Acts 10:34-48

How do you describe a sunset to someone who is blind, who has never been able to see? What words can describe the colors, the effect that clouds have on the colors, the shades of pink that melt into shades of purple that melt into horizon? How can we describe this if a person has never seen pink or purple or a horizon? If they couldn’t possibly imagine what fading from color to color means, and they’ve never seen a cloud. When you try to explain the shades and colors, it becomes frustrating. You get frustrated because you can’t explain something that you think is so beautiful. And they get frustrated because they can’t understand. They may even get so frustrated that they start to wonder if you’re telling them the truth. Nothing could be as beautiful as what you’re describing. You must be making this up. You’re deluded. You’re imagining it all. But you know what you’re talking about. How can you describe it? How can you make them understand? You can’t. You can’t make them. In order to understand a sunset, you have to see a sunset.

In order to understand Jesus, you have to see Jesus. In order to understand how He’s saved you, you have to see how He’s saved you. Either you get it or you don’t, there’s no way to convince you otherwise.

We are in the time of the church year between Christmas and Lent. For the next several weeks, we are seeing Jesus, He has appeared to us, we are growing in our wonder, our knowledge of Him.

But there are a lot of people who have not seen Him yet, who have not discovered Jesus. In the United States, I don’t know if there is anyone who hasn’t heard His name and doesn’t know that He has something to do with churches. But so many, probably most haven’t seen Him. They can’t imagine Him. They’re blind to Him.

And we’ve seen Him. We know Him. We know what He can do, and we know what He has done. We’ve heard Him talk and we’ve seen Him act. He has appeared to us, and we’ve seen Him. We’ve seen Him, and a beautiful sunset doesn’t even compare.

But when we try to explain Him to those who haven’t seen Him, the words don’t make any sense. We can’t describe Him to those who haven’t seen Him. We can’t make them understand, and we get frustrated, and they think we’re making it all up, there couldn’t possibly be Someone this beautiful.

But there is. And we know. Like Peter says, in verse 34:

I now realize. We get it. It’s gotten in through minds and it’s reached our hearts, that God accepts human beings. God accepts you, because you were in awe of Him and you did what was right, you believed in His Son. He accepts you. He welcomes you in. You’re part of His family. You realize this. You’ve seen it.

Verse 36:

You know this message, and when I say that you know it, you know more than just the facts. You know the facts, but they are the world to you. You know that we had it good, human beings had the good life. And we traded in paradise for pain. We were friends with God, and we decided we wanted to take Him on, become His enemies.

But you know what happened. You know that God didn’t take this sitting down. You know that He got up off His throne and He came down to earth by way of a womb. He came to His enemies in order to change them into friends. No, I’m wrong. In order to change them into family. Brothers, sisters. He came to bring peace to the feud. He came to bring people back to the good life, the life with God.

But you know that. You know, verse 37:

You’ve seen Jesus sending demons screaming, running away. You’ve seen Him tenderly forgiving women who had been treated like dirt. You’ve seen Him make blind men see and people with leprosy completely healed. You seen Him take people who were trapped in the power of the devil, completely wrapped up in his power, and you’ve seen Jesus steal them back and make them free.

But you haven’t just seen Jesus in this book. His work didn’t stop at the end of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You’ve seen Jesus in your own life. You’ve seen Him in the lives of your children, your friends. You’ve seen Him take dying relationships and make them come alive again. You’ve seen Him come to people who could do nothing but despair, and He lifted their chins and gave them light in their eyes again.

Verse 39:

Through eyes of faith, we’ve seen Jesus hanging on that tree. We’ve actually been on that tree with Him. We died with Him, through baptism. We were buried with Him. And on the third day, we were raised to live with Him. We’ve seen Him. We talk to Him on a regular basis.

We are the witnesses we who, verse 41:

We are the witnesses. We ate and drank with Him just two weeks ago, right here in this room. We know. We have seen. When someone tells us about the gospel of Jesus Christ, we know exactly what they’re talking about. We’ll have our own stories to share. We get it.

I’m assuming that everyone here knows that. That each one of us has seen the Lord and know first hand the gospel. That if you were called to the witness stand you could give an eye witness account of Jesus. If I’m not right in assuming this, then the rest of this message isn’t going to make any sense. In fact, if you haven’t seen the Lord and know the gospel, then this whole sermon has been me trying to explain a sunset to a blind person. It doesn’t make any sense, and it’s probably a little frustrating.

But if you know, then, verse 42:

If we’ve seen and heard, then we’re qualified to talk about it. In fact, if we’ve seen and heard Jesus and what He’s doing, wild horses couldn’t keep you from talking about it. Acts 10 is kind of an outline. It puts into words what we’ve seen. We’ve seen Jesus freeing people from the power of Satan. Talk about it. We’ve seen dead things, dead marriages, dead hopes, come back to life. Talk about it. We’ve seen people far away from God brought near again and made part of His family. Those are the things other people need to hear. Talk about it. You, your brothers and sisters in Christ, verse 43:

Talk about it, but you won’t convince anyone. Tell them, but you won’t get through. Verse 44:

Know what verse 44 doesn’t say? It doesn’t say that Peter used enough words and incredible words to convince all the people who heard him. It doesn’t say that Peter argued the people to believe in Jesus. While he was speaking, while he was saying the words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.

And that’s the only way a blind person can see a sunset. That’s the only way an unbeliever can see Jesus. It’s the only way they will understand what we’re talking about. The Holy Spirit opens their eyes and they get it.

I love the response of the believers in verse 45:

Isn’t that us, sometimes? They knew, we know, that Jesus told us to go out and make disciples, telling people, being witnesses of what we’ve seen and heard. We know we’re supposed to, we just never really think it’s actually going to work. If we thought it would work, if we thought that people would actually believe in Jesus when we tell them about Him, we’d do it, wouldn’t we? Of course we want people to be saved.

It’s just that we don’t think it will ever happen. So there we are with our faith hanging out there for everyone to see and mock and ignore. No way are we going to do that, if we can’t convince people of the truth.

But it’s not up to us to convince people of the truth. It’s up to us to talk about what we’ve seen and experienced. We just have to tell people what Jesus has done. The Holy Spirit will decide when and who will get it. He’ll decide when and who will finally understand the gospel and believe it and make it their own.

So, first, it’s up to us to see it. We can’t talk about it, unless we’ve seen it first. We have to experience it. Have you? Are you in awe of the beauty of Jesus? Have you been bowled over by what He can do? Can you talk, from personal experience, about things that have happened that can’t be explained any other way than by Jesus? A body has been healed. A marriage has been saved. A bill has been paid. A hope has been restored. A child was born. An addiction was beat. A job was found.

Now, if you’ve seen this, if you’ve experienced it, then talk about it. Just like from our passage. Talk about how Jesus came and explained things to you. Talk about how He took something sinful and He killed it, when He died on the cross. Talk about how He took something dead, and brought it back to life, when He came out of the grave. Talk about how you’ve talked with Him and heard Him talk.

And yes, you’ll get the blank look. They won’t understand. They can’t see it. But then there will be a moment, and that moment might stretch over months and years, when the light will start to come on. And you’ll see that the Holy Spirit is changing them. Sometimes it happens all at once, most of the time it takes a while.

But it’s the Holy Spirit that will convince them. You won’t. You don’t have the take responsibility, and you won’t take the credit. You just get to talk about what you’ve seen. Jesus, saving your life.