Reading: Acts 11:1-18

Today we begin studying second part of Acts beginning at ch11 – it’s a new series of morning sermons

our aim: “Connecting with the world”
the series: “Conspicuous for Christ”
the scripture: Acts 11: – 19:

Why this portion of Scripture?

Because in these chapters we see the early church impacting the society and the culture in where God placed it.
And that’s what we at Victoria want to do>>>
The NT church had already been formed and was now beginning to become established – and was filled entirely with Jews.
The greatest danger the NT church faced (as with any church today) was thinking that they’d succeeded <ppt>
they now had a world to reach.

God in his wisdom and love wanted to reach every person in their society, but the church as it stood, was only reaching Jews

and for understandable reasons they just couldn’t see it”

This passage shows the church taking a major leap in its connecting with the world around it.

It’s breaking out of an established comfort zone into an area of ministry that is as exciting as it is scary.

And that’s what we at Victoria want to do >>>

The effectiveness of a church’s outreach is in direct proportion to the extent to which its people engage with the society where God places it.

BUT there was something holding the church in check – it was its internal culture -its traditions

Their culture

Culture (internal culture) is a combination of attitudes and assumptions. <ppt>

its internal culture I mean assumptions that go unchallenged because they always appear to be right (things work smoothly)
and attitudes that are those ideas an concepts that are so deeply ingrained in us that we don’t notice we’re holding them.
It’s like the lens through which we view the world. We don’t notice the lens, we just see the world in a particular way
So when someone says “hey we could see more if we change the lens” we start asking different questions!

For the most part our culture (internal church culture) is a good thing – it defines who we are. But sometimes there are aspects of the culture that need to be challenged. – that’s Acts 11

So let’s be specific about the church in Acts 11

the attitude that was going unchallenged was “the gentiles don’t qualify for the gospel!” <ppt>
the assumption that everyone had imbibed (up to that point),
and no-one had seen it to question it was “therefore we should be separate from them” <ppt>

So as things stand at the beginning of Acts 11 – their own internal culture was preventing them from doing an important part of God’s work!

And what we are going to see God do in this chapter (and please God in our day)

is to realign their thinking to see the vast opportunities for the gospel that were literally on their doorstep!

He’s going to start off a process that will get them connecting with the world!

Our vision is to connect with people just where they are and as they are
so that we can be the vehicle of God’s wonderful, life-transforming message to folk who would otherwise miss out on it.

Do a brain experiment with me: I want you to think of someone, or a couple whom you would definitely not want to go and have a meal with. (not calling for answers)

Islamic terrorist may come into that category
for some people – a gay couple would be in that category
or Pakistani cricketers (!)

The reason I ask that question is because that’s where we find Peter in this passage.

Acts 11:1-3 The apostles and the brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.

These were the Samaritans (a despised half-Jewish group) who had heard and responded to the gospel.

Acts 8:14-15 <ppt> When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit,

The Samaritans were one thing – taking the gospel to the Gentiles was just not kosher! But news was beginning to leak out that exactly this was happening.

Ac 11:2 So Peter (who has seen some of this happen) went up to Jerusalem,

Whereas previously Peter and John had been dispatched from Jerusalem to go and see what was happening, this time Peter took the initiative. But when he met the believers in Jerusalem he had an uncomfortable surprise:

2 … the circumcised believers criticised him

“criticised” (diekrinonto) means “were divided (from him in opinion)”

they were saying “we don’t want to have anything to do with this!”

It’s sad but true that Peter’s role (position) as one of Jesus’ closest companions / confidante seems to carry no weight with these people at all.

They failed to respect him either for his leadership of their church
or for his training as Jesus’ disciple
or for his experience as one of Jesus’ closest apostles.

Why? – what was it they were objecting to so vehemently?

It was as basic as having a meal with someone!

3 and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

Where did this accusation come from?

“Circumcised believers” Gk phrase need only mean those who were of Jewish birth –
I.e. the whole Christian community! Not just a minority pressure group!

What they objected to was not Peter’s preaching of the gospel to them

(actually Jews had a tradition of winning Gentiles to Judaism)
it was the fact that he ate with them – defying his own culture and traditions.

<ppt> Principle: Their tradition trumped their theology!

The church is in great danger when its internal culture holds back God’s purposes <ppt>

and this is what’s happening here!

That is why Luke regards this incident with Cornelius as epoch-making in church history!

This is a turning point – a watershed
this is like the fall of the Berlin wall, the collapse of communism and the release of Nelson Mandela all rolled into one!

Very rarely does the Bible repeat itself, but when it does, we are meant to take notice of its message – and this story is told 3 times – from Peter in ch 10, from Cornelius in Ch 10 and now from Peter again in ch 11

And the word used here “Explained” (arxamenos) meaning he told the whole story from the beginning in a systematic way – step by step, line by line, incident by incident.

Peter could see he was facing prejudice !

and this kind of opposition can be best removed, not by angry contention, but by an unvarnished re-telling of facts.
That’s what Peter did, and by doing it he disarmed their prejudice.
Ch 11 is a condensed re-telling of ch10.

What did God do to open their eyes?

Peter’s personal story is vital – it tells us how he lived through the experience – and how he learned not to call anything ‘impure or unclean’ (!028)

for “divine hammer blows” before racial and religious prejudice was overcome. (framework similar to JRWS)

he gave a vision to the church’s leader (4-10)
he gave a command to be obeyed(11-12)
he prepared a willing servant (13-14)
he sent his holy spirit (15-17)

God challenged Peter’s preconceptions and cultural norms for the sake of the Gospel

he gave a vision to the church’s leader (4-10)

Acts 11:5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. 6 I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air. 7 Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’ 8 “I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9 “The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ 10 This happened three times, and then it was pulled up to heaven again.

So God spoke a total of six times with the same basic message!

So Peter could finally grasp that the distinction between clean and unclean animals was a symbol of circumcised and uncircumcised people.
The sheet is like a picture of the church which should contain all classes, races, types and varieties of people without distinction.

he gave a command to be obeyed

Then three men turned up from Cornelius’ house

and the timing of their arrival was a clear hint to Peter that God was in his vision.
He should therefore go without raising further questions.
“The Holy Spirit told me to have no hesitation” (v12) (quote 10:20 ‘nothing doubting’)
He took a great risk in doing this. He would have felt unnerved by it.

“These six brothers” v11 were Peter’s travelling companions who also saw what god was about to do.

Actually – it was important for Peter to let it be known that he was not acting alone.
(c.f. in Roman law a will could only be enacted if it had seven witnesses seals attached to it. In Egyptian law a case would be decisively settled if there were seven witnesses)
Another piece of God’s timing

he sent a messenger (v13-14)

Cornelius saw an angel who told his precisely where to go and whom to for.

Acts 11:13-14 He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. 14 He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’

He sent His Spirit (v15-18)

So Peter goes to the house and starts speaking about Jesus

And (would you believe it!) Peter gets interrupted!
Remember Peter has a big voluble mouth – very hard to silence!

The impression we get is that the Holy Spirit’s presence was so intense

and the manifestations of his impact in people lives was so great in that room
that Peter could no longer continue to preach. He just had to shut up!

And we can almost hear him thinking “This is like the day of Pentecost!”

it’s sometimes called “the Gentile Pentecost” <ppt>

It was the extraordinary similarity between the two events that blew Peter away!

It was what Peter saw and what Peter remembered that convinced him this was God – he made the connection. That’s why God took him there!

Peter now makes a deduction from vv15-16.

Confirmation of conversion

It is challenging to notice that here, as elsewhere in Acts) the evidence that someone was truly a believer was not signing a card or giving intellectual assent (valuable is they may be)

Their confirmation of true Christian faith was

the specific manifestation of the Holy Spirit in their lives. <ppt>

A dynamic which is not so highly prized in the church today.

God’s intervention here was aimed at doing away with Jewish racial prejudice – and it came through the one person whose word would not be contradicted easily – Peter.

Giving glory to God was an implicit acknowledgement that Pete was right!

They were spiritually open to God as they made no attempt to avoid the obvious conclusion that the Gentiles were not beyond the scope of God’s love and salvation

This question was going to rear it’s ugly head again – more acutely – in Acts 15

Shows how powerful traditions and culture are.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”

“Their criticism ceased and their worship began” (FFBruce)

The text does not paint the Jerusalem Christians as unspiritual or cantankerous,.

The point is that at the beginning of the narrative they had yet to make this leap of accepting Gentiles as fellow believers.
What we have here is God’s way of reaching them with this vital message.

[See JRWS “message of Acts” p196ff for 4 lessons to learn from this.]

So what?

3 lessons for us

the church of Jesus Christ should embrace all people <ppt>

Since God does not make distinctions in his new society – neither should we.

Unfortunately this is a hard lesson to learn

Sadly they did not always remember this lesson – they slipped back into their former prejudices (see gal 2:11ff)

Peter himself went back on it in Acts 15, in spite of all he discovered in this chapter!

God is glorified when His word and the His Spirit work together <ppt>

This rebukes Christians who underplay the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Even if speaking in tongues (as is Acts 2 and Acts 11) is not a gift for everyone, the gift of the Spirit certainly is!

This story also poses some awkward questions to those who say that there are two types of blessing in the Christian life

Luke is describing Cornelius’ conversion to Christ, not a second-stage baptism in the Spirit

in credit is not the same as in Christ <ppt>

Cornelius had and did many things that made his life creditable – to us and to God

he gave generously to people in need – but he wasn’t in Christ
prayed to God regularly (10:2) – but he wasn’t in Christ
he had a high regard for God – but he wasn’t in Christ
he was respected by all the Jewish people (10:22) – but he wasn’t in Christ
Peter talked of him as someone who ‘fears God and does what is right’ (10:35)
and god is described as being pleased with him (10:4, 31)

Does this mean that Cornelius was in Christ? – no.

Cornelius had to repent, and receive the Spirit and show it in being baptised in order to take the step into God’s kingdom.

Pray >>>

Smashing a comfort zone