Acts 11:1-30 | Peter's Finest Hour: Responding When God Acts

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

There's a funny thing about humans.

At least I think it's funny.

Maybe I should say interesting.

It's not really a joke.

There's an interesting thing about humans.

As you get to know them, I think it shows up in parenting and marriage and close friendships.

When longer you know somebody, the better and better you know their weaknesses, their faults.

And if you pay attention to your friends, you start to see their strengths and their habits more clearly over time.

And when that happens, well, two things happen.

You start to be more disappointed in each other's failures.

We might say, he knows better than that.

Or on the other hand, we become even more proud of each other's successes.

Saying something like, He's come a long way.

Or I know how hard it was for him to say or do X, Y, or Z.

Someday I'll say that when my little sister finishes a can of pop and throws it away by herself.

Maybe our 30s have the secret to that.

But from little things like that, to bigger and bigger things, like how I couldn't sing the first verse of ancient of days just to hear you sing it.

The more you know somebody, the more proud of them you get.

I think, at least in part, that's what the author to the Hebrews is getting at when he says, let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.

We could say provoke one another.

Even.

For example, in April of 2023, a baseball player named Drew Maggie, at 34 years old, he's ancient, finally made the big leagues after 13 seasons and almost 5,000 played appearances in the minor leagues.

In a league of 20 somethings, where the average big leaguer spends three to six years in the minors, Drew Maggie, he won't ever make the Baseball Hall of Fame.

But when he finally got to taking it bat, I watched the video this week, his mom cried, had a foul ball.

He struck out.

And they all still cried, talked about it for like 10 minutes on TV.

Because she knew, and all of his teammates knew, how hard he fought to get there.

So I'd ask you, do we know each other well enough to be proud of each other's successes?

To be glad with those little victories, even if they seem small by comparison.

I sure hope God looks at me that way.

Sees how I've grown.

I think a good shepherd does that, right?

But our text for today in the book of Acts has a moment, I think, just like that.

And if we look closely, we can see somebody grow and we can be proud of them.

We can learn from their courage how to respond when God acts.

So take your Bibles with me and turn to the book of Acts.

We're in chapter 11, verse 1.

It's been our practice to read the full passage during our worship services.

And I'll do that for us now.

Acts chapter 11.

Acts 11 · chapter mention

Verses 1 to 30.

Now, Luke writes, 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.

He said, 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.

And 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, as we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?

And when they heard these things, they fell silent, and they glorified God, saying, Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance unto life.

Verse 19.

Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen, Stephen, traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews.

But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Serene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus.

And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.

The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.

And when he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad.

He was glad.

And he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.

For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.

And a great many people were added to the Lord.

So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul.

And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch for a whole year.

They met with the church and taught a great many people.

And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians.

Now, in these days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them, named Agabus, stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world.

This took place in the days of Claudius.

And so the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea.

And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

Let's bow our heads in prayer.

Oh God, we come before your word.

Just as we've come before your wisdom and song, and we are humbled.

You do wondrous things.

You speak in wondrous ways.

And our hearts are too small, our minds too small.

And so we ask for your spirit's strength to uphold us, to guide us into the truth, to safeguard us from evil and deliver us.

Deliver us.

Please lead us not to temptation.

And help us all, Father, to receive the word with meekness and grow into the image of Christ Jesus our Lord.

Me as I speak and all of us as we hear.

May your word have its full and proper effect.

Amen.

Let's look more closely now at what I'm calling Peter's finest hour.

Responding when God acts.

Think with me about Peter for just a moment.

Peter, this is the same Peter who fell at his feet in a boat one day in Galilee and said to Jesus, Depart from me, for I'm a sinful man, O Lord, over a good catch of fish.

This is the same Peter who declared that though others may call Peter Elijah, Peter knows that Jesus is the Christ of God.

And then right after that, he tried to stand in Jesus' way and got rebuked hard enough.

Jesus called him Satan.

He did all of that before seeing Jesus transfigured in the dazzling radiance of all of his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, before hearing the majestic voice declare, This is my son, my chosen one.

Listen to him.

This is the Peter who saw and who heard such things.

And then later boasted, Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death, snapped out his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Peter who seemed ready to tussle with Romans would then be afraid of a servant girl in the high priest's backyard.

And denied even ever knowing Jesus.

Just like that.

This Peter who wasn't afraid to get political and take on the world confronts Cornelius in Acts chapter 10, unashamed to say Jesus is Lord, implying Caesar isn't, to a Roman centurion.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

That same Peter we see standing boldly in the first several chapters of Acts, Paul tells us in Galatians would later shrink back from Gentile table fellowship because he feared the circumcision party, leading even Barnabas astray.

The more you know about Peter, the more you think about Peter, the more you start to see that he's a pretty earnest Jew.

A very earnest Jew, especially when he began to follow Jesus, the temple, the priesthood, the law, the nation.

These things are all significant in Peter's life.

And he'd take a sword to a servant and a scrap with Romans.

But he doesn't like being called a lawbreaker.

He doesn't like being called unclean.

He doesn't like that.

He really has come a long way from the night when Jesus was betrayed.

But after God told him in chapter 10 to stop calling Gentiles unclean, in chapter 11, here he has to face Jewish criticism from the brothers, from within the church.

It's not even from outside, it's from within.

They judged him, saying, essentially to him, you willingly became unclean.

And so most of our text today is Peter making the case, arguing that entering a Gentile household and eating with them did not make him unclean any longer.

Now, the cowardly thing to do, the thing we might expect Peter to do, would have been to agree with them and just go to the temple quick and sacrifice a dove.

Just wouldn't be that hard to do, really.

And he wouldn't have to face this.

But he doesn't do that, does he?

He could have pretended that he'd never heard the voice of the Lord speaking to him.

Nobody else saw the vision he saw.

The Peter who once lied and said, I don't know the man, could have easily lied again and said, I didn't really hear a voice.

And it all would have gone away.

Right?

Oh, this takes courage if you're Peter.

A courage we've seen growing in Peter since the resurrection.

And is right here on display.

He began to speak in verse 4.

And he explained it to them in order.

When God acts, that's my first point, the proper response takes boldness.

Because God's enemies have always and will always oppose the things God does.

When God acts, responding properly requires boldness.

Or we might even say confidence.

Remember Acts 4?

This has been growing in Peter.

The chief priests and the scribes saw the boldness of Peter and John.

That they were common, uneducated men.

Paul later goes so far as to say that this bold confidence only comes through faith in Jesus Christ, even in the face of suffering.

This was according to the eternal purpose that he's realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.

So I ask you not to lose heart, he says to the Ephesians.

But the more you know about Peter, the cooler that boldness is to see.

We're told to call them out.

Peter doesn't rebuke them.

He doesn't go toe-to-toe and shut them down and accuse them of not believing the gospel truly.

It's important to note that not all the apostles and brothers are members of the circumcision party.

But when Peter answers the critical ones, when Peter answers the ones who doubt him, he seems to understand their criticism.

It's worthy of an explanation.

Peter reminds them in verse 8, after all, that he himself refused the Lord's instruction three times.

Three times.

He said, and may it never be, no, by no means, Lord, in the vision.

Nowhere in chapter 10 or 11 does Peter say, after the third time, I had myself a pork chop.

He resisted this.

He doesn't actually rise, kill, or eat anything common or unclean.

So he sympathizes with their questions.

But that's not what sticks out to Peter about the vision.

Look at verse 11.

He says, Behold.

And behold.

Notice that word behold when you see it in your Bibles.

It means something important is about to happen.

For Peter in his report, the vision was one thing.

But the astounding thing was the providentially ordered arrival of these men at that moment, and the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to him, saying, Go with them in verse 12.

That's what's so astounding to Peter.

And in verse 12, this voice makes no distinction.

You need to see how brilliant Luke is as an author here.

In verse 1, if you look at verse 1, the apostles and the brothers heard about Peter's travels, and in verse 2, they criticized him for it.

In verse 7, Peter heard a voice.

And in verse 12, the Spirit made no criticism.

They're the exact same word in the Greek text.

I have them side by side for you up here.

Making no distinction is the same word.

Luke's making these parallels for you.

They're really cool.

The Holy Spirit, then, by Luke's pen and Peter's tongue, says, though you criticized Peter for this, I don't.

It's amazing.

Who is all this law keeping for, anyway?

Is it for the Holy Spirit?

Is it for God?

It ought to be.

Or do we keep the law so that we can feel better about ourselves?

Peter continues.

Seven men, he says, saw the miracle.

Seven men bear witness to what they've seen.

Six plus one, Peter plus six brothers.

In Deuteronomy 17, it only takes two or three witnesses to put a man to death.

Two or three witnesses to put a man to death.

But the Spirit of God puts forth seven men, seven brothers, just like in verse one.

Seven witnesses corroborate the action of the Holy Spirit here.

Do you see how carefully the Spirit of God is building his case?

For Peter, for them, and for you.

And Peter is diligent to make sure all the way through that he's not transgressing the law, that he's not being led astray by his own thoughts or cravings for bacon or the deceit for the tempter.

Peter's careful.

Each piece of evidence matters.

He stacks it up.

And in verse 15, as Peter began to speak, then the Spirit falls on them in just the same way as he did at Pentecost.

Peter testifies that he was only just getting started.

It's not the genius of Peter's preaching that saves.

But the Spirit of God.

But even then, even then, even after he's seen all these things, Peter is still careful to think.

Look at verse 16.

And he remembered, remembered the saying of the Lord about how it is Jesus who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the defining mark then of those who follow Christ.

John baptized with water.

But you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

After all, Jesus is the one who promised Peter that the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father sends in Jesus' name, is the one who will bring to remembrance all the sayings of Jesus.

All that I have said to you.

The Holy Spirit is building his argument layer after layer, reason after reason, for Peter, for them, and for you.

Because when God acts, he expects us to exercise proper discernment.

Think.

Think hard.

The proper response takes discernment.

And so if you're not sure, like me, what to do about circumstances in your life, if you don't know what the right thing will be, I'm willing to guess you could triple the amount of time you spend reading your Bible and praying about it.

And you probably wouldn't miss a meal.

I know I wouldn't.

If you think and you pray and you read and you study, exercise more discernment.

Because here Peter stands.

Peter, testifying of something even so amazing as an ecstatic trance, a vision from God, a voice from heaven, the authoritative speech of the Holy Spirit, the eyewitness testimony of miraculous signs, and even then Peter still takes the time to remember what Jesus said.

To remember what Jesus said.

Paul would later write to the Thessalonians, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophecies, but test everything.

And when you test everything, hold fast to what is good and abstain from every form of evil.

Responding when God acts.

And he's acted at the very least, and that Christ rose from the dead, and you've heard the good news.

Responding when God acts takes discernment.

Sinclair Ferguson says something very similar when he writes guidance is not normally ecstatic or mystical.

It is always ethical and intensely practical.

So, like Peter, like the church, take the time.

You've got it.

Take the time to understand whatever situations arise accurately, think humbly, think well of one another.

And take the time to study your Bible.

Remember the saying of the Lord.

Because when God acts, He gives ample proof, right?

What more can he say?

And to you he has said.

But when all has been heard and Peter summarizes all that he has seen, he gives his own example in verse 17, saying, If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?

Who was I that I could stand in God's way, Peter says?

You'll recall.

One time Peter tried to stop the crucifixion in Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

And as Jesus began to teach that the Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes.

Peter didn't like that part.

And be killed.

And after three days rise again, and he said this plainly.

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

But turning and seeing his disciples, Jesus rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me.

Get out of my way.

For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.

I don't think Peter ever forgot that moment.

I think he remembers the time when Jesus told him to get out of the way.

And so he says, Who was I that I could stand in God's way?

For the death he tried to stop back in Mark chapter 8 led to glory, salvation, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

So this time, when God poured out the Holy Spirit, Peter knew to get out of the way.

Because God really can do whatever he wants to do.

And he always wants to do what is right.

But notice the response of Peter's critics.

Where'd they go?

Where is the circumcision party now?

In verse 18, when they heard these things, they fell silent and they glorified God.

They have no argument left.

There's nothing left to say.

The evidence has been presented simply and righteously according to the Old Testament patterns of God's self-revelation and judgment.

And accordingly, Peter is exonerated.

The Messiah's death, it seems, apparently, the Messiah's death has not only cleansed Israel so that they could receive the Holy Spirit, but he has also clearly cleansed the Gentiles as well.

And the same gift was given to Cornelius as was given to James and Peter and John.

And so what God has made clean, don't call common.

And they shut their mouths.

At the command of God, just like that.

Just like Job, they put their hands over their mouths and they glorified God by acknowledging him.

Acknowledging him.

Admitting he's right.

Then to the Gentiles also, God has granted repentance unto life.

That's a sentence, huh?

I want to pray.

Will you pray with me?

Father, we ask for your help.

To speak humbly, to listen generously.

And all things in love.

That your church be built up.

We ask this for Christ's glory.

Amen.

That sentence sure makes me ask a lot of questions, doesn't it?

For the word granted there in verse 18 is the same word that Peter used three times in verse 17 for gift, gave, and gave?

So we have to ask, is repentance a work of man or a gift of God?

In chapter 2, Peter commands that men repent.

So then is it both a gift and a work?

Then we have to ask, does regeneration and life come before or after repentance?

What you see translated there as leads to is simply the preposition unto, even into life.

It just says God, the repentance in life, has given.

That's all it says.

So is this life the new birth?

Or the eternal, everlasting life that we walk in every day?

Which is it?

Can it be both?

Is this then just an initial repentance that goes with conversion?

Or is it the ongoing repentance which John the Baptist told the Jewish nation to bear fruit in keeping?

Which one?

Can it be both?

Martin Luther said when justification was reclaimed in the 95 Theses, he begins, that when Jesus said repent, Jesus willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

I don't know about you, but I've got plenty to repent for already today.

And the word believe is not even in there.

Where does belief come into this thing?

It's in verse 17.

Look back at your Bibles.

In verse 17, Peter says, If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The gift, he's talking about, of course, is the Holy Spirit that was poured out on Cornelius' household and at Pentecost.

And so believing and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit happened together.

Peter in verse 17, I really don't think specifies an order in this text.

He simply says, when or as we believed.

And then by the time we get to verse 18, all of Peter's hearers conclude that God, because he gave the Spirit, must also have given the Gentiles repentance.

So at the risk of confusing this even more, let me argue from these two verses alone that in this moment, repentance and belief are a match set.

They go together like a two-sided coin.

And God gives them both as a gift.

Accompanied by, in some order, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

A two-sided coin, a match set.

Because all repentance means is change your mind.

All belief, all faith means is believe.

Change your mind and believe.

It's like when I tell my kids, stay back and don't touch that.

It's the same action.

Described two different ways, one positively, the other negatively.

One coin, one gift, two sides.

As the Jews believed in Jesus, they received the Holy Spirit.

As the Gentiles received the Holy Spirit, logic told the apostles and brothers that they must then have also been given repentance.

So if we look back up to verse 14, that's how salvation happens.

When men and women hear the word of God.

Honestly, guys, I know that's a hot button thing.

But in this text, they don't seem to care all that much which happened first.

They really don't.

The believing, the repenting, the receiving.

The one thing they're confident of, though, is that God is the one who did it.

God is the one who did it all.

He gave, he gave, he gave, he gave, he gave.

It was his decision.

It was God's action.

Peter got out of the way.

The circumcision party went silent.

And they all glorified God.

Because responding when God acts takes reverence.

That's the point of this passage.

That's the point of this moment, I think.

That God and God alone saves.

To the praise of his glory and his grace.

The God who acts is the God who saves, the one with the authority to cast body and soul into hell, is the one who loved a weak-hearted Peter to the very end.

He's the God who loves you too.

So repent of your sins and believe in his grace.

Respect his promise to forgive sinners.

If you don't come to him, it's because you don't respect him.

Is his word true or not?

He's spoken.

Will you listen?

Respect his promise to forgive sinners like you and like me.

Fear, another synonym for reverence, right?

Fear his discipline and judgment.

And revere him when he acts.

Do you remember that other prophet who went out from Joppa?

There's another prophet who went out from Joppa to the Gentiles.

And Jonah once tried to hinder to get in the way of God's message of salvation, and for his folly he was swallowed by a fish.

Until the discipline of the Lord brought him to his knees in prayer.

Do you remember what Jonah said in the belly of the fish?

Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.

But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay.

Salvation belongs to the Lord.

God can save whoever he wants to save.

Trying to get in the way of that, according to Jonah, is idolatry.

The fish spat Jonah out.

He went to Nineveh, a Gentile city of uncircumcised men, renowned for their wickedness and oppression of the Jewish nation, just like the Romans, whom Cornelius represents.

And when Jonah preached, the people believed God and turned from their wickedness.

And God relented of the disaster.

But Jonah didn't like it, did he?

It displeased Jonah, the text says.

Just like it displeased the circumcision party in our text, and the Lord said to Jonah, do you do well to be angry?

You okay, bud?

Do you do well to be angry?

Oh friends.

Don't quibble with the Lord over who he saves or doesn't save.

Just pray.

Just preach the gospel freely to everyone.

Get out of the way.

No one to shut your mouth.

And give God all the glory.

Because the God who acts is the God who saves to the praise of his glorious grace.

And responding when God acts requires, takes, demands, pick your verb.

Reverence, fear, honor, respect.

Now, verse 19 and 20.

We have another dilemma, as if that one wasn't enough.

If you're using a Pew Bible or you have the ESV with you, you'll see a footnote in verse 20, most likely.

Because in verse 19, Luke tells us the disciples traveled from Jerusalem as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch.

And they spoke the word to no one except Jews.

He's kind of emphatic.

Just Jews, really only Jews.

They entered synagogues and they talked to Hellenistic Jews, Jews living far from Jerusalem, that Jesus was the Messiah, and that he had come to Jerusalem, died in the place of sinners for the forgiveness of sins, and was raised again to the Father's right hand until he makes his enemies as a footstool for his feet.

That's the good news.

They preached that throughout the synagogues to Jews and only Jews.

And then in verse 20, some men of Cyprus, a Mediterranean island, and some men from the northern coast of Africa in Cyrene, who presumably had been in Jerusalem and joined the disciples and believing in the Messiah before the persecution that arose over Stephan, Stephen, scattered them.

You'll see that in verse 19.

These men in verse 20, on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists.

That's what the text says.

And the word Hellenists leaves us with little ambiguity.

For it could be used to describe people of Jewish ethnicity, but Greek language or culture, like Stephen and Philip back in chapter 6.

That's the way the word gets used this far in Acts.

If you flip back to chapter 6, you'll see it.

A complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews.

In the ESP, there's a footnote telling you that those Hellenists are Greek-speaking Jews, and such they were in chapter 9 as well, when Paul disputes with them, and so we have to decide what kind of Hellenists are they.

Does the word mean Greek-speaking Jews, or does it mean Greeks?

That is Gentiles?

So far Luke's only used it for Greek-speaking Jews.

And that's a pretty good interpretation.

But several commentators think, and I've come to the conclusion to agree with them, that the word refers to Gentiles, not just Jews.

For a couple reasons.

First, because verse 19 sets up this clear contrast.

They spoke to no one but Jews, but some spoke to Hellenists.

So these Hellenists are not Jews then.

If Luke wanted to make a distinction between Hellenistic and Hebraic Jews, he could have said that, just like he did in chapter 6.

He's got a word for Hebrews.

He didn't use that.

Second, we have to assume that many, if not most, of the Jews in these distant cities, the Jews this far north are already Hellenistic Jews like Stephen and Philip were.

Solomon's kingdom never reached this far north.

It never made it to Antioch.

And besides, all of those who were scattered after Stephen was killed, they knew that the Hellenistic Jews are part of the church because they were there when Stephen died.

Right?

So it would be a little strange if all the way north to Antioch they only spoke to Hebrews and Hebrew Jews.

So then, if we take that interpretation, which I've come to believe in, and we take this word Hellenistic to mean Gentiles.

The picture then is that more and more Gentiles are getting saved through the preaching of the Lord Jesus and the hand of God.

A great number who believed turned.

If you're curious, that's not the word repentance.

I checked.

It's the word turned.

Luke doesn't say, but I think it's safe to assume from his placement of this gospel in gathering that these men of Cyprus and Cyrene heard the news of Peter's visit to Cornelius because it went throughout Judea.

And they adapted.

They adjusted.

They realized that if Gentiles came to saving faith in Jesus Christ, that that must mean God considers Gentiles clean.

And that makes sense, right?

Because if Jesus is greater than the law of Moses, and the forgiveness and washing and new life that the Holy Spirit gives was more effective for righteousness and cleanliness of heart than circumcision in the old way of the law, which it was.

That makes sense.

That the gospel of Jesus Christ can make Gentiles clean.

It's just like Paul told Titus when he left them in Gentile Crete.

When the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior, appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

The Holy Spirit's baptism washes away the filth of sin better than the waters of the Jordan.

Better than the waters of baptism.

And so when God acts, when God pours out his spirit upon a household in Caesarea, sometimes we have to change the way we do things.

We have to adapt the way we go about our work.

Evangelism changed when God declared Gentiles clean.

And that's only half of it.

Evangelism also changed when persecution drove the church out of Jerusalem.

Can we adapt when God dries up the cash flow?

Can we adapt when God decrees a global upheaving surrounding COVID-19?

Can we adapt when God allows mankind to think of yet another piece of technology?

Paul even says to the Galatians that it was because of a physical ailment that he preached the gospel to them at first.

Can we adapt?

Maybe better, can you remain faithful?

Can you adapt faithfully when your car breaks down on a road trip when you have to call a tow truck?

How?

How should faithfulness adapt when you lose your job and have to move to a new town?

How does faithfulness adapt if heaven forbids, heaven forbid your spouse leaves the faith and leaves you?

How does faithfulness adapt?

So many things happen outside of our control, but within providence.

Like the persecution in Jerusalem.

And sometimes, on the other hand, things happen with God's special action.

Like the cleansing of the Gentiles.

And responding properly when God acts takes adaptability.

Look, see how they adapt.

The same Jerusalem leaders who doubted Peter sent Barnabas to Antioch.

It wasn't that long ago they criticized Peter for going to Cornelius' house, and now they send Barnabas to a church with at least some, I think, uncircumcised men.

Barnabas was a Levite.

His birth name was Joseph.

He's an exemplary Jew, a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and he rejoiced to see the grace of God when he got to Antioch.

In verse 23, you have to wonder a little bit.

I do.

If Barnabas questioned Peter too.

It's hard to say.

But either way, by the time he gets to Antioch, he rejoices at what he sees, and that's crazy, you guys.

For a Jewish man to rejoice when he walks into Antioch is something else.

Antioch, the historians tell us, was a city plastered with idols.

There were temples and shrines, statues and festivals, inscriptions and porticos.

One commentator lists for us that the available evidence attests to the worship of Zeus.

Zeus.

They have surnames I don't understand.

Zeus 1 and Zeus 2, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares, Athenae, Dionysus, Hermes, Poseidon, and Tiki.

I don't know who Tiki is.

But the rest of those names aren't gods, right?

They're fake and empty idols.

And it was not pretty or sophisticated when people worshiped them.

This is a city of lawlessness.

But when Barnabas gets there, he can see hope.

Remember the introduction of the sermon?

Sometimes knowing where somebody comes from helps you rejoice at their progress.

And Barnabas can see the glory of God as a pagan city starts turning to the Lord and he exhorts them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.

I wish I was more like Barnabas.

He spent more time saying keep going.

Every time he comes up.

He spends more time saying keep going than what's wrong with you.

But he knows there's a lot of work to do in Antioch, so he goes to recruit Saul from Tarsus.

Barnabas, a Levite, goes to get Saul, a Pharisee.

And the two of them met with the church for a whole year and taught them.

Do you see then, friends, what God intended for the salvation of the Gentiles?

Here are two guides who are not blind.

They have a priest, a teacher of the law, a Levite, at least.

They're not blind gods, and they deliver the oracles of God to the nations.

And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians.

Keep a finger there and turn with me quickly to Ephesians chapter 2, verse 11.

Ephesians 2:11

Saul, of course, who sees these things, would later spend more time going by Paul.

And I think in Ephesians chapter 2, he describes what he first saw in Antioch.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

He writes in verse 11.

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 were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once 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.

Verse 16, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

And he came and preached peace to you who are far off, and peace to those who were near, for through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father.

So then you're 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 joined together grows into a holy temple of the Lord.

In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

See how the Spirit of God takes unclean Gentiles and makes himself a home.

Members of the household of God.

Look back to Acts chapter 11.

Acts 11 · chapter mention

Members of the household of God.

In verse 1 of chapter 11, the apostles and brothers were throughout Judea.

In verse 12, these six brothers accompanied Peter.

And then in verse 26, the believers in Antioch get called disciples and Christians.

Still a little different, kind of the same, a little different.

And then in verse 29, they decide to send relief to the brothers living in Judea.

They go from uncircumcised men, itself kind of a pejorative phrase, to brothers by the end.

Members of the household of God, born again, not of the flesh or blood, but the will of God, for those who received Christ, he gave the right to become sons and daughters.

When God acts and things change, responding to him takes adaptability.

Because he gets to make the rules.

And if we really fear him and honor him and want to glorify him, we have to adapt when he calls us to.

We have to be faithful when things change.

And I think, guys, this is really where it comes home to us today as a local church.

At least to me.

This is really where it comes home.

The church in Acts 11 demonstrates their adaptability to God's sovereign action in cleansing the Gentiles by sharing the gospel with them and Antioch.

They adapt to God's active action and they adapt to God's providence as persecution scatters them outside of Jerusalem.

We don't have as many of God's direct actions in the unfolding of redemptive history, though there are still some to come.

Will you adapt?

Visions, signs, wonders, and the like are rare in our day, at the very best, if they even occur.

But providence, the way things happen, often surprises us, doesn't it?

In recent years, it's not uncommon for this church to see a dozen babies a year, maybe every six months.

They're all over there.

How will we respond?

How will we adapt?

What does faithfulness look like in a church full of diapers and wipers?

But before that, before that it was a dozen new members, not a dozen new babies.

Why?

Where did you all come from?

What does faithfulness look like when we're flooded with new faces?

God does that, right?

How do we adapt?

You know, I know I'm overgeneralizing at this point, but it fits my outline, so roll with me.

Before we saw a dozen new members, it felt like the dozen that defined us was a dozen funerals.

Because one year I think we got close to an actual dozen.

And before that, it felt like a dozen membership removals, didn't it?

Many of you don't remember those days.

But they could come again.

At the very best, we'd all do well to learn from the tears of those who've endured years like that.

It happens.

God orders his world however he sees best.

And you and I have to be constantly evaluating our methods, constantly checking for blind spots, and constantly asking how we can be more faithful to the scriptures.

And faithfulness, I think this text teaches, requires adaptability because while God and the scriptures never change, this world is full of shifting shadows.

It just is.

So what will we do if all of a sudden God brings a dozen converts out of a radically godless sexuality to our doorstep?

How will we respond?

If another congregation in our community fails and suddenly a dozen families take over the balcony speaking in tongues, that'd be weird.

That'd be new for us, right?

How will we respond?

How will we adapt?

What are we going to do when all these babies grow up?

Because that's its own thing, so I'm told.

It's hard questions.

The answer is right there in the text, right?

We'll teach.

We'll rejoice like Barnabas and like Saul.

We'll be proud of all the little victories we see as we provoke each other to love and to good works, exhorting one another to remain faithful to the Lord, literally to keep your heart, keep their hearts faithful to the Lord, keep their hearts in the Lord.

To provoke one another to love and good works, to rejoice at those little victories for Peter when it's a big deal to stand up to the law keepers in the congregation.

But for some, for others, it might be a big deal to trust the scriptures more than their feelings.

It might be a big deal to learn to trust another person, or it might be a big deal to learn to put off earthly things like sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, or covetousness.

That's Colossians.

I didn't make it up.

But can you can we please be proud of each other?

When your brother used to swear like a sailor with an uncircumcised tongue, bites his tongue when he hits his head.

Rather than letting obscene talk come out of his mouth.

That's also Colossians.

Can we be glad when a brother or sister puts on a compassionate heart instead of bitterness?

Because that's what it looks like to respond when the God who saves is the God who acts.

It takes boldness, it takes discernment, it takes reverence, it takes adaptability.

Because you never know what'll happen next.

Seriously.

Saul, two chapters ago, sought to destroy the church, is teaching the scriptures to Gentiles and pagan Antioch.

Nobody in Acts saw that coming.

It takes boldness to believe that the person sitting next to you can really grow.

It takes discernment to decide when to speak up and when to be silent.

It takes reverence to trust the Lord to complete the good works he begins.

It takes adaptability to meet one another where we're at.

I'll end with one tip on how to prepare yourself for it.

In chapter 10, Peter was praying when this all started.

He was praying.

And by the time he had to explain himself in chapter 11, he'd remembered the saying of the Lord because Peter knew who his God was.

He knew that the God who spoke to him in a vision was the same God who pulled him up out of the waves, the same God who put away his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane and restored him.

Three times after his denials.

Three times Peter said, I never knew him.

And three times he said, Lord, you know that I love you.

And three times the vision came, and Peter knew who was speaking.

Peter knew who his God was.

He knew the God who saves.

He trusted the God who saves.

And so he was ready to adapt when God acted.

It's really that simple.

It doesn't make it easy.

But it's really that simple.

If we believed on him for salvation, we should surely believe on him for all else.

And whatever comes, we should remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose to the praise of his glory and of his grace.

Let's pray.

Oh Lord, you have done marvelous things.

None of us could imagine on our own that you would work such a salvation as this, so great and so pure and so strong, that even Gentiles and sinners like us could be made clean.

Thank you for washing away our sins.

Thank you for redeeming our ruined lives.

Thank you for adopting us into your family and being unashamed even to call us brothers.

O Lord, none of our hearts are big enough to dream of such a thing, let alone accomplish it.

So may you be forever praised.

May you be forever magnified for all eternity and glorified by every tribe, tongue, and nation.

For your love has won our hearts, your wisdom has won our minds, your power has won our strength, and your glory has won our souls.

We confess that we are not our own, but we belong to you.

So may we go forward from this place with boldness because of your power, discernment because of your wisdom, reverence because of your righteousness, and adaptability because of your providence.

Oh Lord, unite our hearts now to sing of your salvation, to the praise of your glorious grace.

I would ask, Lord, that if there are any who haven't yet yielded to your mercy, that they would break by your power as we sing.

Please do that, Father.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

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