Missions Paul

Come Holy Spirit

Acts 10:46
“For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.”

It’s one thing to know that God loves the Gentiles.
It’s another to know that the Gentiles receive the same Holy Spirit as theThe and Jews.
But there is more! They receive the Holy Spirit in the same way as the apostles did!
No one is more special than the other.
Acts 2:4 “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”
The day of Pentecost was happening again in this home of Cornelius.
The same Holy Spirit can come on you as He did the apostles, giving the same gifts, moving in the same way as He did all those years ago.
There is no difference.
In that same way. The same Holy Spirit can move amongst children as He does in the room next door with the mature adult service !
The Holy Spirit is the same in any person no matter age, culture, sex, education or experience.
The Holy Spirit can shake a church community today filling it with power. The Holy Spirit can stir a town today because of what He is doing in His church.
The time is overdue for many, that out of our mouths flows something from the Divine. Heaven needs to flow from us because Heaven has come upon us. To the praise of Him who sends the same Spirit to every generation.
Come Holy Spirit!

When …

Acts 10:45
“The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.”

See the picture: on one side the circumcised believers holding proof in their bodies that they are Gods people. On the other side, the uncircumcised holding no proof at all, part of the ‘we are not God’s people’ brigade.

When there is no proof you belong to God.
When you look like any other person in the world.
When you don’t qualify.
When you have nothing to give or bring.
When you are the rejected, the scorned and the forgotten.
When you are not born into faith.
When you are not brought up in the faith.
When those in your faith put you out of their faith.
When you are mistaken, abused or forgotten.
When your name is not on the list, when you are not chosen and your face doesn’t fit in many God-circles.
When the rest can’t believe the best for you.
When they look down on you from heir lofty heights of purity.
When they, you and everyone else least expects it …. then maybe at this time more than at any other you are in the position to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
So let the onlookers be astonished as you receive what you don’t deserve, the unconditional amazing grace of the Spirit. Come Holy Spirit!

Word and Spirit

Acts 10:44
“While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message”

He just came on them. No special prayer. No appeal. Just while Peter was speaking about Jesus, the Spirit came. He interrupted Peter and Peter was content to be so. The partnership of the Word and the Spirit.
In the West you don’t have to be an expert to realise that the Spirit falling in such a way as with this Italian family is not common. We have prayed for revival. We have discussed why we are not seeing the miracles and signs that we have so desired. But heaven is brassy, there isn’t much falling on us. However maybe our lack of desire for the Word has contributed to this barrenness. You see, the pulpit has been replaced with the stage. The pulpit used to be centre in church buildings but now it is transportable being moved to the side or even removed altogether. That is fine and we mustn’t become transfixed on a piece of wood. Yet removing the pulpit is perhaps indicative of the removal of the preacher. Preachers only preach once a month these days. Even once a month what they preach is dull and boring. What do they do all week? Well, it’s not preparing to preach.
There is a famine for the Word of God. God’s people are not reading or hearing the Scriptures. The Bible is lying dusty on the shelves.

Before Oral Roberts’ departure to heaven, he was stirred by a vision from the Lord and emphatically stated, “We’ve got to get back to preaching the cross with fire in our bellies!” Men of old and past giants of the faith knew something about this. They saw the Spirit fall because they were not afraid to speak the Word. It’s not complicated.

The whomsoever

Acts 10: 43
“All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Whomsoever, the everyone and anyone, whoever believes in Jesus. That is the criteria for forgiveness.
Wherever we are, whatever situation we are in and whoever we have become, believe in Jesus who is the forgiver and you will be forgiven.
That is our message. No strings attached. No hoops to jump through. No rules to keep. Nothing of ourselves. All of Him.
Only believe,
Only believe
All things are possible
Only believe

I first sang that sing as a boy coming into the realisation of Jesus my Saviour. I have needed that song through my life.
Forgiveness is not found in who you are nor in what you can do, it is found in Him, in Christ.

A friend posted on Facebook yesterday: “The first three people who started following Jesus as recorded in Acts: a sorcerer, a eunuch and a hit-man. Hardly a parade of the eligible and worthy, is it? But that’s the point: none of us is.”

We are what Brennan Manning coins ‘ragamuffins’ believing in a ‘ragamuffin gospel’!

We are the whomsoever. He is the One.

Preaching

Acts 10:42
“He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead.”

Preachers must preach.
They must preach Jesus.
Their lives must match their preaching, they must witness of Jesus also.
They must witness that Jesus is the special one, the anointed one, appointed as the final judge.
When was the last sermon you heard which was about Jesus? It is a crazy question perhaps, but when?
Preachers preach about preaching,, they preach about anything but the nature of Jesus.
The pulpit is removed to the side or altogether. Space is created for the worship team or the dance team. More time is given to worshipping, the singing of songs, or to technology. The Bible is squeezed to the bear minimum. Preaching time slots are introduced and that is a reduced schedule.
We need preaching back in our churches. Where our Pastors have spent considerable time beforehand preparing what they are going to say. It is a command.

Scoring points

Acts 10:41
“He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen-by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.”

God could have proved the point.
After the resurrection He could have gone to the wicked generation and showed them up, turned the tables, got His own back. “Listen you scoffers, you killed Jesus, but I raised Him, so take that!”
Do you ever feel like that at times?
Like you want to prove someone they were wrong?
You have that great conversation in your head and you win convincingly?!
Why didn’t God do this?
He had a plan and He stuck with it. The plan was in choosing witnesses, in those early Christians and also in you and me. That’s who He chose to reveal the resurrection to.
His plan wasn’t to convince those who wouldn’t believe but to eat/fellowship with those who would.
Perhaps we also shouldn’t try to get our own back or win the argument or prove we are right.
Perhaps our focus should be higher than this.
Perhaps we should focus more on fellowship and less on fights.
One thing for sure is that God’s plan and purpose is far more important than scoring points with opponents.

Death
Acts 10:40
“but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen.”

Most people of faith or no faith carry a cry in their heart that says, “There must be more than this.”
There must be more than the suffering I am going through.
There must be more than an allotted amount of years on this earth.
There must be more than being born, being alive, being dead and put in the ground.
We must be made for something else, somewhere else.
The majority carry a sense of eternity in their hearts.
Thee is another place.
It is because Jesus is the resurrection.

Handling bad news

Acts10:39
“We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree,”
Peter and many people were witnesses of the good that Jesus did. They saw and heard things, incredible things that they would never forget, spoken and done by this Jesus. Peter then with scant detail (like he purposely didn’t want to talk about it) says he was killed by being placed on a tree (or a trunk of wood which is what it means).
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Here we are seeing this question being needed in this reading today.

You may have at some point asked that same question and if not then in the future you will.

The important thing is not to be able to answer it but to be able to be still standing with faith, still witnessing of the power of Christ, post-bad news story.

You will look back on the bad news.
And when you do, you won’t be majoring on the event but in all the good of the story.
“He died, the disease took him. But I remember all the good that he did.”
“She suddenly died, we weren’t expecting it. But we are so thankful for her life, she touched so many.”

Honour the life above the death. There are many vultures around death trying to get the attention and the glory. But keep celebrating life, focus on the good, the bad only makes the good even more illuminating!

Jesus

Acts 10:38

“how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.”

We are in days when the understanding of the person of Jesus is becoming more and more important.
The offence of Christianity is centred on Jesus.
Christians are being killed because of Christ, they always have and they always will.
In every walk of life, every culture, every language, this one question eventually has to be answered: so who is Jesus?
Peter helps us today as we refresh ourselves, as we glory in Him, as we savour our Saviour, as we fall in love over and over again in Jesus.

He is anointed, a man just like us, but not like us, set apart in this earth by God.

He was anointed with the Holy Spirit, a strange phrase meaning that he is more than a man, He is the Son of Man, a strange title given to the awaited Messiah. Coming from heaven to earth as the redeemer of earth, this is Jesus.

He was anointed with power to do the supernatural, to do miracles of all kinds, impossible things, amazing works, outlandish huge blow-your-mind works that can only come from God.

Who did good. Wherever He went His focus was not to gain, not to be successful, not to impress, but to do good. To make people happy, peaceful, for them to live with purpose, to heal hurts as well as bodies.

Who healed those held in the power of the enemy, the possessed and the oppressed.

Who had God with him. When you saw him you saw God.

That is who Jesus was and who He is. That is the Jesus we proclaim and must continue do so. That is who people need to see. Let’s make Him clear to all today.

Happening

Acts 10:37
“You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached-”

How did they know?
They had heard of the work of Christ that was not confined to one area of Galilee but was widespread. People talked of that work, the gospel bearers witnessed to that work and these people knew. They knew of John preaching on repentance and his command for baptism in Galilee and throughout Judea.
But it’s not just the message that these people know about it. It is what has happened. The happenings of Jesus.
Christians have to do more than speak the message, they must live it out. They must make things happen. There must be more happenings. In our communities, in every culture, with the poor and the needy and the bruised and broken. Their needs to be happenings of love and kindness, happenings of healing and forgiveness. People remember what has happened more than the message. The church prays for miracles whilst Christ waits for the Church to go and create stories where miracles are born. Prayer without doing something related to the prayer is pointless.
The Church that prays faithfully for revival but then spends all of its time with Christians is the Church that will die.
The Church that believes in revival is a Church that spends all of its time in the valley of death making things happen.
Which Church do you want to belong to?
Christ had a message and Christ made things happen.
Peter was saying to this Italian family, “You know the message and you know what has happened.”
That’s the Church you want to belong to.
Let’s go and make something happen today!