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Repentance That Leads to Life
Repentance That Leads to Life Acts 11:1-30 Key Verse: 11:18 “When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, ‘So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.’” Last week we saw how God brought two men together who would otherwise never had any reason or opportunity to meet one another. One of the men was a Jewish man and an apostle of Jesus. The other was a Gentile soldier. Jewish people never associated with Gentiles unless it was absolutely necessary. Furthermore, they would never willingly go into one of their houses to share fellowship and a meal. However, by sending an angel to one of these men and giving a vision to the other God brought them together and began to change the course of His New Testament church. Peter realized that God did not show favoritism between any men, whether Jew or Gentile. God accepts anyone who fears him and accepts His great promises. When Peter and the Jewish believers with Him listened to God and obeyed His calling they witnessed a great work of God. God poured out His Holy Spirit on all of Cornelius’ friends and family who heard Peter tell them the Gospel message. This was indeed a great work of God, but not everyone was so quick to accept it as such. Some believers in Jerusalem thought that Peter had actually committed a great sin by breaking with the traditions and customs of the Jews and freely associating and eating with Gentiles. In today’s passage we will see how Peter convinces his fellow believers in Jerusalem that God was in charge of everything he had been doing and it was God who brought about salvation to one Gentile household. Even though Peter seems to clear up this issue about preaching to Gentiles as well as Jews here in chapter 11, we will see that it continues to linger on for quite some time. Never-the-less, in this passage we will see that the Gospel message continues to spread out into the Gentile world and many new believers are added to the early church. In this passage we also learn where the name Christian came from and we will think about the significance of this name. Towards the end of today’s passage, we see the beginnings of the co-working between Paul and Barnabas. Their co-working would become a great catalyst for the spreading the Gospel message throughout the Gentile regions of modern day Greece Turkey and even all the way to Rome. Finally, we will see that the early Christian church was beginning to organize itself – there were apostles, elders, prophets and brothers and sisters. I pray that God will bless our study of this passage so that we may be granted the repentance that leads to give life and, in return, we may give our lives to the preaching and teaching of the Gospel as Paul and Barnabas did. First, Peter explains what happened in Caesarea (1-18). What Peter and the six believing Jewish men who accompanied him from Joppa to Caesarea, to Cornelius’ house witnessed was truly a great work of God. Among them there was no denying that God had done a powerful work among the Gentiles – a work that as we will see was just like the work God did among the apostles the first Pentecost after Jesus rose from the dead. This should have been good news of great joy for all the members of the early church. After all their numbers were growing day by day and now even the Gentiles were coming into the faith. However, not everyone was happy to hear this news. Before Peter was able to make his way back to Jerusalem, word of what happened in Caesarea had already spread throughout Judea. This meant that the leaders of the church who were still in Jerusalem also heard about this. How did they react when they heard this news? Look at verses 2 and 3. “So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him and said, ‘You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.’” Who were “the circumcised believers?” Once again, I think the KJV says it more clearly, because most, if not all, the believers in Jerusalem church were circumcised – remember the early church was really just a separate denomination of the Jewish church. The KJV says “they who were of the circumcision…” Meaning church members who believed that one had to be circumcised in order to be included in the church family. It is very important to remember that at this point in church history, the church considered itself just a sect of the Jewish religion. They were still Jewish people who simply believed that God had fulfilled His promise of sending the Messiah. It is also important to remember that the Jewish people, since the time of Moses have considered themselves God’s chosen people. They were to remain separated from the Gentiles around them because of their special calling by God. If we think back to chapter 6 we see that many of the new believers were very conservative Hellenistic Jews and according to verse 7, “…a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.” In this context, it is not so difficult to see why some of the believers in Jerusalem were not so excited about this news. It would have brought up a number of issues that Luke simply overlooks in his description of these events. Issues like: 1) What were the requirements for Gentiles to join the church? 2) What was the role of the Old Testament Law? 3) What about the sign of circumcision – this was a sign in the flesh that you were one of God’s chosen people? 4) How was the church to get along with both Jewish and Gentile members? 5) What would be the relationship between them? The list could go on and on, but Luke doesn’t mention any of those issues here. We will look at some of them in chapter 15 when we study the Jerusalem Council – the first church council. In this passage, Peter simply explains what happened in Joppa and Caesarea. We look at this story in detail last week, so we will skip down to verse 16-17 where we pick up some new information. As Peter spoke to the people in Cornelius’ house that day, suddenly the Holy Spirit was poured out on all those who heard Peter’s message. Then something happened to Peter. Look at verse 16 and 17 “Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?” First of all, Peter remembered Jesus words. This is important. One of the jobs Jesus said the Holy Spirit would perform would be help Jesus’ disciples to remember everything He had taught them. Peter was full of the Holy Spirit just like his listeners and so he remembered the words of Jesus. So what words did Peter remember? “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” John physically performed baptizing people with water while preaching a message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, but according to Jesus, the apostles and other believers were going to be baptized by someone else with something else. It wasn’t John and water, it was Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The baptism that Peter remembered happened to him and some of the other believers on the first Pentecost after Jesus was raised from the dead. Peter remember not only Jesus’ words, but his own personal experience of being baptized with the Holy Spirit. Now he had seen the same thing happen to the believers in Cornelius’ house. So his conclusion was it was God’s doing. God had chosen the people in Cornelius’ house just as He had chosen Peter and the other disciples. If it was God who chose them, who was Peter to stand in the way. Peter could say anything or do anything to stand in God’s way. All he could do was accept the fact that God had chosen to save the Gentiles that God had sent him to preach to. From Peter, I was reminded of two things. First, we must remember the words of Jesus. This means that we must study Jesus’ words every day. We need to constantly remind ourselves of what He taught us because most of us are very forgetful. But we need to more than this. We also need to remember how God has worked in our lives very personally. I can never forget three events in my life that convince me that God called me, I didn’t choose Him (there are many more than 3, but these are the three big ones in my life. The first event was when I was leaving the army. It was a terrible time for me, because my fiancé had left me, she had taken my money and I had nowhere to live. God provided a place for me back in my parents’ home – which my father had said I wasn’t welcomed in any more. God also led me to a university that I had never heard of and never applied to go to. And on the third day of class, my freshman year at that university, God invited me to Bible study – the last thing I ever expected to happen to a terrible person like me. The second event occurred at an Easter conference about three years later. One night at about 2 in the morning, I was reading the book of Exodus and somehow God showed me how and why the Bible is true. I can’t explain how God did it, but at that moment, I knew the Bible was true. The third event happened in 2013. I returned to Korea in 2012 without a job, but with 90 days to find one. God led me to Jinju where I had lived previously. When I went there I had no jobs in mind, but in one day I was able to get three job interviews and amazingly three job offers after the interviews were complete. Because one of the jobs began immediately and the other two didn’t begin until 2013, I took a job at a hagwon – a thing I said I would never do. The job turned out to be terrible, but many people were praying for me to find a new job both here in Seoul and in Chicago. Then one day a miracle happened. A man I have never met called me one day and said he knew of a job I might be interested in. This job was the teaching position at Dream School. One week later, after an interview at a coffee shop in Seoul, again with a man I had never met, I was offered the job. God has led me step by step and put me exactly where He wants me. I remember these things, so when I see similar things happening in other peoples lives I can’t but praise God for His wonderful grace in this world. After hearing Peter’s testimony, his critics were silenced for the moment (although they weren’t completely convinced that just anyone should admitted into the family of believers – we will see this when we get to chapter 15). Look at our key verse. “When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, ‘So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.’” Let’s look carefully at what they said as they praised God. “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.” Even to the Gentiles. Again, this doesn’t seem like a big deal to us because 1) we are Gentiles and 2) all our life we have been accustomed to the Christian church being made up of almost all Gentiles. There are a few Jews for Jesus, but this is a tiny minority in the church. But for these strict Jewish people God accept the Gentiles into His chosen people was extremely hard to admit. But what else could they do. Like Peter, they realized that on the testimony of Peter and his 6 friends, God had indeed accepted the Gentiles. But don’t overlook what God did then. “God has granted repentance that leads to life.” Many of us think that repentance comes from our own decision, however, if we read the Bible carefully, we will see that everything really comes from God. It is God that grants us the heart to turn to Him in repentance. On our own, we can’t do anything – we want to think we can, but if you are honest with yourself, I think you must admit that it is God who enables us to do anything. Paul knew this very well. In Romans 7 Paul talks about the law of sin and death that was at work in him. Verses 21-25 say, “ So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Without Jesus, Paul admits that he was powerless to do even the things he really wanted to do. The same is true for us. We need Jesus to grant us the repentance we nee for eternal life. This should be one of our ever present prayer topics day after day. Repenting is not what we want to do – we want to stay comfortably living our life the way we always have. But we need to be crying out to God to grant us a repentant heart. Second, the growth and spread of the Gospel message to more Gentiles (19-26) Look at verse 19. “Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews.” The persecution following Stephen’s martyrdom enabled the gospel message to spread northward and eastward all the way as far as Antioch which was about 500 km north of Jerusalem. Antioch was a city established in about 300 B.C. and it quickly grew into a major city. At the time of this passage Syrian Antioch was the third largest Roman city with about 500,000 citizens. Because it was a major Roman city it was full of many different kinds of people – Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Jews. The Jewish population was quiet large in Antioch with some estimates at around 7% of the total population. Even with this large Jewish population, Antioch was still dominated by pagan religious practices and culture. This was a culture that was in direct contradiction to the way God wants His people to live. This is an important point to remember, especially when we get to chapter 15. I want you to notice that even though the Gospel message was spreading, it was still only being preached to Jewish people – followers of the Way, were Jewish people following a Jewish messiah. However, it was inevitable that this message would eventually reach the Gentiles because God had declared that Jesus was good news of great joy that would be for all people. Look at verse 20. “Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.” Some Jewish men who had come to Antioch from Cyprus and Cyrene began talking about Jesus with their Greek friends. It is not clear why they did this, but it was likely that these Greek people were also seeking the one true God. Perhaps they were proselytes or they liked hanging around the synagogue. We simply don’t know why these Greeks were chosen to hear the message, but they were. And when they heard the message they accepted it and turned to the Lord. Verse 21 says that as these men from Cyprus and Cyrene preach the Gospel, “The Lord’s had was with them.” Again we see that it is Jesus who enables us to do anything. When Jesus was with them, they were very fruitful and many people believed and turned to the Lord. So many, in fact, that news of this reach the leaders in Jerusalem. We might think that they sent Barnabas there to encourage the church there, but I think some of the leaders in Jerusalem had other motives. They were hearing that more and more Gentiles were turning to Jesus and this was not necessarily a good thing because now the young church was losing its Jewish identity. Anyway they decided to send Barnabas, the Son of Encouragement,” so regardless of the Jewish leaders intentions, the young church was indeed encouraged “to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.” Because Barnabas was such a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and faith, God also worked mightily through him. The church grew at a very fast rate, and soon Barnabas realized he would need help in this ministry. But where was Barnabas to turn? The Jews in Jerusalem probably wouldn’t want to help him out with this ministry, but he did know of one person who said that he was specifically called to be an apostle to the Gentiles. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to find Paul. When he hound Paul, they both returned to Antioch and worked together for about a year. This was the beginning of a very important co-working ministry for the early church. Their relationship would be strained at times, but they both had only one goal – to bring the Gospel message to as many people as would listen. God would be with this pair a do wonderful work through them. Paul and Barnabas remind us of the importance of co-workers in doing the work of God. Look at the end of verse 26. “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” We have all probably heard this sentence before in English or in your native language, but how many of you have ever given thought to what this might mean. The followers of the Way were no longer just considered another sect of Judaism, like the Pharisees and Sadducees. They now had there own identity. They were now a mixture of Jews and Gentiles and the people of Antioch no longer identified them with Judaism. We might think of this as a good thing, but I am sure this caused many problems in the church and I think this is shown in what happens in the next few chapters. We take the word Christian for granted, but for Luke and his audience this word must have had great significance or he wouldn’t have included this simple sentence. Third, the church begins to have a definite structure (27-30) In these verses we see that the early church was forming a very clear structure. There were at least 5 different types of believers in the church. Their were your ordinary bothers and sisters. There were deacons. There were prophets. There were elders. And finally there were the Apostles. Now some of these positions might have overlapped a little, but what we can see here is a clear church structure taking shape. What we also learn here is that we should remember those most in need when times are difficult. The Gentile Christians in Antioch were apparently well off in their big city because they weren’t being persecuted by anyone. But the brothers and sisters in Jerusalem weren’t so fortunate. The Gentiles took care of their Jewish brothers and sisters. |
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