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This recording is from Christ Kingdom Church in Waterford Lakes, East Orlando. Visit us online at ChristKingdom.org for our calendar, driving directions, and more audio recordings. Well, if you would, good morning, by the way. Turning your Bibles, please, to Acts, chapter 11. Our reading comes out of Acts 11, the first 18 verses. However, in the sermon, I'm also going to be referring back to Acts, chapter 10, and some of the details that you find there. While you're turning there, I want to let you know, it's been a bit of a hectic morning. The printer decided not to print my notes, and so I kept trying and trying and trying, and then I said, okay, well, I'll bail on this printer and use my wife's printer. So I switched over there and printed out the paper. And when I did, I realized the type of paper that I use for my sermon notes isn't meant for an inkjet. And so everything has started to smear. So, Jeremy back there in his kindness and graciousness said, well, brother, that means it must be a great sermon, because Satan doesn't want you to preach it. And then a few minutes later, I realized, yeah, but it could also be a horrible sermon, and maybe God was the one that's near the end, and he doesn't want to speak it. So we'll see where the chips fall. Before we get to our reading this morning, remember now, Jesus is gone at this point in history, but he wasn't done yet.

Before he left, he transformed his 12 disciples into 12 apostles. And I wish our third to fifthers were still here, because they'd be able to tell you what the Greek word apostle means. It means a sent one. Jesus gave them their commission. He said, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in an all Judean Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Now, make no mistake. This was no small task. What Jesus was at telling them to do were to go to the Jews, remember the Jewish leadership, so the one that killed Jesus, and then convinced them that Jesus was actually the long-promised Messiah that they'd been waiting for, which would be a contradiction in terms to them, a Messiah that died. And they're supposed to do this amidst the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire whose leaders had convicted and crucified Jesus. They were supposed to do this all the while, openly showing the world that they were his followers. So to this small group of young men who were probably still sucking wind from the fact that Jesus has been raised from the dead, his commission to them probably sounded more like a death wish than a ministry, which is also why Jesus told them, look, guys, hang out together in Jerusalem and wait there until I give you my spirit, because his spirit was going to empower and lead them and make them a factual in this mission. And that was a promise that God made good on at Pentecost, and then that's when things got crazy. By now, you should know the word that I like to use, as my daughter says. Next thing you know, people are being healed, multitudes are being saved, the disciples turned apostles are now doing some major in your face, preaching, and Luke tells us over and over and over again as we've been through the book of Acts, how great the apostles' mission is going among the Jews. We're told that the word of God continued to increase the number of disciples' multitude greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of even the priests became obedient to the faith, but an even greater amount of them did not. It seems whenever things start to go well for the apostles in Jerusalem, the Jewish leaders always turn up like a bad penny. We're told, and as they were speaking to the people, meaning the apostles, the priests and the captains of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them greatly annoyed. Later on, Luke tells us, but the high priest rose up and all who were with him, that is the party, the Sadducees, and filled with jealousy, they arrested the apostles and put them in public prison. Now, none of this should surprise us by now because this is exactly what had happened to Jesus. So we're told, as we've studied in Acts time and time again, the apostles boldly proclaim the gospel of Jesus, large numbers of people respond in faith and are joined to the church. Jewish leaders come in, they persecute, they arrest them, but then God delivers them from their grasp and they go out and they do the same thing all over again. And the way Luke tells the story, this little cycle here, each episode kind of ends with us anticipating that these Jewish leaders in Jerusalem are eventually going to get it. They're finally going to come to the point that they're realizing that they're fighting against God, like one of their own had said, and that they are going to finally become obedient to the faith as well, like many of them had, but they don't. Remember Stephen, one of the first deacons? He confronts them with their stiff-necked, hard-hearted resistance and they respond with rage, and then they choose the nuclear option. We're told they grind their teeth, they stop their ears, and together they rush Stephen and they stone him to death, which shouldn't surprise us because that's exactly what they did to Jesus. And you know what's ironic is that with their stopped ears, they never even hear Stephen's last words, a faint gasp of a prayer on their behalf, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And it's at that point in the story of Acts that the story starts to change, because the Jewish leadership, they double down on their persecution with the ravages of Saul, and in response the church in Jerusalem scatters. The capital city and the temple of Jerusalem are abandoned by the Christians, except for the 12 Apostles, and instead God moves his people out and down into the cities of the surrounding regions. And the next thing you know, Phillips in Samaria, he's healing, and preaching to the people who the Jews for years had considered to be half breeds and dogs, and then Phillips in Gaza, and he's baptizing an Ethiopian unit. And then here it comes Peter, he's in Leida, he's healing a paralyzed man, and then he's down in Japa, and he's raising a dead woman to life, and he's even staying in the home of Simon the Tanner who was a low class expendable in Jewish society. And everything seems to be going so smoothly, smooth as a baby's bottom, until Peter ends up in the town of, we tend to call it cesarea, but it's really Caesaria, it was named after Caesar. Peter ends up in Caesaria, and he's in the house of one Cornelius, and then that's when the church runs into trouble again. Only this time, it's not from the Jewish leadership outside. The trouble is from some of the Jewish Christians inside the church. And now we come to our reading Acts chapter 11 beginning with verse 1.

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 Japa 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, 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 Japa 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. Beloved, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's pray. Gracious God, we pray now, establish our footsteps in the way of your Word, and let no sinner iniquity have dominion over us. Lord, speak to us that our souls would live and that we would delight on the richest of fair. We ask it all in the name of Jesus and for his sake, amen. So good news travels fast. Before Peter can make it back to Jerusalem, the whole church throughout Galilee was a buzz with the report that Cornelius and his family had believed and received the Spirit and had been baptized. And they were a buzz with good reason because Cornelius was a Gentile. Now, you see, in first century Palestine, the social world was rigidly divided into in the eyes of a Jew. There were the Jews who were the descendants of righteous Abraham. God's special covenant people. And then there were the Gentiles, which was basically everyone else. These were pagans who were alienated from God. These were strangers who were cut off from God's promise, from God and from his covenant promises. Especially a Gentile like Cornelius because not only was Cornelius a pagan, he was a centurion pagan. He was a military leader in the Roman army, the strong arm of the enemy end power that devout Jews everywhere detested and were plotting against overthrow. So the conversion of Cornelius and his household was a whole different animal for the church at that time. And that was exactly the problem, the reason for the trouble within the church because let's remember from the very start, God had graciously called and blessed good old father Abraham. We're told so that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed. And then as Abraham's descendants multiplied into a nation of the Israelites, God consistently reminded them through his prophets of their duty and their calling to be a light for the nations. A light to these Gentiles. God had separated them and made them a holy people to lead the Gentiles to him. But instead, the Israelites repeatedly abdicated their responsibility to bring God's kingdom to all the peoples of the world. And instead, they hoarded the blessings of God for themselves. And they just contingent themselves to look at the world always through a paradigm of us versus them. And in the end, their jealousy led them to rebel against God. They crucify his own son, Jesus. And as a result, God cursed them for being an unfruitful vine, a barren fig tree. And even though God had graciously saved some of these Jews out of the apostate nation of Israel and made them to be a part of his church of Jesus Christ, his new covenant people, old habits die very hard deaths. And since the church at the time was mainly comprised of Jewish believers, the addition of Gentiles to the mix was definitely not on their radar when they heard about the news of Cornelius and his household's conversion, especially for those who were a part of the circumcision party. I think that's kind of a bad translation because circumcision and party really don't go together. The circumcision party, this was a group of Jewish Christians who believed that all men in the church still needed to be circumcised in order to follow God's law and fulfill as well. If young people you're still uncertain as to what circumcision is, just talk to your parents afterwards, okay? Parents, if you're still unsure as to what circumcision is, talk to your young people afterwards. So even though Cornelius were told as a devout God-fearing Gentile who had adopted the religion of the Jews, he had never submitted himself to circumcision, can't say that I blame him. And therefore, in the eyes of the Jew, he was still technically an unclean Gentile pagan, but not in God's eyes. Because you see unbeknownst to this circumcision party, God had received Cornelius' worship as a memorial sacrifice, a reminder to God of his covenant promise to bless his people in all nations. And as such, God had sent Peter to Caesarea so that he could declare to Cornelius and his household the message by which they would all be saved. And guess what? They all were saved. But it wasn't until Peter had undergone a conversion of his own that Cornelius' household was saved. You see, back in Japa, while Peter was waiting for his lunch on a rooftop, God spoke to him in a vision. And it was a vision of this sheet-like container and inside this sheet was filled with animals of every kind from all over the earth. And this sheet descended out of heaven by its four corners, and it was laid to rest before Peter. And each of the three times this happened, Peter was commanded to rise and kill and eat. But Peter each time and fatically refused, saying, I have never eaten anything common, which I'm not sure how your translation has it, the ESV says common, really a better translation would be defiled. So he says, I've never eaten anything defiled or unclean. To better understand this conversation, we need to remember that God had divided the animal world up for his covenant people into two groups. There were the clean animals, these were the animals in which the Jews were permitted to eat. And some of the clean animals could even be offered as sacrifices to God and worship. But then there were the unclean animals, these were the animals which could not be eaten, or their carcass could not be touched after they died. Because if they were, the uncleanness of the animal would spread and defile the person who had eaten it, who had touched the carcass. And to be made unclean or to be defiled meant that that person was now unfit to come into God's presence and worship until they had gone through some ritual cleansings and after a certain prescribed time had passed. So that was God's law about clean and unclean animals. Unclean animals, eat them, no problems, some of them could be sacrificed. Unclean can eat them and when they die, if you touch their carcass, in either case, you become unclean. The uncleanness comes to you. That was God's word. Now by the time in history that Peter's having this vision, the Jews had actually taken God's law one step further. They went to 11. Whereas God had said that something clean could only be defiled if it ate or touched the dead carcass of an unclean animal, the Jewish leaders had actually begun to teach that something clean could actually be defiled just by associating with something unclean. Even though God's law didn't say that anywhere, that was what they taught. It became the oral tradition. It became the law and the custom of the Jews. If you have a little trouble with this uncleanness passing on and stuff like this, I'll give you a quick illustration. Thanks to Dale Ralph Davis for giving this to me in one of his lectures. Dale Ralph Davis was in a church and afterwards they were having like a little potluck dinner and they go in and he was all excited because one of the ladies in the church had made a cherry cobbler and he knew this in advance and he loved cherry cobbler and he made sure that he was one of the first ones in line to get there so that he could get his share. When he got there, he noticed that in the corner there was a square section cut out already and he defined him like, how could this happen? I'm the first one here. Where did this piece go? Who took it? So he asked and the lady that made the cobbler said, it's okay, you're really the first one here. What happened was I made the cobbler and I set it out on the counter and this morning my cat got up and ate a little section out of the corner. So what I did was I cut all around it so that nobody wouldn't you know so that it's good. Dale Ralph Davis said it was the worst news he could hear because when he looked at that wonderful cherry cobbler all he could see was cat all over it. This is the concept. We still kind of naturally get this idea of the uncleanness spreading but the problem was the Jews had taken God's law and taken it a step further and we're teaching it as the law when it really wasn't the case. So when Peter sees this sheet-like container that's filled with clean animals and unclean animals altogether close and his mind now none of them were permissible as food for a Jew. The unclean animals couldn't be eaten because God's law said they were unclean and according to the Jewish tradition the clean animals couldn't be eaten either because they had been made common or defiled by being in the near presence of unclean animals which is why he infatically refuses to rise and kill and eat even when he's commanded to do it. However Peter learns a really good lesson and the lesson is this that no Lord isn't a response that God wants to hear. Word to the wise it never is. So Peter's saying not just no infatically in the Greek he's over the top absolutely not Lord I will not eat this and God turns the tables on Peter and he tells him three times look what God has made clean do not call common really more literally make defiled and this response leaves Peter utterly perplexed he's scratching his head turning it over inside himself wondering what does this mean. However it's not long after that he learns that this vision isn't so much about what God has made clean as it was a vision about who God has made clean because you see kind of in keeping with the whole clean unclean animal thing with the Jewish leadership had done in their oral tradition by saying the clean is made unclean just by associating it with it well guess what the Jewish oral tradition it also taught that a Jew could be defiled by being in close association with a Gentile you aren't permitted to enter their home you weren't allowed to eat with them any of their food that's the law and the custom that Peter refers to back in chapter 1028 when he upon arriving at Cornelius says how says you know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation okay he says it was unlawful for him to be there and they know that but as not God's law it was man-made law well again as we said God didn't say that anywhere in his covenant law it was a man-made tradition and a false one at that so when Cornelius's servants come knocking at the door of the house where Peter was staying to take him back to Caesarea with them it would have been the common expectation of the day that Peter would have objected but instead the Holy Spirit instructs Peter go with them making no distinction none of this clean unclean business anymore and other words he the Holy Spirit's telling Peter what God has made clean do not call common do not make defiled and after Peter wrestles with this vision three times he finally submits to God's will and he's converted of his own Cornelius wasn't the only one converted in this story Peter goes through conversion he's converted to God's program of not showing partiality and so he does rise and he does kill his own prejudicial thoughts and his own selfish desires and he does eat he eats with the Gentiles and as a result we're told Cornelius and all of his household were saved and God's kingdom began to spread God's kingdom was breaking through boundaries that had been set down by Jewish tradition and God's kingdom was now spilling over into the Gentile world which includes you and me by the way of course Peter wasn't the only one who was in need of this kind of conversion lest we forget the circumcision party now before we bust the circumcision parties chops a little too quickly for being so prejudicial and so unwelcoming of Cornelius's household into the church it's important to remember a few things at this point in history it was a very politically charged time in Jerusalem devaldues were in fear that the Roman occupation of the Promised Land was corrupting and threatening their existence as the covenant people of God and they were extremely suspect of the influence that Roman culture had already had on the Jewish people so as such for them circumcision wasn't just a sign of the covenant circumcision had actually become kind of like a national symbol of pride and purity kind of like many of us would treat their country's flag okay so even though these are Jewish Christians they've still got kind of a good reason for criticizing Peter at least if we enter into their world and understand what's going on and they do criticize Peter by saying you went to uncircumcise men and ate with them see and their minds Peter had sold out and he was endangering God's covenant people by bringing the enemy into the camp well Peter's response to their accusation shows that he understands their concern and he knows the weight of his actions in their eyes and you know it's interesting he doesn't fire back with his usual fire in brimstone right in your face come to Jesus meeting kind of sermon like he's used to in the past that we're used to hearing from Peter instead he's kind of simply and gently tells them the story of what happened because you gotta remember Peter remember he wasn't on board to begin with either and as he tells the story he emphasizes that God gave Cornelius and his household the same spirit in the same way that God had given to the Jewish Christians at Pentecost and so he concludes who was I that I could stand in God's way or you put it another way Peter's basically saying look guys this was God's doing not mine so how in the world could I have stopped him even if I'd wanted to and then Luke ends their conversation there and Peter's question about who was I to stand in God's way that question just kind of hangs in the air as the hearers and the readers of this were kind of left an anticipation wondering okay how are the members of this circumcision party going to respond are they gonna follow their Jewish heritage and follow in the footsteps of the Jewish leaders and end up fighting against God and resist the Holy Spirit or are they gonna follow Peter's example are they gonna be converted to God's program for his church and are they gonna follow the lead of his spirit rather than the traditions of men well Luke doesn't leave us to wonder for very long because at first we're told their silence and then the silence turns to praise as they glorify God for granting Gentiles repentance that leads to life just lucky had done for them as Jews and the story for this morning ends there but the question still remains we see all throughout history the church of Jesus Christ has repeatedly been faced with the same dilemma of what to do when God breaks through the barriers that we've built to help us feel safe and to keep things normal and what to do when God calls to leave us behind the expectations of comfort and acceptance in order to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness even to this day we're forced to decide every day are we gonna fight against God and stand in his way are we gonna follow God's lead and get with this program and you can't make the mistake here of not properly weighing the gravity of that choice because as we've already learned from the leaders Jewish leaders and acts so far who had rejected Jesus and resisted his spirit you can't fight against God and the other choice of following God's lead and getting with his program requires one very very certain thing and it is this that we all have to die the kingdom and the righteousness of God that we've been called to pursue first it's a lot bigger and it is far more complex than the life we're used to and the life that we've come to expect so you may not seem like it to us but what happened in Cornelius' living room that day in Caesarea it was nothing less than God taking the snow bubble of the early churches world and turning it upside down and then shaking it all around and that's why Peter refuses even when God tells him to rise kill and eat because that wasn't the plan that Peter had for his life that wasn't the plan that he'd come to expect that wasn't the path that he thought God was going to lead him down rather that roof there on Simon the Tanner's house and Joppa it actually kind of becomes for Peter his own little garden of Gethsemane and by that I mean this it's the place and the time where Peter like Jesus wrestles with the will of God three times only finally to submit and then to be let away to Cornelius' house where he would die because see a Cornelius' house when he entered the threshold of that home he died to himself and he died to his desires and his wants and his comforts and his expectations and he followed God's lead and he got with his program now none of this should surprise us of course because it's what happened to Jesus and as goes Jesus so goes his church unless we forget Jesus told us if anyone serves me he must follow me and whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple

you see Jesus Jesus didn't die so that we wouldn't have to die huh Jesus died so that we could die and yet still live Jesus died so that we could die to ourselves and that in that death then go on to bring life to other people because that's what Jesus did now if I can get 70s on you that's pretty heavy but you know what that's God's lead that's his program for us so when we're faced with the weight and the gravity of God's kingdom and what his righteousness requires of us especially during a season like Lent you know what it's best for our first response to just be silence remember when this circumcision party in the church finally realized what God was up to in Cornelius' home Luke tells us they fell silent and the Greek it means loosely they shut it okay and that was a wise move for them so when God does something that completely rearranges all the neat little categories and boundaries and expectations in our life you know what we are far too apt to run our mouths and criticize before we fully know about what it is we speak as Proverbs 10 19 says when words are many transgression is not lacking but whoever restraints his lips is prudent so in moments like that as a church let's agree to shut it and then let the off God do its intended work in us let's praise God with our silence until the proper attitude and the words of rejoicing have been given to us by a spirit now dying to ourselves so as to follow God's lead and get with this program that's not all going to happen at once as a matter of fact even though the story ends with a circumcision party rejoicing over the repentance of the Gentiles it's only a few chapters later that the church is wrestling with the same issue at the Jerusalem council and we're told in Galatians 2 that even Peter has trouble kind of following through with this plan that God started in Cornelius' home when he separates himself from the Gentiles to eat with the Jews when the Jews are present and fear of the circumcision party it's a reminder that we need to remember that sanctification is a process improving our baptism takes an entire lifetime so a word to the leaders in the church be patient with the flock that God has entrusted to you and it's a word to God's people in the church be patient with the leaders that God has said over you let's all be found as long suffering with each other as God is with us but no matter how long it may take us to faithfully follow God's lead no this day that God is leading for us to open up our hearts and our minds to whomever he calls to himself because after all it's not our kingdom that we are called to build and the church has never mine or yours it all belongs to God and by his grace he has made it for us and for them and the end we're all just creeping things upon the face of the earth unclean in the presence of God but by God's grace what he has made clean is clean remember whatever rather whomever God sees fit to make clean we should never call common or make defiled let's instead just receive them joyfully as God does and forbid them not and God is also leading us this day I believe to open up the tables of our homes to them and for us to go into their homes as well note that the circumcision parties biggest beef with Peter is what that he went into a circumcised man and he ate with them so that's because in the Hebrew culture eating with someone was a sign of close friendship even a sign of a covenant relationship and it was that way in the Hebrew culture because that's just the way that it is the meal table is where we all have to come in order to satisfy our most basic need and is this that we have to find life in something outside ourselves God has so designed us in such a way that sharing our meal with someone else immediately communicates both to us and to the watching world around this sense of inclusion acceptance unity and peace which by the way is why it's hard to eat I mean it's hard to fight with each other while you're eating just kind of calms everything down for some reason and if you don't believe me that's the way God designed things you know what just go to any school cafeteria and watch for five minutes and within five minutes by seeing who's eating with each other you know who's best friends who's worse enemies and who could be cared for less

snow coincidence that I'm told in post civil war churches the freed black slaves and the white folks of the same denomination and creed could be members of the same church however even in those multi-racial churches the freed black slaves were not allowed to celebrate the Lord's Supper and same time as its white members in fact I'm told they weren't even allowed to sit together at like a fellowship meal after service see if we want to seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness it means that we have to die we have to die to ourselves and we have to open up the tables in our home to them whoever them may be when the apostle John was given his revelation he saw in heaven he saw in heaven we're told a great multitude that no one could number from every nation from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb you see in God's kingdom we don't look the same we don't sound the same we don't speak the same language and we come from different families and different homes and different nations but by God's grace through Jesus Christ we are one body we share one spirit we are called to one hope and service of one Lord we are united by one faith we have one baptism and we all worship one God and Father of all who is overall and through all and in all so in application let's eat God is set as table for us and for them thanks be to God let's pray Father may your word do a mighty work within us may we not be the same for being here today with you and worship but instead when the world looks upon us may they see the face of Jesus and we ask it in his name because he is our king amen