aeneas reminds us of the paralytic on the bed whom jesus ran into remember and said get up take up your bed and go home peter says the same thing get up and take up your mat tabitha dies there's great commotion and weeping and just like jesus who healed jairus's daughter jesus sends them out of the room peter sends them out of the room peter almost uses verbatim the words of jesus jesus said talitha kum and jarius jarius's daughter rose peter had he spoken in aramaic it's just one word here that's different or one um letter here that's different he would have said tabitha kum he sees himself as continuing the ministry of jesus in fact he even says it to Aeneas. Jesus Christ heals you. I'm not doing it. It's not a pope or anyone who does the healing or the giving of it all. It's Jesus. Peter understood the effect. What happened in these cases is that all the people in all the region who were in Lydda and Sharon saw what happened and a beautiful thing is said they turned to the Lord. That's how the Lord used the miracles to open the door for the gospel. Here's my point. Both miracles seem to show genuine compassion for the struggles of these Jewish Christians and for the witness of these Jewish Christians. Particularly remarkable is the account of Tabitha. What an encouragement to read, isn't it? That this woman was so full of good works, almsgiving, she would make little coats for all the widows verse 39 is beautiful isn't it so peter got up and went with them when he arrived they led him to the room upstairs and all the widows approached him weeping and showing him the robes and the clothes that dorcas had made and while she was with them this was such a pain of loss to the early church. This woman. It broke the church out into a time of weeping. They were devastated. The compassion of Peter shines, doesn't it? Come! Come quickly, Peter! Peter bolts over and goes. Help us! Her witness was so strong. When she died, the whole region seemed to weep. That's how known this woman was. and her raising caused a whole bunch of people to turn to Jesus now why do you think that's here because you're seeing Peter's compassion he understood the church has to be strengthened and that through the good works of his people the witness spreads didn't Jesus say that that by your good works men may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. The Lord raises up people like this in the church constantly. What a loss when they're gone. But what a blessing when they're here. You won't know this name, but I'm going to use her name because somebody who stands out from my former pastorate in Linden, her name was Alice Youngfin. And she would go around and was so denying of herself. Nobody knew this until after her death. She would go around and she would clean the widow's feet. She was always helping the widows. One day she got cancer and died and you should have seen the church. Packed! All over we saw people come. We had no idea of the effect of that. We had no idea how this woman had been used of the Lord to be that great of a light. Church was full, and it was a great loss. It was a great loss. Didn't I read on love today? Wasn't it Jesus who said, in our world where nobody, especially in Southern California, everyone's running around and hustling, everyone's thinking of number one in their life and their busyness and everything they're doing, Think of the witness of love. Sincere, without hypocrisy, love in the body. Peter sees it. And he understands the laws. I think this is just absolutely beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Peter understood and made great progress in ministering and understanding the importance of this in the church. You realize, you imagine if we had a church full of women like Tabitha who thought like this, who lived like this. If the church thought like this all the time, see, the witness is important, isn't it? The witness is important. Imagine the effect. Imagine the effect. there's also another encouragement here that I think the text is showing us to help us understand that Peter was making progress in understanding distinctions being torn down. Isn't it interesting that a male and a female are set right next to each other? We're going to go to Galatians in a minute. Male and female are set right next to each other. The male doesn't get as much attention, but the female does. The woman does. And I believe that Peter understands and made great progress in looking at how much the women were a blessing to Jesus in the ministry. How much women were important to the life of the church. Yeah, they weren't ordained as pastors, but look at how great a work this was. She's called a disciple here. Did you catch that? if you understand first century thought you understand uh cato a roman writer said if your woman is caught in an act of infidelity killer the rabbi school of hillel among the jews the teaching prevailed that if a woman displeased a man for any reason spoiling his dinner he could divorce her and it became so bad in the first century women refused to marry the greek and roman cultures at this time were no better demosony said we have courtesans for our pleasure concubines for our daily cohabitation and wives for the purpose of having children legitimately and having a faithful guardian for our household affairs oh there's been major abuse of women in the world peter's getting it he's seeing the importance of them in the church we need to think a lot more about this in serving and helping this way it's beautiful she's a disciple a crucial figure to the witness of the church Peter understood it and cared for the widows this is why he understood how important it was for the witness of the gospel in this moment of apostolic ministry for her to rise Jesus wanted this to happen to declare this, to show this. Imagine the encouragement to the widows. That's a lot of progress. If I went around today and asked the elders, do you care for the people here? Or I asked the church and the deacons, do you care for the people here? Do you love them? I think this church does a remarkable job of that. You could always do better. But I've seen our widows, I've seen a lot of love in this place for the needy among us. We care for our people. This is a really beautiful section to hold on to in Acts. Peter made great progress. Now I want to talk a little bit about Peter's problem. What is it? Well, we move to another interesting figure here. As chapter 10 begins, Notice how it's said. There was a man in Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian Regiment. He was a devout man and feared God along with his whole household. He did, he did. Now wait, see the connection here. He did almsgiving. Just like Tabitha. For the Jewish people. He always prayed to God. This was a remarkable man of the Italians. Fascinating. roman centurion they were the backbone of the roman empire at the ninth hour this angel comes to him cornelius looks at him and says what lord what is it terrified to death i have heard your prayers i've seen your almsgiving i want you to go send men to joppa and fetch one simon whose surname is Peter. Same spirit as Tabitha filled Cornelius. Interesting, the connection. Italians, the door to the Gentiles. Here's what I can't get out of my head. The Great Commission is God sending apostles out. The marvel of this is God sends the Italians to Peter. See it? That's why I call it Peter's problem. You know Peter's problem. He had the most difficult time receiving the Gentiles. It was more than that. It was a problem of what? hypocrisy. Remember Paul said when he had to get in Galatians, and you're going through Galatians in Sunday school, but at chapter 2, he had to withstand and get in Peter's face. For Peter would sit with the Gentiles and eat, but then when the Jews came, he would depart. He'd get out of Dodge. I don't want to be seen with them. For he regularly ate with the Gentiles before certain men came from james however when they came he withdrew and separated himself because he feared those from the circumcision party then the rest of the jews joined his hypocrisy so that even barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy but when i saw that they were deviating from the truth of the gospel most of our discussions on racism and all that appealed it wasn't so much racism i think that's a bit unfair jews did not believe they were better than everyone else they didn't believe their race was superior to everyone else. They believed that God had chosen them and not anyone else. That was the problem. Peter struggled with the inclusion of the Gentiles and played the hypocrite by retreating to his own people, lest he should be seen hanging out with the unclean. Which, by the way, Jesus received that scrutiny all the time Pharisees and scribes were constantly grumbling against him for this man receives and sits with the dirty the defiled the sinners the tax collectors that's the issue here when he goes to Cornelius the first thing he faces is that the um the Jews were mad at him what are you doing going to the unclean here's the beginning of Galatians 2 here's the beginning of the hypocrisy. Here's the issues. I'll show you that I'm on the right track even more. You want to see a strange irony? Where is Peter right now? Joppa. You row that place in the Old Testament, don't you? Go to Nineveh and preach to those Gentiles. No! And he heads to Joppa and hangs out there. I'm not doing it. Look at the last verse of chapter 9. Peter stayed many days in Joppa with Simon, a leather tanner. Listen, tanners were the most undefiled to the Jews. Why? They cut off skins of dead animals, but he was Jewish. So he could stay there. So he had no problem staying with an unclean Jew. But he had every problem going to an unclean Gentile. Why? because the traditions of men held sway over him. Israelites who reside outside Palestine were considered idolaters. This is the Talmud to give you some context here. Israelites who reside out of Palestine serve idols through though in pure innocence. If, for example, an idolater gives a banquet for his son and invites all the Jews in his town, then even though they eat of their own and drink of their own and their own attendants wait on them. Scripture regards them as if they had eaten of the sacrifices to dead idols. See, if they invite you and you go, you're polluted. Who's coming? Who's doing the inviting? Edersheim, one pastor summarized, the Jews kept close together and were ever most liberal to one another. But they were filled with bitterness to all others the jews had a low estimate of the gentiles character the most vile and unnatural crimes were imputed to gentiles they considered it not safe to even leave their cattle in their charge to allow their women to nurse infants or their physicians to attend to the sick nor to walk in their company without taking precautions no trust no trust gentiles should as far as possible be avoided altogether except in cases of necessity for the sake of business that's ironic they and theirs were defiled their houses unclean as containing idols or things dedicated to idols their feasts and their joyous occasions were polluted by idolatry you could not leave the room if a gentile was in it because he might carelessly or on purpose, defile the wine on the table. Another hypocrisy or irony. Under such circumstances, everything must be regarded as unclean. You can never receive into your house or go to their house a Gentile because they are idolaters. Here comes the invitation. The gospel now, as Peter saw it, think of Galatians, there is now neither male nor female peter's good slave nor free got it jew nor gentile wait a minute see you are all one in christ jesus he's tore down the barriers so what does god do he sends a leader of the italian regiment to him begging him to come i can't get that out of my head there's a scene in in john's gospel right after the triumphal entry and all these nations of peoples are laying their palm branches down at jesus feet and the pharisees get furious the pharisees are furious listen to what they say you see you've accomplished nothing look the world has gone after him now some greeks were among those who went up to worship at the festival they came to Philip who was from Bethsaida in Galilee and requested of him sir we want to see Jesus you know that's on this pulpit right I told you we have to move it to the new one sir we want to see Jesus who does not just you peter was fine to go to the fringes of judea but had a jonah-like attitude for the mission work way out there he cared about the church of his own of his people his family but there were others asking for jesus too you don't own them I remember growing up in my home and when it came to night church you know when we wouldn't go and listen I love my dad he just died wonderful father to me but he wasn't an angel all the time you know what he said we wouldn't go to evening church when the missionary spoke why oh it's just a missionary tonight that's our attitude the greatest barrier is our attitude it's just not that important for us you know jesus wants to take the gospel to the ends of the earth this is why we're here a strong church and a strong witness why we're building a strong church and a strong witness should have this kind of effect in our service and desire to take it out. It's somewhat easy to minister to our own. But Jesus' great commission shouldn't have to push us or pull us, but give us willing hearts to do what we can to see this go. That leads to Peter's prodding, and I'm going to close with this today. Peter would have closed the door unless God had not intervened. You understand that? He wouldn't have gone. He was comfortable at Simon the Tanner. Without knowing, all of a sudden, the Italians are on his doorstep. The next day, as they were journeying and approaching the city, Peter went up on the household at about the sixth hour to pray. Peter was hungry. And as he was praying, he falls into a trance and sees a vision. Heaven is open, and it looks like a great sheet is coming down, it says. It spreads out to the four corners of the earth. It may have been a sail on a boat. Whatever the case, on that sheet were all sorts of crittery things. Everyone, what was on there, right? Everything you could imagine. Pigs. Everything clean and unclean. They're all together on this sheet. Peter, get up, rise up, kill, eat. That's like preparing pork for a vegan. Eat it. That's offensive. Don't you tell me to eat that. You know how animated people get about their food. Eat the bacon. Nope. I've never done it. I'll never do it. As he sits there, offended, bothered, confused. See the connection? the uncleaner at your door knock knock knock now the spirit speaks behold three men are looking for you rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation don't do it with hesitation i've sent them that sheet was full of the clean and the unclean at least as he understood it but they're on one sheet there's no separation he's made the two one you understand the message in this today we have more to look at next time with regard to this do you know what the cross of jesus has brought he's torn down the middle wall of separation between the two jew and gentile all those ceremonial distinctions he nailed to the cross he's taken them out of the way all the man-made traditions and laws that we impose to keep people far from us jesus confronts this is exactly how peter will later apply it when the jews are furious at him for going there he tells the story and then he says god showed me god showed me that I am not to call unclean what he has cleansed and he cleansed them. They need Jesus too. Not just us and our own. Peter went down to the men. I'm the one you're looking for. Why are you coming? What's the reason for your coming? They said, Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man who is well-spoken by the whole Jewish nation was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say. We want to hear the gospel. Come preach it. So he invited them in to be his guests. What a section, huh? I'm trying to imagine Peter saying, sorry, too much complication. Too hard for me to go. Too hard for me to do that. You could end up at the bottom of the ocean in a fish. You do that. Right? You cared about the plant. which you didn't labor over and did not grow. You cared about your comforts in life. It appeared in the night, Jonah, and perished in the night. Should I not care about that great city, Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who can't distinguish between their right hand and their left? Should I not care about a lost world right now? You don't think the world's lost? Look at the mess all around you. Look at him trying to figure it out. When the key focal point is somebody called Kanye telling us how to love and everyone rising up, you see right now, there's no answer. But Jesus is. He lived. He died. To pay for sins. He rose to make a new community of one people who know love, Who do love. This is why we're here. Sometimes God has to place them on our doorsteps to awaken us to the opportunity. But I'm glad he does. But imagine the effect today in closing of a church that is full of love of Tabithas. And you understand that that love is meant to go out to all. To be shown to all. That the message would go out. That church is going to make a big difference. Jesus said to the church in Philadelphia, I place before you an open door that no one is able to close. Go through it. Sir, we want to see Jesus. So do they. So do they. May the Lord use us mightily in this place to gather in the nations. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word and thank you for encouraging us today with two professions of faith and a baptism which shows your desire and you've proved it to us in this service. Thank you for your desire to evangelize the nations with the only message of hope in this sad world. Give us hearts that desire it. And when these opportunities come, may we be eager and willing, not pushed, not pulled, but ready to do what we can. So strengthen us in this place with a whole church full of Aeneas and Tabitha who give themselves on the sacrifice and service of each other's faith. We then realize that is meant to be a blessing to all. Thank you, Father, for hearing us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.