Mike Breaux - Why Should I Love My Neighbor? (01/14/2026)
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Summary:
In Acts 10, God uses a vision to challenge Peter's deep-seated prejudice against Gentiles, leading him to visit and share the gospel with Cornelius, a Roman officer, resulting in Cornelius and his household believing in Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit. The preacher stresses that God's kingdom is radically inclusive, with no barriers based on race, background, or differences, and Jesus commands us to love everyone as neighbors without qualifiers. He concludes that baptism is a public declaration of faith, inviting anyone to plunge their past and start a new life in Christ, as God's grace is for absolutely everyone.
Welcome and Introduction
All right, well, what is up, everybody? Great to see you all this weekend! Thanks for being here at Lako. Hey, I want to welcome all of our campuses and those of you who might be joining us online as well. My name is Breaux in case we’ve never met before, and I get the privilege of being on the teaching team with this amazing place. Man, what an encounter! Great last weekend it was; so, so good. I wish I could have been here live, but I watched it online. It was just so inspiring, and Joss’s message last weekend made me so grateful to be a part of a church like this. I’m super excited about what God’s going to do here today.
This is baptism weekend, and we are going to celebrate, cheer, and go crazy for those who are taking the plunge today. We’re going to worship the One who makes it all possible. It’s going to be quite a day today, and we’ll do all that a little bit later. You can be a part of that, and I cannot wait to celebrate.
Personal Story on Prejudice and Differences
Has anybody noticed that this is an election year? Well, it’s been dominating the news, and with all that stuff going on, I was reminded of a story from years ago when I think it was Bobby Kennedy trying to get the presidential nomination for his party. It was one unusually hot and humid spring day in New York City. He spent most of the day crisscrossing the streets of some of the poorest neighborhoods in Spanish Harlem, and by the time the tour was over, the guy wondered, «Why in the world would this wealthy guy from an affluent family come to the ghetto so often?» So he asked him, «Why are you doing this?» and he replied, «Because I found out something I never knew. I found out that my world was not the real world, and I certainly wasn’t a wealthy guy from an affluent family.» I grew up in a predominantly white, lower-middle-class, conservative southern town, and in those suburbs where I grew up, I rarely had to confront my feelings about people who were different from me. I’m talking about people who were different racially, religiously, socially, economically, politically, morally, sexually, spiritually. In my little world, I didn’t know a ton of people who were different from me. All that was out there somewhere. Well, I grew up and years later moved to Las Vegas to plant a church, and I discovered where «out there» was.
Now there have been all kinds of encounters along the way and defining moments for me, but those years in Las Vegas were really profound and shaped my heart. I watched all kinds of people from every conceivable walk of life searching for hope and searching for meaning. Planting a church there redefined my life and my ministry. It exposed me to the amazing grace of God that not only saved a wretch like them but also a wretch like me. I had to wrestle in a new way with the words of Jesus when He said, «Love your neighbor as yourself.» That was a whole lot easier to do in the suburbs of my hometown because most of my neighbors were, if not all, like me. But in Vegas, that became a new challenge for me because Jesus didn’t put any qualifiers on that statement. He didn’t say, «Love your neighbor if they dress like you, if they believe like you, worship like you, vote like you, or look like you.» He just said, «Love your neighbor as yourself, » period, no asterisk. Just extend the same kind of love that God has extended to you, even if, especially if they’re different from you.
Introduction to Acts Chapter 10
We’ve been walking through this amazing book called The Book of Acts, and we come to a big hinge point in Acts chapter 10 that forces us to deal with our own ethnic, moral, political, generational, and religious pride that sometimes keeps us distant from other people, and as a result, sometimes keeps us distant from God. Now the main character in this story, in Acts chapter 10, is one of Jesus' closest friends and followers. He became a leader in the early church. It was a guy named Peter. Most likely, some of you, if not most of you, have heard of him, and I love Peter because the dude gives me such hope. Because all throughout the New Testament, we see God using this guy who, like me, is a big-time work in progress. You see, even though Peter was handpicked by Jesus to be a disciple and a leader, and eventually an apostle, even though he had heard those words about loving your neighbor as yourself roll off the lips of Jesus; even though he had been there when Jesus told all of them to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations; even though Peter stood up on the day the church was born in Acts chapter 2 and confidently told people, „Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, ” he just had a different view of who „everyone“ was. You see, even though he hung out with Jesus for three years, Peter was still a pretty self-righteous guy. The fact was, he was deeply prejudiced against anybody who wasn’t a Jew like him. Non-Jewish outsiders in Peter’s day were labeled Gentiles; that would be most of us. And sometimes the Gentiles were even referred to as dogs.
You see, Peter was brought up in a culture that led him to believe that people who weren’t Jewish like him were less than human. He was taught that if you accidentally brush up against a non-Jew in public, you need to rush home and wash off all the contamination; that you shouldn’t help a Gentile woman in a time of childbirth because it would only help bring another Gentile into the world; and under no circumstances should you invite a Gentile into your home or go into the home of a Gentile because it would defile you. That’s what Peter grew up with; it’s what he knew, and he was comfortable with the way things were. But if you don’t know this yet, following Jesus won’t keep you comfortable long. Following Jesus will continually bring you face to face with stuff in your own life, your own heart, your own character.
God's Lesson Through a Salad and Prejudice
As I’ve been working through this passage in Acts chapter 10 again, God’s been teaching me some things about me. Some stories that were deep in my memory began to resurface, and the Holy Spirit has been reinforcing His truth in my heart and speaking to my spirit about this in a variety of unique ways. For instance, I know this is really weird, but I was eating a Cobb salad at a restaurant, and the thought hit me: It’s kind of like that. So I said to my salad, „Salad, speak to me, ” and the salad said, „This is the way it ought to be. Everything in this salad is unique. We all have distinctive tastes, we all had different ways of growing, we all came from different kinds of seeds, but now here we are, together, just touching each other.“ I’m thinking, „Come on, salad!“ So my salad continued, „Now we could all go over there and live in the salad bar. Each of us can compartmentalize in our tidy little container, but we’re so much better together.“
Preach, salad! In order to make this beautiful, delicious salad, we all had to die to ourselves, and bro, you’ve got to keep dying to yourself. You have to continue to live your life trying to get all people to live together in the salad bowl instead of the salad bar. You see, at the core of prejudice, bigotry, elitism, and racism is the lie that some people are superior or inferior to other people. And gang, it’s a lie that as followers of Jesus we have to continue to dispel because I’m learning that the more the good news of God grips your heart, the more you know you are loved by God unconditionally, the more you get to know Jesus, the more you begin to develop the same kind of heart that He has toward all people. You stop seeing yourself with any hint of superiority. You live humbly and gratefully without any sense of entitlement, and things like compassion, kindness, and, most importantly, love begins to surge through your veins. We start to long for everyone to get to know Jesus because His kingdom is for everyone, and He wants everyone to come home.
Introduction to Cornelius
So in Acts chapter 10, we encounter a guy who is not a part of Peter’s world. He’s not in his ethnic group, not in his clan or community. His name is Cornelius, and he’s an outsider. He’s one of those Gentiles. Cornelius is a Roman military officer living in a coastal town called Caesarea, and though he didn’t yet know about Jesus, he still had an awareness of God. He actually prayed to God and gave generously to those who were under-resourced. I mean, if Cornelius had died, someone would have stood up at his funeral and said, „Man, if anybody’s in heaven, it’s Cornelius, man, because he’s such a good guy.“ But Cornelius and his family were spiritually lost. I mean, if that wasn’t true, then there’s no need for this chapter in the Bible. There would be no need for God to ask Peter to go build a bridge to this guy and share the good news of Jesus Christ.
So one day, God gives Cornelius a vision. He sees an angel of God, and the angel tells Cornelius that God has taken notice of his good heart. He instructs him to send some of his soldiers over to a town called Joppa to bring back this guy named— you guessed it! — Peter. So Cornelius does that. Now, Peter had no idea what God was about to do. He was clueless that he was about to go in for some big-time open heart surgery. He had no idea that God was about to throw him in the salad bowl instead of the salad bar.
Peter's Vision
Let’s pick it up in verse 10. The next day, as Cornelius’s messengers were nearing the town, Peter went up on a flat roof to pray. It was about noon, and he was hungry, but while a meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw the sky open, and something like a large sheet was let down by the four corners. In the sheet were all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds. Then a voice said to him, „Get up, Peter, kill and eat them.“ It’s like, „Go ahead, Peter, you can have that ham and cheese sandwich; enjoy some bacon with your eggs in the morning; have a side of sausage gravy; have a pork chop for dinner.“ That must have felt like fingernails on a chalkboard to Peter because he was very proud of his religious diet. He had followed a long list of dietary restrictions that flowed from his religion his entire life. So I love his response in verse 14: „No, Lord! I’ve never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure or unclean.“ Can you hear the self-righteousness in his voice? First of all, he tells God no, and then he says, „I’ve never done anything like that! I’ve never eaten any of those things on that sheet! I’m not about to start now!“
Now, he didn’t get it that God wasn’t talking so much about food as He was about tearing down his walls of prejudice and exclusivity in his heart. So God gives him the same vision a second time to see if he gets it, and then God gives him the vision the same vision a third time. You know, as a side note, I’m convinced that God has placed me in churches that have multiple services so that I will have to hear the sermon over and over and over, so maybe it’ll penetrate my heart. It’s like, „Okay, bro, run it back again. Maybe next service you’ll start to get it.“ And you know what? All of us are pretty slow learners, aren’t we? Especially when God’s trying to move us out of our comfort zone.
So after these three visions, it says this in verse 19: Meanwhile, as Peter was puzzling over the vision, the Holy Spirit said to him, „Three men have come looking for you. Get up, go downstairs, and go with them without hesitation. Don’t worry, for I have sent them.“ So here Peter, fresh off this triple vision, starts heading downstairs, and I bet he’s thinking, „You know what? They’re going to be Gentiles, aren’t they? Yep, I just know it. That would be such a Jesus thing to do to me right now. I just know it.“ And he goes down, and guess what? He’s right! He learns that these non-Jewish guys at the door have been sent to him by some Roman guy he never heard of named Cornelius. Then, on the heels of this puzzling vision, Peter does something unheard of in that day. I don’t know whether we can really grasp the magnitude of this, but Peter says to these guys, „Come on in, ” and he invites these guys from the other side of the wall to come into the house to be his guests. Can you imagine the reaction of the Jewish neighbors as they see these Gentiles go next door? I mean, the husband’s out front washing his camel in the driveway, and the wife’s planting flowers. They remark to each other, „Did you just see who went to that house? Did you see that? You know, before long, they’ll all be moving in!“
Personal Vulnerability on Growing Up with Prejudice
Can I get a little vulnerable with you? Like I said, I grew up in a compartmentalized salad bar environment, to say the least. I was a kid growing up in the southeast part of this country in the 60s and 70s, and I can remember how prejudiced my dad was, and the way he used all the inappropriate terms to refer to pretty much anybody who had a different skin color, ethnicity, or heritage. People who came from a different country, or people that were from a different state for that matter. Now, before you think I’m trashing my dad, I love my dad; I told you that before. If he were able to, he would be here today and share how Jesus changed his heart. He wasn’t in the KKK; he wasn’t a Neo-Nazi. Actually, he fought bravely against that ideology in World War II. He wasn’t a cruel guy; he never marched in white supremacy rallies. He treated most people with kindness and respect at least to their face.
The awesome thing is he eventually grew to know Jesus and became a brand new creation, and his heart changed. Jesus does that to people. When my dad passed away, he died with a radically different attitude than the one he had when I was a little kid. But when I was a kid, oh man, you see, that’s just the way my dad was taught. He was raised in the Deep South in a culture and a family that told him he was much superior to other people because his skin happened to be white. His dad was racist; his dad’s dad was racist; his dad’s dad’s dad was racist. It’s just what he knew. So when I was a little kid all the way through my high school years, I was exposed to some pretty ugly stuff as he attempted to pass along the family tradition to me, and I hated the way it made me feel. I still hate the way it makes me feel when I talk about it, but it’s part of owning my story, so my story doesn’t own me.
Now again, gratefully, Christ would eventually dredge all that sewage out of my dad’s heart over the years. But as a little kid, my heart would just sink because I didn’t see people that way. Kids just don’t. I mean, contrary to some opinion, even though we all wrestle with this thing called a sin nature, prejudice is not a natural thing; it’s acquired. It’s something that has to be taught. I mean, you’ve got to be taught the hate and fear. You’ve got to be taught from year to year. It’s got to be drummed into your two little ears. You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught to be afraid of people whose eyes are differently made, of people whose skin is a different shade. You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late, before you’re six or seven or eight, to hate all the people your relatives hate. You’ve got to be carefully taught. And as I was being carefully taught at home, there was something inside of me that screamed, „This is not right! This is not right!“
And as I got older, that began to be reinforced from scriptures I began to hear and read, such as James chapter 3:9 and 10, which says, „With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in God’s likeness. This should not be!“ I mean, as a boy, I would think it seems so wrong to go to church and sing some songs to God, do the religious thing, and then bring home an attitude that does not mesh at all with the Heart of Jesus. I would go to Sunday school, and I would learn things like, „The Lord does not look at the things that man looks at; man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.“ I can remember as a middle school student sitting on my bed at night reading my Bible and running across things like 1 John chapter 4, which says, „We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God, ’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.“ And He has given us this command: „Whoever loves God must also love his brother.“
And as I would read and listen and follow the promptings of truth that the Holy Spirit was instilling inside of me as a teenager, I resolved in my heart to say, „These generations of racism within our family stops with me. It stops with me!“ And God was getting ready to do that in Peter’s heart.
Peter Enters Cornelius's Home
So the next day, Peter travels back to Caesarea with the guys that Cornelius had sent. When they get to the house, Cornelius and his relatives and a whole bunch of close friends are all gathered there. And Peter is faced with a decision: Would he do what no Jewish man would ever consider doing and enter the house of this Gentile, Cornelius? And even though it would cost him his pride, his self-righteousness, his prejudice, even though it might cost him some friendships and his reputation in a bunch of circles, fully aware of the price he would pay, Peter takes a deep breath, trusts what God had shown him, and he walks through the door.
Verse 25: As Peter entered his home, Cornelius fell at his feet and worshiped him. Now, Peter could have really played this up like, „Well, yeah, I am a pretty big deal. Have you seen The Chosen? I’m in that! Yeah, that’s me.“ But to his credit, he doesn’t do any of that. Instead, it says this, and I love this: Peter pulls him up and says, „Stand up! I’m a human being just like you.“ Don’t miss that! Here’s Peter now saying, „I’m just like you! I’m just like you! We are not so different. We are both made in the image of God. We both stand in need of the grace of Jesus Christ.“
So they talk for a while, and then they go back in where a bunch of other Gentile people are gathered. Peter tells them, verse 28, „You know, it’s against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to even associate with you. But God has shown me, God has shown me, that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean.“ I think he’s saying, „You know, after all these years of walking with Jesus, I really should have caught the way He treated everybody. But I’m a slow learner, but now I realize that it’s true that God treats everyone on the same basis. Whoever fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him, no matter what race he belongs to.“ And Peter goes on and shares the good news of God’s love with these people that he wouldn’t even have acknowledged a few days earlier.
God had reminded him that through Jesus' death on the cross, He had built a bridge across this deep chasm of sin that separates all of us from the God who made us. He tells them all about the exciting miracles and all the signs that he and many other people saw Jesus do, and he tells them all about the crucifixion, the cross, the reality of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.
The Holy Spirit Falls on the Gentiles
And as Peter is unpacking the gospel, the good news, an amazing thing starts to happen. Cornelius and his whole crew start to believe that message of grace and hope. They begin to trust what Jesus had done for them on a cross, and the Holy Spirit shows up in a supernatural way, and they start speaking in different languages they had never spoken before.
Verse 44: Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message. The Jewish believers—and we find out in chapter 11 there were six people that went along with him—were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles, too. What? They’re thinking, „So God really does want everyone to come home! God really has torn down the wall of hostility between us. He invites everyone to be a part of His kingdom.“
And as this is happening, Peter remembers his own experience back in Acts chapter 2, where he and other people have this supernatural experience of speaking in different languages. So he knows, he knows it’s the Holy Spirit at work, and he asks the question, verse 47: „Can anyone object to their being baptized now that they have received the Holy Spirit just as we did?“ So he gave orders for them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Afterwards, Cornelius asked him to stay with them for several days.
Two Conversions and God's Inclusive Kingdom
Man, that is such a hingepoint story, such a cool story in the book of Acts! And here’s my take on this awesome story: There are two actual conversions going on here. There’s the conversion of Cornelius and his family and friends, but there’s also the conversion of Peter’s heart. While Cornelius and his family were discovering for the first time that God loved them and He had built the bridge to them through His Son, Jesus, Peter was learning for the first time to build bridges to people who were different than him. He was realizing for the first time that Jesus really did die for everybody, that the kingdom of God is for everyone, that everyone has been invited into a new life of forgiveness, joy, purpose, freedom, and eternal life. That everyone has been invited into this new community, not based on age, not based on skin color, economic standing, heritage, IQ, beauty, arrest record, or political leanings. If anyone is in Christ, they’re a new creation; the old is gone and the new has come.
There’s a passage over in a little book of the New Testament called Galatians that says something like this: „So now there is no more slave or free, male or female, Jew or Gentile.“ And you could add: „No more rich or poor, no more Republican and Democrat, no more black and white, no more Asian, Latino, Arabic, Ukrainian, Ethiopian, Haitian, Mexican, Brazilian, Filipino, Australian, Iranian, German, Polish, Pakistani, Southern Californian, Texan, or bald guys from Central Kentucky.“ For you are all one in Christ Jesus! In fact, the Bible talks about a day when every single dialect, every tribe, every nation, every race will all come together, and we’ll be singing praises forever to the One who calls us all priceless and built a bridge to us so we could live together forever. And I can’t wait for that day! But until that day, let’s do our part to bring a little heaven to earth. Let’s pray every day: „May Your kingdom come; Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.“
Let’s build bridges, and let’s spread the good news and pass out invitations to everyone for that kingdom.
Invitation to Baptism
You know, this is baptism weekend, and like Cornelius and his crew, today you could experience the reality that God loves you no matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter where you’ve been, or where you’re from. You, yes you, are invited into this new life right here, right now. You know, as we’ve been going through the Book of Acts, I’ve noticed that every coming to faith in Jesus story that we’ve seen so far—and we’re going to continue to see—includes baptism. It’s in every one of them.
See, baptism is this act of surrender where you go down into the water saying to God, „God, I’m not perfect; I’m not trying to be good enough to do this; I’ll never get there. I realize that I’m just coming to You as I am. I want to embrace what You have done for me on the cross. God, my heart is Yours, and I’m ready to go public with my faith in Jesus.“ And, „Jesus, I just want to bury my old life, and with Your help, I want to live a brand new one.“ Romans 6:4 says, „For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism, and just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.“ And that could be you today! I know that many of you came prepared to do that this weekend, and we’re going to celebrate you.
But I also know this: Some of you didn’t come prepared to do this, but you know, just like Cornelius and his crew knew, God is calling you saying, „Come on, this is your day”—because He wants everyone to come home; everyone to come home. This could be your day today, so yep, I’m doing that! Pastor Josh is going to come back and explain how we’re going to work all these moving parts, but I’m going to invite you to stand right now. I’m going to pray, and then Josh will explain what we’re going to do for the rest of the service.
Closing Prayer
Jesus, I just want to thank You for building a bridge so we could be reunited to the love of God and eternal life. Thank You for laying down Your life. Thank You for the good news of hope and purpose, and thank You that Your kingdom is for everyone—not just the select few, but everyone. And God, I pray that we begin to see each other that way—that we’re all made in the image of God, that we all have worth and value. Father, I thank You for the way that You did dredge all that stuff out of my dad’s heart, and I thank You for doing a number on my heart for years, and on a bunch of us in this place. I thank You, Father, that what we experience here as a church is just a little taste of heaven where every tongue, tribe, and nation will come together and honor and worship You. God, I pray that today You would stir in the hearts of people. Thank You for the way Your Holy Spirit has been drawing people to You. Some have come prepared today to plunge their past and to go down into the water of baptism, be reunited—be united into Your death and Your resurrection.
But God, I know that Your Holy Spirit is moving in the hearts of some today, right here, right now, and You’re saying, „Come on, come on home! Today is your day.“ So, Father, just do what You want to do in the rest of this service. We’re going to celebrate; we’re going to worship You because You are the One who makes it all happen, and we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.