Acts 11:1-18

So wonderful to sing about the great work of redemption the Lord has given to us in our lives. We as Christians never get tired of singing the songs of the redeemed. When we think about what the Lord has done, how He saved me, how He lifted me up, how He filled me with the Holy Spirit, and how He has planted me on the solid rock of the lead Jesus Christ, I cannot help but sing hallelujah and praise to the name of the Lord. Exactly what we’re doing this afternoon as well. A warm welcome to all of you, so glad to see all of you, and so grateful for all the guests that are here with us this afternoon to be able to worship the Lord with you. We’re so grateful for God’s provisions and great blessings and guidance in each one of our lives, and we pray that God will continue to lead us individually, as families, as Church, most importantly to fulfill the purpose to which the Lord Jesus Christ has called us to be children of God, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

So grateful for this time, thankful for the Malayalam service the Lord already gave to us, and for the English worship that we just experienced. As we get back to God’s word and continue with our series, Church on the Rise, we’ll be focusing on Acts 11:1-18 this afternoon. Acts 11:1-18. We left a couple of weeks ago by reminding us of the time when the Apostle Peter got to preach in the house of Cornelius. Chapter 10 ended by reminding us that Peter stayed with them for a few days. The Bible doesn’t tell us exactly how many days. Nor does Chapter 11 tell us by beginning telling us how long Peter was in the house of Cornelius. My guess is a few days, few weeks, whatever the case might be, they were so eager to study God’s word, and the Apostle would have spent all that time continuing to encourage them and making them understand more of the scriptures as it’s revealed to him by the Holy Spirit.

But as you very well know, this was not something that was going to be a welcome news to the church in Jerusalem. As I mentioned to you last week, 10 years almost had passed by since the Lord told them that you will be my witnesses in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth, but the church has kind of forgotten the mission and the purpose for which they had called them. And to them and to the church in Jerusalem, and even to the mind of the Apostles, by this time anyone excluding the Apostle Peter, the way to open the door of Christianity was to go through the hallway of Judaism. There was no other way for any unbeliever or Gentile to come to the Christian faith other than to observe the Jewish rituals, especially circumcision, and then come to a believing knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we saw how one man’s life was completely turned upside down and years and years of prejudices God toppled in Chapter 10 at his encounter that he had with Cornelius. But now the rest of them have to be convinced.

Chapter 11 starts by telling us this, the apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. The distance between Judea and the house of Cornelius is 40 miles. If a news were to travel today, it probably will only take a few seconds with modern technology, but at the time it was not very easy. So we don’t know how long it took, but somehow the word traveled all the way to Judea. As you often know, it is often news like this that travels much faster than something that was pleasant for people to hear. So probably somebody traveling from that place said Gentiles have received the word of God, and most importantly the way they received the word of God, they have a big problem with. You need to understand who is in Chapter 11:1, it is not only the believers, and we will see a specific group of believers later on in this chapter who have a problem with this, but even the apostles, John and other well-known ones also have a problem with it. James has a problem with it, all those who walked with the Lord and who heard the commission and received the Holy Spirit themselves, their mind has not been fully come to understand the plan of God. So not only believers, even the apostles who were leading the church heard that the Gentiles had received the word of God.

Peter now makes his way back to Jerusalem, and what is facing him is not a welcoming mat. They’re not preparing a welcoming ceremony for the Apostle Peter by saying here is a man of God who has taken the gospel to the Gentiles, let’s welcome him back to the church in Jerusalem. Look what they do, verses two and three. When Peter went up to Jerusalem, anytime someone travels back to Jerusalem, the word of God uses the word “went up” because of the geographical location of what Jerusalem is. When Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him. So very clearly, these are not Jewish people, these are believers who have already believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, but the Bible introduces them as circumcised believers, Jewish believers, but most importantly, people that will continue to hold on to this teaching, not only at this time but we will see later on in the ministry of the Apostle Paul as well. In fact, the main issue with the church in Galatia would be this very issue of circumcision or uncircumcision. Circumcised believers criticized him and said, “You went into the house of an uncircumcised man and ate with them.”

The problem here is not that they received the word of God. In fact, in verse one, the word “received” as used over there is a word that our Lord often would teach during his teaching. He would tell us that as a child receives the word of God, the Gentiles, when they heard the gospel presented to them, received the word of God like a child. You know how a child receives something, you tell them something and they believe it completely. If you tell a child that the Earth is flat, they will believe it. They will not question it. If you tell a child anything at a young age, they’ll absorb it just as it is, because their mind is so pure and they don’t know what guile is, they don’t know what lying is, they don’t know what deceit is yet fully yet. And as I said, they accept it as truth. The Gentile believers were just like that, when they heard the word of God, in reverence, in complete belief of what they heard, they welcomed the word of God into their hearts.

But the apostles and believers in Jerusalem are not at all happy with what has happened with Gentiles. There are two problems here: first, “you went into the house of uncircumcised Gentiles,” secondly, “you ate with them as well.” You ate with them, eating with someone was fellowshipping with them, identifying with them, especially in that culture of that day. Eating with someone means you fully accept who they are and they’re perfectly fine with their way of living, eating with them, fellowshipping with them. This was something that could not be understood by the believers who were left back in Jerusalem.

It is so interesting that this is the third time in Scripture that we see the same story being repeated again to us. In chapter 10, we see Cornelius would repeat that again and again, in verse chapter 11 here, the Holy Spirit makes Peter repeat the same story over and over again. It is often said that if God is speaking to you one time, you better listen to it. If God is speaking to you two times, you better listen to it very carefully. But here, God’s Holy Spirit is speaking to us third time, the same story is repeated in God’s word because He really wants us to understand the mind of God for the nations of the world.

And here he says to them, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and you ate with them.” So here’s what Peter is doing, and not only that, in verse 2 and 3, the word that is used over there is that they are rapidly asking questions towards him. So they are all sitting around in circles, Peter is in the midst of it, it’s almost like a trial, and they are asking one question after another. “Peter, we heard that you went to the house of a Gentile. Somebody else says, ‘You ate with them, are you serious? What kind of a man are you? I mean, who you call yourself an apostle, what is going on here?'” And all this time, the Bible doesn’t record that Peter says anything. Sometimes when they are hurling all these things at you, it’s better not to say anything at the beginning and just wait for everything to settle down. Exactly what Peter does, look at verse four and five, starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story, a story you’ve heard for the last two weeks. “I was in the city of Joppa praying,” very important detail, “I was not in the city of Joppa sleeping, I was in the city of Joppa praying.” He’s first of all identifying the foundation of where all this came from. It was when he was in the presence of God. And to these believers, they have no doubt in their mind as to who Peter is. Peter has received the same Holy Spirit that they received. They have seen Peter do signs and wonders among them. So when Peter is praying, they know fully well that Peter is praying to the same Living God that they worship. And he says to them, “I was praying, and in a trance, in an out of body experience, I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners.”

In Chapter 10, the Bible just told us that the sheet came down from the sky. Here, Peter, in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, tells us exactly where the sheet came from. The sheet did not just come down from the sky, the sheet came down all the way from the throne room of God, Heaven itself, and it came down to where I was. Continuing on verses 6 and 8, “I looked into it and I saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds. Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.'”

By the way, Peter is not the only one in God’s word who questioned God when God told him to make something and eat something that was defiled. We see this in the account of Ezekiel in 4:14, when God was trying to show to him the filthiness of the people and their idolatry against God. God would ask Ezekiel to make bread that was not clean, in fact, to use human excrement as a fuel, and Ezekiel rebelled against God. Not rebelled in a rebellion way, but he questioned God, and he opposed God in a way, and said, “Not so, Sovereign Lord.” It’s so interesting that they address God as Sovereign while still not willing to do what He’s asking them to do. That’s kind of like what we do as well, isn’t it? We call our God our Lord, yet we often, including myself, don’t want to do what He wants us to do. But at least in his words it says, “Sovereign Lord, I have never defiled myself; from my youth until now, I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals; no impure meat has ever entered my mouth.”

So, it is not only Peter, but we see this is an example of this in the life of Ezekiel as well. These Jewish men had practiced strict dietary laws all of their life, and this requirement, even though they recognize it’s coming from the Lord, the fiber of their being is such that any kind of impurity, they revolt against it. And even if it is the word of the Lord, that immediate reaction is to say, “No, Lord, nothing impure has ever entered my mouth.” But look what happened. We know this story, verses 9 and 10, “The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.”

All this detail that Peter is mentioning in the story is very, very important. In the mind of a Jew, three is very important. They know that three means if God has spoken something three times, it is something that is very well established, established in truth. Look at else what else he says, “The sheet came down from heaven and the sheet went back to Heaven as well.” To make them understand that this came from God, and it went back to God. How can we call something impure that came from heaven and went back to Heaven? If there’s any place that is Holy in the world, it is heaven. This came from heaven and it went back to the very place where God is. So God is saying, “If I have called it clean, you cannot call it unclean.”

Verse 11, “Right then, three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying.” How many times did God speak to Peter? Three times. How many men suddenly were at the gate? Three men. Three times, three men. This is not at all an accident. I don’t believe in coincidences in the life of a believer. I believe in providence in the life of a believer. One person has so beautifully said that coincidence in the life of a believer only seems to be because God wants to remain anonymous. There are no such thing as coincidences in your life or my life. And I shared this with the youth leadership yesterday as well. Everything in our life is ordained by God. Every moment of our life is controlled by God. In the times that are good, in the times that are not so good, God is absolutely caring and controlling every aspect and fiber of every moment of our lives.

The Providence of God, often times when I pray, one of the first things that I pray for is I thank God for the Providence of God. I say often, “God, I thank you for your Providence.”’ But you know what is interesting? You will never find this word ‘Providence of God’ in the Bible. In fact, it’s only in one place the word Providence appears in the entire Bible, and that in Acts 24, is not talking about the Providence of God, it is talking about the Providence of a Roman ruler. It is not even talking about the Providence of God. Then why do we as Christians thank God for his Providence? You know why? When you read God’s word from Genesis to Revelation, you see that behind every life that is there in God’s word, there is the Unseen hand of God that is guiding and directing every moment in the life of a believer. Every single detail in the life of a Christian is ordained and controlled by God. This definition about the Providence of God, I love it, says this, “God’s caring provision for his people as he guides them in their journey of faith through life, accomplishing his purpose in them.”

Look at this, God’s caring provision this afternoon. Do you know that there’s a God in heaven who cares for you and his caring provision is always present in your life? And not only that, that caring provision of God guides us in our journey of faith. That caring provision of God guides us through the mountaintop experiences, it guides us through the valleys of life, but it is always present. Why? The most important thing: accomplishing God’s purpose in us. It’s very important to note here that the Providence of God is not there to accomplish your purpose in your life. The Providence of God is there to accomplish God’s purpose in your life. That’s why life doesn’t sometimes make sense to us, even as a believer. See, if life made sense to us, our mind would be the same as the mind of God, but the mind of God, the knowledge of God, the wisdom of God, is what guides us from every point of view. So, He makes us go through paths that often don’t make sense to us, but He is always there, and He is always for His people, guiding them through life. We call it the Providence of God, but in the midst of it, I want you to understand there is an old ancient saying in the Christian faith that is so true every single day, it is this: “Deus pro nobis”, it means God is always for us.

Another way to explain the Providence of God is that there’s a God in the heaven who is for you. There’s a God in the heaven who is on your side. There’s a God in the heaven who is concerned about eternal good in your life. He is for you, “Deus pro nobis”. He is always there, waiting for you, doing things for you, even if it doesn’t make any sense to you. After telling us that all things work together for good to those who have been called according to His purpose, what is the purpose? His eternal purpose. And then telling us that we have, according to the foreknowledge of God, predestined to be conformed to the image of His son, and one day we will be glorified into the likeness of His Son, the Apostle Paul would ask the same question in Romans 8:31, “What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” That is the Providence of God, God for you. How many of you believe that this afternoon?

I don’t know what kind of circumstances you are going through in your life at this very moment. Nothing is an accident, nothing is outside of His will. Your God is for you, that is the Providence of God that is guiding you over life, whether it be long, short, prosperous, joyful, sorrowful, God is for you. Many of you know who Dennis Rainey is, as founder of Family Life Ministries. For almost four decades, their ministry has been so instrumental in building up marriages and many many families. In his book Stepping Up, he tells the story about the short life of his granddaughter by the name of Molly, born with a brain aneurysm. Molly lived only seven days. As difficult as those seven days were, Molly’s parents and grandparents held firmly to their trust in God, confident that they will see Molly again in the age to come. Rainey concludes his chapter on the short life of his granddaughter Molly by telling this memory:

A number of years ago, he said, my wife Barbara and I were vacationing in Southwest England and stumbled upon a little town by the name of St. Beran, a crossroad in the country with a pub, a decaying church, and a graveyard. We stopped and read a few of the gravestones. By the way, not to be morbid, if you ever get a chance, walk through a cemetery and read some of the gravestones, you will see what really matters to people at the end of their life. One that was barely legible commemorated a family that lived in the 1600s. Buried beneath the stone were the mother who gave birth to a son and she died just 10 days later at the age of 24, her son who she gave birth to only lived 13-months, and the father who died a few days later was only 25 years old. Any human being would look at that story and go, what a tragic set of events. Mother dead at 24, father dead at 25, the mother that gave birth to the child only lived to be 13 months, and she died because of that birth. But he said, “The faded words on that weathered limestone grave marker moved us so deeply that today we decided to etch it on our granddaughter Molly’s headstone.” And here is what is said on the gravestone: “We cannot, Lord, Thy purpose see, but all is well that is done by Thee.” “We cannot, Lord, Thy purpose see, but all is well that is done by Thee.”

Church, if you believe that you are a child of God and if the Heavenly Father, who is the God of the universe, is the Father of your soul, can we believe that He is a good God, and everything that He does is for our eternal good, and He has a great purpose behind it? Yes, God is for you, “Deus pro nobis.” God is for you, He is for you, He loves you, He cares for you more than you care for your own life.

Three times, three men appeared. Peter continues, verses 12 and 13, “The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them.” I love this, you know why? Because when you read the gospel account, if there’s anybody that had never had any hesitation, it was whom? Peter. He never hesitated. Here also he says, “I had no hesitation.” But there’s a difference here; it is not Peter doing anything on his own. The Spirit of God is the one that is telling him, “Go with them.” And so he did. “Six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house.”

Why six? I talked about this in Chapter 10 that there were six men with him because only three would have been necessary. You know, two or three witnesses would have been necessary. Why six? The number is very curious. Here’s the thought behind it: in Egyptian law and Egyptian custom, you needed six witnesses along with the person who’s responsible, seven total, to make a matter to be settled. And this was something that was so engraved even in the mind of the Jewish people. But not only that, the Roman rule said that any document or any fact has to be sealed with seven seals for it to be complete. So he takes, by the Providence of God again, six men with him. “And we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is also called Peter,'” verses 14-15, “He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.”

Here, Peter adds something that we did not read about in Chapter 10. There, it seemed as if Cornelius had no idea what was about to happen. But here, the Holy Spirit reminds us, Cornelius knew that these men were coming to tell them the way by which they must be saved. That also tells us that Cornelius was not a saved man, and it is only after the preaching of the Gospel that he was saved. But it also tells us as to why he assembled all of his household and all of his neighbors and all of his acquaintance to his house. Why? He wanted all of them to hear the same gospel message and be saved. And that’s why there were a large group of people gathered around in his home.

“As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as He had come on us at the beginning.” What is the beginning? The day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon those who were assembled in the upper room. The same way, the Holy Spirit came upon the Gentiles who were assembled in the house of Cornelius. And then Peter continues, verses 16-17, “Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ So if God gave them the same gift He gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”

What a great message, grounded in the truth but also grounded in the scriptures, and reminds them of the purpose for which our Lord came into this world. Not to baptize you with water, but to baptize you with Holy Spirit into the family of God. Our Lord came, and if God did that for the Gentiles, he’s saying, “Who am I to stand in the way of God?”

Look at verse 18. They were humble people. At first, they were very arrogant and hurling all kinds of charges at Peter, but once the Holy Spirit’s message had been told to them, look what happens. Verse 18,”’When they heard this, they had no further objections, and they praised God.” Years and years of prejudice, a lifetime of considering the Gentile to be unclean, unworthy to come to the fold of God, all was melting away as the Holy Spirit revealed to them the plans of God. They went from being skeptics, angry, frustrated by what Peter had done, to a worship service where they were praising God. Why were they praising God? “Even to Gentiles, God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

What does this tell us? We often think of repentance as something that we do on our own, which is true, there’s a human responsibility to it. But do you know where the grace for repentance comes from? It is granted by the Lord and the Lord alone. What makes your heart break in the presence of God? Who makes you convicted of your sins in your life? Who is the one that is able to bring you to the throne room of God, where you are to be repenting of your sins? It is an act of the grace of God that grants you repentance. How do we know that? Not only this passage, look at 2 Timothy 2:25-26. This is talking about false teachers. Paul writes and says, “Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that what? God will grant them repentance.” It’s a gift of God, leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

So the repentance that comes in the life of the believer, and even the unbeliever, is a gift of the Lord. You know what God wants us to do? To be people of repentance, all the days of our life. A lot of people think that repentance is only unto salvation. That’s not so true. The sanctification in the life of the believer is an act by which God continuously molds us to become more like Him, and a very important component of that is repentance. 

I want to focus and end with this one phrase that I don’t want you to forget this afternoon. It is this: “Repentance that leads to life.” Initially, repentance and turning from your sins and turning to the Living God and trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ brings you eternal life. But that’s not where God wants you to end in your continuous progression of your Christian life. Christ wants you to have abundant life in your life, and the way to abundant life is a life of brokenness, humility, and repentance before the Lord. You want to experience the freedom, the joy that God wants to give to you? Have a heart of repentance in the presence of God, and that is truly the gift of God Himself.

As Bill Thrall beautifully says, “When Grace introduces us to repentance, the two of us become best friends. When anything else introduces us to repentance, it feels like a warden has come to lock us up. But when Grace gets involved, the truths of repentance reveal a fabulous world of life-freeing beauty.” See, our repentance in the presence of God is not like a warden that is coming to lock us up. Our repentance in the life of the believer, in a Christian, is an act of the grace of God. There is such beauty and freedom that is in it. A lot of people think of repentance as a punishment; it’s not. Repentance is the way in which God has ordained for you to experience the fullness of joy that is in the presence of God.

If you are sitting here this afternoon with unrepentant sins, the worship will not be pleasant to your soul. The taking of the communion will not be a blessing in your life. Unrepentant sins are not healthy for the man who is living inside of you. You need to practice constant, consistent humility and repentance in your life. Today, we are living in an age where we don’t ever hear about sin. We never hear about the need for repentance because we think that we’re all okay. The truth is, we are not. In our own self-justification, we think that we’re all doing everything correctly. You are not, I am not. We constantly need the cleansing and the forgiveness of God in our lives. The areas in our life that are not according to the will of God, your pride needs to die. Your feeling of self-worth and your self-exaltation has to all break down. You need to have a heart of humility when you come in the presence of God. Only then you will know what living the Christian life truly is. “Repentance that leads to life.”

If you’re feeling empty, kind of wasted in the presence of God this afternoon, I have an exercise for you. Honestly, genuinely confess your sins before the Lord. Break your heart before Him, truly be sorry for what you’ve done, and turn and go in the opposite direction. You will enjoy the freedom and the life that Christ wants to give to you. That’s why David would cry out in Psalm 51, “O Lord, please do not take away the joy of my salvation away from me.” It is only the repentant heart that is able to experience the fullness of the life and the joy that God wants to give to us.

The Lord who saved you does not want you to live a life of greediness, mediocrity, where you’re just getting by. He wants you to have abundant life in your life, but that starts with you humbling yourself, asking God for forgiveness, breaking things that need to be broken, getting rid of things that need to be gotten rid of, having that fresh washing of His blood in your life constantly, so that our life that is inside of us can be renewed again and again by the power of the Spirit of God that is living inside of us.

I pray that Restoration Church will always be a repentant church because it is in repentance that you experience the full restoration that God wants to give to you in your life. Repentance that leads to life. Gentiles have received it by the providence of God. By the time Peter is done with this message, by the time this verse comes to verse 18, all the arguments that they had against Gentiles have all faded away. The apostles and believers gathered there on that day were now convinced of the plans of God and God had done what he started to do in chapter 10:9-18. We will see in the weeks to come how now the relationship starts between the Gentile believers and the Jewish believers and even to this day that work is still going on, but it all started in the house of Cornelius by the work of the spirit of God on that day. 

Let’s look to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word that calls us to repent, repentance that leads to life, oh not only eternal life but the constant abundant life that you want us to have on the face of the Earth. We thank you for your providence, reminds us that you are for us, that there’s a God who is working behind the scenes preparing our lives to accomplish the purpose of God. Help us to live in light of that confidence knowing that you are in control. As we now enter into a time of celebrating your death for us, we pray that your holy spirit will continue to move in our midst. Oh God, thank you for hearing our prayer. In the name of the Lord Jesus, we pray.