Good Things Happen

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

My name is Steve Beckwith. I go with Carrie. She's the one that read Scripture so well just a few minutes ago. I'm a retired pastor, and if I pastor Drew enough, he'll let me preach every once in a while. So that's what's happening today, but I'm glad you're here. You know, we've been in this series of messages in the book of Acts called Past the Edges, And it's been about how God has pushed the gospel from Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria, and you're gonna see even further today. And we're gonna be in Acts 10. And in Acts 10,

the title of the message today is Good Things Happen. Good things happen. And as I thought about this, I wanted to share some good things that have happened to me recently. So I went and got a haircut, now that's not the good thing, although some people might think so. I went and got a haircut and I had the sweetest conversation with the young lady that was cutting my hair. As a matter of fact, I was hoping she'd be here today, but I don't see her. But at any rate, it turned into a spiritual conversation and one thing led to another and it was just a precious time. It was just one of those times when she really got very transparent and she's seven months pregnant, She's fixing to move to Shreveport where her husband who's in the Air Force is training and she doesn't really have a church home right now, but she has professed faith in Christ and it just really turned into a neat little interaction

and I was blessed by it and I hope she was too. And then another thing on my list of good things that God is doing right now is I'm getting to play pickleball with my grandson on Fridays and he's trying to be, he doesn't beat me real bad most of the time, but it's just been a blessing to be with him and to be able to do that and just enjoy time together. And another good thing that God's doing in my life right now is, Carrie and I have a daughter that lives in New York City right now, and it looks like she's gonna be moving back to Texas. And her being in New York City, she's single, it's been good for our prayer life, hadn't it Carrie? for her to be there, but it'll really be good. And it looks like she's gonna be moving back to Texas and maybe staying with us for a while while she gets reestablished here. And then one other thing that I wanna mention was getting to take a once in a lifetime trip

to South Asia this coming summer with some friends. I hope we're still friends, Drew, when we get back. when we get back, but just really looking forward to that and what God might do in that. And you might feel like those good things, they don't have any relationship to one another, but they really kinda do. And I hope you'll understand more of what I mean by that as we look at Acts 10. So if you have your copy of scripture, open it or bring it up on your screen, whatever you're using. And let's look at verses one through eight of chapter 10 of the book of Acts. At Caesarea, there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion 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. Now, so here Luke's sharing this guy's resume with him, where he's from, what his name is, he's a centurion. I looked this up and centurion's kinda equal to an army captain. They were called centurions because they usually had 100 men that were under their command.

But that's his work life, but look at his spiritual life as far as being a devout man who feared God and gave alms, that was one of the things that the Jewish people especially were thought was very important and prayed continually. So about the ninth hour it says in verse three of the day, he saw in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, Cornelius, and listen to this, and this guy's a soldier, he's been in a scrape or two. And he stared at him, this angel, in terror and said, what is it, Lord? And he said to him, your prayers and your alms have ascended as memorial before God, and now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. He is 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. Now, the first thing I want you to catch in this sermon, in this passage of scripture actually this morning, is God greatly or gently leads in ways that we can grasp. God gently leads in ways that we can grasp. Now, when you look at what happened to Cornelius, you might question the word gently. But God in his kindness does what it takes to get our attention, doesn't he? And some of you can testify to that firsthand, maybe you can even testify to it from what's taken place this very week. But God in his kindness speaks to us and he gently leads in ways that we can get it. He puts it down there at a level that we can get it. And that's what was happening with Cornelius. But at the same time, God's leading in another place, and I want you to look now at verse nine and following. Okay, nine through 16. The next day, as they, and that's that group

of the three emissaries from Cornelius, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, the city of Joppa, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. And he became hungry and wanted something to eat. Now from what I understand, they have, people at this time they had a morning meal and an evening meal, it was too hot during the middle of the day to eat. And maybe Peter had missed that morning meal, maybe he just got hungry for whatever reason. But he's hungry and he wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heavens open and 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. But Peter said, by no means Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.

He was a good Jew, and he had stuck with the dietary laws as he understood them. I've 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 then this thing, the sheet, was taken up at once to heaven. So here Peter is, and he's having this experience with God, and he's not really sure what's going on, but God is speaking to him as well, isn't he? And as God speaks gently to Peter, He's gonna take a little more slow of an approach with Peter.

Do y'all know about Peter? You know Peter's kind of one of those guys that I love him because I can relate to him. He kinda only opens his mouth to insert the other foot. You know he's one of those guys that kinda can always do the best and yet here God is just kind of gently nurturing him along and he starts out with this vision of the sheep with these things that he would never eat and yet God's telling him hey what I've put before you don't call it unclean don't call it common. So God is is gently leading in ways that Peter can understand and he does that for you and I. And maybe you can relate real strongly to that, maybe that's fresh in your experience, maybe it's been a while since you've really sensed God leading in your life. But God's certainly willing and able to do that which is necessary to lead us. Now look at verse 17. Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed,

Okay, what in the world was this about this the sheep from heaven as to what the vision that he had seen might mean Behold the men who were sent by Cornelius this trio of guys that Cornelius had sent Having made inquiry for Simon's house stood at the gate. So they were right outside of where Peter is up on the roof and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there and while Peter was pondering the vision the spirit now Now, this is a little different. He's had this vision, but now look at how God's speaking. The spirit said to him, the Holy Spirit, 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're looking for, what is the reason for your coming? And they said, Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man,

who's well spoken of 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. So he invited them in to be his guest. So now this trio has shown up and they've interacted with Peter and Peter has kind of spoken with them and again, Peter's still I think a bit in a fog as to what's going on exactly, but he's at least spoken to them and invited them to come into his home. So I wanna give you a little pop quiz, see if anybody's still with me. I know college is almost over, Jed's home, you're done, right Jed? Yeah, so, but one more quiz, you got one more quiz in you, don't you? And this is a team participation thing, okay? So by what means did God lead them? At this point, and I'm talking about both of these guys, Cornelius and Peter, by what means did God lead them? Come on, this is out loud group participation.

Holy Spirit had spoken to Peter, so there was that. An angel had showed up and spoken to Cornelius. How many of y'all have had that experience? Okay, yeah, that's kinda what I thought. And what else? A vision, and how many of y'all have had something like that? You know, I can actually say I've had something like that. And some of the others have. It may not be something that you wanna talk about a whole lot. I know the vision I had.

I just felt like I was actually in a place out looking over a group of houses, and I felt like God was calling me to minister there, and he ended up doing that very thing. Maybe something like that. How many of y'all can relate to the Holy Spirit just kind of spoke something in your life? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a lot of us. And maybe you don't know exactly what that looks like or how to describe that, but it does happen. And it's one of those things that sometimes we wonder if it's really the Holy Spirit, if we're just talking to ourselves, anybody ever have that thought? You know, I'm just trying to leave myself here. But the Holy Spirit does wanna speak into our life, and he does. Now, I've got some friends that are dancers. How many of y'all are dancers? I see those proud hands. And these people that I know, they took up ballroom dancing, okay? You know, kind of the, what's the TV show?

Dancing with the Stars? Kind of that style of dancing, I thought, oh my goodness, That's just way beyond me. I can't hardly put one foot in front of the other. And I've got some other friends that did square dancing. Anybody participated there? They loved it. They really had fun with it, and evidently it can be really fun. And I don't, like I say, I don't know anything about dancing, except I've heard this one cardinal rule, and you tell me if I'm wrong. The cardinal rule is that somebody has to lead and somebody has to follow when your couple's dancing, right, is that accurate? And if it doesn't go that way, then it's not gonna end well, right? Somebody could get actually hurt, physically hurt. Well, that's the way God wants to work in our lives. He is purposely trying to lead us

in ways that will glorify Him and that will fulfill us and give us meaningful life, this life, abundance of life that he has for us. It flows out of that leading of God, that Holy Spirit leading in our lives. And I hope you can relate to that because I have a second question for you and this is not an out loud question. This is an internal question. By what means has he led you? When you think about how God's led you in the past and some of you already shared God's given you a vision for something or God's spoken in your heart. Are there other ways that God's led you? Has God ever, when you're reading your Bible either in a, maybe a Sunday school class or a Bible study or a worship service, and you just be like, man, God's telling me to do something here. God's leading me here. Or have you ever, have you ever just in the, maybe you were driving in your car in the

You're praying about something and God says, yeah, or have you ever had somebody just, and sometimes it's even somebody unexpected, just speak something into your life and you realize, hey, that's what God wants me to do. God goes about this in a variety of different ways, but man, he does not have a speech impediment. God is able to speak and He's able to speak in ways that we can get a hold of it, that we can grasp it, that we can understand it. You know, I looked up the word disciple. Y'all know that word? You know, Christians were actually called disciples for a long time before they were called Christians. And you know what the word disciple means? I pulled out a little Bible definition. Can you see this? one who follows another person or another way of life and who submits himself to the discipline, the teaching of that leader of that way. That's what God's calling us to do.

You remember what Jesus said to the very first apostles? He said, come follow me. Come follow me. And some of them he told, come follow me. I'll make you fishers of men. come follow me. God wants to lead you and he is perfectly able to lead you in ways that will transform you and bless you. And if I ask you right now this question, how's it going? What might God be trying to lead you into right now? Now I mentioned earlier that Maybe you can relate strongly to this idea, and maybe it's been a while since you've really sensed God leading you anywhere, but what do you think's up when you go through a stretch like that? If God hasn't led you recently, what's going on there? Sometimes we do things to create some distance, sometimes we hear but don't obey, But we need to be aware that God wants to lead us. Because number next on the list is we can respond positively or negatively.

Can't we? We can respond positively or negatively. Now look at Cornelius's response. Let's jump back for just a minute to verses seven and eight. 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, sent them off to Joppa. So what was Cornelius's response to God's leading?

I mean, you really had to give him a A plus 100 smiley face, wouldn't you? My wife taught elementary school, as you can tell. Yeah, you really had to give him a good mark for that because not only did Cornelius obey, but he did it, did it say when the angel left? Angel left, he's on it, he's doing it, right? Yeah, and you know there's this old thing about what is delayed obedience? Disobedience, yeah, yeah. But that's not Cornelius. And so he actually just does exactly what God told him to do. What about Peter? Look at Peter's response. So he invited them in to be his guest the next day. That's verse 23. He rose and went away with them. with them and some of the brothers from, what would you give, how would you score Peter? Pretty good, right? I mean, he saw the vision, he didn't really understand it, but he saw it and then it started to make a little sense when these Gentiles come

and then the spirit kind of whispers in his ear and he does it, he does it. But we all know that while we can respond positively we can also respond negatively. You know, there's some little short Bible verses in there. In the writings of Paul, and one of them says, this is in Ephesians 4:30, one of them says this, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

Do not grieve. And one of the ways that we can respond negatively as God tries to lead us is we can grieve the Holy Spirit and that word, that word grieve means it's the anguish that we feel after significant loss. It's really interesting to me that we can cause the Holy Spirit to be grieved, to feel anguish over loss because when we don't follow God, something gets lost. The good results that might have taken place, our own follow ship and relationship, something gets lost and so it grieves the heart of God. The other little negative verse that I found is do not quench the spirit. And that word quench it means to extinguish a fire. There's one translation that actually uses that terminology, do not extinguish the Holy Spirit's fire. How can we put out the Spirit's fire when we don't follow His lead? Well, that wants to energize and enthuse people, we've pushed it aside when we don't follow.

That which would really, really excite us. I'm sure several of you, if not every one of you, have been in a situation where it It was kind of exciting to follow Jesus. You didn't know how it was gonna turn out. We can quench that when we disobey. And fortunately there's just whole lots of illustrations of this in scripture. Y'all remember a guy named Jonah? Yeah, Jonah when he was called to Nineveh. Remember what happens?

Just look at this for just a minute. Jonah 1-1, now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, rise, go to Nineveh, that great city and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare and went on board to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. There's a little something even suspect in that phrase, isn't there?

Yeah, God says Jonah go this way, and which way did Jonah go? He went that way. Yeah, and it wasn't, I mean, here's a great man of God, Moses, right? Yeah, and what happens at the burning bush? Remember, God does this thing where He has this bush burning to get Moses' attention, to get him over there, and then when Moses comes over there and says, Hey Moses, I've got a job, I've got a deal for you. I want you to go to Pharaoh, who he had encounters with in the past, lead these people out, and how does Moses respond? Wrong number, you've got the wrong guy, God. That's not for me. And then God says, yeah, but I got these great tricks you can do. And he shows Moses how he can throw his staff down, it becomes a snake and how he can put his hand in his cloak and it becomes leprous and he puts it back. And Jonah says, yeah, but you got the wrong guy, God. And one of Moses' excuses, I don't speak well.

And look at God's response to that in Exodus 4, 13 and 14. But he, God said, oh my Lord, please send somebody else. You got the wrong guy. Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses. Now you never wanna be the Moses name in that sentence, do you? I sure don't. And he said, is there not Aaron your brother, Levite? I know that he can speak well. And he made a work around. But here Moses was, he was just responding. negatively. And I just want to remind you this is a verse I found in Romans 8:14 for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Listen if you want to be reassured and refreshed and know that you're in the right place in your relationship with God follow Him. Follow Him. Walk in obedience to what it is that he might be doing in your life. And when you look back at the past, have you done? Have you responded to the gentle leading of the Lord in the past? You know, chances are the

reason you're a Christian is because you responded positively to God's leading. Chances are if you're a member of this or some other church, the reason you did that is because you responded positively to God's leading. And hopefully if you've ever done anything in service for the kingdom of God, you did that because you were making a positive response to God's lead in your life. But I just wanna remind you today that folks, it's not a one and done situation. Just because we once followed God's leading at some point in the past, that doesn't mean, okay, You're good. No, God in his desire for an intimate relationship with us wants to continually lead us day by day and walk with us in paths of righteousness, the Bible says, for his name's sake, for his glory, for his honor, and for our good. And I don't know what's currently going on in your life, but might God be leading you even today?

How are you doing with that? because God has a work that He wants to do in your life. Well, let's go back to our text for a minute. In verses 24 through 29, look at what happens next. The next day He rose and went away with them and some of the brothers from Joppa accompany Him. Peter is really smart here in that when he responds to Cornelius' invitation, he takes some friends with him. As a matter of fact, we'll find out later, it's a group of six that went with him. And on the following day, they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them, and he had called together his friends, his relatives and close friends. So Cornelius had gathered up a whole bunch of people. And when Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him, but Peter lifted him up saying, stand up, I too am a man. And he talked with him. He went in and found many persons gathered.

And he said to them, you yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person coming in and cleaning. Hey, he got the message, didn't he? Yeah. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I asked then, why have you sent for me? So here Peter is, and he's done the right thing, and he's responding well, he's following God's leadership. There's still a little bit of a question in his mind, but hey, good things have already happened. And I just again, I would just worry remind you with this final idea that when we follow God is glorified and People are blessed and at this point who had been blessed

Don't you think Cornelius had been blessed by this point? Hey, I sent that I just did what the angel told me to do and here Peter is it worked got God Convinced him to come You think Peter's blessed at this point? I'm sure he's still kind of a bit in a, I don't know if Peter actually ever came out of a fog. But I'm sure he's still a little bit confused about what's going on here, but he knows God's led him and he knows now that vision of the sheep makes sense. Now he understands why God wanted him to accompany these guys and so there he is right there, but then it gets even better, I think. So Peter opened his mouth verse 34. So Peter opened his mouth and said, truly I understand that God shows no partiality but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, you yourselves

know what happened throughout all Judea beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did, both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree but God raised him up on the third day and made him to appear not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead and he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him received forgiveness of sin through his name." What's Peter just shared? The gospel. And

man if you've ever got to share the gospel especially fully with anybody I'm not I enjoyed this little Christian this little spiritual conversation that I had with this lady who cut my hair, but man, when you get to share the gospel, it is thrilling. It is exciting. And if you've ever been a part of that, you know what I'm talking about. And here Peter has had the opportunity to do that. And what's going on in Cornelius and his clan, what's going on in their hearts and minds right now? Oh my goodness, they're understanding God in a whole new way. God is not just Yahweh of Judaism, but God is God in the flesh in the form of Jesus Christ who has come and paid the penalty for our sins and and now we can have forgiveness and we can have this whole new relationship with God that comes by faith in Him. And so they've heard Peter shared the gospel and they've heard and they've received the gospel and

and wow, God is doing this wonderful, this miraculous thing in their hearts and lives and when we follow, God is glorified but then it even gets better. Look at verse 44, while Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the Word. Now that might not be common verbiage to you, the Holy Spirit fell on them, but man something special is happening here. See if you can understand what and the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed because of the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. See up to this point only the Christian movement was Jewish and now it's jumped this it's gone beyond the edges and these Gentiles are expressing this Holy Spirit anointing that was familiar to Peter by the way for they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God then Peter declared can anyone

withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have and he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ then they asked them to remain for some days. As a matter of fact, as Peter's sharing this story to his other Christian friends who are Jewish and who are questioning him going to Gentiles, he uses the terminology, hey, and this is in 1115, as I begin to speak the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning just as the Holy Spirit had come on them at Pentecost. If you're familiar with Pentecost and how God, the Holy Spirit came in this whole new way at Pentecost, now we've got a Gentile Pentecost where God's come in this whole new way on people who weren't Jewish. Now who's being blessed in these moments? Who's being blessed? Man, that Cornelius' clan has experienced something they have

never experienced before but but extrapolate that on out who else is being blessed when this happens let me ask it this way how many y'all are Jewish how many y'all are Gentiles yeah hey this is this is our blessing this is for us now maybe God could have gone about it another way but but listen the reason that we have faith in Christ is because God burst the bonds of Judaism and extended the good news about Jesus Christ in the kingdom of God beyond just Jewish people out to Gentiles of which I are one and I'm grateful to God that he was willing to do that because I'm blessed today because of what happened then and if you're not Jewish you are too. God was doing something that was amazing that was supernatural and that extended his love and his blessing to those around him and that's that's often the way it works when we allow God to lead and we respond in positive ways. We got a we got a phone call this week

from our another daughter we have a daughter that's that lives in Alabama and they have a homeless person that's come to their church, homeless Joanna. And Joanna is doing what homeless people often do. Joanna is, she's taking things without asking and Joanna is, she's asking people for money. Everybody, she's not real selective, going one-on-one asking people for money. And so they had a, they had a, put Joanna's, this isn't Joanna's picture, but an image of a homeless person. So Joanna has a meeting with a pastor and some, and my daughter's on staff there and some other people were in this meeting. And Joanna, as soon as she gets in, she says, am I being kicked out of the church? the pastor said, no, we love you, we're just trying to figure out how to help you. You see, they're trying to follow God's leading because they know if they can, it'll bless Joanna,

but it's blessing the church. It's stretching that church, and you know, most of us smell okay in here this morning, but Joanna's doesn't, and you gotta, If you're gonna sit by Joanna in church, you're just gonna have to deal with that. But you know what? God uses those kinds of things to bless. In those kinds of things, He is honored. When we do things for the least of things, when we do anything that's in step with the Holy Spirit's leadership, God is honored and we're blessed. So today I just wanna ask you, where are you and all that? And if it's been a while since you really felt led by the Lord to do anything, I would invite you and we're gonna have a moment of invitation. I would invite you just to open your heart to God this morning.

And maybe you need to open your heart to God and say, God, I wanna follow you to salvation. I need to let you lead me into a new relationship with you. Or maybe you need to open your heart and ask God for restoration. You need to come back to God. It's not that he quit speaking, it's that you quit listening and he's calling, he's drawing you right now. He's saying, you come, come to me. I love you. I want to be with you and you need to be with me. And maybe there's something going on in your life right now where you just really need the Holy Spirit to lead you. Maybe it's a crisis, maybe it's a challenge. God wants to lead. He's the perfect dance partner. We'll follow. We'll be blessed. Stand with me and we'll pray together. Father, we enter into this time of invitation and Lord, we just ask you to move among us. And Lord, as Peter and Cornelius, as their obedience,

as their willingness to follow your leadership, blessed even down to this very day, blesses our lives, those of us who are Gentiles. Lord, we could be a blessing to, Lord, only you know who all, when we follow you. Lord, I don't know what the people in this room, I don't know what their challenges are today, I don't know where you might want to leave them in paths of righteousness for your name's sake. But Lord I pray in the quietness of these moments that your Holy Spirit would speak. Lord that we would quieten our souls and just listen. Amen Lord as you lead.