“Greater Works Than These, pt.2 (Acts 10:17-11:18)” | 5/8/22
Acts 10:17-11:18 | 5/8/22 | Will DuVal
On January 2nd, 1956, a 29-year old Jim Elliot excitedly jumped out of bed, kissed his wife Elizabeth and 11-month old daughter goodbye, and boarded a plane. It was the day he had dreamed of his entire life, when he would get to tell the Huaorani people about Jesus. Elliot’s missionary team had spent months dropping gifts down via plane, while shouting friendly messages via loudspeaker in the Huaorani language to try and build trust with the dangerous tribe. At long last they decided the time had come to meet the Huaorani face to face. But just 6 days after landing their plane on a nearby beach, Huaorani warriors emerged from the jungle, spears in hand, and killed all 5 men. (https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1901-2000/jim-elliot-no-fool-11634862.html)
Many folks would say the only thing “great” about Jim Elliot was his stupidity. But according to Jesus, Jim Elliot was a GREAT man. Because according to Jesus, “whoever believes in me will do… greater works than these [that I do]”, Jn 14:12. We observed last week in part 1 of this two-part message that the “greater works” you and I have been called to as believers in Jesus are NOT healing the sick or even raising the dead. Rather, the greatest of ALL works that WE can do is EVANGELIZING THE NATIONS. Taking the gospel, the euangelion, the “good news” ABOUT Jesus - that all of humanity has sinned against and broken relationship with a holy God, but Jesus, the perfect God-man laid down his life and died in our place to reconcile us to God and then He ROSE from the grave to give us victory over death in His name - taking THAT news to ALL nations is great.
And that’s a perfect word for it: “great”. The Greek word is even better: MEGAS. Because it can really mean 3 things: When Jesus said, “If you believe in me, you’re gonna do MEGA-works”, I think he meant it in all THREE senses of the word: “great” can mean “very good”, as in, “it’s a BEAUTIFUL thing that we get to share this life-changing, SAVING news of the gospel with those around us… how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news” (Rom 10:15).
But “great” can ALSO mean “large, of considerable size”, and taking the gospel to ALL nations, to every single ethne, or people-group - according to Joshua Project, there are 17,433 distinct people-groups, in the world - and taking the gospel ALL of them, even hostile, remote ones like the Huaorani - that’s a TALL task indeed!
But thirdly, “great” can ALSO mean “highly significant, important”. And we saw last week that what makes this Great Commission so great in THAT sense - so vital, so URGENT - is God’s heart for the NATIONS. I took you to 19 different passages, from the OT alone, where we see God’s heart for ALL peoples on display in His word.
Because 1 Tim 2:4 - God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”
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But Jn 14:6 - salvation comes ONLY through JESUS; Rom 1:16 - it is the GOSPEL alone, the good news about JESUS, that has the power to save people…
Therefore, Rom 10:14 - God wants US, those who have BEEN saved BY Jesus through faith in the gospel, to now take that same gospel to all the nations.
And last week in our study of ACTS, we witnessed a major turning point in that mission. You’ll remember that ALL the way back in ch1, the resurrected Jesus, just before ascending into Heaven, gave his final marching orders to his disciples-turned-apostles, “sent ones”: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (1:8)
They reached Jerusalem with the gospel in chs 2-7.
They reached Judea and Samaria with the gospel in chs 8-9.
But it wasn’t until LAST week in ch10, that the Church will begin to take the gospel towards the ends of the earth.
Now, I say “TOWARDS the ends of the earth”. Jesus has commissioned us to witness TO the end of the earth - in other words, to actually make it, all the way TO the end!
“To make disciples of ALL the nations” - panta ta ethne, Matthew 28:19.
“To preach the gospel to all of CREATION!”, Mark 16:15.
But Acts chs10-28 record the spread of the gospel TOWARDS the ends of the earth, because as we’ll see, the gospel won’t actually MAKE it there. Paul will get as far as ROME in ch28, and that’s where his story ends. Moreover, we’ve had almost 2,000 years SINCE then, but as we’ll see this morning, we’ve STILL got work to do as a Church.
So with that introduction in mind, let’s get our bearings back in Acts 10 specifically, and then dive into the text:
In vv1-8, an angel of the Lord appeared to a devout but GENTILE, non-Jewish man - a Roman centurion at that! - named Cornelius. To this point in the book of Acts, and 6 years now into the life of the early church, the gospel has ONLY gone to the JEWS so far; back in ch8, Philip preached to the Samaritans who were kinda HALF-Jews, and to an Ethiopian convert to Judaism, but that’s the closest the gospel has gotten to GENTILES, the 99+% of us in the world who AREN’T Jewish, biological descendants of Abraham, God’s chosen OT family. But the angel APPEARS to Cornelius in Caesarea, and tells him to send for a guy named PETER in Joppa.
The very next day, while Peter is up on a roof in Joppa praying, he TOO receives a vision, in vv9-16, of a sheet descending from heaven, with all kinds of NON-kosher animals - reptiles, birds of prey, literally “creeping things of the earth”, v12, that no good Jew would DARE to touch, much less taste. But then Peter hears a voice commanding him to “Rise, Peter; kill and eat”. To which he replies, ““By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” To which the voice, the ANGEL, replies: “What God has made clean, do not call common.” And this whole vision occurs THREE times.
And that’s where we pick up in v17. I wanna do THREE things this morning. First, we’re gonna read the text. It’s a LONG passage, but as I told you last week, I believe this is arguably the single most IMPORTANT passage in the entire book of Acts, at least for those of us who aren’t Jewish. So we’ll read the whole thing. Second, I want to SHOW you IN the text what I’ve already CLAIMED to be true, what I’ve ALLEGED is the main point of the whole passage: that the “greater work” to which Jesus has called us is evangelizing the nations. I want to show you why it is the greatest - the most “beautiful, massive, URGENT” pursuit that we could possibly give our lives to, and why we MUST devote our lives to it, to evangelizing the nations. But thirdly and finally, I want to warn us of the single greatest THREAT to this pursuit, the thing that can and too often does KEEP us from evangelizing the nations, and what we must do to AVOID that threat.
So would you stand with me… Acts 10:17 - 11:18
“Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon's house, stood at the gate 18 and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. 19 And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. 20 Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation,[c] for I have sent them.” 21 And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?” 22 And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” 23 So he invited them in to be his guests.
The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. 24 And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. 26 But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” 27 And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. 28 And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.”
30 And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour,[d] and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. 32 Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”
34 So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), 37 you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. 43 To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
44 While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. 45 And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. 46 For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, 47 “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.
Ch11: Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, 3 “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” 4 But Peter began and explained it to them in order: 5 “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. 6 Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. 7 And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ 8 But I said, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9 But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’ 10 This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven. 11 And behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea. 12 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. 13 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; 14 he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ 15 As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. 16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 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?” 18 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.”” This is the word of the Lord… Let’s pray…
#1 - We are called to THE NATIONS. (10:17-35) The Nations.
That’s what Peter’s vision was all about; not just coconut shrimp, but CORNELIUS. This Gentile who God was calling Peter to reach with the gospel.
The story’s actually quite funny. I told you last week that Peter was a slow learner. It usually takes him three times to really get things - denying Jesus, feeding Jesus’ sheep… here, even after the third time he receives the vision, Peter was “inwardly perplexed as to what the vision… might mean”, v17. And while he’s PONDERING it, PRAYING about it no doubt, up on the rooftop, “God, what does this vision MEAN?”, Peter is distracted by these 3 guys who walk right up to the gate outside Simon’s house. This is kind of like that scene in Bruce Almighty, where Bruce is driving down the road, praying, “God, just give me a SIGN”, and a truck pulls out in front of him, with a flatbed literally full of SIGNS: “Stop, Caution, Wrong Way”. That’s Cornelius’ men, here at the gate, the answer to Peter’s prayers, right in front of him.
V18: The men “called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there.” v19: “And while Peter was pondering the vision”; he’s still up on the roof, “Not NOW, guys; I’m trying to figure out what this VISION means…” So God helps him out: “the Spirit said to Peter, “Behold, these men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them… for I have sent them.”” And FINALLY Peter puts 2 and 2 together while he’s downstairs talking to them and realizes that the “unclean” food of his vision must have represented these Gentiles. So v23, “he invited them in to be his guests.”
Now as I told you last week, this is already a HUGE breakthrough for Peter. Pharisaic law, the oral interpretation that the Pharisees added TO God’s OT law, declared that just by virtue of entering a Gentile’s home, or vice versa, letting them into YOUR home, a Jew would become “defiled”. So this is probably a FIRST for Peter, sharing a roof with a Gentile, with THREE of them!
But then we read on and hear that “The next day he rose and went with them” to Caesarea! Where Cornelius had already “called together all his relatives and close friends,” in anticipation of Peter’s visit. Cornelius tries to WORSHIP him, v25; Peter corrects him, v26. And then Peter opens his address to this packed party in this way: ““You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation…” Translation: “Y’all KNOW I’m not supposed to be talking to dirty Gentiles like you…” But then Peter continues, “...but God has shown me that I should not call ANY person common or unclean.””
What a PARADIGM shift! And after Cornelius confirms the supernatural, God-ordained nature of this meeting by sharing HIS vision with PETER, Peter “opens his mouth” in v34 and declares, “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
Now please note that Peter did NOT say “whoever fears God and does what is right is SAVED by God.” FORGIVEN of their sins; he doesn’t SAY that. He says, “Acceptable” to God, as in, an acceptable RECIPIENT of the saving gospel message. Only the gospel has the power to save, so Cornelius and his household are not YET acceptable to God in the most important, ETERNAL sense. They are about T-90 seconds away from being THAT kind of “acceptable” in God’s eyes, of being RECONCILED to God through saving faith.
Nevertheless, this is HISTORIC! This is the very first time EVER that Gentiles were deemed an “acceptable” audience for the gospel. For SALVATION! For Jesus.
Of course, Jesus himself had gone to the Gentiles. To the Gerasene demoniac in Mark 5. To the Syro-Phoenician woman in Mark 7. To another Roman centurion in Matthew 8. But his followers had withheld Jesus from the Gentiles for the last 6 years now. But not any longer.
And the takeaway for you and me this morning is clear: Jesus has called US to THE NATIONS. ALL the nations; panta ta ethne.
Jesus DIDN’T say, “Just be faithful wherever you’re planted”. He actually said, “I’m going to UPROOT you, and SEND you.” Jesus said, “GO… and make disciples.” Poreu-THEN-tes - it’s an ACTIVE verb in the original Greek that can mean “go, travel, journey, or DIE”. Interesting.
Jesus didn’t say, “Go and make disciples of your neighborhood, your workplace, wherever you may be planted”.
He didn’t say, “Go and make the most disciples POSSIBLE. Like, figure out where you get the best return on investment, with your gospel RESOURCES, and then strategically send missionaries THERE.
Jesus didn’t say, “Go and make disciples of EVERYONE.” Jesus knew that MANY people, MOST people, would REJECT him as their Lord and Savior, and refuse to be a disciple, a follower of Him. So when Jesus says in Matthew 24:14, “the gospel… will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations [pasin tois ethnesin - same phrase as the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19, just a different noun case], and then the end will come”, Jesus isn’t waiting on every individual person on the planet to receive him, or even for every individual person to have the opportunity to receive or reject him, necessarily, before he returns; he simply said, “the gospel must be preached to all NATIONS, ethne, people-GROUPS, and then the end will come”.
So, 2,000 years later: how are we doing? Well, I told you there are 17,433 ethne in the world. According to Joshua Project, 7,418 of them are considered “unreached”. “Unreached” means they have little to no access to the gospel, because less than 2% of the indigenous population are born-again believers who have themselves received the gospel. (https://joshuaproject.net/help/definitions#unreached)
In other words, for 42% of the world’s population today, for 3.29 billion people alive today, MOST of them will be born, live their entire lives, and DIE without ever even hearing the NAME of Jesus. Without ever even knowing how they CAN be saved, or that they NEED to be saved.
And Jesus has called us, He has commissioned us, to REACH them. To TELL them, the good news about Him. That doesn’t mean Jesus is indifferent about our neighbors, our workplaces; No, 1 Timothy 2:4 declared that God “desires all people to be saved”. So we’re called to preach the gospel in all of CREATION, Mk 16:15. But specifically, Mt 28:19, we are called to all ETHNE.
That’s an important distinction, because I’ve heard people in the church today question why we’re spending so much money and effort sending missionaries halfway around the world to places like Japan and Senegal when we’ve got “unreached peoples” right here at home. I’ve heard well-meaning Christians say, “American TEENAGERS” are an “unreached people-group”. First of all, American teenagers are not an ethne, a people-group. But even if they WERE, they wouldn’t be “unreached”, because they have TONS of access to the gospel. They might be UNSAVED. But they’re not un-REACHED.
So where ARE these “unreached people-groups”? They’re right HERE. I apologize for cutting off a few Pacific islander groups, to squeeze the map onto the slide. But the dots in RED are “unreached ethne”. You may have heard of the “10-40 window”; that’s “the rectangular area of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude” where 83% of the world’s unreached people groups reside. If you live in that geographic window, there’s a 61% chance that you’ve never even heard about Jesus. Okay, so when I say we’re called to the NATIONS, THAT’S who we’re talking about: the peoples who have not yet been reached with the gospel.
#2 - and I’ll be much quicker here, but We are called to EVANGELIZE. (10:36-48)
Peter shares the GOSPEL, the eu-angellion, or “good news” about JESUS with Cornelius and family here, in vv36-48.
The good news that Jesus lived to be our LORD (vv36-38),
Jesus died to be our SAVIOR (v39),
And he rose to be our KING (vv40-41).
And NOW, he calls ALL people EVERYWHERE to “believe in him [and] receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”” (vv42-43).
That’s the gospel, the SAME gospel, that you and I are now called to take to all the nations.
Jesus didn’t say, “Go do NICE THINGS in all the nations.” Build homes, dig wells, provide medical care, distribute food to all the nations. Again, he’s not indifferent to those things. Jesus met people’s PHYSICAL needs while HE was on earth as well. But without the gospel - if we’re not bringing them the all-important, saving good news of what Jesus has done to forgive their SINS against a Holy God, and meet their eternal, SPIRITUAL need for HIM - then we’re just sending people to HELL with full bellies and repaired retinas. They need SPIRITUAL vision - to see their sin, and to see the SAVIOR, Jesus.
And best of all, when they receive the gospel, they receive Christ HIMSELF. They get his very SPIRIT, come to dwell within them. That’s the end of ch10: “the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.” (v44) Then they’re BAPTIZED, v48, with water, as a symbol and celebration of their spiritual rebirth; that’s what baptism IS. So I’ll just RE-extend THAT invitation once again this morning to those of you who may have been sprinkled as a baby: come be BAPTIZED today; Jesus invites you to be properly baptized, as a sign and celebration of your new life in Him. We’ll fill the tank up right now, if you will obey him and come to the water.
Lastly, #3 - We are called NOT to HINDER. (11:1-18) Not to HINDER, to impede, to obstruct the SPREAD of the gospel to all nations.
We come to ch11, and we read that “when Peter [reported back] to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.””
The circumcision party - which side note, sounds like the WORST party imaginable, doesn’t it? - well, these folks were about as fun as their name indicates; Paul will condemn them extensively in his letter to the Galatians, and we’ll talk even more about them in ch15 of Acts, when they show up again at the Jerusalem Council. But the Cliff’s notes version here is that they believed a person had to convert to JUDAISM, i.e., get circumcised, follow the OT Law, etc., before they could become a CHRISTIAN.
So they are UPSET here with Peter: “What are you doing preaching to, much less BAPTIZING a bunch of uncircumcised GENTILES?”
And they make him recount the entire story, in vv4-17, they essentially put Peter on TRIAL, simply for doing what Jesus had called ALL of them to do: take the gospel to ALL peoples.
But I would submit to you this morning, brothers and sisters, that the same basic threat of the circumcision party is still alive and well in our churches, and here it is: we hinder the advancement of the gospel when we take the CHURCH, which is supposed to be all about JESUS, and we make it all about US instead.
That’s what the circumcision party did. “Everyone in the church needs to look like US. They need to eat and dress and behave like US.”
But don’t we do the same thing? When we prioritize “missionaries” because they work with a population that looks like us. “We should support this summer camp ministry because that’s where I got saved.” “We should support this “missionary” because she was raised in this church.” “We should support them because that would be a beautiful place to go visit, if we took a mission trip over; nice vacation for me.”
I want to show you a short video about some of the ways we’ve hindered God’s Great Commission, as a global Church. It’s called “The Great Imbalance”. I’ve shown it before, it’s about 6 or 7 years old I think, but I’ll keep showing it until the statistics change dramatically. But afterwards, lest this just feel like a GRIPE-fest, I want to offer you some positive suggestions for how we can AVOID this hindrance and do better going forward.
[Play “Great Imbalance” Video… 4:25 min long; stop early]
Let me give you 4 quick, practical answers to that question; things you CAN do:
1) Pray. Pray for the unreached. Pray specifically for our missionaries who are GOING to the unreached. Pray together as a family. Teach your kids about our missionaries, about these unreached ethnes, by name, share their stories, so they’re not just numbers, they become PEOPLE.
2) Support missionaries financially who are going to the unreached. One way you can do that is by giving to West Hills. We tithe on your tithe. 10% of your 10% goes to missions. I wish it was more than that. But my kids gotta eat too. And we still gotta pay down this stupid building debt. Hopefully soon we’ll be giving 20%, 30% of your tithe to global missions to the unreached.
3) Serve on our missions team. Truthfully, we have bigger needs volunteer-wise, in other ministries right now, but what we DO need is for EVERY member of our missions team to be sold out for reaching the not-yet-reached with the gospel. Serve OUTSIDE the walls of the church too! The great thing about the global world we live in, is that the unreached are coming to US in unprecedented numbers today. To give just one example, in just this past year, St. Louis has grown one of the largest Afghan refugee populations in the country. Why shouldn’t WE reach them, as a church, West Hills?
4) Pray specifically about whether God is calling YOU to go reach the unreached. Is God calling YOU to lay down your comfortable life here, your youth, your career, your retirement, your golden years, to serve HIM instead, and to serve those He desperately wants to reach and save. If we want to see the MIRACLES and the GOSPEL GROWTH that we witness on every page of the book of Acts, we’re going to have to re-normalize in the Church today the kind of radical self-sacrifice we see in the early church for the sake of the advance of the gospel.
The kind of self-sacrifice we find in a man like Jim Elliot. The world would call him a FOOL. Jesus said, “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, and the sake of the GOSPEL, will save it. ” (Lk 9:25)
And you better believe Jim Elliot doesn’t regret his decision NOW, to lay down his life for Christ. As he famously said, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose.”
But Jn 14:6 - salvation comes ONLY through JESUS; Rom 1:16 - it is the GOSPEL alone, the good news about JESUS, that has the power to save people…
Therefore, Rom 10:14 - God wants US, those who have BEEN saved BY Jesus through faith in the gospel, to now take that same gospel to all the nations.
And last week in our study of ACTS, we witnessed a major turning point in that mission. You’ll remember that ALL the way back in ch1, the resurrected Jesus, just before ascending into Heaven, gave his final marching orders to his disciples-turned-apostles, “sent ones”: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (1:8)
They reached Jerusalem with the gospel in chs 2-7.
They reached Judea and Samaria with the gospel in chs 8-9.
But it wasn’t until LAST week in ch10, that the Church will begin to take the gospel towards the ends of the earth.
Now, I say “TOWARDS the ends of the earth”. Jesus has commissioned us to witness TO the end of the earth - in other words, to actually make it, all the way TO the end!
“To make disciples of ALL the nations” - panta ta ethne, Matthew 28:19.
“To preach the gospel to all of CREATION!”, Mark 16:15.
But Acts chs10-28 record the spread of the gospel TOWARDS the ends of the earth, because as we’ll see, the gospel won’t actually MAKE it there. Paul will get as far as ROME in ch28, and that’s where his story ends. Moreover, we’ve had almost 2,000 years SINCE then, but as we’ll see this morning, we’ve STILL got work to do as a Church.
So with that introduction in mind, let’s get our bearings back in Acts 10 specifically, and then dive into the text:
In vv1-8, an angel of the Lord appeared to a devout but GENTILE, non-Jewish man - a Roman centurion at that! - named Cornelius. To this point in the book of Acts, and 6 years now into the life of the early church, the gospel has ONLY gone to the JEWS so far; back in ch8, Philip preached to the Samaritans who were kinda HALF-Jews, and to an Ethiopian convert to Judaism, but that’s the closest the gospel has gotten to GENTILES, the 99+% of us in the world who AREN’T Jewish, biological descendants of Abraham, God’s chosen OT family. But the angel APPEARS to Cornelius in Caesarea, and tells him to send for a guy named PETER in Joppa.
The very next day, while Peter is up on a roof in Joppa praying, he TOO receives a vision, in vv9-16, of a sheet descending from heaven, with all kinds of NON-kosher animals - reptiles, birds of prey, literally “creeping things of the earth”, v12, that no good Jew would DARE to touch, much less taste. But then Peter hears a voice commanding him to “Rise, Peter; kill and eat”. To which he replies, ““By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” To which the voice, the ANGEL, replies: “What God has made clean, do not call common.” And this whole vision occurs THREE times.
And that’s where we pick up in v17. I wanna do THREE things this morning. First, we’re gonna read the text. It’s a LONG passage, but as I told you last week, I believe this is arguably the single most IMPORTANT passage in the entire book of Acts, at least for those of us who aren’t Jewish. So we’ll read the whole thing. Second, I want to SHOW you IN the text what I’ve already CLAIMED to be true, what I’ve ALLEGED is the main point of the whole passage: that the “greater work” to which Jesus has called us is evangelizing the nations. I want to show you why it is the greatest - the most “beautiful, massive, URGENT” pursuit that we could possibly give our lives to, and why we MUST devote our lives to it, to evangelizing the nations. But thirdly and finally, I want to warn us of the single greatest THREAT to this pursuit, the thing that can and too often does KEEP us from evangelizing the nations, and what we must do to AVOID that threat.
So would you stand with me… Acts 10:17 - 11:18
“Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon's house, stood at the gate 18 and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. 19 And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. 20 Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation,[c] for I have sent them.” 21 And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?” 22 And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” 23 So he invited them in to be his guests.
The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. 24 And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. 26 But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” 27 And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. 28 And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.”
30 And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour,[d] and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. 32 Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”
34 So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), 37 you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. 43 To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
44 While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. 45 And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. 46 For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, 47 “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.
Ch11: Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, 3 “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” 4 But Peter began and explained it to them in order: 5 “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. 6 Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. 7 And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ 8 But I said, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9 But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’ 10 This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven. 11 And behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea. 12 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. 13 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; 14 he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ 15 As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. 16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 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?” 18 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.”” This is the word of the Lord… Let’s pray…
#1 - We are called to THE NATIONS. (10:17-35) The Nations.
That’s what Peter’s vision was all about; not just coconut shrimp, but CORNELIUS. This Gentile who God was calling Peter to reach with the gospel.
The story’s actually quite funny. I told you last week that Peter was a slow learner. It usually takes him three times to really get things - denying Jesus, feeding Jesus’ sheep… here, even after the third time he receives the vision, Peter was “inwardly perplexed as to what the vision… might mean”, v17. And while he’s PONDERING it, PRAYING about it no doubt, up on the rooftop, “God, what does this vision MEAN?”, Peter is distracted by these 3 guys who walk right up to the gate outside Simon’s house. This is kind of like that scene in Bruce Almighty, where Bruce is driving down the road, praying, “God, just give me a SIGN”, and a truck pulls out in front of him, with a flatbed literally full of SIGNS: “Stop, Caution, Wrong Way”. That’s Cornelius’ men, here at the gate, the answer to Peter’s prayers, right in front of him.
V18: The men “called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there.” v19: “And while Peter was pondering the vision”; he’s still up on the roof, “Not NOW, guys; I’m trying to figure out what this VISION means…” So God helps him out: “the Spirit said to Peter, “Behold, these men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them… for I have sent them.”” And FINALLY Peter puts 2 and 2 together while he’s downstairs talking to them and realizes that the “unclean” food of his vision must have represented these Gentiles. So v23, “he invited them in to be his guests.”
Now as I told you last week, this is already a HUGE breakthrough for Peter. Pharisaic law, the oral interpretation that the Pharisees added TO God’s OT law, declared that just by virtue of entering a Gentile’s home, or vice versa, letting them into YOUR home, a Jew would become “defiled”. So this is probably a FIRST for Peter, sharing a roof with a Gentile, with THREE of them!
But then we read on and hear that “The next day he rose and went with them” to Caesarea! Where Cornelius had already “called together all his relatives and close friends,” in anticipation of Peter’s visit. Cornelius tries to WORSHIP him, v25; Peter corrects him, v26. And then Peter opens his address to this packed party in this way: ““You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation…” Translation: “Y’all KNOW I’m not supposed to be talking to dirty Gentiles like you…” But then Peter continues, “...but God has shown me that I should not call ANY person common or unclean.””
What a PARADIGM shift! And after Cornelius confirms the supernatural, God-ordained nature of this meeting by sharing HIS vision with PETER, Peter “opens his mouth” in v34 and declares, “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
Now please note that Peter did NOT say “whoever fears God and does what is right is SAVED by God.” FORGIVEN of their sins; he doesn’t SAY that. He says, “Acceptable” to God, as in, an acceptable RECIPIENT of the saving gospel message. Only the gospel has the power to save, so Cornelius and his household are not YET acceptable to God in the most important, ETERNAL sense. They are about T-90 seconds away from being THAT kind of “acceptable” in God’s eyes, of being RECONCILED to God through saving faith.
Nevertheless, this is HISTORIC! This is the very first time EVER that Gentiles were deemed an “acceptable” audience for the gospel. For SALVATION! For Jesus.
Of course, Jesus himself had gone to the Gentiles. To the Gerasene demoniac in Mark 5. To the Syro-Phoenician woman in Mark 7. To another Roman centurion in Matthew 8. But his followers had withheld Jesus from the Gentiles for the last 6 years now. But not any longer.
And the takeaway for you and me this morning is clear: Jesus has called US to THE NATIONS. ALL the nations; panta ta ethne.
Jesus DIDN’T say, “Just be faithful wherever you’re planted”. He actually said, “I’m going to UPROOT you, and SEND you.” Jesus said, “GO… and make disciples.” Poreu-THEN-tes - it’s an ACTIVE verb in the original Greek that can mean “go, travel, journey, or DIE”. Interesting.
Jesus didn’t say, “Go and make disciples of your neighborhood, your workplace, wherever you may be planted”.
He didn’t say, “Go and make the most disciples POSSIBLE. Like, figure out where you get the best return on investment, with your gospel RESOURCES, and then strategically send missionaries THERE.
Jesus didn’t say, “Go and make disciples of EVERYONE.” Jesus knew that MANY people, MOST people, would REJECT him as their Lord and Savior, and refuse to be a disciple, a follower of Him. So when Jesus says in Matthew 24:14, “the gospel… will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations [pasin tois ethnesin - same phrase as the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19, just a different noun case], and then the end will come”, Jesus isn’t waiting on every individual person on the planet to receive him, or even for every individual person to have the opportunity to receive or reject him, necessarily, before he returns; he simply said, “the gospel must be preached to all NATIONS, ethne, people-GROUPS, and then the end will come”.
So, 2,000 years later: how are we doing? Well, I told you there are 17,433 ethne in the world. According to Joshua Project, 7,418 of them are considered “unreached”. “Unreached” means they have little to no access to the gospel, because less than 2% of the indigenous population are born-again believers who have themselves received the gospel. (https://joshuaproject.net/help/definitions#unreached)
In other words, for 42% of the world’s population today, for 3.29 billion people alive today, MOST of them will be born, live their entire lives, and DIE without ever even hearing the NAME of Jesus. Without ever even knowing how they CAN be saved, or that they NEED to be saved.
And Jesus has called us, He has commissioned us, to REACH them. To TELL them, the good news about Him. That doesn’t mean Jesus is indifferent about our neighbors, our workplaces; No, 1 Timothy 2:4 declared that God “desires all people to be saved”. So we’re called to preach the gospel in all of CREATION, Mk 16:15. But specifically, Mt 28:19, we are called to all ETHNE.
That’s an important distinction, because I’ve heard people in the church today question why we’re spending so much money and effort sending missionaries halfway around the world to places like Japan and Senegal when we’ve got “unreached peoples” right here at home. I’ve heard well-meaning Christians say, “American TEENAGERS” are an “unreached people-group”. First of all, American teenagers are not an ethne, a people-group. But even if they WERE, they wouldn’t be “unreached”, because they have TONS of access to the gospel. They might be UNSAVED. But they’re not un-REACHED.
So where ARE these “unreached people-groups”? They’re right HERE. I apologize for cutting off a few Pacific islander groups, to squeeze the map onto the slide. But the dots in RED are “unreached ethne”. You may have heard of the “10-40 window”; that’s “the rectangular area of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude” where 83% of the world’s unreached people groups reside. If you live in that geographic window, there’s a 61% chance that you’ve never even heard about Jesus. Okay, so when I say we’re called to the NATIONS, THAT’S who we’re talking about: the peoples who have not yet been reached with the gospel.
#2 - and I’ll be much quicker here, but We are called to EVANGELIZE. (10:36-48)
Peter shares the GOSPEL, the eu-angellion, or “good news” about JESUS with Cornelius and family here, in vv36-48.
The good news that Jesus lived to be our LORD (vv36-38),
Jesus died to be our SAVIOR (v39),
And he rose to be our KING (vv40-41).
And NOW, he calls ALL people EVERYWHERE to “believe in him [and] receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”” (vv42-43).
That’s the gospel, the SAME gospel, that you and I are now called to take to all the nations.
Jesus didn’t say, “Go do NICE THINGS in all the nations.” Build homes, dig wells, provide medical care, distribute food to all the nations. Again, he’s not indifferent to those things. Jesus met people’s PHYSICAL needs while HE was on earth as well. But without the gospel - if we’re not bringing them the all-important, saving good news of what Jesus has done to forgive their SINS against a Holy God, and meet their eternal, SPIRITUAL need for HIM - then we’re just sending people to HELL with full bellies and repaired retinas. They need SPIRITUAL vision - to see their sin, and to see the SAVIOR, Jesus.
And best of all, when they receive the gospel, they receive Christ HIMSELF. They get his very SPIRIT, come to dwell within them. That’s the end of ch10: “the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.” (v44) Then they’re BAPTIZED, v48, with water, as a symbol and celebration of their spiritual rebirth; that’s what baptism IS. So I’ll just RE-extend THAT invitation once again this morning to those of you who may have been sprinkled as a baby: come be BAPTIZED today; Jesus invites you to be properly baptized, as a sign and celebration of your new life in Him. We’ll fill the tank up right now, if you will obey him and come to the water.
Lastly, #3 - We are called NOT to HINDER. (11:1-18) Not to HINDER, to impede, to obstruct the SPREAD of the gospel to all nations.
We come to ch11, and we read that “when Peter [reported back] to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.””
The circumcision party - which side note, sounds like the WORST party imaginable, doesn’t it? - well, these folks were about as fun as their name indicates; Paul will condemn them extensively in his letter to the Galatians, and we’ll talk even more about them in ch15 of Acts, when they show up again at the Jerusalem Council. But the Cliff’s notes version here is that they believed a person had to convert to JUDAISM, i.e., get circumcised, follow the OT Law, etc., before they could become a CHRISTIAN.
So they are UPSET here with Peter: “What are you doing preaching to, much less BAPTIZING a bunch of uncircumcised GENTILES?”
And they make him recount the entire story, in vv4-17, they essentially put Peter on TRIAL, simply for doing what Jesus had called ALL of them to do: take the gospel to ALL peoples.
But I would submit to you this morning, brothers and sisters, that the same basic threat of the circumcision party is still alive and well in our churches, and here it is: we hinder the advancement of the gospel when we take the CHURCH, which is supposed to be all about JESUS, and we make it all about US instead.
That’s what the circumcision party did. “Everyone in the church needs to look like US. They need to eat and dress and behave like US.”
But don’t we do the same thing? When we prioritize “missionaries” because they work with a population that looks like us. “We should support this summer camp ministry because that’s where I got saved.” “We should support this “missionary” because she was raised in this church.” “We should support them because that would be a beautiful place to go visit, if we took a mission trip over; nice vacation for me.”
I want to show you a short video about some of the ways we’ve hindered God’s Great Commission, as a global Church. It’s called “The Great Imbalance”. I’ve shown it before, it’s about 6 or 7 years old I think, but I’ll keep showing it until the statistics change dramatically. But afterwards, lest this just feel like a GRIPE-fest, I want to offer you some positive suggestions for how we can AVOID this hindrance and do better going forward.
[Play “Great Imbalance” Video… 4:25 min long; stop early]
Let me give you 4 quick, practical answers to that question; things you CAN do:
1) Pray. Pray for the unreached. Pray specifically for our missionaries who are GOING to the unreached. Pray together as a family. Teach your kids about our missionaries, about these unreached ethnes, by name, share their stories, so they’re not just numbers, they become PEOPLE.
2) Support missionaries financially who are going to the unreached. One way you can do that is by giving to West Hills. We tithe on your tithe. 10% of your 10% goes to missions. I wish it was more than that. But my kids gotta eat too. And we still gotta pay down this stupid building debt. Hopefully soon we’ll be giving 20%, 30% of your tithe to global missions to the unreached.
3) Serve on our missions team. Truthfully, we have bigger needs volunteer-wise, in other ministries right now, but what we DO need is for EVERY member of our missions team to be sold out for reaching the not-yet-reached with the gospel. Serve OUTSIDE the walls of the church too! The great thing about the global world we live in, is that the unreached are coming to US in unprecedented numbers today. To give just one example, in just this past year, St. Louis has grown one of the largest Afghan refugee populations in the country. Why shouldn’t WE reach them, as a church, West Hills?
4) Pray specifically about whether God is calling YOU to go reach the unreached. Is God calling YOU to lay down your comfortable life here, your youth, your career, your retirement, your golden years, to serve HIM instead, and to serve those He desperately wants to reach and save. If we want to see the MIRACLES and the GOSPEL GROWTH that we witness on every page of the book of Acts, we’re going to have to re-normalize in the Church today the kind of radical self-sacrifice we see in the early church for the sake of the advance of the gospel.
The kind of self-sacrifice we find in a man like Jim Elliot. The world would call him a FOOL. Jesus said, “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, and the sake of the GOSPEL, will save it. ” (Lk 9:25)
And you better believe Jim Elliot doesn’t regret his decision NOW, to lay down his life for Christ. As he famously said, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose.”
How about us, church - will we GO? Will we help send others?
How about us, church - will we GO? Will we help send others?