Welcome to Today's Living Word for December 8th, 2023. I'm T.J. Gentry. Please join with me in the Lord's Prayer. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. We're making our way through the book of Acts. We come today to chapter 10, where we're going to be introduced to Cornelius. And Peter will come on the scene again. The emphasis here in these first eight verses of Acts chapter 10 is on seeking and finding. Luke writes in verse 1, there was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian regiment. a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people and prayed to God always. About the ninth hour of the day, he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, Cornelius. And when he observed him, he was afraid and said, what is it, Lord? So he said to him, your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa and send for Simon, whose surname is Peter. He is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea. He will tell you what you must do. And when the angel who spoke to him had departed, Cornelius called two of his household servants and a devout soldier from among those who waited on him continually. So when he had explained all these things to them, he sent them to Joppa. And thus far the reading of God's word. So again here, the theme involving Cornelius in this angelic encounter he has is seeking and finding. In verses 1 to 2, where we see that Cornelius is introduced, he is a centurion, which means he would have been in charge of 100 Roman soldiers, part of an Italian regiment that's about 600. So in modern army terms, that's He would have been like a company commander, and he would have been part of a battalion. Tells us that he's devout. He fears God. He gives alms, and he prays. And in this particular instance, we'll see that he's in prayer at a specific time. But what do we learn from the text here about Cornelius? Well, he was probably not a full proselyte. He had probably not gone through circumcision. But he was a believer in Yahweh. And he was following through on what he did know. And we learn there that when it comes to seeking and finding, that like Cornelius, we can all say that responding to revelation brings more revelation. Cornelius had been given some light. He responded to that light. And in response, he was given more light. Now that's not Cornelius earning, as much as it is Cornelius responding. The initial light that he had is gracious. More light is gracious. Initial revelation is gracious. More revelation is gracious. But we do see here this pattern that when we respond to revelation God is gracious to give us more revelation. And that's why Cornelius is described in the way he is as one who seeking God and therefore God comes to him which is what we see in verses 3 all the way to verse 6. So it's the ninth hour of the day so it's about 3 in the afternoon which is the standard time of Jewish prayer so it's entirely possible that he was in prayer and he has this vision of an angel and the angel calls his name and notice he says what is it Lord? Now he may simply be saying what is it sir? He was a man under arms he understood that But it's also entirely likely that Cornelius understood that Yahweh had his messengers. And that messenger represented the great God that Cornelius was seeking, who all along had been seeking him. And so this angel gives him information. And what does he tell him in particular? God has seen your seeking. And so now he says you need to send men to Joppa. You've got to find Peter. Now where is Peter? Peter is with Simon the Tanner. We were introduced to Simon at the end of chapter 9. But he comes back up here again, and it's important to note that he was a tanner, which meant that he dealt regularly with the skin from dead animals. That would have made him unclean. The fact that Peter is with him indicates that Peter has really come to embrace the deeper truth of the gospel. Peter is starting to move past what the Mosaic Law brought him to, which was the gospel, and live out in the gospel. Now Peter is going to struggle with this, but he's with someone, Simon the Tanner, that gives us an indication Peter is changing. The angel tells Cornelius that when he goes to Simon Peter at the house of Simon Tanner, Peter's gonna tell him what he should do. So you've got God using this angel, you've got God using Simon Peter, and you've got God using Simon the Tanner, who is being the host for Peter. What does that tell us about seeking and finding? Well, it tells us that God uses others to bring people to Jesus. That's very straightforward. He used the angel. He used Simon Peter. He used Simon the Tanner by his location. When we understand that seeking and finding begins with responding to revelation and therefore receiving more revelation, we should understand that the way God brings more revelation is he uses others to bring people to Jesus. So the goal here would have been for Cornelius to have a conversation with Peter, and Peter's gonna tell him the gospel. Now, the angel could have told him that, but God has specially appointed us, people, his followers to be the proclaimers of the gospel. If you're waiting on an angel to do your job, you're missing something. So we see here, God uses others to bring people to Jesus. And then in the last part of this section, verses seven and eight, the angel departs, Cornelius calls two servants and another devout soldier. And these are people that knew Cornelius, they knew of his faith, the devout soldier, very likely was like Cornelius, a seeker of the true God. He calls them, he tells them everything that's happening, and then he sends them to Joppa. Cornelius was obedient to the revelation given him. And when he acted in obedience, listening to what the angel said, sending these three men to Joppa, He shows us that obedience of one, Cornelius, it affects many. Because in reality, it wasn't just Cornelius who was going to hear the gospel. His whole household would. And we have every reason to believe that these servants and this devout soldier would. So we see again this beautiful picture of seeking and finding. Jesus said, if you seek, you find, right? We see seeking and finding. We see that responding to revelation brings more revelation. That's seeking and finding. We see that God uses others to bring people to Jesus. That's seeking and finding. And we see that the obedience of one affects many, and that is seeking and finding. So let us be about seeking, and let us be sure that we will find. Amen and amen.