Frontier Church

ACTS: The Church in Motion – Part Five

This Sunday, Mike continued our ACTS: The Church in Motion series by speaking about the importance of reading scripture and that we try and see Jesus in every word. Every part of the Bible points to Christ.

Peter and Cornelius

The message focused on Acts 10, where Peter receives a vision from God before meeting Cornelius.
Until this point, the Gospel had mainly been shared with the Jewish people.
Who was Cornelius? Cornelius was a Roman centurion and a Gentile.
What is a Gentile ? A Gentile is anyone who is not Jewish.

Peter had grown up believing that Jews should not associate closely with Gentiles because of Jewish customs and ceremonial laws. God challenged this mindset through a vision.

Peter's Vision

Acts 10:9–16 (NLT)
Peter went up onto the roof to pray when he fell into a trance. He saw a large sheet lowered from heaven filled with animals that the Jewish law considered unclean. A voice told him to get up, kill, and eat, but Peter refused because he had never eaten anything considered impure.

Then God replied:
"Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean." (Acts 10:15, NLT)
At first, Peter thought the vision was about food. However, God was teaching him something much deeper—it was about people.

Mark 7:18–19 (NLT)
Jesus explained that food does not make a person unclean because it passes through the body rather than affecting the heart. In doing so, He declared that all foods are clean.

When Peter arrived at Cornelius' house, he understood the true meaning of the vision.

Acts 10:28 (NLT)
"You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you. But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean."
The Gospel was not only for the Jewish people but for everyone.

What Does This Mean for Us?
One of the strongest points from Sunday's message was that, as Christians, we can sometimes be quick to judge and condemn others, even though Scripture clearly teaches us not to.
Jesus came to seek and save the lost. He welcomed those who were rejected by society, and He calls His Church to do the same.

We need to ask ourselves:
-Who are the "Gentiles" in our world today?
-Who are the people we unintentionally keep at a distance because they don't look like us, think like us, or live like us?

If people are not welcomed into our churches, how will they ever hear the Good News of Jesus?

John 3:16 reminds us that:
"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son..."
Not just one group of people, but everyone.