Those who are far from God …welcome! (Acts 10:1-48)
Billy Milton - August 22, 2004
INTRODUCTION:
Kari E. told me the following true story: She once worked in a school in SA who stored their sports equipment in an old Portacabin in the school grounds. Unfortunately the cabin key had been lost and the door was permanently locked. So, every time they wanted to set up for the hurdles they would push a child up through the window and they would hand out the hurdles one by one. A slow and awkward exercise. Kari, the new girl, said, “Why don’t we just get a locksmith to change the lock?” The teachers who had been there for a while turned and looked at her as if she had just suggested something outrageous and replied, “Kari, that’s how we’ve always done it!
Most people don’t welcome change in their lives any more than Kari’s colleagues did. I’m afraid churches are notorious for that kind of attitude as well. In almost every church, if you stick around long enough, you’ll hear the phrase, “But that’s how we’ve ….always done it!” In our story today you can almost hear Peter saying these words when God revealed to him that there was going to be a major change taking place. Why?
I. People back then didn’t like change anymore than people do now.
The events in Acts 10 were earth shattering for the early church. The ground rules were changing in a most dramatic way. You see, Peter was a good Jew. He had been raised to obey the Law of Moses, and one very prominent part of that law, in Deuteronomy, dealt with what animals you could eat…and what animals you couldn’t. They were known as the Food Laws. But here was Peter being told, by means of this dramatic dream, three times, that it no longer applied! This was not a dream for Peter it was a nightmare! God was telling Peter that something new was about to happen and I can promise you, Peter would have grave misgivings about this latest change of God’s.
We need to understand that at this time the church consisted ONLY of Jewish believers. Sure, they no longer offered sacrifices… because Jesus was the perfect Sacrifice. And they no longer kept the Sabbath as their holy day… because they now celebrated Sunday to remember Jesus rising from the dead on the 1st day of the week. But, in spite of the fact they didn’t do those things any more… the Christians in this early church were still - very much - good Jews. And they still thought like Jews. So they still avoided things like the unclean foods listed in the Law of Moses.
II. But… they also avoided something else. They avoided Gentiles!
After Peter returned to Jerusalem from baptizing Cornelius & his household, we read: “…the circumcised believers criticized him and said, ‘You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.’” (11:2-3) Incidentally, Jesus was often accused of the same thing. From their birth, good Jewish boys and girls were taught that the Gentiles (that’s everybody that wasn’t a Jew) were unclean. They would have the bare minimum of contact with them. Jews would accept Gentiles ONLY on one condition: they had to convert to Judaism. And that meant that the males had to get circumcised. (pause…)
Now, however, God intended to change all of that. Those who were once far off are now welcome. Do you realise that that’s why you and I are in this church this morning? And, thankfully, He had NO intention of requiring us to be circumcised before we are baptized. Circumcision was the mark of the Old Covenant… baptism was the mark of the New. God intended to bring about a major change in His church. And God knew that people are no different than people now… they hate change. So, He had to bring about this adjustment in the most powerful way He could manage. This is how God did it:
First He chose a man named Cornelius as his test case: a man who was “a righteous and God-fearing man… respected by all the Jewish people….” (10:22)
Then, God chose an obstinate, stubborn, hardheaded, uncompromising man to witness what He intended to do – the Apostle Peter. How do I know that Peter was an obstinate, stubborn, hardheaded man? Because God had to repeat His dream for Peter 3 separate times (v16) before he listened.
III. Step one in God’s plan was the Food Laws but step two was even more dramatic.
God was going to show Peter that Gentiles did not need to be circumcised to be ‘in’. Peter preached a simple sermon BUT while he was still preaching, before he even got to the invitation… before the audience is said to have repented or believed, God intervened and poured out His Spirit on the entire crowd. Cornelius and his household began speaking in tongues and praising God. Then Peter asked a question:
“Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water?” Acts 10:47
Now… why would Peter ask that question? Who on earth would want to “keep these people from being baptized?” Well you can rest assured that that thought had crossed the minds of Peter’s companions. Acts 10:45 tells us: “The CIRCUMCISED believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.” They had had every intention of circumcising these Gentiles before allowing them to be baptized. That was their intention… But we find that God short circuited the entire process, and showed that He accepted the Gentiles without circumcision. That was scary for the Jewish believers. They were now in uncharted territory. Why was this so unsettling for the early believers? Well, there would be a few reasons I’m sure but basically it boils down to…
IV. People are afraid of change.
It makes them anxious. God knows that’s how change effects us, so throughout Scripture, He put stories like this one, where His people struggled with change in their lives. And we can learn at least two things from stories like this:
First we can learn that Christians should NOT be afraid of change.
Although God himself never changes, he always encourages us to change. Indeed he demands that we change. When we first become Christians, we die to our past, are buried in the water’s of Christian baptism and rise up a “changed” person. A new creature in Christ. Our God is God of change, and God can do great things when His people allow Him the freedom to change their lives and their church.
Secondly, we learn that God wants His church to reach out beyond its comfort zones to reach more and more people for Christ.
The early Church was repeatedly challenged by God to do things they were uncomfortable doing, so that more and more of the lost could be saved. That’s one reason I’m proud of this church. We have shown that we are a church that’s not afraid of change. Over the past 9 years you’ve bought a Manse; you’ve bought and refurbished another church; you’ve added an office to this building; you’ve hired a youth worker; you’ve changed the church name; we are on the verge of hiring a full-time children’s worker …and I could go on. Yes, this is a church that is not afraid of change. And that’s good. Churches who resist change die – and I’m afraid that’s not an opinion, it’s a fact.
Why do people fear change? Do you remember when the Israelites were at the border of the Promised Land for the first time… and they were afraid of what lay ahead? What made them afraid? The size of the inhabitants and strength of the walled cities. They were afraid of the future because they had their eyes on the obstacles, and not on God. Their fear came from the fact that their God wasn’t big enough to face the challenges they were faced with. The result was 40 wasted years in the wilderness.
As we look forward to another autumn and winter season of service for God I’m excited at what he might do. I’m sure I’ll find some of the things that happen a bit scary; I might find that my own preferences are not met; I might even find that I’m uncomfortable with some things that happen. But I hope I don’t meet change with my circumcision knife drawn, determined to do it my way, the old familiar way. If I learn anything from Cornelius and Peter it is that God is not interested in our traditions – he’s interested in reaching the lost.