Introduction:
This is one of he longest single stories in the book of Acts. And it is told twice, in this chapter and the next. It is obviously very important. And within the telling of the story, Luke repeats some things a number of times. He hammers some truths home again and again. Let's listen to the story.
Read Verses 1-8
When I preach on this passage I always want to tell the story from Peters standpoint... Luke begins as we should, with the perspective of the outsider, from Cornelius' point of view. And when we do so we discover that God is already at work by his Spirit, out on the world. Here is someone “spiritual”. Someone who is seekign God. He is devout, god-fearing, generous to the poor, and prayerful. He may not understand all the ins and outs of the Jewish religion; but his experience among the Jews has at least convinced him – like so many others – that the “one god” of the Jews makes better sense than the many gods of the Greeks and Romans. We too often think the world is a "bad place" - a place of opposition, sin, persecution, a Godless environment. And to some extent we are right; but we are still called to be in the world, and we should be there, as agents of hope, not of despair. We need to be in the world with the realism to accept that the world is in rebellion towards its creator... always has been; always will be until Jesus comes back. We sometimes talk about Scotland or Britain having turned away from God. Nonsense. Britain never turned to God properly in the first place! But we need to be in the world with the faith that the world is still the territory in which the Holy Spirit is at work.
Read verses 9-29
And as Luke tells the story, it is obvious that it is not only a gentile story, it is a God story. It is God who is prompting Cornelius to send to Joppa for a man called Peter. It is God who is speaking to peter. Three times, Peter has the same dream-like experience. Now at a human level, maybe he dreamed about food because he was hungry. Maybe he was working out, in the back of his own mind, what it meant to be out in Joppa, by the sea, living in the house of someone whom the Pharisees considered “unclean.” I guess we shouldn’t be fussy about the means God chooses to use. IF God uses natural means for his own purposes, it's still he who does it. Last week we talked about healing, and suggested that healings like that of Aeneas or Tabitha, have their place in mission today. But God sometimes chooses to heal people through medication or surgery or a change in their lifestyle. And these kinds of healing are every bit as much “Divine healing”. But this wasn’t simply a dream in sleep but a vision in an “ecstatic” experience, a clearly supernatural event! God was involved in this, not just quietly behind the scenes, but powerfully, dramatically, centre stage.
The dream is about treating as unclean what God has declared clean. God cancelled the distinction between clean and unclean food, through the ministry of Jesus. See Mark 7 19; “nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)” cf Romans 14. 14. It's repeated three times because it's really important. And it is not allegorical. "The Lord's command frees Peter from any scruples about going to a gentile home and eating whatever might be set before him.”
It's at exactly that moment that the messengers from Cornelius arrive. And Peter knows he must go with them. When he arrives, he brushes aside any attempt by Cornelius to treat him as special: “never mind kneeling at my feet: I'm just another human being...” and talks with Cornelius as an equal as they walk into the house. And the house is full of family, slaves, friends.
So Peter speaks openly (v. 28) about the learning curve he is on, as he applies the lesson about “clean and unclean” to the people around him: Jews and Gentiles. It seems ungracious, to us, but it's honest, and humble, and these are good traits to bring to evangelism.
Read Verses 30-48
When Cornelius tells his story, Peter realises fully that “God has no favourites” - nobody is singled out for special treatment. We all get special treatment. We all get judged because of our sin. We all are offered grace through Jesus. (v. 34f) Nobody gets less because of race, gender, culture, ability. Nobody gets more because of race, gender, culture or ability. Do we believe that? Because if we do, it must affect the way we preach the Gospel.
We begin where people are. So much evangelism is busy answering questions people aren't asking. Peter begins with what these people know... but maybe their knowledge is sketchy or incomplete. So Peter supplements Cornelius' scanty knowledge of Jesus. They know a bit about Jesus coming to Israel; Peter identifies him as “Lord of all”; talks about how the Spirit's power in his life and the ways he demonstrated the Kingdom. (That word again. I didn't pull the idea of demonstration, “Showing the father's love”, out of thin air. It comes from Jesus!) He speaks as an eyewitness of Jesus death and resurrection; and as one commissioned by Jesus to declare his victory and announce forgiveness to all who trust in Him. “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (v 43) the same point again. The offer is made to everyone. Nobody's excluded.
I used to read the sermon Peter preached as a bit of stalling for time – as though he didn't want to bite the bullet of welcoming Gentiles into the faith. I now believe he was doing an important job by presenting the facts. The right way to share the Good News, if we believe that “God has no favourites” is like Peter did. We start where people are. We focus on Jesus, his life, his kingdom, his death and resurrection; forgiveness of sins becomes not just a commodity we need to get, but a privilege that opens up a new relationship and wraps us up in the eternal purposes of god. Jews could feel they were part of those purposes. So could these Romans; so can we; so can our neighbours and families.
And it's at that point, when they understand who Jesus is; when they understand that he came to bring God's Kingdom, died for sin and rose again to give us new life, that there's yet another God moment in the story. Because as soon as Peter says “everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” the Holy Spirit comes, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied, as they had at the beginning, on the day of Pentecost (Acts 11. 15). In that moment, Cornelius and his guests knew that they believed this story of Jesus. So the Holy Spirit “came upon them” . The Greek word means seized or embraced them. Isn't that lovely. These men and women from the outside, who had come together to hear what Peter had to say about finding God; who had just begun to believe in Jesus, were taken hold of and embraced by the Spirit of god in a wonderful Holy Spirit Hug. John Mark McMillan put it like this...
He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy...
And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest …
Oh, how He loves us, oh Oh, how He loves us, how He loves all
And once the Holy Spirit of God had come and overwhelmed these outsiders, had embraced them; once they had spoken out in tongues and prophecy, what could Peter do? As Marshall says, “if God had welcomed the gentiles it remained only for the church to do so” … the right thing was for them to be baptised, welcomed, instructed. Baptism is the church's way of echoing what the Holy Spirit of gdo has done for these guys; and wrapping them up in a welcoming embrace. God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. God has no favourites.
Conclusion
If you're tempted to think God couldn't possibly love you, Cornelius' story tells you God has no favourites. If you're tempted to think you don't need God's grace, that you're good enough for him already, rememberGod has no favourites. And if we're tempted to think God has favourites, if we're tempted to to see anyone as common, impure or unclean; if we struggle to “show the father's love”, we need to have our hearts enlarged, by the love of God. We need, once again, to be overwhelmed by God's love. Oh, how He loves us, oh Oh, how He loves us, how He loves all.
© Gilmour Lilly October 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment