Global Warming -- Driving a Hybrid -- Acts 10

Introduction
When I was a kid, we had hybrids stuff all the time. It usually came our of Dad’s garden. The best hybrid I remember was silver queen corn. Man do I love that stuff when it is fresh and you are shucking it and cutting the corn worm out of the end of the ear. Then you cook it, butter it and oh yeah. You get to eat it. If you like it cooked even better, put it in the husk in water for about ten minutes and then lay it on the grill and let it steam in the husk.
But, enough about corn Oh wait.
1 question: When you eat corn on the cob how many of you eat it by turning the cob and going around? How many eat it using the typewriter motion going across.
Enough about corn, Hybrids today refer to cars and guess what they do.
They run on a combination of fuels like gas and electricity or gas and corn, hey, corn Alcohol.

Describing the Biblical Text
The Chapter that we are seeing here is actually the beginning of the third section of the book of Acts as the church is beginning its spread to the utter most parts of the earth.
Peter goes to Caesarea which is about 4 miles or so north of Joppa which is on the Israeli coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
As we looked at Peter’s travels last time, we saw him go to Samaria which for all intents and purposes was a Jewish style of type of province since they still held to the Law of Moses.
But now he is going to Caesarea, a Roman city in Israel.
This is where we will see him encounter Cornelius and again be present when the Holy Spirit of God is poured out from heaven signifying the Gospel is for all people and that people can be converted from every tongue nation people and tribe.

Narrate the Contextual application
The implications for us are certainly intense in this passage.
We are seeing the gospel move from being an essentially Jewish message to being a message that changed the lives of people all over the world.
What we might find interesting here is Luke’s chronology in the book of Acts.
We have the conversion of the Samaritans in chapter 8 and then the conversion of Saul of Tarsus in chapter 9 and them the conversion of the Gentile Cornelius in chapter 10.
We certainly see the groundwork for the worldwide expansion of the Gospel, don’t we?
It is amazing how just one person coming to Christ can make so much of a difference.
It took Cornelius to make conversion a normal thing for gentiles and it took Saul, later Paul, to spread that word to the known civilized world.

Life Application (thesis)
You see, what was happening here was the very thing that Jesus said would happen in Act 1:8.
You shall be witnesses unto me in both Judea and Jerusalem Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth.
This was a clarion call to the church at Jerusalem that they would not be the sole church but rather the church would exist for the remainder of the age and it would exist throughout the world.
The church would exist in many places and believe it or not, would take many forms.
Maybe if a series on the church we can look at that but today we will stick with our expansion of the church via global warming.
It is our responsibility to share the gospel with every creature no matter who they are.

SO WHAT!! (Outline)
You know what you can’t do?
You cannot start your hybrid without you got a set of keys.
This morning, we are going to look at 3 keys to help us understand how we will see new ways and opportunities to share Christ.
I must be seeking the transformation of my own life.
In Romans 12, we are told to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
Interestingly enough, it is the way we think that determines who we are by what we do.
Jesus said that it is not what goes into a man that defiles him but rather that which comes out.
IOW what you say is what can destroy you because it comes from the heart.
Peter was still conformed to his Judaistic ideas of thinking and if you don’t believe he had trouble overcoming that, read the book of Galatians in the NT and see how Paul had to rebuke him over it.
Peter the Jew is in Joppa and he stops for a bite to eat. Suddenly he falls into a trance and has a vision.
A large sheet is lowered from heaven and it has all kinds of animals on it.
You figure it had to have a pig and maybe a rabbit, a couple of nice meaty lizards, an owl or a hawk, and who knows, maybe even an oyster or a lobster.
It certainly had unclean foods for any good Jew.
Peter was not about to partake.
This was even after the Lord gave Him the instructions to kill and eat.
Peter simply said, “No way.”
Peter saw this vision repeated 3 times and we know he received the instruction to call nothing unclean that the Lord had cleansed.

Peter did not understand what it meant.
But the men of Cornelius house found Peter and took him back to Cornelius the next day.
That is when the meaning of the message became clear to Peter.
Look at verse 28.
Peter was not to call any person unclean or common.
Peter went from being a thinker that the gospel for only for his kind of people to thinking that the gospel was for the entire world.
A second key to remember is this.
I must be searching for God’s opportunities.
It is amazing how God’s opportunities will come our way if we are simply waiting and listening for God to speak.
Before His Joppa vision, Peter had gone to Lydda, a city near Joppa and was preaching there and had actually performed a miracle healing there and many people came to the Lord.
Well, a member of the church in Joppa, Tabitha, died so the brothers and sisters there sent to Lydda where Peter was for Peter to come.
Lydda and Joppa are about 15 miles apart. So Peter struck a trot and went to Joppa and prayed over Tabitha and she was raised from the dead.
So Tabitha Died to bring Peter to Joppa so that Cornelius’ men could find Peter in the home of Simon the Tanner.

Everything there just sounds like it is so random yet it takes only a few small circumstances coming together at the right time to create a huge event.
A low pressure system in the Gulf of Mexico, an arctic cold front plowing down from Canada, a huge dip in the Gulf Stream carrying the low up the coast, And voila you have a blizzard.
It is amazing how an opportunity can be in the smallest of circumstances.
But we have to be looking at them as opportunities.
We might simply look at our circumstances and our situation as being a matter of fate or fortune and never ever see the opening or the closing of Doors that God has intended for us.
Opportunity does not always knock.
Sometimes it waits outside to see if we are going to open the door.
Sometimes opportunity just rides by seek for us to chase it down.
But, very seldom is opportunity standing by or knocking if you will seeking us.

In life, a regular question that we ought to be asking is, “What does God want me to do?”
What has God prepared me to do?
Have I been faithful in following Him to both find and to take the opportunities before me?
I think if we were honest with ourselves, the answer to that question would be no.
Mostly we look for opportunities to find us.
We seldom want to go out of our way to find what the Lord wants for us to do.
Back up just a second into chapter 9:32
Peter could have been content right in Jerusalem and I am sure that he would have found many people needing to hear the gospel.
But, He went looking for opportunity.
When he looked for opportunity, opportunity found Him.

A third key that we can see this morning is this.
I must be sharing God’s word with others to drive hybrid beings.
We all know that a hybrid is a mixed sort of thing.
Cornelius was a gentile who was receiving the good news that was expanded out of Judaism.
He and his house were the first gentile converts that would receive the Holy Spirit in power.
But every person who receives Christ is a hybrid being.
We are sinners scorned and shamed by our sin.
We are wretches without the fear of God and without the knowledge of God.
We are pitiful beings.
Then God Grace comes and makes us alive together with Christ.
His grace infuses us with new life and a new attitude about life because we have a new relationship with God through His son Jesus.
Look at Acts 10:34
Do you see here that Peter simply preached Jesus.

We can do that.
We can tell the story of Jesus.
That is the only thing that will make a difference in people’s lives.
God’s Spirit does not empower the HP Enterprise to convert people.
He does not move in eh works of William Shakespeare to bring followers of Christ in the Kingdom.
God’s Spirit works through the story of Jesus for the gospel is the power of God to salvation for all who believe.
The salvation of God is revealed in the story of Jesus.
Look at verse 44.

I am ready to be amazed as God pours His Spirit our on those with whom we share his word.
Are you?