Acts 10:1-33 - Bacon and Imago Dei

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. We have got a chunk to bite off today in the Book of Acts. We have completed the first nine chapters of Acts, and it's been less than three weeks since we began this journey walking through the Book.

We have been taking the past couple of weeks or the past couple of days and seeing Saul get saved. Then we looked over at Peter and some of the things that God had him doing.

And I mentioned at the end of the episode yesterday that what we saw was the gospel had mainly only gone to those with Jewish lineage or partial Jewish lineage.

So we see first the the Hebraic Jews, those with Hebrew ancestry just through and through. That's who they were. That's how they acted.

Then we saw many of the Hellenistic Jews comes at faith in Christ and saw some of those interactions even with that leading to the advent of deacons and how God used even some difficulties there to bring out something wonderful that continues to

minister to countless people across the world today. Then we saw God begin to work in the Samaritans and that the Samaritans came to faith in Christ in a wonderful way.

We saw last time how Paul went or Saul went up to Damascus and how he was saved there and convinced many of the Jews and proved to them that Jesus was the Messiah. Then we saw Peter begin ing to travel through some different areas of Judea.

And I'm going to give a quick shout out here to Ms. Teresa, who is passing by. But that way, if she's watching this later, she knows I see her and it's good to see her.

Here in Acts 10, we get an incredible story. It starts with this in verse number one. 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 many charitable deeds for the Jewish people and always prayed to God.

About three in the afternoon, he distinctly saw in a vision an angel of God who came in and said to him, Cornelius, looking intently at him, he became afraid and said, What is it, Lord?

I think if any of us at three in the afternoon saw an angel, we might be a little bit fearful as well. The angel told him, Your prayers and your acts of charity have come up as a memorial offering before God.

Now send men to Joppa and call for Simon, who is also named Peter. He is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.

What a comfort this is, that those that seek after God, even if they are outside of the covenant community of God, this man is not a Jew, he is not a Hellenistic Jew, he is not a half Jew, he is just completely outside of God's chosen people.

And yet, God noticed him and God saw him, and now he is saying, here's who you need to hear from. When the angel who spoke to him had gone, he called two of his household slaves and a devout soldier who was one of those who attended him.

After explaining everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. The next day, as they were traveling and nearing the city, Peter went up to pray on the housetop about noon.

Then he became hungry and wanted to eat, but while they were preparing something, he went into a visionary state. He saw heaven opened and an object that resembled a large sheet coming down, being lowered by its four corners to the earth.

In it were all the four footed animals and reptiles of the earth and the birds of the sky. Then a voice said to him, Get up, Peter, kill and eat. No, Lord, Peter said, for I have never eaten anything common or profane or non-sacred.

I have never eaten anything common and ritually unclean.

I would like to interject in this moment and remind us that Peter is one of the disciples that when they were passing through the grain fields on the Sabbath day, picked some ears of corn and ate them and got Jesus in trouble with the Pharisees.

So it is not entirely true that Peter has never eaten anything that was common or ritually unclean. That's just not true, Peter. We know who you are.

We can read some of the rest of scripture. We know you. And God told him to do this.

It wasn't as though, you know, a secret, you know, angel or something comes up. Instead, he directly states who is talking to him. He says, No, Lord, Peter said.

He's talking to the Lord and he's telling him, I'm not going to obey what you tell me because I am super great and never do anything wrong. Peter, which is just entirely not the case.

Again, verse 15, a second time a voice said to him, what God has made clean, you must not call common. This happened three times and then the object was taken up into heaven. What an incredible thought there.

What God has made clean, you must not call common.

A way of application that jumps off the page to me is when it comes to other people, when it comes to the work of the Lord, when it comes to acts of charity or goodness, everything we do has special, significant spiritual meaning now that we know

Christ, that there is no person, there is no believer who is just, yeah, it doesn't really matter who they are. No, no, no, no. Every child of God is important and special and sacred to God.

Every time that we can worship the Lord is a special, sacred time. We ought to have a reverential awe.

I think of, I'm sitting right now in our church building, and I think of our sanctuary that it's kind of like an auditorium in that you can hear things, audio auditorium.

You can hear things, but we ought to have some sort of a reverence for what has been dedicated to God. And can I encourage you? Maybe you'd have strong feelings about people bringing commonplace things.

If some of the teens came into the sanctuary and were playing games on the, playing video games on the big TVs, maybe you might go, oh no, I can't believe that.

Or maybe, you know, kids are throwing a football around, and you might go, oh no, I can't believe that.

If you find a sacred space to be worthy of respect and care, can I encourage you, find people made in the image of God, especially those that have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of them, and view them with an awe and with a love and with a knowledge

that, man, this is one of God's people, one of God's children, one of the incredible thing that we are able to interact with images of God himself. So that's kind of where this direct application is going here in one second.

So what God has made clean, you must not call common. If I'm Peter, I'm a little weirded out. God did kind of just say he could eat bacon now.

You know, what God has made clean, you must not call common. So now we can eat some sausage and bacon, I guess, might be the point until we get to verse 17 and we see what this story was really about.

While Peter was deeply perplexed about what the vision he had seen might mean, the men who had been sent by Cornelius, having asked directions to Simon's house, stood at the gate.

They called out, asking if Simon, who was also named Peter, was lodging there.

They stand at the gate and they call out asking for Peter because it would defile a Jewish living place if a Gentile were to come into that place, or if a Hebrew, if a Jew, was to go into a Gentile's house. It would be a ritually defiling thing.

So they're here. They're very conscientious about the Jewishness of Peter and of Simon the Tanner. While Peter was thinking about the vision, the Spirit told him, Three men are here looking for you.

Get up, go downstairs, and accompany them with no doubts at all, because I have sent them. Then Peter went down to the men and said, Here I am, the one you're looking for. What is the reason you're here?

They said, Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man who has a good reputation with the whole Jewish nation, was divinely directed by a holy angel to call you to his house and to hear a message from you.

Peter then invited them in and gave them lodging. Here, what was common, what was profane, what was non-sacred to the Jews, he invites them in and he gives them lodging. But he's not done.

The next day, he got up and set out with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa went with him. The following day, he entered Caesarea, which was a Roman city, obviously named after Caesar's Caesarea.

Now, Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him, fell at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter helped him up and said, stand up, I myself am also a man.

While talking with him, he went on in and found that many had come together there. Peter said to them, you know it's forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner.

But God has shown me that I must not call any person common or unclean. That's why I came without any objection when I was sent for. So I ask, why did you send for me?

Cornelius replied, four days ago at this hour at three in the afternoon, I was praying in my house.

Just then a man in a dazzling robe stood before me and said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your acts of charity have been remembered in God's sight. Therefore, send someone to Joppa and invite Simon here, who is also named Peter.

He is lodging in Simon the Tanner's house by the sea. Therefore, I immediately sent for you and you did the right thing in coming. So we are all present before God to hear everything you have been commanded by the Lord.

Tomorrow, we are going to dive into what Peter was commanded by the Lord. But what a cool portion of scripture. This is the value that each person has before God, that they are loved, that they are seen, that they are not unclean.

Can I encourage us, especially nowadays, we are so prone to dehumanizing other individuals, that maybe if it's those from another nation, maybe it's those from a different sports team that they like, maybe it's someone that we have had bad

interactions with, that we just want to write them off completely. Can I encourage us, let's have this heart of obedience to the Word of God, that we are not to call any person common, mundane, unclean.

Every person is valuable because every person is made in the image of God, who God is, his mind, his will, his volition, his emotions. He is placed in all of us. He has given us his consciousness.

He has given us a spirit, a soul, to be able to relate to one another, to be able to relate to God, to interact with this world in more than a physical state.

Anyone that is, in one sense, we look like what Jesus looked like, that he was made in the likeness of man, that when we get to heaven, obviously he's glorified, he's God. But in one sense, we look somewhat like him.

He has the same number of fingers as we do. He has the same anatomy that we do. He became one of us.

And so when we look at people, we ought to have a love for them. There's a phrase that's often tossed around.

I think there might even be a church nearby here within the next 20 to 30 minutes of here in Essex that's called Amago Dei Church, and that is image of God. I think it's Latin, Amago Dei.

And you'll see that phrase mentioned many times when we talk about the worth that people have, that people aren't valuable because of what they do, people aren't valuable because of how much they have, people aren't valuable because of where they

were born, people aren't valuable because of whatever they haven't done, and people can't lose their worth through any of those things. We are given our worth by God himself.

As Christians, that is why we would believe in the sanctity of life from womb to tomb, that if you have a child in the womb, that God places value on that life, that God himself creates us, and as such, the only person that is authorized to then take

our life is God. I can't go up to anyone else and go, I don't think you're worth living anymore, and I'm cutting you off. No, no, no, God is the one who gives and who takes life because we are made in His image. We are made to glorify Him.

We are made to take His mission with us wherever we go. God didn't just make you, He also made you for a purpose.

And you can look at Genesis 1 and 2, that part of our mission is to take God's goodness and God's order from where we are and to take it out everywhere else. As Christians, we are to take the goodness that God has placed in us in Christ.

We are to take Christ to the nations. We are to take His Word and His teachings all around us, and we are to spread His Kingdom.

If you look in, I believe it's Genesis 2, that you have the Garden of Eden, and outside of the Garden, there is wilderness. Everything is... it's not all Garden of Eden yet.

And God tells them that they are to go and to have dominion over the earth, to continue increasing God's Kingdom and God's rule and order across all of the world.

So, many, many things that we could talk about with that, but I was encouraged today through that thought. People are valuable. People are important.

People are important. We ought to value life. And I pray that that would be all of our hearts.

Tomorrow, I'm so excited to dive into this sermon that, as Peter said, the Jews aren't supposed to associate with, they're not supposed to go into the dwelling place of a foreigner, yet here he is because God said that no person is common or unclean.

And so, he's going to give the Gospel to now the Gentiles, the Greeks, those that are not Jewish. And it will be a great study. Hope to see you tomorrow.