Is This of God?

A sermon on Acts of the Apostles 10:1-48
Providence Baptist Church, Hendersonville NC
Dwight A. Moody
May 9, 2021

During 2015 and 2016, a sizeable group of Pentecostal ministers predicted that Donald J. Trump would be elected president of the United States; and he was. This gave these “prophets” as they were called, enormous credibility. Most of them and many more predicted he would win again in 2020; and he did not. This caused a problem.
Last week, a group of these “prophets” issued a signed document offering guidelines for such prophetic activity. It calls for a public apology, a sort of repentance, if some prophecy turns out to be wrong.
Most “prophets” in the movement refused the sign on to the new document; but it illustrates one way a group of Christians is trying to answer the question: Is this of God?

That same question was the central mystery raised by the death of Jesus. At the time, and for centuries since, thoughtful and faithful people have been asking, was that of God? And if, so in what sense?
The question came up again, famously, on the day of Pentecost. Crowds were gathered. Apostles were preaching. Strange things were happening: a mighty sound, flames of fire, people talking in strange languages.  “What does this mean?” people asked, and several answers were given, including, “They are drunk.”  We would say today, “They’re high.” Others said, “No, this is of God.”
Then the story we read today. Simon Peter was the chief speaker on that day of Pentecost. Now he is called to visit with a Gentile, a soldier, a religious and devout man. Simon Peter has a vision that disrupts his world view. He is wrestling with this same question, “Are these things of God?”
You and I ask ourselves this same question. When we suffer a grievous injury: Is this accident of God? When we receive an unexpected gift on the same day a bill is due, we ask, Is this coincidence, or a providence, of God? When we feel a surge of sympathy for a person begging at the side of the road, we ask: Is this feeling of God? You can add a dozen more life episodes that force us to inquire: Is this of God?
I recall a particular experience in my life. I was a college-age youth director at a church nearby. I loved the pastor. Two years ago I was honored to preach his funeral. He was a fervent proponent of revivals—not just meetings or services, but revivals that mixed emotion and appeal with the altar call, that blends, conversion, conviction and consecration.
Something happened in that church, something like a revival: young people were saved, and motivated, and enthusiastic. There was an electricity, an anticipation in the air. One Sunday, the pastor asked all who had been called into the gospel ministry to stand together at the altar. More than 20 people, young and old, including myself, took a place in front of the congregation. I looked around. My enthusiasm was tempered with skepticism. Are all these decisions really of God? I thought to myself, even as I stood there.
In church life we ask this question. We want to know: is God speaking? Is God acting? Is God providing? Is God calling? We ask this when the nominating committee comes calling.…when a search committee hears a person preach …..when a minister feels a tug to another place of service……when a member feels a pull to another church…or a push to no church!
We look beyond our immediate surroundings. We see statues coming down, and we ask, “Is this of God?” We see children at the border, and we ask, “Is this of God” We see guns selling at record rates, and we ask “Is this of God?”
Where is God in the economic, political, and cultural life of our country? Who is in charge? Who has the money? Who has the power? “Is this of God?”

So it was, on this day, in Caesarea.
It is a beautiful place, Caesarea. It was the Roman colony in a Jewish land. It was the new city, new fortress, new harbor built by the Romans to house their legion and their governor and the large entourage the always follows those with money and power.
Caesarea is the first stop on our tour of Israel next May. It is just north of Tel Aviv, on the Mediterranean Coast. Wonderful ruins, much of it still intact—so much so that you can imagine the city as it was when Peter arrived to visit with Cornelius, or when Paul arrived under guard after he had been arrested, or later when other great leaders of the first centuries–                        Eusibius, Basil, and Gregory–took up residence in this important center of Christian life.
Joppa is south of Tel Aviv; Caesarea is north. Joppa was Jewish; Caesarea was Gentile. Joppa was home to Simon the tanner; Caesarea was home to Cornelius the soldier. Joppa was familiar territory to Simon Peter, Caesarea was unfamiliar territory to Simon Peter.
If God was in this, God was moving Simon Peter out of his zone of comfort, into his zone of confusion, from a place of answers to a place of questions, from a place of certainty to a place of mystery. We always want to know: can God follow us from comfort, from answers, from certainty into confusion, questions, and mystery? Does God go with us when we leave home?
The home of familiar people, practices, and expectations? Is this relocation of God? Is this move of God? is this journey of God?
For nine years, I was pastor to a congregation of displaced people, people who had moved from their home—in Europe, Brazil, the Midwest and West coast, from Africa, and from the South. They were all struggling with the question, Is this of God?

Do you recall the episode in the life of Jacob? Jacob the scoundrel? Jacob the swindler? Jacob on the run? He fled the wrath of his brother, the Bible says, and found himself away from home, alone, on a hilltop, at night. He took a stone for a pillow, the story says. He probably did not ask, Is God in this mess I have made? Because it was too far outside of even his world view. He could not imagine his deceit, his flight, his loneliness being “of God”.
Then he had a dream. Do you remember? A ladder with one end resting right beside him and the other end reaching into the heavens. Angels were moving up and down the ladder: coming from heaven to attend to him and going back to heaven to appeal to God on his behalf. Jacob woke up, asking some version of this question: Is this of God? this dream, this place, this desperate journey?
Remember what he said: “God is here!  I did not know it. I knew God acted there and there and there, for him and her and them. But it seems that God is here, that this too is of God: this rock, this sleep, this dream, this place.  He woke up, he remembered his dream, and he named the place Beth-el. The house of God.
We will go to Bethel next May!!
His story is the story of the Bible. It is the story of God. It is the story of Jesus.  Everywhere, God shows up when and where we do not expect it. We expect it at home, but God is often on the road. We expect it in the temple, but God is often in the village. We expect it among the pious, but God is often mixing it up with the weary and worn, those outside the circle and away from the center. Simon Peter expected it in Joppa, but he found it in Caesarea.
Have you ever found God, heard God, seen God in an unexpected place?

According to our story, Cornelius had a vision from God. That in and of itself is shocking: for Simon Peter and for some of us. Cornelius was not a Jew, not a Christian. But he was a seeker after truth and wisdom and a doer of righteousness and justice.
God saw Cornelius just like Jesus saw Zacchaeus in the tree. God directed Cornelius just like the star directed the wise men from the east.  God is everywhere, at all times: inspiring people, directing people, healing people, anointing people, and yes saving people, some of whom are Christians and some of whom become Christians!
Cornelius sent his people to track down Simon Peter. They did just that, traveling south from Caesarea to what today is called Jaffa, skirting Netanya, Herzliya, and Tel Aviv—38 miles. They knocked on the door and asked for Simon Peter.
Simon Peter was still puzzled over the vision he had. He was praying, on a roof top. He saw something like a sheet lowered from heaven, filled with all sorts of animals. The old translation says: “four footed beasts of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and fowls of the air.” The new translation puts it this way: “all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds.”
You don’t have to be a Jew or Muslim with religious scruples to raise your eyebrows: especially that reptile word. I know people around the world eat reptiles, but not me. I’m with Simon Peter—“I don’t think so, Lord.” Four-footed beasts—that sounds like steak to me. Fowl of the air—that sounds like pheasant and might even include chicken.
So far so good: but that middle word: reptile. I’m not sure that will ever be on my menu!!
Simon Peter was not thinking about nutrition or taste. He was asking this question: is this vision of God? He was interrupted by the knock at the door: Cornelius’s people looking for Simon Peter. Simon Peter must have sensed that these people were part of God’s plan, God’s purpose. He invited them in and offered them overnight hospitality. And the next day, he traveled with them back up the same road, 38 miles, from Joppa to Caesarea, from the Jewish quarter to the Roman quarter, from the place of clean people to the place of unclean people.
What was Simon Peter thinking along that ten-hour walk? Is this of God? What am I walking into? And that greatest of all questions, What would Jesus do right now if he were walking this road to the home of a roman soldier?
Well, actually, Simon Peter knew what Jesus would do! Simon Peter must have been with Jesus the day the servants of another Roman soldier approached Jesus and said, “The captain has a servant about to die. Please come and heal him.” And the text of the gospel says this, “So Jesus went with them.”  Jesus went with them to heal the servant of a supposedly unclean, unconverted, uncircumcised pagan, an occupier, representing a foreign government collecting taxes.
Simon Peter must have replayed that episode a thousand times on that walk from Joppa to Caesarea. Perhaps he thought this: if Jesus did it, then it must be of God. Right? Perhaps he took it a step further, If I am doing what Jesus did, then what I am doing is of God! And perhaps Simon Peter helps us to bring that equation into our own circumstance: if what I do is what Jesus would do, then God is in what I am doing! Right? If I speak like Jesus, or respond like Jesus, or think like Jesus, or behave like Jesus, I can know that what I am speaking, and thinking and doing is of God. If I do something to relieve the thirst and hunger of the poor; if I vote for something to treat the sick or release the captive; if I march in the street to welcome the stranger, the immigrant, the refugee……..isn’t God in it?

When Simon Peter arrived in Caesarea, this is what happened. Cornelius told his story and Simon Peter listened; then Simon Peter told his story while Cornelius listened. Isn’t that a wonderful strategy for life, for healing, for community? Isn’t that the practice we need today in our country, in our county, in our congregation? I’ll listen to you and you listen to me. I’ll tell you what I have experienced and what I think and the questions I have; then you tell me what you have experienced             and what you think and the questions you have. And together we will prayerfully ask, is this of God?
Here is part of the message Simon Peter spoke on that day: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy spirit and with power. This Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him…. They put him to death by hanging him on a cross, but God raised him to life on the third day.”
In other words, Was this of God? Was this man, this ministry, this death, this resurrection–of God?
Indeed it was! and here they were yet again, faced with a new and challenging situation, with Jews and Gentiles together. They were asking that same question, Is this of God?
While they were prayerfully speaking and listening and discerning an answer to this questions—is this of God?—something remarkable occurred. The text puts it this way, “The Holy Spirit fell on all who were listening to the message.” It was a Pentecostal moment.
There was rejoicing, and testifying, and speaking in tongues.
But none of these things were needed to convince Simon Peter. His mind was already made up. He had already answered the questions of the hour. He knew this entire episode was of God, was full of the Spirit, was just like Jesus.
It was a divine moment from start to finish, a pivotal episode, a decisive day.
Yes, God was in it because it had all the marks of the ministry of Jesus.
This is what we mean when we say, Jesus is the lens through which we see God, Jesus is the example of what it means to be full of the spirit, and Jesus is the answer to the question we raise, Is this of God.
Another gospel writer put it this way: The Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. We have seen his glory, the glory of the father’s one and only son…. From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another…no one has ever seen God. But the unique one, the son who is near to the Father’s heart, has revealed God to us…..
…….and answered the question, Is This of God? Yes, this is of God!