How does God prepare the soil for evangelism? Acts 10:1-8 Sermon | Prescott Anglican Church
Text: Acts 10:1-8
Acts 10:1–8 introduces Cornelius, a Roman centurion who seems an unlikely candidate for faith but whose life shows that God has already been preparing his heart. As God readies Cornelius, Peter, and the church for the gospel to cross old boundaries, this passage encourages Christians to trust that the Holy Spirit prepares both those who proclaim the gospel and those who hear it.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, while Peter was still unaware, you were preparing the heart and mind of Cornelius and his whole household to receive the gospel with joy. Prepare us to proclaim the gospel day by day. Prepare our hearts, and the hearts of those we meet, to receive it. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.
I love the gardening metaphors Scripture gives us. That may be partly because I enjoy gardening, but they are also simply relatable. Most of us understand at least a little about turning soil, planting seeds, watering, waiting, and then somehow seeing fruit or vegetables emerge. Gardening involves so much preparation—much of it hidden from view.
That is a fitting picture for Acts 10. God is preparing the soil long before Peter arrives in Caesarea. He is preparing Cornelius to hear the gospel, preparing Peter to carry it across a boundary he would never have crossed on his own, and preparing the church for the gospel to go to the nations.
The weight of speaking about Christ
There is a weight to preaching. I do not often sleep much on Saturday nights because my mind is circling around the sermon: Did I say that rightly? Did I understand the passage? Did I make Christ clear?
The desire beneath that anxiety is simple: I want you to know that Christ died for you and was raised to life. We are people of Word and Sacrament. We gather to hear God’s Word read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested.
But the call to proclaim Christ does not belong to clergy alone. Peter writes, “In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).
That can sound intimidating. You may think, There is no way I could do that. What if I do not know what to say?
Jesus answers that fear from the other direction: “Do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12:11–12).
My prayer each week is that God will take wildly imperfect words and, by his Holy Spirit, use them to encourage or convict someone who hears them. When someone tells me that a particular word reached them, the best explanation is often that the Spirit was at work. And the same is true when you speak of Christ. The Holy Spirit makes us ready, and he prepares hearts to receive the seed of the gospel.
That is what Acts 10 shows us.
The most unlikely convert
Acts 10 begins the story of Cornelius, and the rest of the chapter is tightly connected to what follows. In the coming weeks, Peter will go to Cornelius, preach Christ, and see the Holy Spirit fall upon Gentiles. But this opening section shows us something crucial: before Cornelius hears Peter, God is already at work in him.
Acts is the story of the Great Commission unfolding. By the end of the book, the gospel has reached Rome—the heart of the known world. Cornelius is among the first great signs that this is happening.
At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, “a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort” (Acts 10:1). We may hear that as a simple introduction, but to a first-century Jewish hearer, Cornelius would have seemed like the most unlikely person imaginable to come to Christ.
Caesarea was a Roman garrison city and the administrative capital of Judea. If there was a little Rome in Judea, Caesarea was it. Cornelius was not merely living there by accident. He was a centurion, a military officer with significant authority, likely responsible for roughly a hundred men. He belonged to the Italian Cohort; he was a Roman among Romans, serving the occupying power.
The divide between Jew and Gentile was immense. It was deeper than many of the cultural and political divisions we know today. So the opening line of the story is meant to make us wonder: What good could possibly come from this man?
It raises a question for us, too. Is there someone in your life you have quietly decided is beyond reach? Someone you have stopped praying for because you assume they would never receive the gospel? Someone so different from you, so hardened, so hostile, or so far away that you have concluded, There is no point even trying?
Cornelius reminds us not to make that judgment. God is often working in soil we have not even thought to examine.
God was already at work
Then Luke gives us a fuller picture: Cornelius was “a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God” (Acts 10:2).
The centurion is unlikely—but he is not untouched. God is already doing something in his heart.
To fear God is not to cower before a cruel deity. It is reverence before the infinite God. We are finite; he is infinite. Even a long life has an end, while God is without beginning or end—infinitely holy, mighty, kind, loving, gracious, and just. To see even a little of who he is ought to awaken reverence in us.
Cornelius feared God, and that reverence overflowed into his household. He wanted his family, servants, and friends to know the God he was beginning to seek. His faith also bore fruit in generosity. He gave alms freely, and he prayed continually.
That does not mean Cornelius earned salvation by his generosity. His alms did not purchase God’s attention. Rather, they were evidence that God was already preparing him. His prayers and generosity were the early fruit of a heart being turned toward the Lord.
The angel tells him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God” (Acts 10:4). What a comfort that is. We may sometimes wonder whether God sees us, whether our prayers rise any higher than the ceiling, whether a person who seems far from God could possibly be known by him. But God saw Cornelius. Before Cornelius knew God truly in Christ, God knew Cornelius’s heart.
If you are newly hearing the gospel, perhaps God has been preparing you for this moment. And if you already know Christ but feel inadequate to speak of him, remember: God is preparing you too. He is with you, and he may already be preparing the person who will hear you.
Generosity as worship
Cornelius’s almsgiving deserves notice. It would be easy to hear this passage and turn it into a bargain with God: give enough money, and he will bless you. That is not what Acts is teaching, and it is not the gospel.
The New Testament does not reduce generosity to a bare minimum. It calls believers to give freely, abundantly, and joyfully so that the gospel can continue to go out and the poor can be cared for. There is no magic percentage that purchases favor with God. But there is a clear call to give as an act of worship.
Whatever we are able to give—whether it feels small or large—can glorify God when it is offered freely and generously. Christian giving is not about financing someone’s luxury. It is about participating in God’s work: caring for those in need and making the good news of Christ known.
Cornelius’s generosity did not save him. But it revealed a heart God was preparing to receive the grace of the gospel.
A careful preparation
The angel tells Cornelius exactly what to do: send men to Joppa and bring Simon Peter, who is staying with Simon the tanner by the sea. The instruction is wonderfully specific: whom to find, where he is staying, and where that house is located. God is not leaving Cornelius to guess.
The details also prepare us for what is coming. Joppa is where Jonah once fled from God’s call to preach to Gentiles in Nineveh. Now Peter is in Joppa, and he is about to be sent toward a Gentile—the most Roman of Romans—to proclaim the grace of Christ.
There is another hint in Peter’s lodging with Simon the tanner. Tanners worked with animal hides and were often regarded as ceremonially unclean. Peter’s presence in that house suggests that God is already loosening the boundaries Peter has assumed were fixed. Soon he will be asked to enter a Gentile home, and then to recognize that God shows no partiality.
God is preparing both sides of the meeting. Cornelius may have wondered whether a Jewish apostle would ever come into his home. But God was working in Peter already. God was making ready the messenger and the hearer alike.
Cornelius responds in obedience. He does not delay, argue, or demand more proof. He calls two servants and a devout soldier, tells them what has happened, and sends them to Joppa.
The gospel is about to get much bigger.
Prepared for the moment
It is difficult to overstate the importance of this moment. A genuine Gentile—a Roman military officer from Caesarea, a centurion of the Italian Cohort—is about to hear the gospel of grace and receive it. This is part of why most of us are here today. The gospel did not remain within the borders of Israel. It went out into the world.
So whatever God is calling us to as a church, even if it feels too large, too hard, or too frightening, we can remember this: God has been preparing the soil ahead of us.
And whatever God is calling you to personally—whether you feel ill-equipped to speak, serve, invite, give, forgive, or pray—God is preparing you now. Be ready, as Peter says, to give a reason for the hope within you. Do it with gentleness and respect. Trust the promise of Jesus that the Holy Spirit will teach you what to say.
God has made you ready for this moment. And he may already be preparing someone to receive the gospel of grace with joy.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Comments