seek the truth

Paul's ministry and journey are discussed, including his meeting with Jesus. Peter's ministry is also mentioned, highlighting his doubting nature and his powerful acts of healing through the Holy Spirit. The story of Peter walking on water and sinking due to doubt is recounted. Peter is described as having weaknesses but continuing his ministry. The story of Peter raising Dorcas from the dead is told, highlighting the faith and power of God. The traditions and regulations surrounding the handling of dead things are mentioned. Peter's miracles legitimize his ministry and demonstrate the importance of trusting in God's plan. We've been looking at Paul's ministry, and it's been quite a journey. Literally on his journey, he ends up meeting Jesus, and we're going to see another guy tonight that meets Jesus. We're going to meet Cornelius. We're even going to meet a girl named Dorcas. So you guys will look forward to that. But let's go ahead and go to God in prayer before we get started in His Word. Dear God, we thank You so much that we can come here and continue to worship with You. It's so awesome that we can come here. I just pray that You'd help us to stay out of the way of what You want us to hear tonight, of what You want to accomplish. I pray that You would just be with us as we listen to Your Word now, in Jesus' name, amen. So we're going to wrap up Acts chapter 9. As soon as my stuff gets loaded here. We have a new system, so it disappeared on me there. But first, Paul's ministry we looked at. Now Peter. Now, Paul was not perfect. You know, he came from a cruel background, in fact. You know, just like many Old Testament characters, had cruel backgrounds. And even during their time of service of God, David, for example, killed one of his good friends and slept with his friend's wife. And just really bad people God uses. And thank God He does that because we're all bad people, right? We all have imperfections. And we see that Peter was used in powerful ways by God. He was ministering in a powerful way, healing people through the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet, Peter was one of the biggest doubters through Jesus' ministry. There he was walking on the water and he doubted that Jesus could hold him up. He denied Christ right then and there when Christ needed him the most. Denied Him three times. As predicted, even though he swore he wouldn't. Peter only seemed to halfway trust. Matthew 14, 26 says, when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, it is a ghost. And they cried out in fear, but immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid. Peter said to him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. So here, Peter's watching this person walk on the water and still yet does not have enough faith that it is Jesus himself. He needed him to go above and beyond. So what does Jesus do? He didn't blow him off. He catered to him. He said, come. And Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came towards Jesus. And he started walking. Despite the fact that Jesus here has already proved himself, he's walking on the water himself. Despite the fact that he is now being held up, even though there's water under him, he sees the wind, becomes frightened and begins to sink. He cried out, Lord, save me. Immediately, Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him and said to him, you of little faith, why did you doubt? Peter is like all of us. You know, when we want to take a step of faith, we don't have the courage to do so many times. We may put our first foot in the water and oh, this might be okay. Second foot. But then we can't go all in without the help of God to get us through. And we see Jesus, you know, despite his faith, he still reaches down in that water. One time I got one of these paintings one time, but then I lost it. And this is the coolest painting ever of Jesus reaching down happily to rescue Peter as he's drowning. Just like he's happy to do that with all of us. We just put our faith and trust in him that he can do that and rescue us from the depths of the water. But despite these weaknesses, Peter continues his ministry here in Acts 9.35. And he becomes the first apostle to actually raise somebody from the dead. He says, and all who lived in Leda and Sharon saw him and they turned to the Lord. Now in Joppa, there was a disciple named Tabitha, which translated in the Greek called Dorcas. So I tried to Google a picture of a nerdy girl and there's all these ones that came up and I'm like, ah, forget it. You guys have an idea of somebody that's a Dorcas, right? Why did you nudge Jamie, Sarah? But Dorcas is actually a beautiful name. It means gazelle and it's an awesome name. And it says, this woman was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity, which she continually did. So we have this image in our head of, okay, this is a dork, you know, but she's abounding with deeds with kindness and charity and it means graceful or gazelle. And it happened at the time that she fell sick and died. And when she had washed her body, they laid it in the upper room. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples having heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him imploring him, do not delay in coming to us. So they felt compassion. They wanted to see what they could do for her. They knew that Jesus had raised people from the dead in the past. They knew that they had the power of the Holy Spirit working through them. And they knew that this girl could be raised from the dead and they had faith to do so. In verse 39, it goes on, so Peter arose and went with them. When he arrived, they brought him to the upper room and all the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing all the tunics and garments that Dorcas used to make while she was with them. But that's not the end. When God is involved, you know, we think it's the end of the road. We think we've hit rock bottom. We don't think there's any coming out of the depression or anxiety situation. We don't think that there's any turning around. But right when you're at that moment, when you're at your weakest, he's at his strongest. And this is what happened. But Peter sent them all out and knelt down and prayed. And turning to the body, he said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes. And when she saw Peter, she sat up. Talk about getting an impact here. Talk about people knowing that this happened and it's spreading throughout the area. But, you know, typically when they were praying over somebody or praying for a miracle, you know, Jesus would lay his hands physically on the person. Even the early apostles would lay the hands on the person. Now, Peter, in this case, didn't get near her. It says he just looked towards her. So maybe there's a little bit of that, you know, that traditional Nazarite vow type of idea, that tradition of not touching dead things. That was a huge thing in the Jewish culture, not to touch dead things when you're going through that Nazarite vow, which is just a time period of, kind of like you think of it like fasting today for us, but you're set apart for that moment. We even had a guy in Bible college that did this. He grew out his hair. That was one of the things. You couldn't cut your hair. You couldn't have anything to do with alcohol or grape juice even or anything to do with grapes. And especially you couldn't have anything to do with any dead things, animals or people. So there's actually priests right now, Jewish priests that are prepared to make the first sacrifice in the new temple that's coming soon. And they've had to take this vow from birth. They have been primed and they're ready to go. They've never been around a dead person. That was one of the regulations of the temple according to Jewish custom. And they're ready to go. The red heifers are over there ready to go to be sacrificed to kick off that new temple. But this is a very special thing to them. And it comes from Leviticus 21. And it says, then the Lord said to Moses, speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron and say to them, no one shall defile himself for a dead person among his people, except for his relatives who are nearest to him, his mother and his father and his son and his daughter and his brother, and also for his virgin sister who is near to him because she has no husband. For her, he may defile himself. So this comes from the early priesthood. And even though the law was accomplished here, there was still a lot of lingering traditions. And we know about lingering traditions, even in our church. We know about new traditions that are invented as well that come in and kind of take over. But in verse 41, it goes on, and he gave her his hand and raised her up. So now he's okay with it for some reason. Now that she's not dead anymore, she can touch her or he can touch her, right? Because if it was a Nazarite vow situation, now that she's alive, he would be able to touch her. So that's why they think that might be the case. And raised her up and calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. It became well known or became known all over Joppa and many believed in the Lord. And Peter stayed many days in Joppa with a tanner named Simon. So a tanner would work with dead things and make comforters and stuff out of skin and fur and stuff like that off the animals. But he says you shouldn't get near them because well, now we have another Nazarite vow situation where this tanner touches dead things, right? So, but going back a little bit, all these miracles really legitimized Peter's ministry. It had to give him a lot of confidence and hope that he's on the right track. You know, there were obvious signs that he was doing the right things and that he was on the right track. When God's using you in that way, you kind of know, hey God, I must be doing the right thing in this very moment. There's been many times in my life where things just seem to fall into place, especially with career situations. Really at the moment where I'm like, I give up, I put this in your hands, then that's the moment I usually get an answer. But it's the moments where I'm trying too hard, I'm digging too deep, I'm putting my trust in myself and not in God himself. I just need to let go and let God, you know, like they say. But that's when things start falling into place when we let him take charge and when we acknowledge him and give it over to him. Because he says this in Romans 8.28, and we know that God causes all things to work together for the good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. And this word causes, I wanted to look this up because it comes from the Greek word synergio, which we now have the word synergy from. And this is used a lot in the corporate world. Synergizing is very important. Synergy is really important. It's just the definition is, synergy is an interaction or cooperation giving rise to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. The term synergy comes from the Greek word synergia, and it means working together. So you have this awesome working together, almost you're a part of a bigger organization, a bigger machine than yourself. And that's the machine of this ministry, of this church. Peter was just one little part of this machine that was well-oiled by the Holy Spirit and that was working in synergy. And when we hop on that machine, when we're synergizing with God, he can use us like a well-oiled machine for his glory. But when we're trying to not oil our machine like we should, we aren't studying the word, we aren't getting together, then you start getting rusty, right? You start not working as well with others and you're not working together, you're not synergizing like God wants us to. So I thought that was cool that that word synergy is right in there. So that's a real strategy. But now we're over to Acts chapter 10 and we have Cornelius comes in, another cool name there. And he says, now there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort. So there's a few things in this first verse that I wanna mention. Caesarea is a big time city during this time, it's like New York City would be today. A big port city, it's the political and economical capital of the Roman world during this time in this area. Huge seaport, they would have sporting events there, there's kind of a picture of what they think it might look like based on the archeological finds which you can still see today over there. But so this was a real center of activity. So really important that the early church got in here and started influencing, right? Just like it's important that we get into areas that influence because then the word spreads, then you can have a bigger impact. But we have Cornelius here, he's a centurion, he was in charge of 100 soldiers in an Italian cohort, which was 600 soldiers. So he was part of a larger organization here. But every time a centurion is mentioned, it's interesting in the New Testament, it's always mentioned in a positive way. And if you go back to a lot of the Jewish writings, a lot of the Jewish historians will look at centurions in a negative way. So it's almost like you think maybe God got ahold of these centurions, these people in positions of power after Christ. And of course, the Jews didn't like Christians. So maybe they wrote bad about him all the time, kind of like how the media is always talking bad about Elon Musk now, because he's a conservative and he's been spouting some truth lately. But we have this really godly man that we're introduced to. He says, the devout man and one who feared God with all his household and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually. So one of the first Gentiles we have here to hear the good news. First, God, Jesus said to the Jews and then to the Gentiles, right? So we're a few years in here, according to Paul's timeline, we're estimating, assuming about three years after Jesus ascended, that this ministry has been going. So there's been time for the church to grow a little bit. But he says he's giving alms to the Jewish people and praying to God continually. He practiced Judaism, apparently, and gave to the synagogue. And he didn't know the whole truth about being a Christian, but he surely has a good start. And he says in verse three, about the ninth hour of the day, he clearly saw in a vision, an angel of God who had just come in and said to him, Cornelius. So same as Paul, same as many, many stories. I went out on YouTube right after I read this and looked up a visions of Jesus and all the visions of Jesus that are occurring in modern day right now, I didn't find any in America. They're all in China, in the middle of the Middle East, where you wouldn't think God would be appearing to people. But there's a lot of them out there and it's more and more frequent. It seems that Jesus is literally appearing to especially the Muslim culture and converting them over to Christianity. So this is the same as Paul. Paul miraculously met Jesus on the road. He gave him a helper, you know, and in Ananias, and he opened Paul's eyes to the truth and now he's a minister for him. But this three o'clock p.m. is what this would be the ninth hour, the hour of prayer. Every three o'clock in the afternoon, they would have an hour of prayer. And he says, now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer. So that's kind of proof text there, but Cornelius was approached during prayer time. So and here he is, he says, and fixing his gaze on him and being much alarmed, some versions say much afraid, and I think Jars of Clay had an album called that too, back in the 90s. But he said, what is it, Lord? And he said to him, your prayers and alms have ascended for God. So when did he meet, apparently, probably Jesus here, during his prayer time, when he was closest to him. When did Paul meet him? During his time of anger. So that shows you that God can meet us wherever we're at, whether we're close to him or far away from him. But here we see the word alarmed, which comes from the Greek word amphobos. You heard of phobia, but they had the EM in front of there because this means a godly fear. It's a different type of fear. There's good fear. It's good to be afraid of certain things. It keeps us from getting bit by snakes or getting bit by spiders. You see a big spider in the tree, you don't wanna be around that because, well, my dad went through that. He got bit by a spider and he got that flesh eating disease and it almost killed him. So God puts natural things, this is another proof of God and God puts fear in front of us because why would we all randomly be afraid of what would hurt us, right? But Godly fear is a good thing. And we see G.K. Chesterton has this quote. I like a lot of quotes from him. He says, we fear men so much because we fear God so little. One fear cures another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. 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One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. One fear makes another. I kind of want to stay there. That would be pretty nice. They probably charge you $2,000 a night for that one, to rent that one, but pretty awesome place there by the sea. So when the angel who was speaking to him had left, he summoned two of his servants and a devout soldier of those who were his personal attendants. And after he had explained everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. So can you imagine his servants? Hey, I just spoke to God. And he told me to tell you to go get these people. And this word explain comes from the Greek word exegesis. I can't really explain that, exegesis, which just means you're getting the information out of the words that we're giving to you and passing it on. You're not reading into anything from the outside in. You're going inside out. And that's how we want to study the Bible as well. But this was 33 miles away from where Caesarea was and continuing on in verse nine. And on the next day, as they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. So this was about lunchtime. You think lunchtime, about noon. I'm super hungry by 11. But by noon, he's probably pretty hungry because it says, but when he became hungry and was desiring to eat, he fell into a trance. Now, this word trance is used several times throughout the New Testament. It comes from the Greek word ecstasis or ecstasy. You might hear that word, but it means the displacement of the mind. And it's the same word used actually in a different context when Peter healed the lame man. Everybody was just ecstatic about what happened. But in this case, he fell into a trance and it's almost more like a displacement of the mind to allow him to see this vision that's gonna happen. So verse 11 goes on. And he saw the sky opened up in an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground. And there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals, crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. So don't know how big this sheet was. It had to have been pretty big. It had to have been pretty big. It says all kinds. I don't know if that literally means all kinds of animals, all the ones that God created, or maybe it could be. But a voice came to him. It says, get up, Peter, kill and eat. Peter was like thrown off by this because this was against Jewish tradition. For sure you can't eat just anything. God laid it all out in the Old Testament. It says, but Peter said, by no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean. So here we see evidence that he's still stuck in his old ways. God's trying to drag him out of his old ways because if he was to be stuck in his old ways, he wouldn't be free. He would be stuck doing things that just spun his wheels. We talk about a well-oiled machine. He's trying to get him up to that point to become a well-oiled machine so he can synergize and get the ministry going. But here Peter, of all things, says, no, no, I'm not going to. He says, the Greek word is madamos. It's a polite no, at least. But he tells the God of the universe, no. I don't know how you would handle that. But there's also an absolute no that's used in scripture. It's udamos, an absolute no, and it's only used here one time in Matthew 2.6. So then you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are absolutely not, or by no means, the least among the leaders of Judah. You know, this little tiny town of Bethlehem, this word absolutely not, saying that you are by no means the smallest town around, you know, kind of like Albion. Does God really want to do much here in the little town of Albion, Indiana? He's basically saying, absolutely not. In fact, you are more important than those bigger cities. And he says, for out of you shall come forth a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. So the third time that Peter refused God's will. Here he walked and talked with Jesus, saw him ascend, and is now healing people, raising people from the dead. But he tells God, no. But the first time he told God no was this, in Matthew 16.21. From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the third day. So Peter missed that part, to be raised up on the third day. He stopped at be killed. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, God forbid it, Lord. This shall never happen to you. But he turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on God's interests but men. Sometimes we think we're doing the will of God. We may say, oh, I heard a voice that I need to buy that next Tesla. I haven't announced that to phone yet, but I need a Cybertruck. Pretty sure I heard God's voice on that. But many times you hear God's voice and you think it's the right thing, but hold back, it may not be. And we see this in this case for sure, saying, Jesus, I don't want you to be killed. That seems like that would be God's will, obviously. But God had a completely different plan and a completely different spin and a mysterious way to handle this. We see that Satan appears here. He says, get behind me, Satan. I'm pretty convinced that Satan is literally influencing this situation. I mean, if you're Satan, you're one person, right? So where are you gonna be? You're gonna be around where Jesus is ministering. You're gonna be trying to influence his ministry all throughout. There's so much that happened that wasn't written in Scripture, I'm sure, about Satan's attempts to try to thwart God's plan. Remember, he took him up on the mountain and offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world when he was fasting and he was starving to death. And he said, throw yourself off the mountain. And then Jesus says, don't test me, don't test God. But we see Satan over and over trying to tempt him. But God works in mysterious ways. He couldn't comprehend this master plan that Jesus could possibly die. And then he didn't even listen to the fact that he was gonna rise again. I like this guy named Cowper I found online this week. He was a hymn writer from the 1700s. And he says, God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. So basically saying, when the storm's coming, like when things are just going terrible, when you're accusing God of causing bad things to happen in your life, because that does happen with us Christians. God's riding there. God's in that worst possible situation. He's out there in the middle of the sea, walking on the water, where that doesn't make any sense. God's plan, a lot of times, doesn't make sense to us. So the second time Peter refused was in John 13, five. He said, no, God. He says, then he poured water into the basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. So he came to Simon Peter and he said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered and said to them, what I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter. So here Jesus is ready to wash his feet. And basically the interpretation of that is saying, no, God, or no, Jesus, I don't want you to wash my feet. And Peter said to him, never shall you wash my feet. Jesus answered him, if I do not wash you, you have no part with me. And at that moment, Peter probably still didn't understand what in the world Jesus was talking about, because we always think in physical terms as human beings. But here Jesus has such a deep, rich meaning with this, meaning he's there literally to wash away our sins, wash away the dirt in our lives, because back then their feet would have been filthy, and walking around without shoes, kind of like what Scott does all the time around here, his feet had to be disgusting. But here Jesus is, they had a lot of dirt and they wore sandals and it was the dirtiest part of them. And here Jesus comes in and is willing to wash the dirtiest part of who they are. The dirtiest part of who we are is that sin that's within us. And he comes in and washes that away. Yet Peter didn't understand. And we continue with his vision. Again, a voice came to him. Here Peter is on the rooftop seeing this random sheet come down with a smorgasbord of meat, basically is what's happening. We have all these different types of animals that he was not supposed to eat previously. He says, what God has cleansed no longer consider unholy. This happened three times. And immediately the object was taken up into the sky. So this sheet came down three times, said it three times, went back up. Why three times? Well, maybe it was to remind Peter of the fact that he denied Christ three times. Maybe it was to remind Peter of the fact that he said no to God, no to Jesus three times. Maybe it was just because God knew that Peter didn't pay much attention and missed the point over and over and over. We need that several times to reinforce that. But Jesus told them this new way of thinking. It's a completely new thing that Jesus has brought here. No longer is the Old Testament way where you couldn't eat certain things and where it's rules and regulations because those rules and regulations were solely to point to the need for somebody to break us free from those rules and regulations in the form of Jesus. Jesus told them this new way of thinking in Mark 7, 14. He says, and after he called the crowd to him again, he began saying to them, listen to me, all of you, and understand. There is nothing outside a man which can defile him if it goes into him. But the things which can proceed out from man are what defile the man. If anyone has ears, let him hear. When he left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples questioned him about the parable. And he said to them, are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot defile him? We often think of so many things as taboo, right? Things that can defile us from the outside. But it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach and is eliminated. Thus, he declared all foods clean. And he was saying, that which proceeds out from the man, that's what defiles the man. He was trying to transform their minds, the renewing of their mind, to get them to think spiritually, to get them to know that they're set free from these physical things. And now their spirit is free to worship him in a much different way. From within, out of the heart of man, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit. He lists all these things. Sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. He's saying all these terrible things that'll wreck your life. And you're worried about eating a chicken nugget. You know, we need a little perspective on what is good and what is bad. What are things that cause us to just spin our wheels and traditions that are just a distraction from an effective life, effective Christian life. And he says all these evil things proceed from within and defile the man. Now to wrap it up here, we just have a few verses left. I'll wrap it up and it says, now while Peter was greatly perplexed in mind, back to our main text here, as to what the vision which he had seen might be, he couldn't figure it out. It's like he couldn't figure out anything else. Behold, the men who had been sent by Cornelius having asked directions for Simon's house appeared at the gate. Here God's perfect timing comes in. He had this all planned out ahead of time, gave Peter the vision at the perfect time, had Cornelius' men come in, and they were calling out and they were asking whether Simon, who was called Peter, was staying there. While Peter was reflecting on the vision, the Holy Spirit said to him, behold, three men are looking for you. But get up, go downstairs and accompany them without misgivings, for I have sent them myself. Peter went to the man and said, behold, I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason you have come? They said, Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man, well-spoken of the entire nation of the Jews, was divinely directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to this house and hear a message from you. To hear a message from you. So Peter's probably thinking, what message am I supposed to deliver here at this moment? So verse 23, so he invited them in and gave them lodging, and on the next day he got up and went away with them, and some of the brethren from Joppa accompanied him. Next week we're gonna find out, like, what is this all about? Why did God prepare this moment and talk to Cornelius and coordinate it with Peter and how did God prepare this moment and how did God direct us in two separate areas and now all of a sudden they're together and this perfect synergy comes together because they're both just trying their best sloppily to follow God's will. That's what happens in our life. Our lives can synergize, can come together. If we're just many times sloppily trying our best, it's never perfect, but yet God still can guide us and direct us in our lives. Dear God, thank you for your word and how it just all does come together. It's amazing the many different authors of the Bible and how it all just comes together and it all clicks and it all becomes one book. It's just amazing how you synergized all that. I pray that you would help us to go out from here and just live better for you as we go day by day. In Jesus' name, amen.