Acts 11:1-18
You may be seated. Turn in your
copy of God’s word to Acts chapter 11 verses 1 through 18. Last week we looked at how Peter
in a vision from God was revealed to him that there was no unclean
food and so he, a Jew, went to the Gentiles, specifically to
Cornelius’ house. He preached the word to all that
all whom Cornelius gathered into his place. The word was received
by these Gentiles. They were baptized. And now we
get the aftermath of that. The circumcision party back at
Jerusalem hears about it. So when Peter comes strolling
into town, they’re, they’re waiting for him. They’re tapping their
foot. Their hands are on their hips, right? They’re, they’re saying,
what, what gives Peter? Uh, this is not supposed to be. So today’s passage is his report
and they’re rejoicing at what God has done. Uh, before we read
God’s word, let’s ask for his help and blessing. Pray with
me. Eternal Father, you have spoken
in various times and in various ways to your people in the past. But in these last days, it’s
been through your son, the incarnate word. And so we ask now that
you will open the mouth of your servant to proclaim that word
in the power of the spirit. We pray this same spirit will
open. every heart of every hearer gathered today, that we all might
receive your holy gospel, that it may be written on our hearts
as you have promised. Hear us and help us in the name
of Christ, amen. Acts chapter 11, verses one through
18, hear the word of the living God. Now the apostles and the
brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles
had also received the word of God. So when Peter went up to
Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him saying, you went
to uncircumcised men and ate with them. But Peter began and
explained it to them in order. I was in the city of Joppa praying
and in a trance, I saw a vision, something like a great sheet
descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners. And
it came down to me. Looking at it closely, I observed
animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. And I heard a voice saying to
me, rise, Peter, kill and eat. But I said, by no means, Lord,
for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth. But
the voice answered a second time from heaven, what God has made
clean, do not call common. This happened three times. And
all was drawing up again into heaven. And behold, at that very
moment, three men arrived at the house in which we were sent
to me from Caesarea. And the spirit told me to go
with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied
me, and we entered the man’s house, and he told us how he
had seen the angel stand in his house and say, send to Joppa
and bring Simon, who is called Peter. He will declare to you
a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household. As I began to speak, the Holy
Spirit fell on them just as it did us at the beginning. And
I remembered the word of the Lord and how he said, John baptized
with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If then
God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed
in the Lord Jesus, who was I that I could stand in God’s way? When
they heard these things, they fell silent and they glorified
God saying, then to the Gentiles, also God has granted repentance
that leads to life. Amen, God’s word for us. We have a funny little saying
in our culture, and it begins like this. We walk into a situation,
maybe with family, with church, a business meeting, whatever,
and somebody says out loud, well, we need to have a conversation
about the elephant in the room, right? This is why when people
from other nations come over here and they’re trying to learn
our English language, What is this about an elephant in the
room? It’s a saying, right? That there’s this big giant thing
that nobody’s talking about. It’s in the room. Now my mind
says, how did it get there? How do you get it out of there? What’s this gonna do to the structure
of the house? That’s kind of how I think about these things.
But when we say we need to have a discussion about the elephant
in the room, it’s the thing that’s obvious to all, but no one is
speaking about. And for the circumcision party
in the days of the early church, these would be Jewish converts
to Christianity who still wanted to hold that it was necessary
for a new believer, whether Jew or Gentile, a new believer in
Christ. They held that they must be circumcised. Now, the early churches in its
early stages, things are going to get figured out, things are
going to get cleaned up. There’s going to be the big Jerusalem
council in Acts chapter 15, and the church is going to decide
with God’s help, no converts to the Christian faith who are
Gentiles or uncircumcised must be circumcised. They got to be
baptized, but not circumcised. But at least for now, it’s the
elephant in the room. So Peter comes back from the
Mediterranean. He comes back from Joppa. He
comes back from Caesarea. He comes back inland to Jerusalem. He’s made his rounds of preaching
the gospel and he comes back into Jerusalem. And those of
the circumcision party want to have a little conversation about
the elephant in the room. You’ve been eating with Gentiles.
You’ve been staying with Gentiles. This is not done by clean people. You don’t go into an unclean
person’s house. And so as he makes his way back
into Jerusalem, most likely with joy and excitement for all that
God has done. They got their hands on their
hips, they got their foot tapping, and they’re waiting for him.
And you can imagine as he walks back in, he sees the apostles,
the circumcision party, he’s like, uh-oh, they’ve heard about
something, they’ve got the word. And so he tells them, he explains
to them that the Gentiles have received the word of God. I don’t
know if you caught it as you’re reading through this passage,
but there are a number of phrases that ought to stand out to us.
The Gentiles have received the word. The Gentiles have received
the spirit. God has granted them repentance
unto life. And so when Peter is called on
the carpet, when he’s called to give an account of all that
took place on his little Mediterranean evangelistic tour, he appeals
not to the experience, but to the voice of God and the vision
of God and the word of God. He says, a vision was given to
me. They came down from God. He said that nothing’s unclean.
I shouldn’t call what’s, uh, what God calls clean. I shouldn’t
call it unclean. So there’s the vision of God.
Those were authoritative in this day. But he also says the voice
of God spoke to me and said, Peter, rise and kill and eat
and go and speak and preach. But then did you catch? He quotes
Jesus. Jesus says that John baptized
with this with water, but that one would come after him, the
Holy Spirit. We’d be baptized with power. He appeals to the one who ate
with tax collectors and with sinners. Now, as in most church
controversies, and they do pop up from time to time, wouldn’t
it be nice if this was how they went? You got some people saying
I get a chuckle from the elders. Wouldn’t it be nice if people
said, hey, I don’t understand this. OK, let me help you understand
it. Here’s why this happened. Here’s
what happened. Oh, OK. That’s kind of how this goes.
That’s never how it goes, right? It’s never how it goes. Usually
we get a, who do you think you are? That kind of thing. But
this is an example, I think, of godliness. And boy, if it
were just this easy, it’d be nice. The one who ate with tax
collectors and sinners, though, sent Peter. sent Peter into this
Gentile world to proclaim the good news and the Gentile household
of Cornelius came to faith. I love what Peter says. Who was
I to oppose God? Who was I to stand in God’s way,
both in the matter of calling what is clean, unclean, but also
in taking notice that God, the Holy Spirit, had landed on the
Gentiles. So as we, we think through this
passage, uh, we have to think through, uh, the importance of
the preaching of God’s word. We have to think through the
importance of the Holy spirit falling on, not just new believers,
new Gentile believers. Uh, we have to think through
the fact that God baptized, he brought into covenant, these
Gentile believers, this was all last week. And we have to stand
amazed, I think, at the response of the church leaders when Peter
gave his explanation. Let’s talk about the elephant
in the room. So he does. And it says they fell silent. It says they were speechless.
It’s almost as if God stopped them in their tracks and by his
own supernatural power said, look, dear people of God, this
is how I do it. This is my role in redemptive
history now, as we would say, believe it or not. And it says
they fell silent. They glorified God and their
response was this. Then to the Gentiles also, God
has granted repentance unto life. Now there’s going to be a little
controversy ongoing in the life of the early church in the months
and years to come. Fast forward to the book of Galatians,
which is one of the early books after the book of Acts. Peter
is going to go into a Gentile territory. And after all this,
he’s only going to hang out with the Jewish people. And Paul’s
going to come in and see that and say, Peter, what’s your problem?
We had this settled. This is gonna be years later.
Peter, why are you being two-faced? We can be that way sometimes
in the Christian world. They’re gonna have some years
ahead of working through all of this, but I think it’s wonderful
to think of the words of the Apostle Paul that he writes in
the Ephesian church about the Jew and Gentile distinction.
I want you to listen carefully to these words. This is Ephesians
chapter two, verses 11 through 22. I don’t usually read long
passages of scripture in the middle of a sermon, but this
one is well worth hearing. Paul says to the Christians at
Ephesus, therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles
in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision,
which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember that you are
at one time separated from Christ. alienated from the commonwealth
of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope without
God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you
who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of
Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one
and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility
by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that
he might create in himself one new man in place of the two,
so making peace, and that he might reconcile us both to God
in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
And he came and he preached peace to you who were far off. He preached
peace to those who were near. For through him, we both have
access in one spirit to the father. So then you are no longer strangers
and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and
members of the household of God built on the foundation of the
apostles and the prophets. Christ Jesus himself being the
cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together
grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being
built together into a dwelling place for God by the Holy Spirit. That needs a hearty amen, doesn’t
it? It’s a wonderful thing that the things we do in our flesh
divide us. And let’s just speak particularly
in the church. We put up our fences, we put up our walls,
we build our traditions, we build our must-haves and our must-nots. And as that happened in the early
days of the early church, just as it can happen in our day,
Jesus came in and said, what you build with your hands, I
tear down in my body and I unite those who were once at odds with
each other. Not just God and man reconciling
sinners to God, but he reconciles peoples and nations and ethnicities
and groups and male and female, young and old and rich and poor.
That’s why I think it’s such a wonderful thing to see the
body of Christ, to see a generational church. a church that varies
socioeconomically, a church that varies across all kinds of our
little human categories. And we got a category and a subcategory
and a sub subcategory. And we got it all, don’t we? We’re just good at that. But
in Christ Jesus, He has broken down all those separations, all
those hostilities, and he has brought peace through his body,
taking what is many and making it one. That’s why in Galatians
the apostle can say, in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek,
slave nor free, male nor female. We are all one in Christ Jesus. I want us to think about this
passage today in light of what the In light of what the church
leaders said to Peter in response to his explanation of the elephant
in the room, they made this wonderful statement that you find in verse
18. It says that God has also granted to the Gentiles the gift
of repentance unto life. And I want us to think about
that important phrase for just a few moments. Not only the significance
for the Gentiles, but for each of us. As you read through our
shorter catechism, which many of you have done well to do,
some of you have learned it. We have a 16 year old this week
in our house. If you don’t learn the catechism,
you don’t drive. And so that gets it motivated. I had to learn
it to graduate seminary that got me motivated. But it’s a
life changing journey, I think, to study the shorter catechism.
And at least to know its content and the way it begins and it
marches through and ends is very helpful, I think, to the Christian
life. It starts out with the purpose of living. We glorify
God. And then it goes on, who is God?
What is his nature? What’s he like? How does God
work in the world? What is man? What is sin? What is then redemption of sin? And then it explains the life
and ministry of Jesus. And it goes on to speak of how
God works in every Christian, every man, woman, boy, and girl,
as he, by his spirit, saves them and takes them all the way in
this life to their heavenly home. And then it goes through the
10 commandments. And when you get through the Ten Commandments
there in King James, it’s, boy, you’re out of breath. And after
the Ten Commandments, it says this, can any man perfectly keep
God’s law? And it says, no. No man since
the fall can keep God’s law, but does daily break it in thought
and word and in deed. Therefore, we’re under God’s
wrath. We’re under his curse. And the wrath and curse that
is due to us for sin is everlasting death. everlasting punishment. Then it says, what, what can
we do to escape God’s wrath and his curse is punishment for sin.
And it says, we must have faith in Jesus Christ. We must have
repentance unto life. And then we must plant ourselves
in the church until God takes us home to heaven. And so faith
in Jesus Christ, we, we understand that that’s a topic for another
day. Uh, The hope of heaven, that’s something we look forward
to. That’s a topic for another day. In fact, maybe Sunday school
in a couple weeks. We’re gonna consider death and
the next life. But I want us to think about
this idea of repentance unto life. Repentance unto life is
a saving grace. God grants repentance to the
Gentiles and he has granted it to each of you who have faith
in him. It’s a saving grace. We read
in Paul’s letter to Timothy, when Timothy is dealing with
knuckleheads in the church, God says to Timothy, be patient with
these knuckleheads. That’s my translation. I could
do worse. Be patient with these knuckleheads.
Perhaps God will grant them repentance. I don’t have a knucklehead list
in my office, by the way. It’s up here. Kidding. But perhaps God will grant them
repentance. Perhaps God will help them see
the mess of their sin. And by grace, not through our
works, but through grace, perhaps God will save them. And so repentance
unto life is a saving grace. It’s a work of the Holy Spirit.
Only God can breathe new life into dead people. We love it
when we read in the book of Genesis that when God made Adam of the
dust of the ground, we love to read that God breathed new life
into him or life into him. He put his breath into Adam’s
nostrils and gave him life. But we love American evangelicalism
where it says, I had something to do with my salvation. It’s
about a 50-50 proposition, right? No, it’s a 0-100 proposition. You were dead and God brought
you back to life. It’s as if you were the dead person and
the doctors resuscitated you. You did not tell them where to
put the paddles and how to do all that and when to count and
shock and all the rest. No, you were dead. It’s the same
in salvation. Repentance unto life is a saving
grace by the work of the Holy Spirit so that we may sing, not
what my hands have done can save my guilty soul. new creations in Almighty God.
It’s by God’s hands, God’s work, so that no one may boast. So
repentance unto life is a saving grace. It’s by the work of the
Holy Spirit. And it comes through the ministry
of the word. The gospel has to be proclaimed
to sinners. We don’t just say, I think I’ll
become a Christian today. No, we have to encounter, we
have to encounter the ministry of the word. In fact, when God
wanted to save Cornelius family, He sent Peter to preach. And
Peter admitted in our little retelling of his story to the
leaders at the church in Acts 11 here back at Jerusalem, he
admitted, I was sent by God to say something to them. And remember
last week, Cornelius says, everybody gather around this guy, Peter,
he’s here and he’s got something to say. Y’all listen up and listen
good and we’ll eat afterwards. That was kind of the idea. So
the word of God, the power of the word, the inspired word of
God must do its work. never lose sight of the power
of the gospel. The power is not in your ability.
It’s not in your persuasion. It’s not in the tune of the music
or the softening of the hearts by our human ingenuity. Only
God, by his word, can grant repentance unto life. We’ve lost faith in
the power of the word. In fact, we’ve lost faith in
the word altogether. We’ve seen a decline in the American
church the last hundred years or so. And it started when they
put the Bible on the shelf, maybe not practically. but literally
they have put the Bible on the shelf. God’s word is not sufficient
for the 20th century, the 21st century. His gospel is not exciting
enough. Friends, God’s word works. It’s
the same word that he spoke and in six days he made the world
and everything in it. We sing a little song from time
to time. He speaks and listening to his voice, new life. the dead receive. It’s as if
God comes into each of our tombs, just as he did Lazarus. And he
calls you by name, Lazarus come forth, Brian come forth. He calls
you by name and you come out of the sepulcher, out of the
grave. And so repentance unto life is a saving grace. It’s
a work of the spirit. It comes through the ministry
of the word of God, but it clearly tells us about our sin. Oh, today
we don’t like to talk about sin. That’s negative. Did you ever
hear, I watched a lot of, oh, what’s his name, Shuler? Watched
him on Saturday night with my grandparents. He never said sin.
You know why? It’s not positive. But if you
don’t talk about sin, what can’t you talk about? The Savior. If
you don’t have a sin problem, you don’t have a salvation problem.
And I love what our catechism teaches us about repentance unto
life. It says repentance unto life is a saving grace, an evangelical
grace, where a sinner out of the sight and sense of his sin,
it’s danger, it’s filthiness and it’s odiousness. Isn’t that
a good word? It’s stinkiness. Your sin is
a stench in the nostrils of God. It is contrary to his word and
his ways and his character. Friends, if we don’t have a sense
of what sin is before God, if we don’t define sin as God defines
it, we will never define the Savior as he’s offered in the
Bible. And you say, oh, sin’s negative. Don’t talk about it. Don’t talk
about it. Well, it leads us to the next thing, the mercy of
God in Christ. Repentance unto life is a saving
grace. It’s worked out by the Holy Spirit. It comes through the word of
God. We have to understand sin as God sees it and as it is in
our lives. And then we lay hold of the mercy
of God in Christ. He who was rich for our sakes
became poor. order that we might become rich.
He became a sacrifice for us. He who knew no sin became sin
for us in order that we might become the righteousness of Christ. There’s a tenderness of heart
that comes when we believe all of this. God takes our heart
of stone and he gives us a heart of flesh. God makes us penitent. He makes us understand our sin
and how it hurts him and it pains him so much so that he sent his
only son to the cross. And so we take a view of sin
that he has. We hate it. We forsake it, we
grieve over it, and we turn from sin to God. And that’s the thing
we really need to understand here, the word repentance or
turning. All of you men will know what
I’m talking about. You’re driving with your wife in the car and
you’re going this away. And she’s over there saying,
guess what? Fill in the blank, you’re going the wrong way. And
if you’re a good husband, you’ll obey and you’ll turn around and
go the right way. Now, if you’re a bad husband,
like most of us, you’ll keep on going for the principle of
the thing, right? We got these built in GPSs, but
repentance is simply a turning. Repentance is this this word
picture that says I’m going this way. It’s wrong. It’s against
God. It’s sinful. It’s contrary to
his ways. It’s leading me to to hell and
not heaven. It’s taking me away from God’s
blessing and leading me to curses. And so because we understand
sin, because the word and the spirit and the saving grace of
God, we do turn from our sin to a life of righteousness. It’s
out with the old man and in with the new. creation. And then we
begin a life of new obedience. And this is where I think we
in the American church misunderstand the Christian life. We, we like
to say, um, Hey friend, you don’t want to go to hell, do you? Right?
That’s our evangelism. And if the person’s got good
sense, uh, they say, of course not. Well, you just pray this
prayer and you’re, you’re a, you’re a, you’re a saved person
and you’re going to go to heaven. That’s, it’s kind of cheap, isn’t
it? Um, That could be true. That may be true. But when a
person becomes a Christian, it’s not just they’re saved from hell
and get to go to heaven. They are a new creation in Christ
Jesus. They’ve left their life of sin.
They’ve left their life of slavery. Like when Israel left Egypt,
they’ve left Pharaoh behind. They’ve left the devil, the taskmaster
behind. God has come in and kicked him
out of the cockpit and put Jesus in. And so we live a life of
new obedience. We walk in Him, we walk in obedience,
and we walk in joy and love and delight and worship living for
God. That’s what took place in the
life of the Gentiles. And I think as I’ve said all
these things, you’ve probably been thinking through in your
mind, that’s what’s happened in my life. as you’ve come to
faith in Jesus and you realize what he is doing in your life. Now, some of you are wondering
when in the world is that salvation word Sunday school class ever
going to end? I think I told you we’re starting a new class
on September 4th. So at least there’s some hope in sight. But
this is, I think, the second time we’ve done the salvation
words. We did it seven years ago and we’ve been doing it this
whole year since maybe the new year started. I think it’s very
important for us to understand the nuts and bolts of the Christian
life. You don’t need to understand how your car works. You just
stick your key in and go and take it over to Honda when it
doesn’t or wherever you go. You really don’t need to know
how the restaurant cooked your food, just that it was good and
tasty and you pay the bill. You don’t need to know how your
lawnmower works to cut your grass. But I think we do need to understand
the nuts and bolts of the Christian life. We need to understand how
it is God works in each of us to bring us to faith, to nurture
that faith, and to bring that faith to full completion when
we no longer see through a glass darkly, but we are before the
face of God forever in heaven. I hope today you’ll be amazed
by two things. All Gentiles, right? God brought
us in. But two, he brought you in, you
personally, you individually. And we ought to stand in awe
of all that God has done for us in Christ. Let’s pray together.
Lord, you’re pleased to drop in from heaven into your church
and to speak to us by your word. And so we pray that you would
give every one of us grace, that we may not just be hearers of
your word, but doers also. Give us the grace of your Holy
Spirit that we may believe what has been proclaimed to us. May
we bring glory and honor to your name and all that we do as you
conform us to the image of your son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. It’s in his name we pray. Amen.