Thirty Miles North

THIRTY MILES NORTH

An Exposition of Acts 10:1-33

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: October 19, 2025

Series: The Book of Acts

Note: Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTS

Good morning. I invite you to turn to Acts 10, and in just a moment I'll be reading verses 1 through 33. Acts 10:1-33. I also want to let you know that there's a handout, a little colorful handout in the bulletin, and there are some extra copies back there on the table that goes along with the sermon this morning. I appreciate the input last week in relationship to the PowerPoint. I'm actually not new to incorporating the visual into my ministry, but I haven't done it much on Sunday mornings. If you come to Monday school, you'll see a lot more visual, right? But why not try to do it more here to help us to connect with what's going on. So you can reference that as I'm going through the message here.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

Acts chapter 10, beginning in verse 1. Holy Scripture says:

¹ At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, ² a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God.³ About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.” ⁴ And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. ⁵ And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. ⁶ He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.” ⁷ When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him,⁸ and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.

⁹ The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. ¹⁰ And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance¹¹ and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. ¹² In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. ¹³ And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” ¹⁴ But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” ¹⁵ And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” ¹⁶ This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.

¹⁷ Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon's house, stood at the gate ¹⁸ and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. ¹⁹ And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. ²⁰ Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.”²¹ And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?”²² And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” ²³ So he invited them in to be his guests.

The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. ²⁴ And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends.²⁵ When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. ²⁶ But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” ²⁷ And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. ²⁸ And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. ²⁹ So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.”

³⁰ And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing ³¹ and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. ³² Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’ ³³ So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.” (Acts 10:1-33)

This is the word of God, and it is for our good. Let's pray:

Father, we thank you for your holy word that instructs us, corrects us, interrupts us, and redirects and transforms our lives. And Father, I pray that you would do such work in our hearts and lives this morning. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

INTRODUCTION

Divine appointments

What will it take to get you to your next divine appointment?

What is a divine appointment? What do I mean by divine appointment? What I mean is, is that God has appointed a meeting between you and someone else, or between you and another group of people, for the express purpose that you share the good news of the Gospel with them. That's what I mean by divine appointment.

We have seen divine appointments throughout the book of Acts.

In Acts chapter eight, there was an Ethiopian eunuch who had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and he was returning home, and he was reading the prophet of Isaiah and wrestling with its meaning. And the Lord tapped the shoulder of Philip the evangelist, and said, ‘Go, hit the road. Go join that chariot.’ It was a divine appointment.

In Acts chapter nine, the Lord apprehended Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus, rendering him blind and helpless. And he didn't eat or drink for three days. And Saul saw in a vision, while he was praying, that a man named Ananias was going to come and lay his hands on him and heal him. And lo and behold, the Lord talked to Ananias in a vision and told him to go and minister to Saul so that Saul would be healed and so that Saul would receive the Holy Spirit. A divine appointment.

A couple of months ago, Harry Fletcher concluded his sermon from this pulpit by telling us about a divine appointment. Do you remember there was a chaplain named Oscar and someone in the community had committed an egregious crime and was in ‘the hole’, in solitary confinement. And the chaplain felt that he was being directed by the Lord to go and minister the gospel to this man. And the prison wouldn't let him in. But finally they relented and they allowed this chaplain to go in. And he goes in and ministers to this man. And the man told him, I was going to kill myself today, but I felt a voice saying no and that someone was going to come.

You see, the Lord is orchestrating divine appointments. He's working on both sides, both angles, and bringing people together so that the gospel can be ministered and so that disciples can be made.

Getting a clear view of the goal

I want to begin this sermon by setting in your mind the goal, okay? I'm going to walk over here (to the corner of the sanctuary) because I've got a little prop set up over here, okay? We've got a little table and three chairs and an open Bible, okay? Look at the second half of verse 33: “Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”

This could happen next week, it could happen next month, it could happen three months from now – that the Lord has orchestrated a divine appointment where you find yourself, perhaps in a living room, perhaps at a dining room table, perhaps in a coffee shop, perhaps in a break room at work, and the audience is ready to hear from you the message of God's word. Wouldn't it be wonderful if those kinds of gospel conversations and divine appointments were filling western Maine, where Acts 8 and Acts 9 and Acts 10 were simply normal, as God is working through his people in order to share the gospel and draw more and more people into the family of God? That's the goal. That's what we want to get to. So what will it take to get you to your next divine appointment? Someone might say it's going to take an act of God. Well, behold, acts of God in Acts chapter 10!

GOD IS PREPARING THE OTHER PEOPLE FOR YOUR DIVINE APPOINTMENT WITH THEM (v. 1-8)

Point number one: God is preparing the other people for your divine appointment with them. God is preparing the other people for your divine appointment with them.

Now as we look here in verses 1 to 8, we see that the Lord is preparing Cornelius. You start reading chapter 10, and it feels Roman, right? Roman, Gentile, non-Jew, right? “At Caesarea” – Caesar – at Caesarea, a significant city to Rome with a significant Gentile population within it. And we have a man named Cornelius, a Roman army captain with 100 soldiers under his command and serving in the Roman army, representing the Roman Empire. This chapter begins with a very Roman and Gentile feel. And of course, that's the point, as the Gospel is going to break forth into the Gentile world.

Now Cornelius was a godly man. He's called “devout” (v. 2). He had a heart for God. He “feared God with all of his household” (v. 2). And if you know the Old Testament, then you know that the fear of the Lord is the main thing. It's the heart of true godliness, the heart of being right with God. One of my favorite scholars is a guy named Daniel Block. He describes the fear of the Lord as “awed trust” or “trusting awe”. It's a blend of, on the one hand, having confidence in God and, at the same time, being overwhelmed and awestruck by his majesty. If you fear God, then the reality of God and his word and his ways governs your life.

Like Tabitha – we met Tabitha last week, right, in chapter nine, verse 36, “She was full of good works and acts of charity” (Acts 9:36) – like Tabitha, Cornelius was a charitable and generous man, giving alms, making charitable contributions to the people (v. 2), especially to the Jewish people, which is one of the reasons why they spoke highly of him, which we're told down in verse 22.

And he “prayed continually to God” (v. 2). I mean, Cornelius embodied what had already been happening in the life of the early church. They feared God. They were generous with each other, and they prayed often. That's Cornelius.

Now you might be scratching your head a little bit when you realize what the text is telling us about Cornelius. Because I'm about to tell you that Cornelius needs to hear the gospel, which is the point of the vision. But in order to appreciate what's going on here, you have to understand that Cornelius was in a very unique position, okay? You're not going to meet someone like Cornelius today, okay? It's just not going to happen this side of the cross.Decades and centuries on this side of the cross, you can only be right with God through a conscious faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his death and resurrection, okay? But think about Jews – as well as Gentiles who came to fear the God of Israel – think about such men and women in the year A.D. 20 or in the year A.D. 25 or in the year A.D 30. Some of these people, like Zechariah and Elizabeth, some of them were right with God even though they did not have the full knowledge of Jesus the Messiah and his death and resurrection. They didn't know that, but they were right with God. And so Cornelius was right with God under the Old Testament administration. He didn't cease to be right with God when Jesus died and rose again, okay? So he was right with God under an Old Testament administration. But in order to enter into the fullness of the new covenant reality, which is the reception of the Holy Spirit and that fullness of life with God in his kingdom, that fullness of participation in the kingdom of God was not going to happen apart from conscious faith in Jesus the Messiah. And so God favorably received Cornelius’s acts of worship, his prayers and his generous charity. They “ascended as a memorial” (v. 4), as a pleasing sacrifice in the sight of God. But God wanted Cornelius to hear the Gospel and to enter into the fullness of the new covenant reality.

And so God sends an angel who speaks to Cornelius in a vision and tells him to send for Simon Peter, who's down in Joppa (v. 3-6). You see this little handout here? You got the Mediterranean Sea over here (on the left side of the page), and you got two coastal towns. Peter's down in Joppa, as we're going to meet him praying on the roof. And you got Caesarea 30 miles to the north, also and a coastal town. And the question is, how is Simon Peter down in Joppa going to get up to Cornelius in Caesarea?

Cornelius is obedient to the vision and to the instruction that he receives, and he immediately dispatches three men to go get Simon Peter (v. 7-8).

GOD IS PREPARING YOU FOR YOUR NEXT DIVINE APPOINTMENT WITH SOMEONE (v. 9-29)

Now coming to verses 9 through 29, The second point that I want to make is that God is preparing you for your next divine appointment with someone. God is preparing the other person, but he's also preparing you.

He's preparing the Ethiopian eunuch, and he's preparing Philip. He's preparing Saul of Tarsus, and he's preparing Ananias, right? He's preparing the murderer sitting in the hole, and he's preparing the chaplain. God works on both sides to bring people together.

Well, as you can see in verse nine, Cornelius’s representatives were on their way and approaching the city of Joppa while Peter went up to the housetop to pray. And then he got hungry. And he eventually is going to be having a vision of his own. So I want you to think about how, related to this particular passage, God is specifically breaking down barriers in you – obviously in Peter in this passage, but I'm trying to apply it to you and me – God is breaking down barriers in you that would prevent you from showing up at your next divine appointment.

You see, Peter has some hang-ups. I'm going to walk over here, representing the fact that Peter was down in Joppa. Can anyone shout out – don't give me a long answer – does anyone want to shout out, what is Peter's barrier to ministering to someone like Cornelius? (Three people answered: ‘unclean’, ‘the law’, ‘tradition’.) Yeah, that's absolutely on the right track.

There are a couple of indications that Peter has some hang-ups. He gets this vision, right (v. 10-16)? He gets a vision, the heavens are opened up, and he's got this great sheet descending from the heaven, and he's seeing it, like the whole earth is open before him, and he sees all kinds of animals. And he's told, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” (v. 13) to rise, kill and eat. And what's his response? “By no means” (v. 14)! We realize he's got a hang-up, he’s got some resistance because he sees – what does he see? – maybe he sees rabbits or pigs or frogs or lobster. And if you're reading the Old Testament, then you know that God made a distinction between clean and unclean animals. And these sorts of animals they were not to eat. And if they ate them, they would become unclean. They would become ceremonially unclean, ritually unclean.

And Peter’s other hang-up is that he had been taught that – kind of stemming off of the first hang-up – he’s been taught that it would be inappropriate for him to visit with or associate with a Gentile (v. 28). Now, it would be one thing to bring a Gentile into your home, where you get to control what's on the table, and they have to play by your rules. But if you're going to go into the house of a Gentile and be a gracious guest, now they get to determine what's on the table, and you have to play by their rules. It was unthinkable. So there's a significant barrier here.

And what develops is this kind of mentality that actually develops among human beings all the time. It's an us-them mentality. We are clean, they are unclean. We are circumcised (a Jewish mindset), those Gentiles are uncircumcised. We are insiders, they are outsiders. And maybe you've experienced this sort of thing, maybe you haven't. In our own American history, how whites regarded blacks. Or you go back 90 years over to Europe, how the Germans regarded the Jews. Or ongoing problem in Europe, how Europeans regard the gypsies. How the rich regard the poor. How ethnic majorities relate to ethnic minorities. This is a common problem, where we have an us-them mentality. And we think that if we're going to rub shoulders with those people, with those unclean people, with those outsiders, with those despised people, that's going to contaminate us. So we're just going to stay away.

Well, it's really difficult to minister to people – those people – when you have that mindset.

So Peter gets this vision, right? He's told to rise, kill, and eat in verse 13. And he, of course, expresses objection. But then the voice came to him again in verse 15: “What God has made clean, do not call common.” Now, Jesus, in the Gospels, it says that “he declared all foods clean” (Mark 7:19). As we shall see, this vision is not primarily about food, though it does have implications for that. This vision happened three times, and it went away (v. 16).

And now Peter's trying to figure out what it meant. He did not know what the vision meant. As you can see in verse 17, it says that “while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean” – so he's wrestling with it. He's trying to figure it out. What does it mean and how does it apply?

Next thing you know, there's messengers at the door at Simon the Tanner's house, the house by the sea, and they want to know if Simon Peter is there (v. 17-18). No here's another act of God – you had Cornelius’s vision, you had Peter's vision – now the Holy Spirit is going to speak directly to Simon Peter. It says in verse 19: “while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.”” (v. 20) In one sense, Cornelius sent them. But ultimately the Holy Spirit sent them, because the Holy Spirit is the one who gave Cornelius the instructions to send for Simon Peter.

Peter responds obediently to this instruction from the Holy Spirit (v. 21-23). He goes down. He interacts with the men. He inquires as to what they're doing and what their coming means. He shows them hospitality. He invites them in as his guests. And then he continues to obey the Holy Spirit – going to the second half of verse 23, it says, “The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him.” So Peter, obeying the Holy Spirit, accompanies these three representatives from Cornelius and makes his way north to Caesarea (v. 23-24).

When he finally gets to Caesarea and he finally gets to Cornelius’s house, they meet. Cornelius is overwhelmed by the fact that Peter has come, even to the point of bowing down and worshiping him, or at least paying homage before him and doing obeisance before him. And you have to love Peter's response. Peter is not impressed with himself. He doesn't see himself as some awesome figure, even as an angelic figure. He says to Cornelius, “Stand up; I too am a man.” (v. 26)

And Peter goes in, and he sees this large group of people – because it wasn't just Cornelius and his immediate family members, but Cornelius had also invited his relatives and friends (v. 24, 27). Cornelius had a great expectation that Simon Peter was soon to arrive, and he had gathered all of these dear people together in order to hear the message that would be shared with them.

And finally, we come to verse 28. And I want to land on verse 28 for a few moments because I think that that's really the heart of this particular passage. And by the way, I meant to say this earlier: this account of Peter and Cornelius runs all the way into chapter 11, verse 18. And the implications of Peter's ministry to Cornelius, a Gentile – the implications of that reverberate in the church in chapter 11 and in chapter 15 as they have to think about, ‘What does it mean for Gentiles to be included in the people of God?’ And we're going to talk about that in future weeks. But for now, I'm just trying to emphasize the issue of divine appointments and of God preparing us to take the Gospel to new places.

What does Peter say in verse 28? He says, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is” – or against custom it is, or against my tradition it is – “for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation”. How would you like your guest to make that as his opening statement?‘Based on my tradition, based on my background, based on everything I've been taught, I should not be here with you this morning. But God has sent me here.’ If someone says that to you, you should feel honored: ‘Wow, God has brought this person to me.’

Peter continues, “but God has shown me” – see, Peter was wrestling with the meaning of the vision. He was taking steps of obedience, and he finally figured out the real point of the vision. Though it has implications for food, it’s really about people. And what does he say? “God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.”

Okay, simple application: You should not call any person common or unclean. Period. Now, he's not talking about sin. You can go over to Matthew, chapter 15, where Jesus gives the instruction about how not the food that goes into our body, but the sin that comes out of our heart makes us unclean. Well, we're all in that boat. Every single human being on the planet is by nature unclean on account of sin. We're all in that boat. But that's not the point here. The point here is that we tend to regard other people as common or unclean or despised or outsiders or second rate on account of a host of other factors. There's the ethnic factor. We should not regard any person as unclean or unworthy on account of their ethnicity, or on account of their cultural background, or on account of their political sloganeering on their front yard or on social media, or on account of their socioeconomic status or their residency status, or whether they're from the wrong side of town or whether they eat the wrong kind of food. I mean, food is really, really, really important to some people – like, we only eat organic, and God is calling you to go minister to someone else in their house and to be a gracious guest, and you know, it's not going to be organic or it's not going to be vegan in their house. What are you going to do?

The “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” (John 4:9), much less a Samaritan woman. But there's Jesus, in John chapter four, ministering thoughtfully and graciously to a Samaritan woman. Most people would rather not go minister to a violent murderer in the hole. Most people wouldn't want to have their shoulder tapped to go minister to someone who just three days ago had been a violent persecutor of the church. ‘Ananias, go to Saul and bless him in my name.’ Fill in the blank – homeless migrants, the less educated, or whoever else – call no one common or unclean. And therefore be willing to minister to anybody, even to the point of doing so in their space, in their home.

GOD’S PREPARATION WORK BRINGS YOU AND THE OTHER(S) TOGETHER, SO THAT THE STAGE IS SET FOR YOU TO SHARE THE GOSPEL (v. 30-33) IS

Finally and briefly, as we look at verses 30-33, God's preparation work brings you and the other – or you and the others – together, so that the stage is set for you to share the Gospel, which is exactly what Peter does (in verses 34 to 43).

Peter asks Cornelius at the end of verse 29, ‘Why did you send for me?’ And then Cornelius, in his own words, tells Peter why he had sent for him (v. 30-32). And recounting the vision and the instruction that he received from the Lord, Cornelius then expresses appreciation for Peter coming and then makes that remarkable statement: “Now therefore” – think about this, this is in Caesarea, this is in what is in some ways a Roman city, this is in the house of a Gentile, and there is the presence of God. “Now therefore we are all here” – in this place, in this Gentile place, gathered here – “in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.” And the door is open for Peter to tell them about Jesus and his grace, his resurrection, and the promise of forgiveness for everyone who believes. And if you want to know about that and what happens next, I really encourage you to come back on November 2, as Alan is going to preach next week (on October 26). And then we’re going to get back to this account in Acts 10.

Now look at your handout. This is really simple. Near the top it says, “Up in Caesarea and everywhere else, there are people who need to hear the gospel.” And my question to you is, what are you going to do about it? Near the bottom it says, “Down in Joppa and over here in western Maine, there are people like you

[and me] who have the gospel. Will you take it 30 miles north?” And I mean “30 miles north” metaphorically. Obviously Peter literally traveled 30 miles north, but he did far more than travel 30 miles north. He had to travel social distance. He had to travel theological distance. He had to break through barriers that he had received from tradition and from the Old Testament era. The Old Testament instructions (e.g., about clean and unclean food) were right in their own way, in their time and place, but the new era has come through the cross. There's a cross here (in the middle of the handout). Through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ – the Savior of the world, not only of Israelites, but of all peoples everywhere – all those who believe (regardless of their ethnicity) come together as the people of God. And Peter had to endure personal discomfort, too. Go without hesitation. Go without misgivings. Go without doubt. God is in it. God is with you. Go. Take his message. Proclaim it. The soil has been prepared. The door is open. Proclaim the gospel.

Maybe you can hang this handout on a wall or at your desk or on your refrigerator, to remind you that God has divine appointments in mind for you and for me, that we have a distance to cross, and we have a reason to go, and we have a message to share. Let western Maine be filled up with many more gospel conversations than are currently taking place, that more and more people would be brought into the family of God.

Let's pray. 

Father, I pray that in the days and weeks ahead that there would be testimonies of divine appointments, of gospel conversations, of strange coincidences that really aren't, because you have gone before us to pave the way. Father, I pray that you would give us courage and boldness and strength by your Holy Spirit to take the Gospel all over. I pray that you would stretch forth your hand in a mighty and powerful way to bring about more resurrection stories, the Holy Spirit falling on what would seem like unlikely people and making them our brothers and sisters in Christ. Father, we pray that you would do this, and far more than we can ask or imagine. In Jesus’ name, amen.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

David G. Peterson, The Acts of the Apostles (The Pillar New Testament Commentary). Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009.

Patrick Schreiner, Acts (Christian Standard Commentary). Holman Reference, 2022.

Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.