The Third Sunday in October

Dr. Scott McDowell: Let's try that again. Good morning.
All right. Right in the back there, Bob Crockett and his wife are with us.
Would you stand up, Bob? All the way in the back row.
Let's give them a round of applause.
Bob is part of the reason that we've had some improvements in chapel this year.
So you need to know who you can be grateful to.
And so he is one of those people.
A couple of passages.
John 14, 16.
I will ask the Father, and He will give you another counselor to be with you forever.
And then Acts 10.
At Caesarea, there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment.
He and all his family were devout and God-fearing.
He gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.
One day, at about three in the afternoon, he had a vision.
He distinctly saw an angel of God who came to him and said, Cornelius.
Cornelius stared at him in fear.
What is it, Lord, he asked.
The angel answered, your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God.
Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who's called Peter.
He's staying with Simon the Tanner whose house is by the sea.
When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants
and the devout soldier who was one of his attendants.
He told them everything that happened and sent them to Joppa.
Let's pray.
Father, we're just grateful for your word.
And I just pray that you'd move among us today,
that your spirit would speak through me
and that we would hear a word from you.
We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
So a couple of passages there.
The first one, the Holy Spirit.
And I will tell you that growing up,
what I learned more about was what the Holy Spirit allegedly didn't do
than what the Holy Spirit might do.
I was kind of raised on a teaching that the Spirit essentially wrote a book
and then went back to heaven.
And then I was exposed to some teaching.
Well, the Spirit does dwell in you, but essentially doesn't do anything.
And the more that I read Scripture, the more I'm convinced that the Spirit is alive and well and active in this world
and is with us, as Jesus said, forever and does some things in our lives.
And there's this interesting thing about that passage I just read four times in this immediate context.
John tells us that through the words of Jesus, the Spirit is the counselor or the comforter.
The comforter.
And I want to just tell you that I believe that that is absolutely true
and that one of the roles that the Holy Spirit plays is a very intensely personal role of comforter.
that quite frankly, when you experience the Spirit as comforter,
it may not make sense to anybody else.
But that you will know that God is bringing you comfort in a very personal way.
So I'll tell you this story, Acts 10.
Acts 10 is a very precious text to my family.
It's essentially the text that God used to bring my family to Christ all the way back before I was born.
I was in utero in the spring of 1963, and mom and dad had a seven-year-old daughter, a four-year-old daughter, a two-year-old daughter, and one child on the way.
And nothing will make you desperate for God than having all those kids around and not knowing what to do.
And so they started searching, and they decided to start going to church.
and they were looking around and they found this little tiny little church in Ligonier, Pennsylvania.
And they started going there and they were thrilled because it was, it was very biblically
oriented and they were, they were excited about the fact that we feel like we found where we need
to be. They'd been praying about it. And so the preacher of that church said to him one time,
well, you've been coming to church somewhat, what's going on? And dad's kind of relayed that
story to them. We've been looking and we've been praying and we just feel like God led us right
here. And that, that preacher blessed his heart, said, well, you know, God doesn't hear a sinner's
prayer. So I don't know that he heard your prayers. And that dad didn't know much scripture,
but he did, that didn't sound right to him. And so they, they kind of backed off a little bit.
And then there was a guy that was a Christian university graduate, a Christian college graduate
but had been to two of our sister schools.
And he was up there in Pennsylvania in Johnstown, PA,
doing what they call stateside mission work.
And so he did a little gospel meeting at this tiny little congregation in Ligonier, PA.
And he asked the preacher, do you have any prospects,
anybody we could study the Bible with?
He said, yes, there are a few.
And one is this family that lives out in the country.
So this guy, Joe Connell, shows up at my parents' house,
and they sit down in the living room, and he just could talk to anybody.
He said, do you have any questions?
Let's talk about the Bible.
Do you have any questions?
And Dad said, I threw a few fake ones out there that I didn't really care about,
and he did pretty good with them, and so he finally got around to this question,
and he said, you know, we've been praying that we could find God,
and it seems to me that that would be a good thing, but this guy says that's not how it works,
And I just want to know what do you have to say?
And dad said, I don't know that Joe ever really answered the question.
But we turned to Acts 10.
And we read the story of Cornelius.
Who's this guy who fears God.
He's doing good things.
And he's seeking God.
And he's praying.
And an angel shows up and says, God heard your prayers.
and so that was very instrumental in mom and dad becoming christians that spring
and literally changed the entire trajectory of my life because i was raised my whole life
born that that october i was raised my whole life in a christian home and so that text
has real personal meaning to me and i had the great privilege
of eulogizing both my parents in the last three years.
And in both of their eulogies, I talked about this text
and particularly so in my dad's eulogy.
So meaningful to me on a very personal level.
So another thing that was very personal
is that when mom passed,
she passed on the third Sunday of October of 2021,
a little over three years ago,
Four years ago now.
Third Sunday of October 2021.
A year ago, third Sunday of October 2024, dad died.
On Sunday morning, I was in an airport.
I was at DFW waiting to connect to come back here.
And then I was going to go meet him the following weekend in Pittsburgh.
We were going to go to the church they planted up there.
I was going to preach.
He was going to teach.
But he died the Sunday before.
But it's the third Sunday in October, and so my sister Kim recognized that.
I said, oh, mom and dad both died the third Sunday of October.
That's special.
That's a sweet thing.
That's a little very personal nudge from the Spirit to say, I got you.
And for us, we felt that.
It was meaningful to us.
Mom and dad died the third Sunday in October.
So this year, on the third Sunday of October, I was by myself in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
I was going to preach the next day.
It's actually third Saturday in October.
Third Saturday in October is when Tennessee Vols play the Alabama Crimson Tide.
And if you're a college football fan, that's must-see TV.
And so I'm in a hotel room in Santa Fe waiting to preach the next day.
And it's the third Saturday in October,
and I'm aware of the fact that the third Sunday in October
is the anniversary of both my parents' death.
And I am not melancholy about it.
I am conscious of it, and I'm aware of it,
and I'm reflective about it.
And I was prayerful about it,
but I was not eaten up with emotion or anything like that,
just very conscious of it,
and thought about it a lot as I was in that hotel room reflecting.
And the next day I was going to preach,
and I was excited about preaching on a text that I knew well, Ephesians chapter 4, and I even had a
story in that text about mom and dad. And so I'm looking forward to that. And so I go to church
that morning, Santa Fe Church Christ, little congregation that we love and sends us kids,
and we've got people there. And I go to church, and I'm going to sit in the auditorium Bible class,
and then I'm going to preach my sermon.
And the text that had been planned for weeks,
that I had nothing about, knew nothing about,
in that Sunday morning auditorium class was Acts chapter 10.
The story of Cornelius that I just read to you.
The story that was our story.
Our story.
Our story.
Our family's story.
and I knew when he announced that text
in a very personal way
that may not make sense to anybody else
but I knew in that moment
that God was saying, I got you, bud.
And you don't have to be in Lubbock, Texas
for me to know where you are.
I know exactly where you are
and I'm right here with you.
And I felt a strong measure of comfort.
And I believe that's one of the ways the Holy Spirit works today.
Y'all have a great day.
Go with God.
Thank you.