They Fell Silent and They Glorified God

Transcription

1 Dartmouth Bible Notes Notes from the Pulpit Ministry of Dartmouth Bible Church Series: Studies in Acts Lesson 24 Scripture: Acts 11:-18 Speaker: Rev. Neil C. Damgaard, Th.M., D.Min. Date: March 17 th, 2019 They Fell Silent and They Glorified God Acts 18:1-18 (ESV) Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had 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 drawn 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 on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, 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 Christ, 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. Introduction The issue we see today in our passage is the issue of PREJUDICE. Prejudice is basically thinking you are better in some way than another person. It can focus on race, tribe, gender, intellect, nationality, educational level and even narrower categories like what city or region that you identify with, what company you by which you are employed, personality types, mental health categories and sports loyalties. Prejudice in our passage has to do with Jews and non-jews. There is still a divide today Jews can look at non-jews as lesser somehow. Non-Jews can really hate Jews even decades after the Holocaust. The problem we have is after the remarkable coming together of Peter and Cornelius (Acts 10), orchestrated by God Himself, the word gets back to some of the other Christians and they have a problem of prejudice. You will notice, vs.3:

2 They do not object to the baptism of Cornelius and household. They do not object to the conversion of Gentiles to begin with. They object to Peter and his bro s EATING with them. Isn t that odd? It seems to me that many Christians go around saying that they don t have any prejudices that somehow coming to faith in Christ instantaneously burned out all prejudice and NOW they are just so full of love. Now I must tell you, in all confession, I am not above this. I am not completely comfortable if I learn that one of our people has been fellowshipping with someone of whom I disapprove. I have to admit to a bit of prejudice in this regard. And having certain prejudices is a problem that doesn t just magically go away. As soon as I am humbled and get over one prejudice, I find my spirit boiling about another one. When I do an inventory of my own feelings about people, I am embarrassed to admit that: 1. I have had a strong dislike for rednecks. o Sixth grade is senior year; Why don t rednecks get sick very often? Germs have their pride too. The dog can t help gagging when he sees you eat. You finally get around to cutting the grass and then you find a car. You think the stock market has a fence around it. The only time you took out your toothpick was for the wedding pictures. Fast food is hitting a possum at 80 mph. You had to get financing for a tattoo. You owe money at the dollar store. You can burp your name. 2. I do not like free-loading, whining, entitled people who insist that I owe them an apology, reparations, special consideration and the right to cut in line in front of me. 3. I have a particular revulsion at gang members. 4. I have disliked people from the University of Virginia. 5. I have been prejudiced about people from some other churches even that I think are wacky, especially if they get in my face in some way. 6. People who attire or decorate themselves in obviously narcissistic ways turn my stomach. 7. I generally react pretty negatively to most feminists. 8. There was a time when I had a strong dislike of Dallas Cowboy fans. 9. Finally I admit to you that I have often steered a wide berth around Pentecostal Christians. 10. I have a negative reaction to anyone who I perceive is prejudiced against me! Now I am going to stop at ten because I m depressing myself Perhaps you or someone you know and admire has defeated all his or her prejudices you should go and follow them because as your pastor I am aware that I am not done fighting this particular aspect of the flesh. And it is not to say that whatever group you or I have a problem with, we are just supposed to ignore whatever distinctives about them that we see. Note: Pagan Roman soldiers could be mean, heartless and utterly despicable in their behavior. They could be the Gestapo/Red Guard/Crips and the Bloods all in one! They were trained in ruthlessness and in taking no prisoners. Cornelius s training would have earned him a loathing by any local population just on what he did for a living. 2

3 You will notice that the vision and the voice do not tell Peter to just accept any person at all regardless of their background in order to be civil or enlightened or tolerant because that would make first century Judea a better place. He is given the vision and the voice to usher in a completely new dispensation about who the people of God will be: the people of God not just Jews but will now be made up of anyone who hears the Gospel and believes it. Paul will later capture the heart of what is happening in Acts 11 when he writes in Romans 10: if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (verses 9-13) It is A VERY SPECIFIC REASON that Peter and his friends back in Jerusalem must overcome this prejudice What is at stake is not a kinder, gentler community but the very Gospel that Peter and the other apostles were bearing. Peter s main point is that what God has declared clean is not unclean (11:9) 1. This means that we need to watch our prejudices because when God gets a hold of a new person, and gives them the grace of salvation that is no small thing. Of course the church struggles with this. We want people to comply with our rules and there is never anything wrong with championing holiness among God s people. But Peter s conference with Cornelius and eating with him, broke no law of God s. It broke the law of the new circumcised believers to be sure, but not God s. The stark thing to never forget is that when the Gospel really hits, it gives that person a whole new status. Do you believe this? Even if it rubs you wrong that God should save someone that you don t particularly approve of or like? I think there is real power in the last two verses (17 & 18) of the section: If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, 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. 1 Bock, Darrell L.. Acts (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament) (Kindle Locations ). Kindle Edition. 3

4 Where does belief come from? Where does the ability to repent come from? Does it come from the mind? Does it come from the community of people if you hang out with Christians enough, you will absorb the ability to believe and to repent? Does it come from being raised in a Christian family? Peter and Luke associate the acquisition of faith and repentance from none of these sources. They say God gives faith and repentance as a gift. And here, it was given to Gentiles just as it was to Jews. For God so loved the world that HE GAVE His only begotten Son God is a gracious, loving, gift-giving God, even the very faith with which people come to know Him. We should not confuse seekers by telling them that repentance is some secret commodity within them that if they can just dredge it up, or dredge up enough of it, God will meet that with HIS contribution of the blood of His Son and a person can be saved. No. We share the Gospel, appeal to people to respond to it and then leave it with God. We pray for people, we don t cut ourselves off from them, and we wait. We leave it with God. He is the sovereign redeemer. He will save whom He will save. In Acts 10 and 11, it is uncircumcised Gentiles. The complaints of the objecting group are silenced. They glorify God for his initiative in giving repentance unto life to the Gentiles (Acts 4:21; 21:20). God is now seen as the one who brought this about, so they rejoice 2. The objecting, prejudiced believers fell silent and they glorified God. And so we should always down to today. If the Lord brings someone to faith, we fall back into a quiet moment of praise. If He works in one place when we thought He would work in another, we fall back into a quiet moment of praise. If we bump into a person that we didn t think deserved the free grace of God because, in our way of seeing things, they weren t yet ready, and He saves them, we fall back into a quiet moment of praise. When we have our prayer room this Friday for whom will you be praying that they might come to faith? Are you willing to let HIM decide how He might move? We don t know the outcome of Cornelius life, or that of the people in his household. But the preaching of the Gospel moves on, people come to faith all over the place and God is praised by people for the first time in their lives! 2 Ibid, Bock. 4

5 I know it is not Christmas but let s sing this prayer in closing O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear. Refrain Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. 5