10 Jan 1/12/25 Acts 10:34-43 “You Be a Geyser!”
1/12/25 Acts 10:34-43 “You Be a Geyser!”
I think that one of the hardest things that we have do is wait. You can ask my wife, Sharon. I’m terrible at waiting. I’m not going to go into detail, so I will leave it at that. But I think that I have gotten better in some areas. I understand a wait at the doctor’s office so now I always bring a book. The same thing goes if I get roped into a shopping trip. I’ll take my book and a cup of coffee and I’m a happy camper. I would guess that some of you are good at waiting and others may be far worse than I am. For these small things, this is probably ok as we are all made differently. I think it must have been really hard for the Jewish people to wait for the long-expected Messiah. This went on for centuries. If I would have lived during that time, I would have had to read a lot of books. But maybe we do live in similar times. After all, we have been waiting for the return of Jesus for 2000 years. I have the faith and the knowledge that He will return. It may not be in my lifetime or it may be tomorrow. But He will return just like He promised. Today’s reading from Acts almost sounds as if Paul were writing it. Paul was great at summarizing the Gospel and His testimony. I read this and I think that maybe Luke and Peter are not too bad at this either. Today is the day that we celebrate the baptism of Jesus Christ. Luke gives us a quick look at this and what it means. Let’s see how much of this we can apply to our own lives.
Vernon McGee once pointed out that Martha, of Mary and Martha, believed in a resurrection. “But,” he said, “It makes less demand on our faith to believe that we shall receive glorified bodies in the future than it does to rest on the assurance today that they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. It is easier to believe that the Lord is coming and the dead will be raised than it is to believe that tomorrow I can live for God. It is easy to comfort people who are mourning and say, ‘Well, you’ll see your loved ones someday.’ That doesn’t take much faith. It takes a lot of faith to say, ‘I have just lost my loved one, but I am comforted with the assurance that God is with me and He does all things well.’ You see, although Martha, of Mary and Martha, knew from the Old Testament that there would be a resurrection from the dead, but she didn’t believe that Jesus could help her now. They had waited for hundreds of years and she was unable to see what was right in front of her, the fulfilling of the long-awaited prophecy. I think we are also guilty of this type of reverse waiting. We are so used to the abstract idea of Jesus coming back that we won’t recognize Him when He comes. And He does come, every day. He enters our lives all the time.
Peter begins by telling us that God doesn’t show any favoritism. Right before this, he has his vision where he is shown that he could eat anything. As long as the Lord made it clean, who are we to say that it is unclean? I’m not going to go into this other than to say that the dietary laws were becoming obsolete. The reason for this and many of the other things that were going wrong with the Jewish religion at the time was the misinterpretation of the Law. God is showing Peter another way different than the old Jewish way.
Then after Peter has this vision, he goes to the house of Cornelius. Cornelius was a centurion and not a Jew. At this time a Jew would never go into the house of a non-Jew. They were considered to be unclean. When we start reading in the book of Acts, we start to see things happening. Barriers were being broken left and right. These disciples were taking the Jewish religion and turning it upside down. God told Peter that not only could he eat any food but he could also go into any house. Jesus had made all people clean. The gentiles were no longer unclean. And that is where we start today. As I have said many times, things happen when we are obedient to Jesus.
Today, we don’t worry about things being clean and unclean. We pretty much follow Peter in not following the dietary laws of the Old Testament. However, we still have many prejudices that take over our lives. We show favorites all the time. God doesn’t show favoritism but we sure do.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this but I think that we do have to say something because it was important enough for Peter to include in his speech. I would almost guess that every person here today has some sort of prejudice against something or for something. It is when we are prejudiced against a group of people that we get into the most trouble. We don’t have a lot of racial diversity in this area so that shouldn’t be a problem. However, I have stood in groups of people outside the church from this very area and listened as they have made the worst kind of racial slurs that you can imagine. I generally try to walk away from these types of conversations because they make me physically ill. These people that they insist on slurring negatively, are people. They eat, breathe and live exactly same way we do. As far as I’m concerned there are no such people as black people, yellow people, red people or white people. We are all various shades of brown. We are all the same.
I have been in similar groups where they slur people with different sexual orientation than the majority of us. The only difference between them and us might be in the sins we commit. These people don’t sin any worse than anyone else. We are all sinners and we all need the grace of Jesus Christ to get to the next world. We are called to love the sinner, which we all are, and hate the sin, which we all do. There are no rankings of sin. Sin is sin and we all do it. I absolutely hate it when people start talking like this. We just have to be careful what we say and how we say things. We need to be more Christ like in our speech.
After this Peter goes into a very important first step to our salvation. It all began with the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. This was the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. Some will ask, why did Jesus have to be baptized if He is God? Good question! There are several answers to this but I’m just going to say what I think and it is supported by many writers. Jesus had to be baptized because God was sending a signal to the people that even though Jesus is God, He is also human. Maybe the human part of Him needed the baptism. I would also like to point out that this is a rare time when we see the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit all in one place, separate but equal. It was after this event that Jesus set out about the countryside healing people of all the ills and woes caused by Satan. This baptism was also to mark the beginning of the most important ministry the world has ever seen. His baptism was a sign.
Anyway, baptism is the beginning of our journey with Jesus Christ also. Whenever we baptize a baby, it is the beginning of their journey with God. It is the same when we baptize a youth or an adult. When we baptize a baby, we make a covenant with that child to help him/her in their walk with Jesus. When you folks repeat those baptismal vows, you are making a covenant, a promise before God to help this child. That is why I like to carry the child around the sanctuary so that he/she may see all the people who will help her. It’s the same way with confirmation students. You give your promise, your oath to help these young people. Don’t be afraid to step up to the plate to help.
Of course, none of this guarantee’s salvation. The guarantee of salvation comes when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, when you are baptized by the Holy Spirit. That is why I try to always ask the question, ‘Do you have Jesus living in your heart?’ If you don’t, then confess your sins to Him and ask Him to live in your life as your Lord. Then you will be baptized by the Holy Spirit. This is very important stuff because it is only through Jesus that you can have real life, the life that God has planned for you.
Sometimes we get a little off track even after we have Jesus living in us. Every person here knows what I’m talking about. We all have to live with this terrible thing called sin. Let’s be perfectly clear about this. Sin is anytime you are not obeying God. It may be some of the things listed in the Bible like greed or coveting. Or it may be something different like not doing what God has told you specifically to do.
There are many people who come to Jesus in a slow way or in a spectacular fashion and then they stop. They figure that they are saved so they don’t have to do anything else. The sin here is that you don’t do what Jesus is telling you to do. If you are a Christian then you have been given at least one spiritual gift. You are to take this gift and use it. It wasn’t given to you so you can sit on it. Use it. Take it to everyone you know and use this wonderful gift in the name of Jesus Christ. That is what being a Christian is all about.
Then Peter tells us that he and the rest of the disciples were witnesses to all this tragedy and wonder. They were there when Jesus healed people. They were there when Jesus drove out the demons. They were there when Jesus fed 5000 and then 4000 people with next to nothing. They were there when they hung Jesus on the cross. They were there and knew with certainty that Jesus had died. They saw Him dead with their own eyes. Then they saw Him after He had risen from the dead and He did more miraculous things. The disciples saw all this and more! We have witnesses that Jesus was exactly who He said He was and we still have people who don’t believe or are lukewarm at best. I get excited just talking about this. I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t. Jesus is the most exciting person in the world, and you can take that to the bank!
But then again, I do understand. I understand sin. I understand that Satan has tried to undermine all the good you do. If you are a lukewarm Christian, I would suggest you take a look at your life to see where Satan is working. Then try to stop him or get help in stopping him. You need to be on our toes because he is everywhere. He is far more powerful than you can ever be. He is ruthless and cunning. He is a terrible, blackened enemy.
But once again you don’t have to take all the garbage that Satan tries to give us. All you have to do is stand on the truth. All you need to do is stand with Jesus. All you have to do is love our Lord. In our society this isn’t easy to do but it is necessary more than ever. We are being constantly bombarded by the evil one, and he is working in this area. Don’t ever think that you are immune. I think that many times we get bogged down in this life and all the evil in it. I know that I do. Sometimes we just need a reminder, ‘a filler up’ of the Holy Spirit.
George Washington needed a ‘filler up’ too. He was a Christian man and he kept a prayer journal in which he wrote this. “O most Glorious God, in Jesus Christ my merciful and loving father, I acknowledge and confess my guilt, in the weak and imperfect performance of the duties of this day. I have called on thee for pardon and forgiveness of sins, but so coldly and carelessly, that my prayers have become my sin and stand in need of pardon. I have heard thy holy word, but with such deadness of spirit that I have been an unprofitable and forgetful hearer, so that, O Lord, tho’ I have done thy work, yet it hath been so negligently that I may rather expect a curse than a blessing from thee.” George Washington’s prayer life had become rote. It was repetitious. He didn’t even think when he prayed. This happens to all of us. To get away from this, just pray a prayer like George Washington did. Ask for help out of your rut. You will see results and quickly.
Last week we talked about being the light for Jesus. As we celebrated Epiphany, we celebrated the light that Jesus brings to our lives. Today, we have looked at Peter’s way of looking at all this. He tells us what we do wrong and then he tells us all the right we can do. We are the witnesses to this generation. We have seen the wonder of Jesus in healings. We have seen the seemingly impossible happen. We have all seen these things. We all know that they happen all the time. Therefore, we should be out telling everyone we know about this wonderful Lord and Savior we have, the one that everyone can have.
Tim Smith made this observation. Several years ago, Gatorade had an ad with Michael Jordan where he was covered in orange drops of sweat. Do you remember those ads? The image says clearly that Michael Jordan was so full of Gatorade that it was literally pouring out of him like sweat.
As far as the Holy Spirit is concerned, we should be just like this ad. We should have the Holy Spirit flowing out of us, out of every pore we have. Pray a prayer like George Washington to help you get back on track with your prayer life. And then let it pour out of you. You can be a geyser of the Holy Spirit. There is nothing you cannot do with the Holy Spirit. As long as He is with you, Satan look out!
As we leave today, remember that if you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice. If you squeeze an apple, you get apple juice. Whatever is inside will come pouring out with the right conditions. Ask God to let the Holy Spirit come pouring out of you as you go into the world. He will if you just ask. Thank you, Jesus, for loving us so much. Let’s pray.
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